Sunday, February 22, 2009

A Much Needed Lesson in Federalism

With an increasing number of states declaring or introducing resolutions to declare sovereignty (21 according to my last check), the issue of federalism might finally start to be meaningfully discussed again. There is an air of revolution about, and the long-lost doctrine of state's rights might be a part of such a revolution.

So what is federalism anyway? Here is an extensive philosophical treatise on it, but it is more simply defined as a body of more or less self-governing entities collaborating to form a center of gravity that would have powers over areas concerning the entirety of the said bodies, such as national defense.

This was the original intent of the Founding Fathers as they set up the Constitution of the United States (though I am increasingly beginning to believe that a certain number of them, especially Alexander Hamilton, deliberately left loopholes in the Constitution to undermine this).

The federalism of the past has been replaced with a system of de facto unitary government, with the federal government being supreme and the states merely acting as its vassals. Nowhere is this more evident than in the unfunded mandates forced upon the states should they desire to get back some of the money sucked out of them by the feds. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal rejecting the stimulus handout for his state is evidence that the states may finally be ready to fight back against federal mandates tied in with such funds. Whether Jindal's rejection has more to do with politics or principal remains to be seen.

Needless to say, the states being vassals and the feds acting as feudal lord is not the system that was envisioned by most of America's founders. The case is made by Thomas Jefferson in this short letter. Contrast this notion of popular sovereignty with the centralized autocratic state of today. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act is a perfect example that the states, rather than being the self-governing entities they were in the past have been reduced to a state of vassalage. For all of American history prior to that point, the drinking age was, as it should be, a state prerogative. When you read the article I mentioned above, notice how the feds set up a system of carrots and sticks to the states, as if they were mere serfs instead of the autonomous and sovereign bodies put forth in the constitution (though lessened from the Articles of Confederation).

While the NMDA attached penalties to states that did not raise their drinking ages, in essence paying lip service to such things being the prerogative of the states and not the federal government, other bills give no heed whatsoever. Take for example a recent bill that has gun owners very concerned. H.R. 45 would essentially criminalize possession of any firearm without a novel little thing called a "Blair Holt License." (I love how politicians name bills after people who died in incidents, sensationalizing them in an attempt to create hysteria and take the moral high ground, as if their bills were not about controlling people!)

Where in the constitution do the feds get authority to issue such a license to ordinary citizens who want to exercise their right to bear arms (or issuing "Federal Firearms Licenses") to owners of gun shops? Stretching the commerce clause to the limit again?

The simple answer is that the feds for the most part are power hungry thugs. They will look for any opportunity to expand their power and then cite this as a reason why they need to be re-elected, skirting around the constitution in any possible way they can in the process.

This is the present situation, and it is here and now that some bold state legislators are finally entering the fray. The New Hampshire Sovereignty Resolution is one of the strongest out there opposing unconstitutional federal power. (Although it has since been killed, it is a step in the right direction, and ideas always advance over time, and resolutions are still pending in many other states!)

So where do state rights and prerogatives come from anyway? The most obvious examples of course are the ninth and tenth amendments, ratified in the federal (not unitary) spirit of late 18th century America. These two amendments attempted to make certain that certain rights were not denied and were reserved to the states and people. The last two amendments in the Bill of Rights were essential to some states agreeing to the federal compact.

But a deeper philosophical question ought to be asked here? Where did the federal government come from anyway? What gives the it its power and authority? The average person would probably says "the constitution." However, this is not an adequate answer and begs the question.

The answer is of course, found in the preamble, "We the People." However, now the question needs to be raised as to how We the People ratified the constitution. The constitution was ratified by the people acting through their elected representatives in the state in which they resided. Take the Virginia ratification, for example.

In essence, the people, acting through the states, created the federal government, and it was always understood that the states were to be the primary means by which the people would have their say, as that is where most of the power was supposed to reside except for the few specialized instances put into the constitution through Article 1, Section 8).

Now we must come to the conclusion that the federal government is a creature of the people and the states, not the other way around. It is not, and never was supposed to be a unitary authority that dictates people's private lives and tells state governments what to do. The created can never be more powerful than the creator.

The truth is that the people must put the federal beast back into its cage, and they must do this through the states (primarily). The states of course, are quite corrupt as well, and it will indeed be a true battle to take those back alone, but the sovereignty resolutions show that the states are on the right path.

Trying to get the feds under control through their own power system is for most purposes, a pipe dream. It is simply counter productive to hope for the feds to use their power more temperately, as we have seen recently with the election of Barack Obama. It is increasingly becoming clear through just the first few months of his administration that he will not change anything substantively and continue to feed the dangerous federal beast. People like Ron Paul are rare, and while they should always be encouraged, they will affect little change unless the people and states find the true meaning of federalism again.

Further Reading:
The 10th Amendment Center

1 comment:

  1. I hope this helps:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdYA2z1kF_g

    ReplyDelete