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Has this actually ever happened? Or are you one of those who regard the crossing of our borders by undocumented people as an infringement on our defenses?
Sure take Arizona, is failing to secure the border a failure to provide for common defense?
Immigration is a different mechanism than foreign invasion. The current debate on the subject though is certainly blurring the lines for some.
I would argue no, but there is no army invading Arizona and threatening it's sovereignty. Despite the rhetoric of nativists, illegal aliens do not threaten the sovereignty of the United States. Now if some military force invaded from Mexico (see Red Dawn) and the government failed to provide a defense, then maybe you would have a case. But again, I don't think that's ever happened.
It's likely that this phrase wasn't geared towards any specific power but the overall goal of a federal government - the "care" of all citizens. They weren't writing the Virginia Constitution or the Delware Constitution, but the United States Constitution. In that, these laws they we're about to enumerate and this system we are putting in place is to govern all citizens, not just certain citizens.
Yankee, when the US was established as a nation, was anyone living there at the time, excluding slaves and indians, automatically considered citizens?
The Constitution didn't define what a citizen was at the time and for the most part we followed the British model based on tradition. It also referenced citizens of the states, and the assumption is that if a state considered you one, you were, again based in the British model.
That was beautiful, man.
This was beautiful, too. Excellent work!
Putting aside the political issues that come with executive orders, depending on the party of the president issuing them, the theory behind executive orders is that they are, as the name implies, an executive function and not a legislative one. The idea with executive orders is that they are functions of the executive authority to carry out the law, not the creation or enactment of the law. A clear overstep into the legislative sphere wouldn't be allowed; for instance, an executive order creating a federal tax rate different from the one on the books clearly would be unconstitutional. But on a practical level, executives need to have some leeway in how they choose to carry out the laws.
I'm not an expert on this and I don't want to do the research right now, but I believe that the EP didn't actually make slavery illegal, and it even included a loophole that if the seceding states returned to the Union, they would be allowed to maintain slavery. Slavery wasn't made illegal until the 13th amendment in 1865, which was a purely legislative function. I believe the EP was valid as a war powers measure because of the deleterious effect that removing slave labor had on the confederacy; I know the non-seceding slave states (like Maryland) were allowed to continue with slavery until the 13th amendment passed.
Assuming football is driving the decision, OSU. If combination of football and academics, Michigan.
Is Michigan that much superior to OSU in academics? I was unaware of this. I assumed both were outstanding schools in that regard.
They are, but I consider michigan to be, overall, the best public university in the big 10 and the better of the two.
It was very deliberate. The Office of the Executive was very much an afterthought in many ways - that isn't just lore. The entirty of the power of the federal government was to be the Congress, an assembly of elected representatives that as a result was not a singular person ala the king, nor a king run puppet organization as they felt the parliment was. Congress was more important.timschochet said:
No. Or maybe yes. It depends. But the issuance of the EO is very much a proper executive function.timschochet said:
Ordain can mean to create something new through the sovereign power to do so - the states through their power ordained a new government that didn't exist previously. Establish would be the ground level creation itself; offices, departments, rules and procedures. Had they just ordained it without creating some kind of system (ie, - there will be a new national government, figure it out) it would be a mess. Had they just established it (ie didn't look to the states for ratification and acceptance) it would have been a bigger mess.
Lots of good points in that article; thanks for posting.
The Congress pass the Reappoirtionment Act of 1911 to cap the members of the House based on the 1910 census in the midst of a growing debate between cities and rural areas and the massive population shifts that were happening at the turn of the century. The more reasoned members of Congress at the time saw that this debate could lead to massive problems so they figured out this law to take the political fight out of the reapportionment process. Remember, the Constitution does demand how this is supposed to be done and throughout our history to that point the Congress would get the census details as required and amend the House as necessary - for the most part.
John Adams - always the genius during and before his time was on point on this topic - I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Totally agree. This is one of the most important, and maybe antidemocratic and maybe harmful, laws we have passed in our nation's history.
Aside from Yank's comment above (again, great post) I just thought that I would point out the putative reason used at the time for the enactment of the Reappoirtionment Act of 1911:
Oh I hope to get you started- just not yet.
House charges, Senate convicts. Can't have one body be prosecutor and judge, right?
Yankee's post was great, and I understand his point and your agreement with it, but it does seem to me that 10,000 Congressmen (which is what we would get if we based it on one man for every 30,000 people) seems unwieldy to me. Yankee would have it around 1,000, which means one man for every 300,000 people, but that's no less arbritary than keeping it at 435. Logically, the more people you have, the less able they are to govern.
