Don Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > 1) Re Clayton Cramer's statement that "The Framers had a generally high > opinion of the state governments > and their ability to make good decisions ", I disagree. It seems to me > that (a) Many of the leading Founders > actually felt that state governments were corrupt and were leading to > mob rule (b) To some extent, this complaint about state governments was
Rhode Island's state government was doing so. The Massachusetts state government is a bit more typical: it was its unwillingness to bend to the upset farmers of Western Mass. that led to Shays' Rebellion. > a smokescreen -- wealthy Founders and their allies were really > expressing resentment at the damage suffered by their personal > financial interests whenever the state governments favored the general > population over the rich in the depression period following the > Revolution (e.g., relief of debtors via heavy inflation) (c) the > Constitutional Convention was really driven by the desire of wealthy men > to have some mechanism which would protect their wealth from the > population and which would give them the means to acquire more --this > being especially true of Hamilton and the Federalists and (d) Some of > the Founders --James Madison and Thomas Jefferson -- tried to build for > the ages and to prevent despotism from arising in any quarter. The Constitution provides some protections to deal with these problems, such as the impairment of contracts clause, and centralizing the making of money in the federal government's hands, but the vast majority of authority remained with the state governments. The federal government didn't take over all police powers, or even close to it. > 3)On the other hand,acceptance of the Constitution was dependent upon > passage of the Bill of Rights. The Preamble to the Bill of Rights > explicitly states that the Bill arose from the demand of the States for > "further declaratory and restrictive clauses" which would prevent > "misconstruction or abuse of its[the Constitution's] powers" by the > Congress or the President. The Supreme Court enforces the Bill of > Rights. Amendments 9 and 10 give ample justification for the Supreme > Court to halt Congress' gross overreaching in exercise of the > "interstate commerce" power. Yup, and they have done so at times, and not at others. I am not sure what the relevance to gun registration is. I suppose the federal government could try to justify registration as regulation of interstate commerce, but you'll notice that when they needed to justify GCA68, it was based on the need to preserve the federal government from being overthrown by armed felons. (Yeah, that was going to happen, any day then.) Clayton E. Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.claytoncramer.com Being a citizen of the Republic is not a spectator sport.
