The Meaning of the Commerce Power and Congress’s and the Courts’ Use (And Abuse) Of It
Are you interested in the true meaning of, and limits on, the Constitution’s much-abused Commerce Power? In a speech at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on November 19, 2013, I outlined the intended scope of the power, how I reached my conclusions, and how the Supreme Court has stretched the Commerce Power […]
Politicos Pigging Out on the Cash You Pay for Gas
The Framers drafted the Constitution to grant Congress some powers to construct infrastructure. For example, the Commerce Clause, as originally understood, grants authority to construct facilities for navigation such as dockyards and ports—including, presumably, airports. Authority to maintain the military enables Congress to fund military facilities. Article I, Section 1, Clause 8 empowers Congress to […]
A Question: Where Did the Story Get Started that Most of the Founders were Deists?
It is a common claim that most of the Founders were deists. (A deist is a person who believes that there is a Creator but that He is not actively involved in the world—the “great watchmaker” hypothesis.) As many authors have shown, the claim is false: Tom Paine aside, almost all the leading Founders professed […]
Sources for Understanding the Constitution’s Original Force
Would you like to examine some of the documents we use to better understand the original Constitution? Several years ago, I wrote the first Internet essay on how to find the sources vital to interpreting the Constitution as the Founders intended it to be. I have just updated that essay. It is called A Bibliography […]
Sources for Understanding the Constitution's Original Force
Would you like to examine some of the documents we use to better understand the original Constitution? Several years ago, I wrote the first Internet essay on how to find the sources vital to interpreting the Constitution as the Founders intended it to be. I have just updated that essay. It is called A Bibliography […]
Can Treaties Override the Constitution? An Issue Posed By Bond v. United States
One of the most common questions posed to me when I discuss the Constitution on talk radio is “Can a treaty override the Constitution?” The question has arisen particularly in view of the pending Supreme Court case of Bond v. United States. In that case, Congress is claiming a power under the Treaty Clause that […]
What About that Warren Burger Letter Against An Article V Convention?
Groups opposed to calling an Article V convention often cite an old letter written by the late Chief Justice Warren Burger opposing such a convention. It is strange that those groups should be quoting Berger, because they also purport to oppose the liberal activism—notably the abortion decision of Roe v. Wade—practiced by the Court when […]
Rebutting the Claim that an “Anti-Corruption” Principle Should Re-Write the First Amendment
Law professors are overwhelmingly left-of-center, and they spend an undue amount of time trying to justify nearly unlimited federal power. Sometimes they torture constitutional history to do so. For example, several have long asserted that the Constitution’s grant of power to Congress to regulate “Commerce” was designed to grant authority to regulate the entire economy—or […]
Supreme Court’s Obamacare Decision Renders Federal “Tort-Reform” Bill Unconstitutional
Just to show you that hypocrisy is alive and well in Washington, D.C. (as if you didn’t know), Title V of the Republican bill to “repeal and replace Obamacare” contains some of the same constitutional problems that led 27 states to challenge Obamacare. Under Title V, Congress would partially assume command of state jury trials […]
Comparing an Article V Convention to a National Party Convention is Absurd
Some alarmists are comparing an Article V convention to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. The argument is that an amendments convention can be manipulated or stampeded just as a national party convention can be. The comparison is absurd—so much so that it shows mostly a lack of knowledge of the Article V process. First, […]
Who Says History is Relevant to Article V? Well, the U.S. Supreme Court, For One!
In 1988, Oxford University Press published Russell Caplan’s book Constitutional Brinksmanship. It revealed some of the extensive history behind the Convention for Proposing Amendments in Article V of the Constitution. More recently, we have learned much more about that history. We now know that there were over 30 multi-colony and multi-state conventions before the Constitution […]
Shut 'Er Down!
Two stories in today’s Denver Post show how cynically the mainstream media are playing the story about what they misleadingly call a “government shutdown.” Of course, it’s really not a shutdown, just a slowdown—more on that below. And in our constitutional system the states, not the feds, are the primary line of government. The states […]
