Thadius
Posts: 5091
Joined: 10/11/2005 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: thompsonx quote:
You suggested that the Constitution was designed to give power, and the contrary point was made that it was designed to limit powers of the centralized government. You disagreed with that point, or at least that is how I understood your post. You have it backwards. The statement was made that the Federalist papers and the constitution were documents that in their entirety were designed to limit the power of the fed. I disagreed and gave my reasoning. That being said, perhaps reading Federalist #32 might jar your memory about limiting the powers of the Fed. Federalist #32 does no such thing. All of the essays in the Federalist Papers are the authors urging the readers to accept the constitution. All they do is explane the Constitution. The Federalist Papers do not call on the framers of the Constitution to do anything to the document to limit the power of the central government. If you have read the Federalist Papers why is it that this simple fact escapes you? Again you jump to the conclussion that you are the only person that has read anything of this nation's history, and better yet you are the only one that truly understands it. When you or anyone else makes statements about the history of my country that are false I just feel compelled to disabuse them of their ignorance I mean what the hell was Hamilton rattling on about. The powers were not only to be retained by the people by each and every sovereign state. He was rattling on about what powers the fed had and what powers the states retained according to the new constitution At best the Constitution was a contract of consolidation, not a creating of a centralized stranglehold on power. It was because of that percieved strangle hold on power that the anti federalist forced the federalist to agree to the "Bill of Rights" Now you are playing with semantics. You surely claimed that the Constitution did not limit the powers of the central government, but gave power to them. I suggest that the Constitution set limits on what laws that the Federal government could enact via proxy for the states. Even beyond the bill of rights this is evident. This position is further evident by the writings of Madison, Hamilton, Adams etc.. in the federalist papers. With language very much similar to that which appears in the Constitution. "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. ~ Madison" We are not in disagreement about the purpose of the Federalist papers being to persuade and communicate that which would or should be in the final creating of a union. As an example, did you know that when the Constitution was ratified that states like Mass had an official state religion, recognized in their state constitution? Or that the biggest congregation in the nation met in the capitol building? Yet today, the understanding of the Constitution is that there needs to be a seperation of church and state. Would you now argue that our current understanding is the correct reading? And if so, why was Mass not forced to change such at that time? I suggest that is because the original understanding was to limit the FEDERAL government from instituting a federal religion which would trample on the rights of each state and individual from practicing (or not) according to their choice. An example of the limits placed on the Fed.
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When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends." ~ Japanese Proverb
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