Title: The Federalists and the Federalist: A Forgotten History
Abstract: In a series of cases over the last few years, the United States Supreme Court has invalidated as unconstitutional a succession of federal statutes enacted under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The Court based these decisions, in part, on the authority of The Federalist. In Lopez v. United States, the first of the cases to invoke The Federalist, Chief Justice Rehnquist stated: We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers . . . . As James Madison wrote, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” The Court subsequently held that Congress could not, under the Commerce Clause, criminalize the mere possession of a firearm in a local school district. Two years later, in Printz v. United States, the Court struck down a federal statute imposing a duty on state and local law enforcement officers to conduct background checks on prospective handgun purchasers, as an unconstitutional imposition upon state sovereignty. The majority dismissed the dissent’s argument that the Commerce Clause, when coupled with the Necessary and Proper Clause, conferred on Congress the power to
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 4
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