Constitutional Amendments That The Republican Party Wants To Abolish Part II

The next amendment that the Republican-Tea Party (RTP) wants to abolish is the 16th Amendment. The wording to this particular amendment is short and to the point. Here it is as follows:

XVI Amendment

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

In a nutshell, this amendment gives Congress the power and authority to collect income taxes on income earned from individuals, businesses and corporations. Through this amendment the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was given the authority to collect taxes and to enforce tax laws.

For some strange reason which I cannot fathom, the RTP wants to abolish this amendment. There are even factions of the RTP that claim that the IRS is unconstitutional! How can that be? This amendment clearly states that income taxes can be collected and gives the authority to do so.

If this amendment is abolished eliminating income taxes, how exactly does the RTP propose to replace the revenues? You simply cannot eliminate revenue without having a means of replacing lost revenue. The government still has to function. As far as I know, no one in the RTP has answered this question.

Maybe we should take a look at how taxes were collected BEFORE 1913 when this amendment was ratified.

Prior to the 16th Amendment, there were three main types of taxes. There were poll taxes, tariffs and excise taxes.

Let’s start with poll taxes. A Poll Tax or Capitation Tax was a per head tax. Each individual had to pay this tax and it was uniform nationwide. These taxes quite often were collected at the polls on Election Day, hence the term Poll Tax. If you couldn’t pay the tax, you couldn’t vote. This was declared unconstitutional by the 24th Amendment in 1964.

Now let’s examine tariffs. Tariffs are taxes on imported goods. They serve two purposes. The first purpose is to raise revenue and the second purpose is to protect national business interests. That type of tariff is called a Protective Tariff.

A tariff was the first source of income for the United States. The Tariff Act of 1789 was the name of this act. Tariffs were also the main source of income for the US until the enactment of the 16th Amendment in 1913. Tariffs are still used today but to a lesser degree than what they were used in the past.

Collecting a tariff is relatively simple. When a ship enters port before they unload, they must pay a tariff on the goods being unloaded. If they didn't pay, then they couldn't unload. Very simple and efficient.

A Protective Tariff is another matter all together. These tariffs are set up to prevent cheap overseas products from flooding the market thus damaging the national economy. These tariffs are very political in nature and using them has always ignited intensive debate.

An Excise Tax is an indirect tax or an event tax. Examples of these are gasoline taxes, cigarette taxes, or alcohol taxes. Also, title transfer taxes, luxury taxes and inheritance taxes are also considered Excise Taxes.

The first Income Tax was imposed during the Civil War to help pay for the cost of the war. This was the Revenue Act Act of 1861 followed by the Revenue Act of 1862. This leveled the first Income tax. These acts were repealed in 1872.

In 1894, Income Tax was re established as part of the 1894 Tariff Act.

In 1895, the Supreme Court in ‘Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co.’ stated that the Income Tax was a direct tax and therefore impracticable and unconstitutional as currently collected. Due to this the Federal Government stopped collecting income taxes until the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913.

Now, if the RTP wants to maintain the government, how do they propose to do this? Protective tariffs cannot be utilized because they violate several trade agreements. NAFTA and GATT come to mind here plus there are several others.

What about Poll Taxes? They were declared unconstitutional in 1964 with the 24th Amendment. What else does that leave?

It’s simple. It leaves excise taxes. They will have to significantly increase the amount of excise taxes to adequately compensate for lost revenues and this will really damage our fragile economy.

The last tax that they could use is used virtually world wide but not in the United States. That is the Value Added Tax (VAT). The VAT is a consumption tax that is based on the estimated market value of a product at each level of production or distribution.

I don’t really think that the RTP would go for this because it is is similar to the flat tax proposal that gets floated around from time to time. Recent proponents are Mike Huckabee and Steve Forbes. There are no loopholes and the rich would not be able to avail themselves to any tax breaks. Anything you buy will have a VAT applied. No exceptions.

These radicals that are in the Republican Party are serious and they definitely intend to carry out their plans if they ever get into power. Be thankful that we have divided government with three coequal branches of government.
At the moment, the Democratic Party has control of the White House and the Republicans have both houses of the Congress. Be thankful that the president holds the veto pen because life would be much different if the Republicans we're in total control.
The presidential election is a long way off but because of what's involved I think that it is imperative to become involved in order to get another Democrat elected to the presidency or all of the good that President Obama has done will be for naught.

Constitutional Amendments That The Republicans Want To Abolish Part I

In recent months the members of the Republican-Tea Party (RTP) have discussed on the news that there are three amendments to the Constitution that they want to abolish. I thought that it would be a good idea to take a close look at each amendment and see what they are all about.

First I will list the particular amendment and then I will break it down section by section and we will examine what exactly they want to do.

Article XIV

1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

2: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. 

3: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

4: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

5: The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Let’s take a look at Section 1. It reads: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Basically what this section is stating is that everyone born in the United States are natural born citizens of the Untied States and are are subject to the laws of the United States. It also states that the States do not have the right to deny any citizens the rights that they are entitled to.

This is the main section of this amendment that the RTP (Republican-Tea Party) objects to. They believe that many people come to the US to have babies, thus making the new babies citizens. They call them “Anchor Babies", a highly insulting termin my opinion.

What they want to do is to alter this section so that babies born of foreign nationals are not guaranteed citizenship.

Here lies the problem . If you deny citizenship status to children whose parents are undocumented foreign nationals, what guarantees are there that citizenship status of other natural born Americans will not be removed?

Seriously think about this for a moment. Any group could be targeted. African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Irish-Americans, etcetera. You get the idea.

Why stop at ethnic groups? Religions could be the next target. Why not strip citizenship from Muslims? How about Mormons or Buddhists? Take it to another group, Roman Catholics! Yes, Catholics, we know that they’ve been persecuted before and not that long ago.

To alter or abolish this section, you are traveling down a slippery slope that you may not be able to stop. This could be just the beginning.

Here is Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Basically this section is referring to representation in Congress. Prior to the end of the Civil War, slaves were not counted in federal census as a whole person. They were counted as three fifths of a person for determining the number of representatives for each state. This was a compromise between free states and slave states when the Constitution was written.

The other part deals with the right to vote which was denied to persons who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. This is also the section that states use to deny the right to vote to convicted felons. As far as I know, the RTP does not object to this section.

Now for Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

This section simply states that no one can hold public office either in the Federal or State governments or the military who had previously served in the Confederate Government or military during the Civil War. This provision was not enforced as there were several members of the US Army who were former Confederate soldiers fighting in the Indian Wars after the Civil War.

This section also prohibits anyone from holding office who has given aid and comfort to the enemy in wars following the Civil War. The RTP does not oppose this section either.

Now for Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

This section is a Civil War era section about the Federal Government promising to pay debts and pensions incurred during the war. It also is declaring null and void all pensions and debts of the former Confederacy. This has no bearing on today’s political debate.

Now for Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

This is merely the enforcement clause.

If the RTP gets their way and tries to alter or abolish this particular amendment, no one’s citizenship rights are guaranteed. We will no longer be citizens, but subjects. We will be subject to the will and desires of whomever happens to be in power. Think about this before you vote. This election will determine the course that the United States will go. Please vote responsibly!

Reaganomics-A Disaster

 Today we are going to discuss Reaganomics. Reaganomics is a phrase used during the administration of Ronald Reagan to describe his economic policies. The phrase was coined by radio news personality Paul Harvey and Reaganomics is also a euphemism for supply-side economics. This is also known as the Trickle Down Theory.

There are four basic principles to Reaganomics. Basically, it's a policy to reduce the growth of government spending by reducing the federal income tax, reducing the capital of gains tax, reducing government regulation and tightening the money supply in order to control inflation.
Prior to the onset of Ronald Reagan, The United States economy had experienced a decade of a rising unemployment and inflation which was termed stagflation. At the time it was decided to stimulate the economy by expanding the money supply which would decrease the value of the dollar.
  A federal oil reserve program was initiated to offset any future shocks in the energy market. President Jimmy Carter began to eliminate oil price controls and he also created the Department of Energy.

During the last year of the Carter Administration,the Federal Reserve under Paul Volker began to tighten the money supply in order to control inflation.

Upon taking office, President Reagan stated from the beginning that it was his intention to lower taxes. However, departing from the way its predecessors did it he simplifiedthe tax codes as well as lowering taxes and continued deregulation of industry. He also eliminated the luxury tax and the capital gains tax.

During the previous Republican administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, supply and demand side policies or considered unconventional by the moderate wing of the Republican Party, George Herbert Walker Bush actually coined the phrase in 1980 as voodoo economics. He used this phrase when running against Ronald Reagan in the Republican primary.

During presidential election, Reagan presented as economic proposals that we return to a free enterprise system, a free market economy with little government interference similar to the way it had been during the 1920's. It was Reagan's intention to repudiate the New Deal and return to a laissez-faire economy that was popular in the 1920s.

Central to Reagonomics is the Laffer Curve. The Laffer Curve predicts that excessive tax rates will actually reduce potential tax revenues by lowering the incentive to produce. The model also predicts that individual tax rates lead directly to a reduction in tax revenue.

I am NOT an economist, I took one course in economics in college and the entire time I was in that class I had headaches. Just the thought of looking at a curve or a theory makes me physically ill. Having said all that, it looks to me like this is a way for the rich, corporations and the oligarchy to get away with murder.

Even though this looks bad, President Reagan actually made it worse if you can believe that. President Reagan significantly increased public expenditures primarily in the Department of Defense. Expenditures in the DoD went from 267.1 billion dollars in 1980 to 393.1 billion dollars in 1988.

In 1981 Reagan significantly reduced the maximum tax rate which effected only the highest income earners. I n 1981 the top marginal tax rate fell from 70% to 50% and in 1986 it was further reduced 28%.

In spite of Reagan's legacy of being an anti tax hero, he had to raise taxes 11times during his presidency. I'd like to see you get that through Congress. In today's Congress it would never happen.

Now I know that I have lost most of you over most of the technical aspects of Reaganomics but like I said prior I am NOT an economist but it was a disaster, an epic disaster.

Let's use some common sense. Reduce by 25% for example your household income, would it make sense to increase spending? Can you write a check for insufficient funds and get away with it? Of course not! Well, that's exactly what President Reagan did during his eight years in office. He significantly decreased the tax revenues which means less money coming in but at the same time he is spending more money on defense. Does that make any sense to you? Could you run your household like that? What would happen if you wrote rubber checks? Exactly what will happen is you will get arrested and the next thing you know you'll be standing in front of a judge explaining your actions! Well that didn't happen to President Reagan, he is considered the king of the anti-tax movement and he is considered a saint by the right wing of the Republican Party which nowadays is the entire Republican Party.

A lot of people consider the 1980's as good economic times. Why do they say that? A lot of it has to do with the oil glut. We had an excess amount of oil on the market which drove down the prices which kept gasoline prices lower than they normally would have been. This this was able to stimulate the economy somewhat and gave her a false reading on how the economy was actually doing. 

 Ronald Reagan is a hero to the Republican Party. It's my contention that President Reagan was one of the worst presidents in US history bar none. I put him in the rankings with Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and of course his own hero, Herbert Hoover.

Supply side economics is a failure. It has been proven time and time again that this type of economics causes depression. It helped contribute to the panic of 1896, the Great Depression of course and we cannot forget the George W Bush Depression of 2008. 
Yes, I called it a depression not a recession. The government didn't want to call it a depression because they didn't want to scare people but believe me it was a depression.

We need to return to a Keynesian economic theory policy in this country. We need to have a new generation New Deal. The infrastructure of our country is a joke right now and it needs serious major repair work. We need a 21st century CCC. Alone it would stimulate our economy significantly. New employees, with money in their pocket will go to the stores and make purchases. Stores will need to order more merchandise in order to keep their shelves filled. Suppliers will order more product from the factories hence factories will hire more people to produce that product. The next thing you know all these new employees are paying payroll taxes, Social Security taxes and the economy will stimulate. Only short sighted people will complain about government expenditures for this. It's a great simple way of boosting the economy.

The last time a stimulus was done, money was given to the bank. Is that any way to stimulate the economy? Rich people don't spend money, they pour it into the bank and it sits there! You give that same money to someone who is poor or middle class and you know what they're going to do? They're going to spend it! That's how you simulate the economy. You don't trickle down from rich to poor, how ridiculous is that! You put that money where it's needed the most and our economy will turn around so fast that your head will spin.

Ahmed Mohamed, Stands Up To Racial and Religious Profiling

I was going to post a boring blog entry today dealing with one of the constitutional amendments that the Republicans wanted to get rid of but something else came up on the news which I think is much much more important then what I was going to write about.

Yesterday, a 14 year old ninth grade student was arrested for being a terrorist. This young man, Ahmed Mohammad, build a homemade clock and brought it to school to impress his teacher. Instead of congratulating the young man, he was told to put the clock back in his backpack.

Later, the alarm went off on his clock and his English teacher became suspicious and she informed the principal and the next thing you know the young man is being arrested by the police for being a terrorist! He is led off and handcuffs and taken to the police department where he was interrogated for  over 5 hours with no attorney present. I don't know if he received his Miranda rights or not but he was questioned with no attorney and I wouldn't be surprised if he was questioned without his parents being present as well.

Mind you Ahmed is a Muslim. He's tall, skinny, wears glasses, look kind of  nerdy  with brown skin. If he was white, he would look just like any other nerdy kid in school. I know because I used to be one of those nerdy kids. In fact he reminds me of me in many ways except I'm white and Ahmed is not.

Finally after a 5-hour interrogation, the police decided not to file any charges. However the school suspended him for three days I believe. Ahmed said that he never wants to go back to that school and fortunately his parents agree with him. I wouldn't want to go back to that school either.

I ask you this, if I said Mohamed was white and Christian, would he have been treated the same way? I definitely don't believe he would have been. We have a huge huge problem with discrimination and racism in our country and it must end. I know there's a lot of  prejudice against Muslims mostly due to 911. We need to step back and look at the big picture. Is this the proper and right way to treat another person? Did we learn anything from World War II ?

Fortunately, there are some positive things to this story. It looks like Ahmed will not be going back to his old school. In fact he received numerous  scholarship offers  so he can pretty much attend any school that he wants to.
Mark Zuckerberg has invited him to visit Facebook and the President has invited Ahmed to bring his  clock and himself to the White House. Now that's pretty impressive if you want my opinion. So it looks like Ahmed Mohamed is going to have a happy ending to his story and that's good for him and for the United States .

What we need to do is address these problems on a national level. What can we do to eliminate this type of stereotyping and racial profiling that appears to be going on and pretty much every community in the United States? Is every American suffering  from PTSD? I don't think so. 911 was a terrible crime against the U.S. but we need to get over our hatred for others it will be our undoing.

That's what happened  in Germany between World War I and World War II. The Nazis were able to cause division within their own country by singling groups out and getting these individual groups to hate each other because it was easier to control smaller groups rather than a population of the whole. That's pretty much how the Nazis took over the minds of the population was by little groups at a time. This is something that cannot happen in our country because our country is so diverse. We have many different religions. We have many many different ethnic groups and when we are unified we are strong, we are powerful, but when we are divided we are weak. Remember the words of Abraham Lincoln,  "A house divided against itself can not stand."

My Gun Control Proposal

My Gun Control Proposal

1. Total ban of the sale of semi-automatic and automatic rifles and handguns.
2. Total ban of gun sales at gunshows.
3. Private gun sales must be brokered by a federally liscensed gun dealer.
4. A mandatory 72 hour waiting period before the weapon can be picked up by the customer. During this time a mandatory FBI background check will be conducted.
5. A mandatory mental health examination conducted by a liscensed mental health care professional.
6. Mandatory insurance to cover wrongful death and bodily injury claims.
7. A mandatory gun safety and profeciency course conducted by the local police department must be sucessfully completed before a gun can be purchased.
8. A permit to own a gun will be issued by the local police department which will be annually renewed accompianed by proof of liability insurance.
9. The cost of this proposal will be funded by a 20% surtax on ammunition and gun sales.

States Rights

There has been a lot of talk recently on states rights. The Republican-Tea Party (RTP) constantly invokes the term and especially since we are at the 150th anniversary of the end of the American Civil War I thought that maybe it was a good time to examine this particular issue.

I think that before we even go into the discussion of states rights we should examine what the US Constitution actually states about these rights.

The parts of the Constitution that we are going to examine are the following: The Supremacy Clause, The Necessary And Proper Clause and The Tenth Amendment.

After we examine these clauses we will dig into the issue of “states rights”.

The Supremacy Clause is Article VI Clause 2 and reads as follows: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

This clause establishes the US Constitution, federal statutes and US treaties as the supreme law of the land. All state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and any state law or provision in any state constitution.

There have been a number of Supreme Court decisions to reaffirm this clause through the years. In 1819 in McCulloch v. Maryland the Supreme Court reviewed a tax levied on the federally incorporated Bank of the United States. The Court ruled that this tax was unconstitutional because it made a state statue supreme over federal statutes therefore violating the Supremacy Clause.

In 1859, in Ableman v. Booth, the Supreme Court stated that state courts cannot issue rulings the contradict federal courts. The Court cited the Supremacy Clause and overturned a decision made by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

In 1958, in Cooper v. Aaron, the Court rejected repeated attempts of the state of Arkansas’ attempts to nullify a previous decision of the Supreme Court on desegregation (Brown v. Board of Education). Arkansas using a flawed states rights theory had attempted to bypass the Supreme Court by passing these laws. The Supreme Court declared this to be unconstitutional via the Supremacy Clause.

In 1982, in Edgar v. Mite Corporation, the Court ruled that “A state statue is void to the extent that it actually conflicts with a valid federal statue.”

Furthermore a state law will be found to violate the Supremacy Clause if one or both of these conditions exist.”1. Compliance with both Federal and State laws is impossible and or 2. State laws stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.”

The Necessary and proper Clause is from Article I Section 8 Clause 18 and reads as follows: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Basically this clause states that the Congress of the United States has the authority to make all laws which are necessary and proper for carrying out their powers which have previously been stated in the Constitution.

As with The Supremacy Clause the case of McCulloch v, Maryland is used as precedence. Not only did this case state that Federal law is the supreme law of the land but it also asserts that the Congress has the right to pass all laws that are necessary and proper as well.

The final section of the Constitution that we are going to examine is the Tenth Amendment. It reads as follows: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This is the part of the Constitution that most states righters cling to. They believe that this amendment adds fuel to their claim that the rights of the states are supreme. This is simply not true.

The Tenth Amendment is similar to an earlier provision in the Articles of Confederation that guaranteed states to sovereignty, freedom and independence.

After the Constitution was ratified, some people wanted to add a similar amendment to the Constitution limiting powers of the federal government to “expressly” delegated thus denying the federal government “implied powers.”

However, the words “expressly” did not appear in the Tenth Amendment therefore the amendment did not reject the implied powers allowed by the Necessary and Proper Clause.

The term states rights has reared its head a number of times since the beginning of our country.

The first instance was after the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. At that time we were in the middle of a quazi war with France.

The acts were actually a series of bills that were intended to address the issue of enemy aliens and also to address the issue of handling seditious acts that were interpreted to weaken the federal government by people who wrote articles that criticized the federal government.

Vice-President Thomas Jefferson strongly opposed these acts and even came out to state that he felt that they were unconstitutional. They were a hotbed of debate during the elections of 1798 and 1800. They were very unpopular and they are probably the main reason that John Adams was not re elected in 1800.

Jefferson and James Madison even went far enough to state in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions that these acts violated states rights. “Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: That to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party….each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.”

As lofty as these resolutions were, the government under the Supremacy Clause could write this type of law.

The laws were never declared unconstitutional because they were never brought in front of the Supreme Court. If they had, I am sure that they would have been declared unconstitutional.

States rights came up again during the War of 1812. The British naval blockade was severely damaging the shipping interests in New England and at the Hartford Convention the New England states started discussing secession from the Union but nothing like that happened.

One continued problem that seemed to plague the Union from around 1820 through the Civil War was the issue of tariffs.

The north and the south had two very diverse types of economies. The north was industrial and the south was agricultural. They depended on imports from Europe or from industry in the north. The south had very few established industries and was almost totally dependant on outside sources for industrial implements.

In 1828 Congress passed a series of protective tariffs to benefit trade in the north but hurt the south.

Throughout the south these were several protests to these tariffs.

On November 24, 1832, South Carolina passed an Ordinance of Nullification declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void within the boundaries of South Carolina.

This unconstitutional ordinance set up an immediate constitutional crisis. On December 10, 1843, President Andrew Jackson sent a flotilla of ships and threatened to send ground troops to South Carolina to enforce the tariffs. Faced with a military confrontation, South Carolina backed down.

The biggest dispute over states rights have to be over slavery and the Civil War.

Actually, states rights have been used by both pro slavery and anti slavery proponents.

The pro slavery faction believed that slaves were property and they and the state had the right to protect their property no matter where they were. In other words, if they were in a free state their slave was still considered their property and they were entitled to recover and protect their property.

The anti slavery faction believed that their state rights were violated by The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Dred Scott Decision of 1857 which gave slave owners the right to cross state lines and enter a free state to attempt to recover runaway slaves.

Now if you are a supporter of states rights, which position do you take? I guess that it all depends on which side of the issue you are on.

My assertion is this. Look at the evidence. States rights were claimed by both sides, north and south. What is the underlying issue here? The answer is simple. It’s slavery. Slavery was the primary issue of the Civil War. States rights was merely a side issue.

Furthermore, the Constitution of The United State states implicitly that Federal law is the supreme law of the land. States rights is a non issue and that term has been used since the Civil War era up until today to talk about the segregation of African Americans from the American way of life.

I contend that “states rights” is merely a euphemism for Apartheid, American version. Anyone who claims states rights issues for the Civil War or any piece of social legislation is in my mind a racist. If you hold to the states rights myth you are no better than George Wallace in my opinion!