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And what tribute are they being demanded to pay? The taxes and tariffs that are required of them by federal law?
The Constitution only permits Congress to levy taxes for the common defense and general welfare-- anything else is TRIBUTE.
These tariffs were for protectionism and wealth-redistribution. and were exceeded the terms of constitutional agreements between the states.
ThomasWashington wroteThere you have it-- right from the horse's mouth. He's plainly saying that a congressional majority could constitutionally do these particular things, since the Constitution didn't "expressly say" it couldn't -- and that there wasn't a damned thing that the southern states could do about it."
Well, that is how a representative democracy works, isn't it?
The Union wasn't a "representative democracy" with absolute carte blanche, but a federal republic of sovereign nations. Each state was the sovereign arbiter of whether the other states were abiding by the Constitution-- and the Southern states clearly held that the others weren't.
And they were right, as is clear from the facts.
Do you see the problem here? If all 13, 25, 50, 100 states are individual, sovereign nations, then the Federal government and the constitution itself are a meaningless farce.
You've got it backwards-- if the federal government has carte blanche, then the Constitution is a meaningless farce, since it can claim that the Constitution says (or means) anything it wants.
And if the minority states don't like it, their only resort is to start a leaflet campaign to sway the others, or they can just "go fish."
Or they can, as you will probably say, try to "settle it on the battlefield" against a numerically superior majority; in which case the issue is settled simply by brute force, as well as which leader is CRAZIER-- and Lincoln clearly won the fruitcake-prize, being certfiably insane even by contemporary standards of the era.
Obviously, NO state would subscribe to such a "District of Columbia House" plan of "get 13 states for a penny: you just have to pay the required taxes forever... tax-amounts to be announced later; and if you don't pay, we'll murder your sons, rape your daughters and steal your lands."
And anyway I'm not quibbling over whether state sovereignty was a "good idea" or not-- I'm stating the fact that each state was, and is, a sovereign nation under the Constitution. When you have facts that prove otherwise, then you can counter; but I'm really not interested in your opinion regarding whether or not you personally approve of each state being sovereign.
Last edited on Mon Nov 23rd, 2009 06:55 pm by ThomasWashington