On Sat, 13 Sep 1997, Bill Stewart wrote:
clear that the founding fathers wanted the situation in the several states to be quite dynamic and diverse, otherwise why "Congress shall make no law..." and not something more comprehensive preventing the states from such laws as well?
It's extremely clear that the Founding Finaglers had widely diverse opinions, some of which wanted central control and fiat currencies, others rabidly decentralist. Go read the Anti-Federalist Papers. And then, of course, go read the Federalist papers, and realize these were the more pro-big-government side of the bunch that overthrew their previous government.
Not that everything was wonderful under the Articles of Confederation. For example states considered it their right to issue paper currency to pay you, but demand specie when you paid them. 13 little tyrannies wouldn't provide liberty, nor would it be likely that large states would not annex the smaller states. Some states had bills of rights in their constitutions, and every state might have had them for a while had the union not come to pass. But my point is that decentralization does not insure liberty - many eastern european countries were smaller than US states but less free. The Federalists tried, and to a fair extent succeeded in forming a centralized power that didn't see its first mission as being to grab more power. It got around to it after a while, but it prevented the states from doing it since you now had the federal government warring with the states in a separation of powers just as necessary as between the branches of government. Even your car comes with maintainence instructions. You need to refill the gas tank, keep the tires in balance and at the right pressure and change the oil. Omit these things and eventually the car has problems. You can condem the engineers for not producing a maintence free car, but you wouldn't be able to afford one even if it were possible. The founders could not create a maintainence free republic, but we have forgotten that each generation must relearn the lessons first laid down in the 1770's (yes - in The Declaration which listed the usurpations and the toll in lives and treasure). And rights reserved to the states or the people is part of that lost lesson. The soviet union kept their dead preserved in a shrine. We have a similar monument holding the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. --- reply to tzeruch - at - ceddec - dot - com ---