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Thread: California’s Top Judge Tells ICE To Leave Courthouses As State Readies Sanctuary Law

  1. #1

    California’s Top Judge Tells ICE To Leave Courthouses As State Readies Sanctuary Law

    California’s Top Judge Tells ICE To Leave Courthouses As State Readies Sanctuary Law
    http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/23/ca...sanctuary-law/




    State Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye,
    who has previously condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations at court facilities,
    said Tuesday she has a duty to call out federal agents
    who arrest illegal immigrants in or near the California’s courthouses.

    In a March letter, she criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly
    for allowing ICE to conduct operations in California courts, saying that immigration agents were “stalking” illegal immigrants
    and undermining “access to equal justice.”

    The chief justice’s remarks on Tuesday came as the California Assembly legislature takes up Senate Bill 54,
    a sanctuary state proposal that would prohibit the use of state and local public resources to aid federal immigration enforcement.
    If enacted, the so-called California Values Act
    would effectively cut off all voluntary cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE,
    except in cases required by federal law.

    One provision tucked into the bill prevents ICE agents from accessing jails
    to interview or take custody of criminal aliens without a judicial warrant.

    Critics of the measure, including Los Angles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell,
    say it will force ICE to go looking for criminal aliens in the community,
    where illegal immigrants without criminal convictions will also be apprehended.

    Sessions and Kelly offered a similar criticism in March when they responded to Cantil-Sakauye’s letter.

    Sanctuary city policies blocking ICE access to jails leave immigration agents no choice
    but to find and arrest people in public spaces including courthouses,


    the administration officials said.

    Cantil-Sakauye dismissed that line of argument Tuesday, saying that courts should be safe havens
    where illegal immigrants are free to testify as crime witnesses or victims without fear of running into ICE officers.

    “We’re seeing people not coming to court, not reporting to court, not coming for services (and) not coming to testify …
    This has an effect not only on the immediate case and the safety of communities, but people who live in the communities,” she said.
    Last edited by goldenequity; 08-23-2017 at 04:45 PM.



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  3. #2
    I'm sure plenty of the nationalists on here will be all over California for this one, but it is actually acting constitutionally here. Nowhere in the US Constitution is the US government given the authority to regulate immigration. That was a power left to the States. Each state therefore has the right to create whatever immigration policy that can be passed through its government and into law. Federal agents showing up at a state court in order to enforce federal immigration laws and threatening states whose immigration laws do not match up with federal immigration laws are a double overreach of the limits of federal authority and power as outlined by the Constitution.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    I'm sure plenty of the nationalists on here will be all over California for this one, but it is actually acting constitutionally here. Nowhere in the US Constitution is the US government given the authority to regulate immigration. That was a power left to the States. Each state therefore has the right to create whatever immigration policy that can be passed through its government and into law. Federal agents showing up at a state court in order to enforce federal immigration laws and threatening states whose immigration laws do not match up with federal immigration laws are a double overreach of the limits of federal authority and power as outlined by the Constitution.
    Article 1

    Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight

    It is after 1808.

    Article 4 - The States
    Section 4 - Republican Government


    The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion;

    "Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:28
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Article 1

    Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight

    It is after 1808.

    Article 4 - The States
    Section 4 - Republican Government


    The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion;

    "Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:28
    The "such" persons were slaves- we already went round and round on this.

    And state's rights were always supposed to be above federal.
    There is no spoon.

  6. #5
    Seems to me that the reasons for bringing the Mexicans in are the same as bringing in the slaves though. Cheap labor.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    "Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:28
    If you read this quote in context, it's pretty clear that Jefferson is referring to the entire country, not just to Virginia:

    The exercise, by our own citizens, of so much commerce as may suffice to exchange our superfluities for our wants, may be advantageous for the whole. But, it does not follow, that with a territory so boundless, it is the interest of the whole to become a mere city of London, to carry on the business of one half the world at the expense of eternal war with the other half. The agricultural capacities of our country constitute its distinguishing feature; and the adapting our policy and pursuits to that, is more likely to make us a numerous and happy people, than the mimicry of an Amsterdam, a Hamburgh, or a city of London. Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that, if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles, and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudocitizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.

    Such is the situation of our country.
    We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
    Erwin N. Griswold

    Taxes: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an automatic extension.
    Anonymous

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Ender View Post
    And state's rights were always supposed to be above federal.
    That would come as a surprise to the drafters of the second clause of Article VI of the Constitution.
    We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
    Erwin N. Griswold

    Taxes: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an automatic extension.
    Anonymous

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Sonny Tufts View Post
    That would come as a surprise to the drafters of the second clause of Article VI of the Constitution.
    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.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    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.
    Supremacy Clause only applies to powers granted by the Constitution. In all other cases the Tenth Amendment makes it clear that all powers not given to the federal government by the Constitution are retained by the states and the federal government has no just power to act. In fact Jefferson said that when the federal government stepped outside of its constitutional boundaries that it was up to the states to nullify such laws as they deemed unconstitutional.

    As for Article 1, Section 9 is about slavery and not immigration. As per the very anti-immigration Heritage Foundation's article on Article 1 Section 9:

    Although the first debate over slavery at the Constitutional Convention concerned representation (see Article I, Section 2, Clause 3), the second debate arose when Southern delegates objected that an unrestricted congressional power to regulate commerce could be used against Southern commercial interests to restrict or outlaw the slave trade. That the resulting provision was an important compromise is underscored by the fact that the clause stands as the first independent restraint on congressional powers, prior even to the restriction on the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

    Taking Southern concerns into consideration, the draft proposed by the Committee of Detail (chaired by John Rutledge of South Carolina) dealt with trade issues as well as those relating to slavery. The draft permanently forbade Congress to tax exports, to outlaw or tax the slave trade, or to pass navigation laws without two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress. Several delegates strongly objected to the proposal, including Gouverneur Morris, who delivered one of the Convention's most spirited denunciations of slavery, calling it a "nefarious institution" and "the curse of heaven."

    When the issue came up for a vote, the Southern delegates themselves were sharply divided. George Mason of Virginia condemned the "infernal traffic," and Luther Martin of Maryland saw the restriction of Congress's power over the slave trade as "inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the American character." But delegates from Georgia and South Carolina announced that they would not support the Constitution without the restriction, with Charles Pinckney arguing that failing to include the clause would trigger "an exclusion of South Carolina from the Union."

    Unresolved, the issue was referred to the Committee of Eleven (chaired by William Livingston of New Jersey), which took the opposite position and recognized a congressional power over the slave trade, but recommended that it be restricted for twelve years, and allowed a tax on slave importation. Although that was a significant change from the Committee of Detail's original proposal, Southern delegates accepted the new arrangement with the extension of the time period to twenty years, from 1800 to 1808.

    Agitation against the slave trade was the leading cause espoused by the antislavery movement at the time of the Constitutional Convention, so it is not surprising that this clause was the most immediately controversial of the so-called slave clauses of the proposed Constitution (see Article I, Section 2, Clause 3; Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3; and Article V). Although some denounced the Slave Trade Clause as a major concession to slavery interests, most begrudged it to be a necessary and prudent compromise. James Madison, for example, argued at the Convention that the twenty-year exemption was "dishonorable," but in The Federalist No. 42, he declared that it was "a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate for ever within these States" what he called an "unnatural traffic" that was "the barbarism of modern policy."

    Some claimed that the Commerce Clause gave Congress the power to regulate both the interstate and the foreign slave trade once the twenty-year period had lapsed. James Wilson of Pennsylvania argued, "yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to exterminate slavery from within our borders." Though the question was not clearly resolved at the time, Madison denied this interpretation during the First Congress. Not even Abraham Lincoln claimed that congressional power to regulate commerce could be used to restrict interstate commerce in slaves.

    In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Roger B. Taney pointed to this clause, along with the so-called Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3), as evidence that slaves were not citizens but were to be considered property according to the Constitution. Observers are virtually unanimous that those clauses did not address the question of citizenship at all. Although protection of the slave trade was a major concession demanded by proslavery delegates, the final clause was not a permanent element of the constitutional structure, but a temporary restriction of a delegated federal power. Moreover the restriction applied only to states existing at the time, not to new states or territories, and it did not prevent states from restricting or outlawing the slave trade for themselves. As the dissent in Dred Scott points out, there were freed blacks who were citizens in a number of Northern states and who had voted to ratify the new constitution.

    It is significant that the words slave and slavery are not used in the Constitution of 1787, and that the Framers used the word person rather than property. This would assure, as Madison explained in The Federalist No. 54, that a slave would be regarded "as a moral person, not as a mere article of property." It was in the context of the slave trade debate at the Constitutional Convention that Madison argued that it was "wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men."

    Although Southern delegates hoped opposition would weaken with time, the practical effect of the clause was to create a growing expectation of federal legislation against the practice. Congress passed, and President Thomas Jefferson signed into law, a federal prohibition of the slave trade, effective January 1, 1808, the first day that Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, allowed such a law to go into effect.

    http://www.heritage.org/constitution...60/slave-trade
    You have been taught this before, that you continue to try and spread historical error as truth exposes you as a liar. That you do so with the Constitution in order to justify unconstitutional and illegal actions by the US government exposes you as just another Big Government Progressive looking to warp the Constitution from its original meaning so you can use violence to force your beliefs on others.

    That article even explains why it says "persons" instead of slaves.

    So no, the US Constitution gives no power to the federal government to regulate government in any way. That is left to the States to decide as per the Tenth Amendment on powers not given to the federal government being retained to the states. Anyone who wants the federal government to regulate immigration is a proponent of the federal government using unconstitutional powers to attack and punish people and states for using their just powers and is tehrefore wrong. Government is not the solution to this or any other problem. It is the problem.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    Supremacy Clause only applies to powers granted by the Constitution. In all other cases the Tenth Amendment makes it clear that all powers not given to the federal government by the Constitution are retained by the states and the federal government has no just power to act. In fact Jefferson said that when the federal government stepped outside of its constitutional boundaries that it was up to the states to nullify such laws as they deemed unconstitutional.

    As for Article 1, Section 9 is about slavery and not immigration. As per the very anti-immigration Heritage Foundation's article on Article 1 Section 9:



    You have been taught this before, that you continue to try and spread historical error as truth exposes you as a liar. That you do so with the Constitution in order to justify unconstitutional and illegal actions by the US government exposes you as just another Big Government Progressive looking to warp the Constitution from its original meaning so you can use violence to force your beliefs on others.

    That article even explains why it says "persons" instead of slaves.

    So no, the US Constitution gives no power to the federal government to regulate government in any way. That is left to the States to decide as per the Tenth Amendment on powers not given to the federal government being retained to the states. Anyone who wants the federal government to regulate immigration is a proponent of the federal government using unconstitutional powers to attack and punish people and states for using their just powers and is tehrefore wrong. Government is not the solution to this or any other problem. It is the problem.
    I'll take Jefferson's word over the Heritage Foundation's any day.

    The exercise, by our own citizens, of so much commerce as may suffice to exchange our superfluities for our wants, may be advantageous for the whole. But, it does not follow, that with a territory so boundless, it is the interest of the whole to become a mere city of London, to carry on the business of one half the world at the expense of eternal war with the other half. The agricultural capacities of our country constitute its distinguishing feature; and the adapting our policy and pursuits to that, is more likely to make us a numerous and happy people, than the mimicry of an Amsterdam, a Hamburgh, or a city of London. Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that, if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles, and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudocitizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.

    Such is the situation of our country. --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:28


    You also refuse to deal with Article 4 - The States
    Section 4 - Republican Government


    The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion;
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    I'm sure plenty of the nationalists on here will be all over California for this one, but it is actually acting constitutionally here. Nowhere in the US Constitution is the US government given the authority to regulate immigration. That was a power left to the States. Each state therefore has the right to create whatever immigration policy that can be passed through its government and into law. Federal agents showing up at a state court in order to enforce federal immigration laws and threatening states whose immigration laws do not match up with federal immigration laws are a double overreach of the limits of federal authority and power as outlined by the Constitution.
    Article IV, Section 4.
    Quote Originally Posted by Andrew Ryan
    In Washington you can see them everywhere: the Parasites and baby Stalins sucking the life out of a once-great nation.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Sonny Tufts View Post
    That would come as a surprise to the drafters of the second clause of Article VI of the Constitution.
    It would be no surprise and the anti-federalists were right.
    There is no spoon.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    I'll take Jefferson's word over the Heritage Foundation's any day.

    The exercise, by our own citizens, of so much commerce as may suffice to exchange our superfluities for our wants, may be advantageous for the whole. But, it does not follow, that with a territory so boundless, it is the interest of the whole to become a mere city of London, to carry on the business of one half the world at the expense of eternal war with the other half. The agricultural capacities of our country constitute its distinguishing feature; and the adapting our policy and pursuits to that, is more likely to make us a numerous and happy people, than the mimicry of an Amsterdam, a Hamburgh, or a city of London. Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that, if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles, and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudocitizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease.

    Such is the situation of our country. --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:28


    You also refuse to deal with Article 4 - The States
    Section 4 - Republican Government


    The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion;
    First off, what Jefferson thought about immigration doesn't matter. His whims and opinions do not form the basis of our society, we are not a kingdom or dictatorship where the opinions of one are law. What does matter is what is in the actual US Constitution. That is what governs the US legal system and the powers granted to the Federal Government. It is what determines what is and is not lawful for the Federal Government to do. That you are trying to justify your argument by appealing to everything BUT the US Constitution proves my point that the US Constitution does not authorize the Federal Government to regulate immigration.

    Secondly, your Jefferson quote has nothing to do with supporting your argument. Your argument is that Article 1, Section 9 allows the regulation of immigration. You were refuted by historical fact which demonstrated that Article 1, Section 9 solely applies to slavery and the slave trade. Your rebuttal to this point must strengthen your original argument that Article 1, Section 9 does apply to immigration. But you are unable to do this because it does not. Therefore you attempt a typical troll tactic of shifting the argument to what Thomas Jefferson may or may not have believed about immigration. This is not only irrelevant (see point 1) but a meaningless source as it doesn't strengthen your argument. Jefferson isn't talking about Article 1, Section 9 and therefore whatever he has to say doesn't support your argument that Article 1, Section 9 support immigration restriction.

    You are back to your central problem: There is no authorization in the US Constitution for the federal regulation of immigration. And you have not been able to argue otherwise or give any sources to back up your argument. Article 1, Section 9 has to do with the slave trade and slavery, not immigration. This is established historical fact. And Jefferson, whatever his feelings about immigration, doesn't address or support your argument at all. So you are thus far left with no evidence for your claim and all the evidence given has opposed your claim and demonstrated that Article 1, Section 9 has nothing to do with immigration and does not give the Federal Government the power to limit immigration.

    Your claim that Article 4, Section 4 somehow gives the Federal Government power to regulate immigration is equally foolish. First, the whole text of Article 4, Section 4:

    The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
    You are trying to argue that protections against "invasion" equal the power of the Federal Government to regulate immigration. This is such a silly argument as anyone with a dictionary knows the difference between immigration and invasion.

    Invasion is when the official armed military forces of a foreign nation invade another country.

    Immigration is when a person moves from their native country to another country.

    Immigration is not invasion and therefore this part of the Constitution has no applicability to discussions on immigration and does not authorize the Federal Government to regulate immigration in any manner. Really anyone trying to equate invasion and immigration needs to go back to grade school and take an English class.

    As immigration is therefore not a power granted to any branch of the US Federal Government by the US Constitution the Tenth Amendment applies: "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." Immigration is a power reserved to the States individually to make their own laws, and any action on immigration taken by the Federal Government is a violation of the US Constitution's Tenth Amendment and an unjust and illegal overreach of Federal power.

    Your whole argument does reinforce one fact though: That you ethnocentric nationalists will not let a little thing like the US Constitution or the limitations it placed on the power of the Federal Government get in your way. You aren't constitutionalists, meaning you do not abide by the legal restrictions placed upon the Federal Government by the US Constitution and restrict it to acting only in the ways that it has been authorized to do so. You will use the overwhelming violence of Federal power to force your opinions on others even when doing so is a clear violation of the US Constitution and you will warp, twist, and outright misinterpret the Constitution any way you need to in order to justify your actions, if you even bother to regard it at all. This is neither the hallmark of a libertarian, a constitutionalist, a paleoconservative, or a believer in small government. This is the hallmark of the Progressive, who wants to use the power of the State to engage in social engineering in order to "form" or "reform" society to how you think it should be. The "Alt. Right" and all those like them, such as yourself, are in fact Leftists in defense of Big Government.

  16. #14
    An unelected judge might not be too concerned with doing the will of the people. If it came down to an actual vote from actual citizens in California, the result might be very different. I see a lot of gray area with this. The elected representatives tend to get to the capitol and do exactly the opposite of what they were sent there to do in the first place. Local, state, and national. They all do it.
    #NashvilleStrong

    “I’m a doctor. That’s a baby.”~~~Dr. Manny Sethi

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    First off, what Jefferson thought about immigration doesn't matter. His whims and opinions do not form the basis of our society, we are not a kingdom or dictatorship where the opinions of one are law. What does matter is what is in the actual US Constitution. That is what governs the US legal system and the powers granted to the Federal Government. It is what determines what is and is not lawful for the Federal Government to do. That you are trying to justify your argument by appealing to everything BUT the US Constitution proves my point that the US Constitution does not authorize the Federal Government to regulate immigration.

    Secondly, your Jefferson quote has nothing to do with supporting your argument. Your argument is that Article 1, Section 9 allows the regulation of immigration. You were refuted by historical fact which demonstrated that Article 1, Section 9 solely applies to slavery and the slave trade. Your rebuttal to this point must strengthen your original argument that Article 1, Section 9 does apply to immigration. But you are unable to do this because it does not. Therefore you attempt a typical troll tactic of shifting the argument to what Thomas Jefferson may or may not have believed about immigration. This is not only irrelevant (see point 1) but a meaningless source as it doesn't strengthen your argument. Jefferson isn't talking about Article 1, Section 9 and therefore whatever he has to say doesn't support your argument that Article 1, Section 9 support immigration restriction.

    You are back to your central problem: There is no authorization in the US Constitution for the federal regulation of immigration. And you have not been able to argue otherwise or give any sources to back up your argument. Article 1, Section 9 has to do with the slave trade and slavery, not immigration. This is established historical fact. And Jefferson, whatever his feelings about immigration, doesn't address or support your argument at all. So you are thus far left with no evidence for your claim and all the evidence given has opposed your claim and demonstrated that Article 1, Section 9 has nothing to do with immigration and does not give the Federal Government the power to limit immigration.

    Your claim that Article 4, Section 4 somehow gives the Federal Government power to regulate immigration is equally foolish. First, the whole text of Article 4, Section 4:



    You are trying to argue that protections against "invasion" equal the power of the Federal Government to regulate immigration. This is such a silly argument as anyone with a dictionary knows the difference between immigration and invasion.

    Invasion is when the official armed military forces of a foreign nation invade another country.

    Immigration is when a person moves from their native country to another country.

    Immigration is not invasion and therefore this part of the Constitution has no applicability to discussions on immigration and does not authorize the Federal Government to regulate immigration in any manner. Really anyone trying to equate invasion and immigration needs to go back to grade school and take an English class.

    As immigration is therefore not a power granted to any branch of the US Federal Government by the US Constitution the Tenth Amendment applies: "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." Immigration is a power reserved to the States individually to make their own laws, and any action on immigration taken by the Federal Government is a violation of the US Constitution's Tenth Amendment and an unjust and illegal overreach of Federal power.

    Your whole argument does reinforce one fact though: That you ethnocentric nationalists will not let a little thing like the US Constitution or the limitations it placed on the power of the Federal Government get in your way. You aren't constitutionalists, meaning you do not abide by the legal restrictions placed upon the Federal Government by the US Constitution and restrict it to acting only in the ways that it has been authorized to do so. You will use the overwhelming violence of Federal power to force your opinions on others even when doing so is a clear violation of the US Constitution and you will warp, twist, and outright misinterpret the Constitution any way you need to in order to justify your actions, if you even bother to regard it at all. This is neither the hallmark of a libertarian, a constitutionalist, a paleoconservative, or a believer in small government. This is the hallmark of the Progressive, who wants to use the power of the State to engage in social engineering in order to "form" or "reform" society to how you think it should be. The "Alt. Right" and all those like them, such as yourself, are in fact Leftists in defense of Big Government.

    Article 1 section 9 gives the Federal Government power over immigration after 1808, migration is different from importation, Jefferson was a constitutionalist and he believed that the government had the power to exclude people from our territory, invasion does not require arms (think invasion of privacy or an invasive procedure).
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    Your argument is that Article 1, Section 9 allows the regulation of immigration. You were refuted by historical fact which demonstrated that Article 1, Section 9 solely applies to slavery and the slave trade. Your rebuttal to this point must strengthen your original argument that Article 1, Section 9 does apply to immigration. But you are unable to do this because it does not.
    Although the Migration Clause may have arisen out of the slavery issue, the language that ultimately found its way into the Constitution didn't confine the operation of the Clause to the slave trade, and Madison certainly didn't think it was so confined:

    But some of the States were not only anxious for a Constitutional provision against the introduction of slaves. They had scruples against admitting the term "slaves" into the Instrument. Hence the descriptive phrase, "migration or importation of persons;" the term migration allowing those who were scrupulous of acknowledging expressly a property in human beings, to view imported persons as a species of emigrants, while others might apply the term to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the country. It is possible tho' not recollected, that some might have had an eye to the case of freed blacks, as well as malefactors.

    Letter to Robert Walsh, November 27, 1819 (emphasis added)
    http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/found...a1_9_1s20.html
    I have previously suggested that the power to regulate who can come into a country is an inherent power of sovereignty, and this was the rationale of the Supreme Court in upholding federal legislation barring Chinese laborers from entering the country:

    That the government of the United States, through the action of the legislative department, can exclude aliens from its territory is a proposition which we do not think open to controversy. Jurisdiction over its own territory to that extent is an incident of every independent nation. It is a part of its independence. If it could not exclude aliens it would be to that extent subject to the control of another power. As said by this court in the case of The Exchange, 7 Cranch, 116, 136, speaking by Chief Justice MARSHALL: 'The jurisdiction of the nation within its own territory is necessarily exclusive and absolute. It is susceptible of no limitation not imposed by itself. Any restriction upon it, deriving validity from an external source, would imply a diminution of its sovereignty to the extent of the restriction, and an investment of that sovereignty to the same extent in that power which could impose such restriction. All exceptions, therefore, to the full and complete power of a nation within its own territories, must be traced up to the consent of the nation itself. They can flow from no other legitimate source.' Ping v. U.S., 130 U.S. 581, 603-604 (1889)
    The wording of the Migration Clause suggests that on and after 1808 Congress could abolish the slave trade. But where does the Constitution grant Congress the power to do so? The only textual support would seem to be the Commerce Clause, but if so there are two possibilities:

    (a) the Clause applies to the movement of people as well as property, which means that Congress can control immigration. The view that the Clause applies to people as well as property was adopted as early as 1849 in The Passenger Cases, 48 U.S. 283 (1849); or

    (b) the Clause applies only to property, and slaves are considered property. But it is illogical to use a Clause applying only to property to ban the slave trade if the policy reason for doing so is that slaves are not property. In other words, by using the Commerce Clause as the basis for banning the slave trade one is admitting that slaves are property. And once this is admitted, any governmental emancipation of the slaves existing in the country would trigger the 5th Amendment's requirement to compensate the slave owners for the loss of their property. As absurd as this may sound, it seems to follow from the use of the Commerce Clause as a basis for banning the slave trade.
    We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Sonny Tufts View Post
    Although the Migration Clause may have arisen out of the slavery issue, the language that ultimately found its way into the Constitution didn't confine the operation of the Clause to the slave trade, and Madison certainly didn't think it was so confined:



    I have previously suggested that the power to regulate who can come into a country is an inherent power of sovereignty, and this was the rationale of the Supreme Court in upholding federal legislation barring Chinese laborers from entering the country:



    The wording of the Migration Clause suggests that on and after 1808 Congress could abolish the slave trade. But where does the Constitution grant Congress the power to do so? The only textual support would seem to be the Commerce Clause, but if so there are two possibilities:

    (a) the Clause applies to the movement of people as well as property, which means that Congress can control immigration. The view that the Clause applies to people as well as property was adopted as early as 1849 in The Passenger Cases, 48 U.S. 283 (1849); or

    (b) the Clause applies only to property, and slaves are considered property. But it is illogical to use a Clause applying only to property to ban the slave trade if the policy reason for doing so is that slaves are not property. In other words, by using the Commerce Clause as the basis for banning the slave trade one is admitting that slaves are property. And once this is admitted, any governmental emancipation of the slaves existing in the country would trigger the 5th Amendment's requirement to compensate the slave owners for the loss of their property. As absurd as this may sound, it seems to follow from the use of the Commerce Clause as a basis for banning the slave trade.
    The commerce clause is not required, if I tell an employee that he can't quit until after 1:00pm I am telling him he can quit after 1:00 pm.
    Article 1 section 9 gives congress the power to restrict immigration after 1808.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

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  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Article 1 section 9 gives the Federal Government power over immigration after 1808, migration is different from importation, Jefferson was a constitutionalist and he believed that the government had the power to exclude people from our territory, invasion does not require arms (think invasion of privacy or an invasive procedure).
    No it doesn't. And no matter how many times you repeat that statement it will never be true. And while you made have had a cloak of ignorance for your error in the past, you've been shown you were wrong. If you continue to insist upon your former course then you are admitting that you are a Progressive and do not care about the US Constitution.

    And it doesn't matter what Jefferson thought or didn't. It matters what is in the US Constitution.

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    No it doesn't. And no matter how many times you repeat that statement it will never be true. And while you made have had a cloak of ignorance for your error in the past, you've been shown you were wrong. If you continue to insist upon your former course then you are admitting that you are a Progressive and do not care about the US Constitution.

    And it doesn't matter what Jefferson thought or didn't. It matters what is in the US Constitution.
    I keep quoting the constitution and the founding fathers, you keep quoting idiots "interpreting" the constitution.

    But some of the States were not only anxious for a Constitutional provision against the introduction of slaves. They had scruples against admitting the term "slaves" into the Instrument. Hence the descriptive phrase, "migration or importation of persons;" the term migration allowing those who were scrupulous of acknowledging expressly a property in human beings, to view imported persons as a species of emigrants, while others might apply the term to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the country. It is possible tho' not recollected, that some might have had an eye to the case of freed blacks, as well as malefactors.

    James Madison Letter to Robert Walsh, November 27, 1819 (emphasis added)
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  23. #20
    Responses in bold.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sonny Tufts View Post
    Although the Migration Clause may have arisen out of the slavery issue, the language that ultimately found its way into the Constitution didn't confine the operation of the Clause to the slave trade, and Madison certainly didn't think it was so confined:

    But some of the States were not only anxious for a Constitutional provision against the introduction of slaves. They had scruples against admitting the term "slaves" into the Instrument. Hence the descriptive phrase, "migration or importation of persons;" the term migration allowing those who were scrupulous of acknowledging expressly a property in human beings, to view imported persons as a species of emigrants, while others might apply the term to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the country. It is possible tho' not recollected, that some might have had an eye to the case of freed blacks, as well as malefactors.

    Letter to Robert Walsh, November 27, 1819 (emphasis added)
    http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/found...a1_9_1s20.html
    You've misrepresented Madison here. Your quote gives the implication that it was his belief that Article 1, Section 9 could be used to limit "malefactors" but that is not his purpose. I quote form the text in fuller context:

    As to the intention of the framers of the Constitution in the clause relating to "the migration and importation of persons, &c" the best key may perhaps be found in the case which produced it. The African trade in slaves had long been odious to most of the States, and the importation of slaves into them had been prohibited. Particular States however continued the importation, and were extremely averse to any restriction on their power to do so. In the convention the former States were anxious, in framing a new constitution, to insert a provision for an immediate and absolute stop to the trade. The latter were not only averse to any interference on the subject; but solemnly declared that their constituents would never accede to a Constitution containing such an article. Out of this conflict grew the middle measure providing that Congress should not interfere until the year 1808; with an implication, that after that date, they might prohibit the importation of slaves into the States then existing, & previous thereto, into the States not then existing.
    He clearly states that what is under issue in Article 1, Section 9 is the Slave Trade. Not immigration. He then gives the paragraph you quote and then immediately afterwards states:

    But whatever may have been intended by the term "migration" or the term "persons," it is most certain, that they referred exclusively to a migration or importation from other countries into the U. States
    He clearly says here that he isn't talking about immigration but the "migration or importation," NOT "migration and importation" which would suggest two different ideas but rather he says "or" which means he is using migration here as a synonym for importation in the same way I might use "or" when I say, "You can call me Pierz or Pierzstyx." There "or" equates the two terms as being the same. Which means that what Madison is saying is that Article 1 Section 9 is about giving the Congress power to restrict the importation of slaves to the country.

    That he notes some other states might want to try and use Article 1, Section 9 as a way to limit "malefactors" is not an endorsement of such a concept but rather just noting that it was certainly among the thoughts of some who wished to be able to do so. This of course has no bearing upon whether such ideas are justifiable by Article 1, Section 9. Which they aren't.


    I have previously suggested that the power to regulate who can come into a country is an inherent power of sovereignty, and this was the rationale of the Supreme Court in upholding federal legislation barring Chinese laborers from entering the country:

    The United States does not have a "sovereign." That is in fact the entire point of the Constitution. In the Old World kings and queens, Parliaments and Dumas were sovereign, meaning they had all the rights and powers. In America it was recognized that the individual is sovereign, that all rights, powers, and authority comes from the individual and that government has no power not explicitly given to it by the people. This is the whole theory behind the US Constitution. It doesn't matter therefore what "inherent power" other nations have. In the USA the Federal Government is bound by the US Constitution and the Federal Government cannot do anything that the US Constitution doesn't explicitly authorize it to do.Including regulate immigration.

    That the Supreme Court said otherwise speaks simply to the corruption of the court and not the justness of the law.

    The rest of your argument is irrelevant. We are talking about whether Article 1, Section 9 authorizes the regulation of immigration by the Federal Government, a specifically focused subject. No need to go off talking about anything else.

    Also, it is not the "Migration Clause." It is the "Migration or Importation Clause." This is important to understand as simply calling it the "Migration Clause" leads to an erroneous understanding of what is meant by "migration" in the text itself as per the discussion about Madison's usage of "migration or importation" above

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    He clearly says here that he isn't talking about immigration but the "migration or importation," NOT "migration and importation" which would suggest two different ideas but rather he says "or" which means he is using migration here as a synonym for importation in the same way I might use "or" when I say, "You can call me Pierz or Pierzstyx." There "or" equates the two terms as being the same. Which means that what Madison is saying is that Article 1 Section 9 is about giving the Congress power to restrict the importation of slaves to the country.
    "you may not go outside OR play video games" means plying video games=going outside?
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    That he notes some other states might want to try and use Article 1, Section 9 as a way to limit "malefactors" is not an endorsement of such a concept but rather just noting that it was certainly among the thoughts of some who wished to be able to do so. This of course has no bearing upon whether such ideas are justifiable by Article 1, Section 9. Which they aren't.
    It has to do with others who were involved in drafting the language used, so it does have to do with what it means.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  25. #22
    Responses in bold.

    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    I keep quoting the constitution and the founding fathers, you keep quoting idiots "interpreting" the constitution.

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    Are you seriously calling those who are far more educated than you, with a far greater understanding of history than you, "idiots"? Only an absolute moron would insist on being wrong when presented with evidence far better educated than he or she. Only an idiot would refuse to learn history and insist upon retaining error when exposed to facts. Only an ignoramus would get angry at the educated for being correct.

    Also, I'm concerned that you seem to think that just because you can quote partial phrases that it means you are correct. You aren't quoting the Constitution. You are misquoting it. The fact that you haven't been able to logically respond to any rebuttals made disproving your arguments demonstrates just how shallow your understanding is and just how indefensible your arguments are.

    Additionally, no one is "interpreting" the Constitution when they say Article 1, Section 9 is about the Slave Trade. That is established historical fact. It is you trying to warp and twist the Constitution to meet your Progressive agenda that is "interpreting" -or should I say misinterpreting?- the Constitution.


    But some of the States were not only anxious for a Constitutional provision against the introduction of slaves. They had scruples against admitting the term "slaves" into the Instrument. Hence the descriptive phrase, "migration or importation of persons;" the term migration allowing those who were scrupulous of acknowledging expressly a property in human beings, to view imported persons as a species of emigrants, while others might apply the term to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the country. It is possible tho' not recollected, that some might have had an eye to the case of freed blacks, as well as malefactors.

    James Madison Letter to Robert Walsh, November 27, 1819 (emphasis added)
    And the best you can do is to try and regurgitate the arguments of others! Besides having already answered this quote (in a separate post to Sonny), which is quoted out of context by the way, do you have any actual argument? Or are you merely grasping for whatever straws you can to try and prop up the obviously DOA argument you've been making which has been refuted by multiple people, multiple times? Because, really, this is just getting sad on your part.

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    Responses in bold.



    And the best you can do is to try and regurgitate the arguments of others! Besides having already answered this quote (in a separate post to Sonny), which is quoted out of context by the way, do you have any actual argument? Or are you merely grasping for whatever straws you can to try and prop up the obviously DOA argument you've been making which has been refuted by multiple people, multiple times? Because, really, this is just getting sad on your part.
    See my post above yours that you missed, I am right the Heritage Foundation is wrong, "Educated" people can be wrong.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  27. #24
    Responses in bold.

    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    "you may not go outside OR play video games" means plying video games=going outside?

    Not necessarily. Which is why context is important. Here the context is given clearly in the first paragraph I quoted, which I will do here again for you:

    As to the intention of the framers of the Constitution in the clause relating to "the migration and importation of persons, &c" the best key may perhaps be found in the case which produced it. The African trade in slaves had long been odious to most of the States, and the importation of slaves into them had been prohibited. Particular States however continued the importation, and were extremely averse to any restriction on their power to do so. In the convention the former States were anxious, in framing a new constitution, to insert a provision for an immediate and absolute stop to the trade. The latter were not only averse to any interference on the subject; but solemnly declared that their constituents would never accede to a Constitution containing such an article. Out of this conflict grew the middle measure providing that Congress should not interfere until the year 1808; with an implication, that after that date, they might prohibit the importation of slaves into the States then existing, & previous thereto, into the States not then existing.
    Given the fact that he is talking about one group as being the target of Article 1, Section 9 -African slaves- then it seems obvious that migrationa is being used synonymously to importation here. But let us take your argument and assume that he IS using the synonymously. What would that mean?

    It means that even if he is talking about two different things, migration AND importation, it would be in the context of African slaves. Meaning that Article 1, Section 9 would only be applicable to banning the migration of African slaves and the importation of African slaves. It still doesn't give you the authority to broadly regulate immigration in any manner.

    This by teh way was Madison's point. He was being asked if the Federal Government could regulate the internal movement of slaves by force using Article 1, Section 9 and he is saying no, that Article 1, Section 9 only applies to African slaves entering the country.

    Honestly, you should probably read the full context of a quote before you use it.


    It has to do with others who were involved in drafting the language used, so it does have to do with what it means.
    No, it doesn't. The intent of an author doesn't matter when it comes down to interpreting a text, only what is actually in the text matters. The Founders understood this which is why they strove to be so explicit in the Constitution and why the Tenth Amendment was considered so important. The Founders understood that what they "meant" wasn't going to matter if what they encoded into the Constitution ended up saying something completely opposite.

    Therefore it doesn't matter if some at the Convention wanted something different than what was ultimately written. Hamilton wanted Washington to be a king after all, yet what he got was a President with few and extremely limited powers. Some may have wanted the power to regulate immigration, but that isn't what ended up in the Constitution.
    Last edited by PierzStyx; 08-24-2017 at 04:27 PM.



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    See my post above yours that you missed, I am right the Heritage Foundation is wrong, "Educated" people can be wrong.
    The Constitution doesn't support your argument. Historical evidence is against you. Your arguments don't hold up. And you're "right?" No, you're wrong and simply don't want to admit it because it means you've been wrong about a lot of other things too.

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    Responses in bold.



    No, it doesn't. The intent of an author doesn't matter when it comes down to interpreting a text, only what is actually in the text. The Founders understood this which is why they strove to be so explicit in the Constitution and why the Tenth Amendment was considered so important. The Founders understood that what they "meant" wasn't going to matter if what they encoded into the Constitution ended up saying something completely opposite.

    Therefore it doesn't matter if some at the Convention wanted something different than what was ultimately written. Hamilton wanted Washington to be a king after all, yet what he got was a President with few and extremely limited powers. Some may have wanted the power to regulate immigration, but that isn't what ended up in the Constitution.
    You are the one who claims that an Originalist interpretation is what determines the meaning in your favor, if we go by Strict Constructionism instead my position gets even stronger MIGRATION is the free will movement of people IMPORTATION is the unwilling movement of people brought against their will by others.
    BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  31. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    The Constitution doesn't support your argument. Historical evidence is against you. Your arguments don't hold up. And you're "right?" No, you're wrong and simply don't want to admit it because it means you've been wrong about a lot of other things too.
    Same to you comrade.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  32. #28
    The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
    Article I, Section 9, Clause 1


    Although the first debate over slavery at the Constitutional Convention concerned representation (see Article I, Section 2, Clause 3), the second debate arose when Southern delegates objected that an unrestricted congressional power to regulate commerce could be used against Southern commercial interests to restrict or outlaw the slave trade. That the resulting provision was an important compromise is underscored by the fact that the clause stands as the first independent restraint on congressional powers, prior even to the restriction on the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

    Taking Southern concerns into consideration, the draft proposed by the Committee of Detail (chaired by John Rutledge of South Carolina) dealt with trade issues as well as those relating to slavery. The draft permanently forbade Congress to tax exports, to outlaw or tax the slave trade, or to pass navigation laws without two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress. Several delegates strongly objected to the proposal, including Gouverneur Morris, who delivered one of the Convention's most spirited denunciations of slavery, calling it a "nefarious institution" and "the curse of heaven."

    When the issue came up for a vote, the Southern delegates themselves were sharply divided. George Mason of Virginia condemned the "infernal traffic," and Luther Martin of Maryland saw the restriction of Congress's power over the slave trade as "inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the American character." But delegates from Georgia and South Carolina announced that they would not support the Constitution without the restriction, with Charles Pinckney arguing that failing to include the clause would trigger "an exclusion of South Carolina from the Union."

    Unresolved, the issue was referred to the Committee of Eleven (chaired by William Livingston of New Jersey), which took the opposite position and recognized a congressional power over the slave trade, but recommended that it be restricted for twelve years, and allowed a tax on slave importation. Although that was a significant change from the Committee of Detail's original proposal, Southern delegates accepted the new arrangement with the extension of the time period to twenty years, from 1800 to 1808.

    Agitation against the slave trade was the leading cause espoused by the antislavery movement at the time of the Constitutional Convention, so it is not surprising that this clause was the most immediately controversial of the so-called slave clauses of the proposed Constitution (see Article I, Section 2, Clause 3; Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3; and Article V). Although some denounced the Slave Trade Clause as a major concession to slavery interests, most begrudged it to be a necessary and prudent compromise. James Madison, for example, argued at the Convention that the twenty-year exemption was "dishonorable," but in The Federalist No. 42, he declared that it was "a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate for ever within these States" what he called an "unnatural traffic" that was "the barbarism of modern policy."

    Some claimed that the Commerce Clause gave Congress the power to regulate both the interstate and the foreign slave trade once the twenty-year period had lapsed. James Wilson of Pennsylvania argued, "yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to exterminate slavery from within our borders." Though the question was not clearly resolved at the time, Madison denied this interpretation during the First Congress. Not even Abraham Lincoln claimed that congressional power to regulate commerce could be used to restrict interstate commerce in slaves.

    In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Roger B. Taney pointed to this clause, along with the so-called Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3), as evidence that slaves were not citizens but were to be considered property according to the Constitution. Observers are virtually unanimous that those clauses did not address the question of citizenship at all. Although protection of the slave trade was a major concession demanded by proslavery delegates, the final clause was not a permanent element of the constitutional structure, but a temporary restriction of a delegated federal power. Moreover the restriction applied only to states existing at the time, not to new states or territories, and it did not prevent states from restricting or outlawing the slave trade for themselves. As the dissent in Dred Scott points out, there were freed blacks who were citizens in a number of Northern states and who had voted to ratify the new constitution.

    It is significant that the words slave and slavery are not used in the Constitution of 1787, and that the Framers used the word person rather than property. This would assure, as Madison explained in The Federalist No. 54, that a slave would be regarded "as a moral person, not as a mere article of property." It was in the context of the slave trade debate at the Constitutional Convention that Madison argued that it was "wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men."

    Although Southern delegates hoped opposition would weaken with time, the practical effect of the clause was to create a growing expectation of federal legislation against the practice. Congress passed, and President Thomas Jefferson signed into law, a federal prohibition of the slave trade, effective January 1, 1808, the first day that Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, allowed such a law to go into effect.


    http://www.heritage.org/constitution...60/slave-trade
    There is no spoon.

  33. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Ender View Post

    Although the first debate over slavery at the Constitutional Convention concerned representation (see Article I, Section 2, Clause 3), the second debate arose when Southern delegates objected that an unrestricted congressional power to regulate commerce could be used against Southern commercial interests to restrict or outlaw the slave trade. That the resulting provision was an important compromise is underscored by the fact that the clause stands as the first independent restraint on congressional powers, prior even to the restriction on the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

    Taking Southern concerns into consideration, the draft proposed by the Committee of Detail (chaired by John Rutledge of South Carolina) dealt with trade issues as well as those relating to slavery. The draft permanently forbade Congress to tax exports, to outlaw or tax the slave trade, or to pass navigation laws without two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress. Several delegates strongly objected to the proposal, including Gouverneur Morris, who delivered one of the Convention's most spirited denunciations of slavery, calling it a "nefarious institution" and "the curse of heaven."

    When the issue came up for a vote, the Southern delegates themselves were sharply divided. George Mason of Virginia condemned the "infernal traffic," and Luther Martin of Maryland saw the restriction of Congress's power over the slave trade as "inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the American character." But delegates from Georgia and South Carolina announced that they would not support the Constitution without the restriction, with Charles Pinckney arguing that failing to include the clause would trigger "an exclusion of South Carolina from the Union."

    Unresolved, the issue was referred to the Committee of Eleven (chaired by William Livingston of New Jersey), which took the opposite position and recognized a congressional power over the slave trade, but recommended that it be restricted for twelve years, and allowed a tax on slave importation. Although that was a significant change from the Committee of Detail's original proposal, Southern delegates accepted the new arrangement with the extension of the time period to twenty years, from 1800 to 1808.

    Agitation against the slave trade was the leading cause espoused by the antislavery movement at the time of the Constitutional Convention, so it is not surprising that this clause was the most immediately controversial of the so-called slave clauses of the proposed Constitution (see Article I, Section 2, Clause 3; Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3; and Article V). Although some denounced the Slave Trade Clause as a major concession to slavery interests, most begrudged it to be a necessary and prudent compromise. James Madison, for example, argued at the Convention that the twenty-year exemption was "dishonorable," but in The Federalist No. 42, he declared that it was "a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate for ever within these States" what he called an "unnatural traffic" that was "the barbarism of modern policy."

    Some claimed that the Commerce Clause gave Congress the power to regulate both the interstate and the foreign slave trade once the twenty-year period had lapsed. James Wilson of Pennsylvania argued, "yet the lapse of a few years, and Congress will have power to exterminate slavery from within our borders." Though the question was not clearly resolved at the time, Madison denied this interpretation during the First Congress. Not even Abraham Lincoln claimed that congressional power to regulate commerce could be used to restrict interstate commerce in slaves.

    In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Roger B. Taney pointed to this clause, along with the so-called Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3), as evidence that slaves were not citizens but were to be considered property according to the Constitution. Observers are virtually unanimous that those clauses did not address the question of citizenship at all. Although protection of the slave trade was a major concession demanded by proslavery delegates, the final clause was not a permanent element of the constitutional structure, but a temporary restriction of a delegated federal power. Moreover the restriction applied only to states existing at the time, not to new states or territories, and it did not prevent states from restricting or outlawing the slave trade for themselves. As the dissent in Dred Scott points out, there were freed blacks who were citizens in a number of Northern states and who had voted to ratify the new constitution.

    It is significant that the words slave and slavery are not used in the Constitution of 1787, and that the Framers used the word person rather than property. This would assure, as Madison explained in The Federalist No. 54, that a slave would be regarded "as a moral person, not as a mere article of property." It was in the context of the slave trade debate at the Constitutional Convention that Madison argued that it was "wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men."

    Although Southern delegates hoped opposition would weaken with time, the practical effect of the clause was to create a growing expectation of federal legislation against the practice. Congress passed, and President Thomas Jefferson signed into law, a federal prohibition of the slave trade, effective January 1, 1808, the first day that Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, allowed such a law to go into effect.


    http://www.heritage.org/constitution...60/slave-trade
    But some of the States were not only anxious for a Constitutional provision against the introduction of slaves. They had scruples against admitting the term "slaves" into the Instrument. Hence the descriptive phrase, "migration or importation of persons;" the term migration allowing those who were scrupulous of acknowledging expressly a property in human beings, to view imported persons as a species of emigrants, while others might apply the term to foreign malefactors sent or coming into the country. It is possible tho' not recollected, that some might have had an eye to the case of freed blacks, as well as malefactors.

    James Madison Letter to Robert Walsh, November 27, 1819 (emphasis added)
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  34. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Ender View Post

    Although the first debate over slavery at the Constitutional Convention concerned representation (see Article I, Section 2, Clause 3), the second debate arose when Southern delegates objected that an unrestricted congressional power to regulate commerce could be used against Southern commercial interests to restrict or outlaw the slave trade...

    Unresolved, the issue was referred to the Committee of Eleven (chaired by William Livingston of New Jersey), which took the opposite position and recognized a congressional power over the slave trade, but recommended that it be restricted for twelve years, and allowed a tax on slave importation. Although that was a significant change from the Committee of Detail's original proposal, Southern delegates accepted the new arrangement with the extension of the time period to twenty years, from 1800 to 1808...

    ...the final clause was not a permanent element of the constitutional structure, but a temporary restriction of a delegated federal power.
    The conclusion to be drawn from this is that I.9 isn't the source of Congress' power to ban the international and interstate slave trade -- the Commerce Clause is.

    If Congress has the power to regulate international commerce (which it does), and if the Framers assumed that this power included the power to ban the international slave trade (which they apparently did), it would seem inescapable that the power would also include the ability to regulate who enters the country (i.e., immigration), especially those arriving on commercial transportation. A more difficult question would be whether the Clause would authorize the regulation of people simply walking across the border from Canada or Mexico.
    We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
    Erwin N. Griswold

    Taxes: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an automatic extension.
    Anonymous



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