-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <Pine.SOL.3.96.970823202919.637D-100000@cavern.uark.edu>, on 08/23/97 at 08:33 PM, Mac Norton <mnorton@cavern.uark.edu> said:
On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, Tim May wrote:
There's a landmine here, of course. Namely, the issue of whether states may impose restrictions which are "unconstitutional." To some states rights folks, as I assume Jim Choate may be, the answer is often "of course." To some libertarians, the answer is often "of course not." A good example to consider is "free speech." The First Amendment talks about Congress shall make no law...does this mean California may ban certain books, restrict certain religions, or impose censorship on the press?
(Most folks would say "Of course not." But on what basis can individual states and municipalities override the Second Amendment?)
Most folks would, today, but this was not always a given in our constitutional jurisprudence. It's a post-14th Amendment development, the Bill Of Rights having been understood by the SCt to have been applied to the states by virtue of the 14th Amendment's restrictions on state governments. It's never been an impeccable logic, but it seems to get to the right result. For most folks, anyway:)
Well i think that you also have to take into account the political setting of the times. The Framers of the Constitution were representatives of the States all of which had 1st Amendment protections in their State Constitutions. Their concerns were not with the States but with a Federal Government overriding rights already protected by the States. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBM/+dtI9Co1n+aLhhAQG7xAQAosflAz8++IP2u3flpO2H0nQtKCs13A9S XyoWKjn66iBtB2t4YdVUGxNTSIiA1dr0bB4PQBPq0AWHazfwOXrbDtu5FkevLObx gcLZv7nJ8nsEmF7ssvrhzjAAKnM/Ip0Qh88m8m0iuXbeCk9NcrAray8FrbaaPu5s stufv/Nl5uY= =ecqZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----