Well.... When You Put It That Way...

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
184

[quote]pushharder wrote:

That’s in essence what you did. You just knew what was in it without having read it.[/quote]

I know what’s in it - have I been wrong about what is in it? Or are your precious feelings hurt because someone won’t validate your favoritest book?

Who cares? I just assume read the actual history and not waste my time figuring out if it does or doesn’t. I mean, really - who cares?

Yes, I don’t like to waste time reading melodramatic schmaltz when there are plenty of great books to read and little time. But, oh look! There is a classy cover of a mean ole ATFer standing over Lady Justice with a backdrop of fire! Oh, and the book is out of print! Can’t wait to rush and get my hands on that gem!

Seriously, who cares?

Well, obviously not.

Actually, it appears you do. You’re acting like a toddler whose favorite doll just got its head ripped off. It’s pitiful to watch.

[quote]But even that’s not your problem. Your problem is your conjecture that someone like me shares in “ATF revenge fantasies” because I recommended the book. My promotion of the book was twofold:

  1. History of the US gun culture and its present gun laws. There were NONE, practically speaking, prior to 1934 despite your false blustering on the Costas thread that implied guns were regulated and restricted all over our great land back in the early days of the republic.[/quote]

Sigh. Read up on the law in Boston circa 1786 that forbid residents from storing loaded firearms in any domestic dwelling, which empowered the town fire wardens to confiscate weapons and impose fines for violation. Read up on the Test Acts in Massachusetts (and other places) that barred citizens who refuse the oath from holding public office, serving on juries, and, yep, were disarmed by law. Read up on the laws in Pennsylvania (and other places) that prohibited blacks from bearing arms.

When you’re done with that, read up on laws regulating concealed weapons (not just guns) in teh early to mid 1800s in Indiana, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama and Ohio. Read up on the Kentucky case striking down a ban on arms, and read up on the Kentucky House of Representatives’ response to the court decision (hint: it disagreed).

Here’s the truth, and everyone reading this knows it: you’re full of bluster. You don’t read half of what you claim to, and you try and pretend you know things that you just don’t know. I’ve grown impatient with the act.

This gets more hilarious each time you try it - “better get educated, or better stand down” says the man that didn’t even know the Second Amendment didn’t apply to the states but attempted for pages to say that it did.

Who cares about the damn Space Needle? Is that someone precious landmark you think more important than any other landmark so you’re going to throw a tantrum over someone’s lack of interest in it a la lack of interest in your precious, precious Unintended Consqeuences?

You’ve muddied up a good debate with all of your nonsense, Push. It’s pretty disappointing.

More later, as time permits.

185

I’ll report what I posted in an other thread (and has already been posted by Doc). When the Nullifiers crica 1832 invoked Madison’s Virginia Resolution as a basis for nullification, here is what Madison himself had to say:

The Virginia Resolution is dated 1799. In 1832, Madison wrote:

TO N. P. TRIST. â?¦ MAD. MSS.

Montpellier, Decr 23, 1832.

Dr. Sir I have received yours of the 19th, inclosing some of the South Carolina papers. There are in one of them some interesting views of the doctrine of secession; one that had occurred to me, and which for the first time I have seen in print; namely that if one State can at will withdraw from the others, the others can at will withdraw from her, and turn her, nolentem, volentem, out of the union. Until of late, there is not a State that would have abhorred such a doctrine more than South Carolina, or more dreaded an application of it to herself. The same may be said of the doctrine of nullification, which she now preaches as the only faith by which the Union can be saved.

I partake of the wonder that the men you name should view secession in the light mentioned. The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of â??98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. In the Virginia Resolutions and Report the plural number, States, is in every instance used where reference is made to the authority which presided over the Government. As I am now known to have drawn those documents, I may say as I do with a distinct recollection, that the distinction was intentional. It was in fact required by the course of reasoning employed on the occasion. The Kentucky resolutions being less guarded have been more easily perverted. The pretext for the liberty taken with those of Virginia is the word respective, prefixed to the â??rightsâ?? &c to be secured within the States. Could the abuse of the expression have been foreseen or suspected, the form of it would doubtless have been varied. But what can be more consistent with common sense, than that all having the same rights &c, should unite in contending for the security of them to each.

It is remarkable how closely the nullifiers who make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal for their colossal heresy, shut their eyes and lips, whenever his authority is ever so clearly and emphatically against them. You have noticed what he says in his letters to Monroe & Carrington Pages 43 & 203, vol. 2,1 with respect to the powers of the old Congress to coerce delinquent States, and his reasons for preferring for the purpose a naval to a military force; and moreover that it was not necessary to find a right to coerce in the Federal Articles, that being inherent in the nature of a compact. It is high time that the claim to secede at will should be put down by the public opinion; and I shall be glad to see the task commenced by one who understands the subject.

I know nothing of what is passing at Richmond, more than what is seen in the newspapers. You were right in your foresight of the effect of the passages in the late Proclamation. They have proved a leaven for much fermentation there, and created an alarm against the danger of consolidation, balancing that of disunion. I wish with you the Legislature may not seriously injure itself by assuming the high character of mediator. They will certainly do so if they forget that their real influence will be in the inverse ratio of a boastful interposition of it.

If you can fix, and will name the day of your arrival at Orange Court House, we will have a horse there for you; and if you have more baggage than can be otherwise brought than on wheels, we will send such a vehicle for it. Such is the state of the roads produced by the wagons hurrying flour to market, that it may be impossible to send our carriage which would answer both purposes.

http://almostchosenpeople.word…

Nullification is a “colossal heresy” unsupported by the resolution Madison helped author, according to Madison.

Now, this may be just so crazy it’s true, but if James Madison tells nullifiers that James Madison was not endorsing or advocating the doctrine of nullification when James Madison wrote the Virginia Resolution, I am going to believe James Madison over everyone else.

186

Reoposted from another thread, too:

In particular, avail yourself of Madison’s “Notes, On Nullification” (1834). Grabbing a line:

The true question therefore is whether there be a constitutional right in a single state to nullify a law of the U.S. We have seen the absurdity of such a claim in its naked and suicidal form. Let us turn to it as modified by S. C., into a right in every State to resist within itself, the execution of a Federal law deemed by it to be unconstitutional; and to demand a Convention of the States to decide the question of constitutionality, the annulment of the law to continue in the mean time, and to be permanent, unless �¾ of the states concur in over-ruling the annulment.

http://www.loc.gov/...lification.html

187

Also, reposted from another thread:

Also, re: Madison, I commend you to the Report of 1800, where Madison explains the V.R., etc.:

http://oll.libertyfund.org/...l&Itemid=27

Madison says that, yes, a state legislature can find a law unconstitutional, but such a declaration had only the force of creating political activity as an “opinion” to change/remove the law:

The [state legislature] declarations in such cases are expressions of opinion, unaccompanied with any other effect than what they may produce on opinion, by exciting reflection. The expositions of the judiciary, on the other hand, are carried into immediate effect by force. The former may lead to a change in the legislative expression of the general will; possibly to a change in the opinion of the judiciary: the latter enforces the general will whilst that will and that opinion continue unchanged.

188

Also reposted from another thread:

Also, from Madison to Daniel Webster, after Webster made his famous speeches denouncing the foolishness of nullification and recognizing the right of revolution:

I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes “nullification” and must hasten the abandonment of “Secession.” But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/...s/v1ch3s14.html

189

This comment may have gotten lost in the reposts, so I’ll say it again: Now, this may be just so crazy it’s true, but if James Madison tells nullifiers that James Madison was not endorsing or advocating the doctrine of nullification when James Madison wrote the Virginia Resolution, I am going to believe James Madison over everyone else.

190

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
Hey, JP, allow me to beat a dying horse. I will share with you Madison’s final judgments on nullification, and while I am at it, secession.

"I partake of the wonder that the men you name should view secession in the light mentioned. The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater right to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of ?98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. In the Virginia Resolutions and Report the plural number, States, is in every instance used where reference is made to the authority which presided over the Government. As I am now known to have drawn those documents, I may say as I do with a distinct recollection, that the distinction was intentional. …

“It is remarkable how closely the nullifiers who make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal for their colossal heresy, shut their eyes and lips, whenever his authority is ever so clearly and emphatically against them. You have noticed what he says in his letters to Monroe & Carrington Pages 43 & 203, vol. 2,1 with respect to the powers of the old Congress to coerce delinquent States, and his reasons for preferring for the purpose a naval to a military force; and moreover that it was not necessary to find a right to coerce in the Federal Articles, that being inherent in the nature of a compact. It is high time that the claim to secede at will should be put down by the public opinion; and I shall be glad to see the task commenced by one who understands the subject.”

letter to N. P. Trist, Dec 23, 1832

Edit: Yo, Push…this one was for you, too![/quote]

That is mighty fine that it’s for me. Here’s why. Madison is talking of secession in particular here. There is a distinction to be made between nullification and secession. I think Madison is making that distinction and rightfully so. Contrary to TB’s assertion, the two do not have to be tied together and they were not for many years.

In fact the point can be made and I will try and get to it later that nullification, used properly, can and should be used to prevent secession.

Madison refers to that concept in the opening paragraphs of the Virginia Resolution:

[i]RESOLVED, That the General Assembly of Virginia, doth unequivocably express a firm resolution to maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this State, against every aggression either foreign* or domestic, and that they will support the government of the United States in all measures warranted by the former*.

That this assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to the Union of the States, to maintain which it pledges all its powers; and that for this end, it is their duty to watch over and oppose every infraction of those principles which constitute the only basis of that Union, because a faithful observance of them, can alone secure it’s existence and the public happiness.[/i]

  • Side note: Doc, what do you think that means? Why the distinction of defending the United States against foreign enemies but not domestic ones?[/quote]
    Answer: It is one of those contingent clauses read ambiguously by us, but not written so by Madison.
  1. Virginia will join the US against foreign aggression (eg, in the context of the time, the impending Pseudo-War against France?)
  2. That leaves trifling domestic aggressions are the purview of local law enforcement, state militias, etc.

Please read Madison’s penultimate interpretations of his own Resolution and Report to Virginia. (Cited by both myself and tb) He did not mince words about “former” and “latter” but did–unequivocally and repeatedly–denounce both the principle of nullification and that of secession.
You may read his words at different times–which I venture were written for transient political reasons–but his own interpretation, as an older and arguably wiser man in 1832-1835, is clear and contradicts you.

(So I agree with tb in this, but in a way which you and JP–who has contributed mightily, as well–can hear.)

191

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

(So I agree with tb in this, but in a way which you and JP–who has contributed mightily, as well–can hear.)[/quote]

And this is the key. One cannot simply just “declare” the Virginia Resolution as support for a right to nullification. The context supplied by Madison himself negates such a claim, and so it must be abandoned.

Does that mean that there isn’t a debate over the existence of nullification? Well, sure there is (setting aside that nullification is a dead letter and few think it a serious issue, since this debate has been hashed out historically and has basically been decided, and there are no new arguments, but we can re-hash the old ones all the same). Moreover, just because Madison said one thing doesn’t mean Madison is automatically right - Madison wasn’t the only Founding Father, and just because he says he didn’t believe in nullification doesn’t meant the argument is officially now closed.

But, what it does mean is neither Madison nor his Virginia Resolution can be invoked for that purpose - to claim a right to nullification. Can’t be done. Push really wants the words of the Virginia Resolution to mean something Madison didn’t mean as explained by Madison himself, but he can’t have it.

200

[quote]pushharder wrote:

There are valid points to be made in both directions on this subject and by the way when making them please, please, please don’t cite Jackson, the most “rogue” president in American history, as a principal source – for crying out loud. As great of an American as he was, he was probably more polarizing and ran roughshod over the principles of federalism more than any other president including Barack Hussein Obama.[/quote]

I’d be remiss if I didn’t defend the honor of Old Hickory against the claim that, heh, he “ran roughshod over the principles of federalism more than anyone…including Obama!”. Other than being one of the most “states-rights” oriented presidents to ever occupy the office, among his accomplishments:

-Jackson presided over extinguishing the national debt.

-Jackson vetoed the Marysville road legislation on account that federal funds should only be spent when Congress was acting under its enumerated powers and only when there was truly national signficance to the spending

-Jackson famously vetoed the National Bank

-Jackson supported single-term limits on the president

And other stuff. Push’s exaltations about Jackson are as uninformed as his ones about Madison.