The Center for Constitutional Studies at the Utah Valley University will hold a conference today on federalism with leading academics from around the country. The conference is being held pursuant to a grant from the Utah State Legislature.
The conference will lead off with a presentation by John Dinan, Professor of Political Science, Wake Forest University entitled “Why Federalism Matters Today.”
The first panel at 10 am on “Madisonian Federalism” will feature Paul Moreno, William and Berniece Grewcock Chair in Constitutional History at Hillsdale College, Director of Academic Programs at Hillsdale Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship; Jack Rakove, William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies, Professor of Political Science and, by courtesy, of Law, Stanford University; and Colleen Sheehan, Director, Matthew J. Ryan Center, Villanova College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
I will moderate the second panel on Tuesday on “The Dangers of States’ Rights v the Dangers of the Administrative State.” The panel will feature Sotirios Barber, Professor, Political Science, University of Notre Dame; Paul Moreno, William and Berniece Grewcock Chair in Constitutional History at Hillsdale College, Director of Academic Programs at Hillsdale Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship; and Ernest Istook, former U.S. Congressman, Lecturer, Utah Valley University.
On Wednesday, I will present as part of a panel on “Federalism and American Identity” which will also feature Carl Scott, Professor, Utah Valley University as the moderator and Alan Tarr, Board of Governors Professor, Director, Center for Constitutional Studies, Rutgers University; Ernest Young, Alston & Bird Professor of Law, Duke University; and Michael Greve, Professor of Law, George Mason University. The panel is at 10 am.
The final panel starting at 1:30 p.m. will address “The Future of Federalism” and feature Ken Ivory, Representative, State of Utah House of Representatives; Robert Nagel, Rothgerber Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Colorado Law School; and Michael Feeley, Claire Sanders Clements Dean’s Professor of Law, University of California Berkeley Law.
It is an extraordinary line up to address the central role of federalism in our constitutional system. Indeed, it is another incredible conference by the CCS, which I have had the pleasure of watching blossom with the university itself into a major academic center. UVU is now the largest university in Utah and has flourished under the leadership of President Matthew S. Holland who previously taught political science at Brigham Young University and has a keen interest in political philosophy and American political thought. The success of the Center itself is due not just to the support of President Holland but the tireless work of Rick A. Griffin, its founding director. Griffin teaches Political Science and History and is currently on leave to finish a book on George Washington. The Center and this conference is in the very capable hands of Interim Director Andrew Biddy who has a deep background in political theory.
P.P.S.
BarkinDog, I endeavor mightily to present the Constitution and intent of the Framers.
Why is it that you present a bias? What personal characteristic drives you to oppose the American thesis, the intent of the founders, the Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights? What is it that forces you to betray your forefathers, ancestors, family, brothers, countrymen, race, etc?
“…to ourselves, and our posterity…” Whatever do you imagine the Framers meant by that?
Above, you favor the dominion of foreign citizens without standing under the American founding documents.
Any law or amendment may be proposed and may be expected to be proposed. When it is antithetical, umpreambular and unconstitutional, it must be denied by the SCOTUS. When was the past time you represented “property” in a legal action?
Understanding that, as an example of appropriate behavior after slavery, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, your personal bias compels you to favor the unnatural, irrational, incoherent and unconstitutional grating of citizenship to freed slaves, and the U.S. forfeiture of national sovereignty to illegal aliens of foreign origin. That most replicates military invasion by a foreign power and no form of “immigration.”
America has recently deployed its military to defend the borders and sovereignty of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., from invasion by a foreign nation. What personal characteristic generates a bias in you and compels you to favor the invasion of and forfeiture of national sovereignty by America through invasion by foreign illegal aliens by illegal immigration? What causes you to favor criminals over the objective application of the law?
What personal characteristic compels you to ignore the facts and law and support an insidious invasion of adversarial, foreign forces using the perversion of immigration law and original intent instead of battle tanks?
EPILOGUE
BarkinDog –
“And I forget not who those people are when they rear their ugly heads.”
To wit,
Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, Adams, Mason, Jay, Franklin, Henry, et al.
_____
James Madison – *
“…We have in this way something to gain, and, if we proceed with caution, nothing to lose; and in this case
it is necessary to proceed with caution; for while we feel all these inducements to go into a revisal of the
constitution, we must feel for the constitution itself, and make that revisal a moderate one.
I should be unwilling to see a door opened for a re-consideration of the whole structure of the government,
for a re-consideration of the principles and the substance of the powers given;
because I doubt, if such a door was opened, if we should be very likely to stop at that point which would be
safe to the government itself:…”
Lincoln opened the door that Madison was unwilling to. The abrogation and nullification of the “principles and the substance of the powers given” have not stopped and continue to this day, past “…that point which would be safe to the government itself…”
*Cong. Register, I, 423-37 (also reported in Gazette of the US., 10 and 13 June 1789).
_____
Abraham Lincoln “threw all of a sudden” 3 million foreigners into America
Thomas Jefferson –
“Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom?” Jefferson asked. “If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here.”
Alexander Hamilton –
“Prudence requires us to trace the history further and ask what has become of the nations of savages who exercised this policy, and who now occupies the territory which they then inhabited? Perhaps a lesson is here taught which ought not to be despised.” Alexander Hamilton was even more blunt. He invited his fellow Americans to consider the example of another people who had been more generous with their immigration policy than prudence dictated: the American Indians.
Thank you, Beldar.
Go ad hominem and ignore the law and the words and intent of those who wrote it.
I rest my case.
According to your cavalier nullification of law, the Supreme Court has no charge to support the Preamble,
Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Sounds a lot like what criminals do – a lot like subversion.
You indicate that the American Founders need not have wasted their time.
All they had to declare was that these founding documents establish nothing, limit nothing, mean nothing
and are hereby rescinded.
“DO WHATEVER YOU WANT.”
P.S. Slavery was an economic issue that should have been addressed vigorously in the private sector through abolition advocacy and the application of economic tools, such as boycotts and divestiture.
P.P.S. It is an incoherent contradiction for any nation to give up its sovereignty and allow immigration policy to be set by citizens of a foreign country who enter that nation to give birth. No law, written to allow such, would be rational, constitutional or upheld by an objective Supreme Court.
Oh, the Sam Stone song was by John Prine. Not Randy Newman.
Beldar here. In New Orleans there is a bar where they play Randy Newman songs from thirty years ago.
One is called Sam Stone. If you substitute Jim Crow for Sam Stone the theme rings a bell.
[music–]
Jim Crow, came home, to his wife and famileee
After serving in the conflict oversees.
And Jimmy took to stealing when he got that empty feeling.
A hundred dollar habit.. without over time!
And the morphine eased the pain. Like a thousand railroad trains.
etc
I have researched the Constitution. It provides for itself to be amended. Folks could amend it now. They could bring back slavery or throw out bigots and muslims.
The Reconstruction Amendments severed Slavery from our daily lives. When enforced, and it took some civil rights statutes enacted by Congress to enforce, it helped end Jim Crow. But it is Jim Crow laws and practices that the UnReconstructed Americans want. And I forget not who those people are when they rear their ugly heads.
What a pleasant Tuesday here @ the Turley blog.
BD, to be sure, Madison et al. expected amendment to be clarification, not nullification and global modification. Madison considered the Bill of Rights the definitive amendments with further amendment unnecessary. He feared that further amendment would destroy the very Constitution itself.
It has.
The “Reconstruction Amendments” are incoherent, fantasy governance and strictly unconstitutional. Beginning with his unconstitutional suspension of Habeas Corpus, the entire Lincoln “Reign of Terror” was unconstitutional tyrannical and despotic dictatorship. Not to put too fine a point on it.
__________
The 14th Amendment is unconstitutional.
1. The freed slaves were property as demonstrated by bills of sale and recorded deeds. No action may be brought under the Constitution of behalf of property. Property has no standing in any court or under the Constitution. As Lincoln initially realized, the only possible legal disposition of property, and people without citizenship, is repatriation to their location of origin.
Abraham Lincoln –
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” “…he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”
Property has no legal standing under the Constitution. No law may be passed or Amendment ratified on behalf of property with no standing. The 14th Amendment was brought on behalf of and for the benefit of people who were not citizens of the U.S.
Upon obtaining freedom from slavery, people as property would become deportable illegal aliens. To be clear, the government had no authority to confiscate or otherwise seize private property.
2. The Constitution does not provide for the disposition of foreign citizens or people with no citizenship. The U.S. government has no authority, Constitutional or otherwise, to affect or govern citizens of foreign countries or people who are not U.S. citizens, other than to deport or repatriate them.
3. It is unconstitutional to grant citizenship to children born in the U.S. of foreign citizens. Foreign citizens have no constitutional authority to grant American citizenship to their children through an act of travel or relocation. In is necessary, understood, innate and natural that a nation, not foreign citizens or countries, control its immigration process. Congress has a duty to establish a controlled and effective immigration process. America as a nation has lost control of its immigration process when children born in the U.S. of foreign citizens are granted citizenship. The Founders made clear their intention to limit and control immigration. To control immigration, citizens must be born of at least one parent who is a citizen. The abuse of the 14th Amendment by criminal illegal alien invaders and a resultant, unconstitutional “amnesty” are evidence of precisely what the Founders intended to avoid in the prosecution of immigration.
The unconstitutional 14th Amendment causes the U.S. to forfeit control of it process of immigration, as if it is written by a foreign adversary with nefarious intent. The unconstitutional 14th Amendment contradicts the intent and the very words of the American Founders.
To wit,
Thomas Jefferson –
“Suppose 20 millions of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom?” Jefferson asked. “If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here.”
Alexander Hamilton –
“Prudence requires us to trace the history further and ask what has become of the nations of savages who exercised this policy, and who now occupies the territory which they then inhabited? Perhaps a lesson is here taught which ought not to be despised.” Alexander Hamilton was even more blunt. He invited his fellow Americans to consider the example of another people who had been more generous with their immigration policy than prudence dictated: the American Indians.
__________
“…to ourselves and our posterity,…”
It sounds like a very interesting conference with some extremely qualified and erudite people.
Stevegroen’s suggestion for a topic is also interesting and sounds worthy of the conference focus.
Chipsorus: What “company here”?
What davidm wrote at 9:44AM. I’d add that a topic of discussion might be how a pot plant (or a tomato for that matter) grown in someone’s back yard is subject to congressional authority under the Commerce Clause.
I know. I know. If everybody did it, it could substantially affect interstate commerce. What nonsense swallowing up the 9th and 10th Amendments and substantive due process, all afforded in the Bill of Rights which supersedes the Commerce Clause by chronology and social contract.
Current Commerce Clause jurisprudence permits too much control under its federalist umbrella.
Sounds like a great conference. Will there be video posted anywhere for us to see? I am very interested in what your lineup of professors have to say about this subject.
Paul Moreno, William and Berniece Grewcock Chair in Constitutional History at Hillsdale College
hahaha I recently heard advertisements on Bott Radio from Hillsdale College.
doesn’t matter when someone is praising Madison, this place might (big might) even accept a Muslim if he/she did so.
On the topic of superstition, yesterday Trevor Cahill was pitching for the Cubs. He hiked up his pants leg to tie his shoe and exposed a faded, old, Dodgers sock. I’m sure there’s a superstition involved w/ that. Baseball has a rich history of superstition and lately, OCD.
Hopefully the microaggressions will be kept to a minimum. Interesting topic that would seem to be C-Span worthy. You apparently missed the Cub game and chose to hike yesterday. Will superstition take over and have you hiking today as well?
No wonder this place appears to be so out-of-touch, look at the company here….
Or to read about those in the law that genuinely fight for liberty: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/13/aclu-sues-cia-on-behalf-of-torture-victims.html.
#WarCrimesAreNorm
Down here in Louisiana where I am hanging out they say States Rights as one word, like this: StatesRights!
I did some research on this. The Constitution speaks to the Powers of the Federal Government and the Powers of the States. The word Rights are attributed to People or Persons. To intertwine the two words in the name of the grand legacy of slavery and Jim Crow is a bit of a stretch.
So when the Klan lynches some guy and the feds send in the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate and some Klan member screaches that StatesRights! are being violated by the feds please inquire as to which State “Right” he/she is referring to.
I suggest that the Klan member is referring to the Right of the State to ignore the crimes of its own persons.
There is a topic, which many lawyers are ignorant of, that needs to be addressed in America. Some lawyers and judges in America remain “Un Reconstructed”. What do I mean by this? Well this was stated by some Missouri Supreme Court Justices right after the Civil War and after the 14th Amendment was adopted. These Judges refused to take an oath of office to uphold the Reconstruction Amendments. How is this relevant today you might ask? Well there are Justices on the Missouri Supreme Court today who refuse to acknowledge the 14th Amendment and the role of the Bill of Rights when considering the rights of a criminal defendant in a state jury tried felony trial. There has developed over the hundred fifty plus years since the Civil War a doctrine called “sufficiency of evidence in a circumstantial evidence case”. There are a few United States Supreme Court cases recognizing this jurisprudence– Jackson v. Virginia being one.
In the case of Freeman vs. State of Missouri the Court of Appeals for the Western District issued an opinion authored by Judge Lynch. This opinion ruled that Samuel Freeman had been denied his right to a fair trial because the evidence was so lame that it did not rise to the level of sufficiency of evidence as outlined in Jackson v. Virginia and hence the case should not have been submitted to a jury. This was a circumstantial evidence case where no direct evidence put the defendant at the crime scene. But the Missouri Supreme Court reversed and in so doing refused, neglected and blatantly ignored the 14th Amendment and the federal jurisprudence discussed by Judge Lynch in the Court of Appeals opinion. The Missouri Supreme Court in essence ruled that sufficiency of evidence jurisprudence in Missouri was a “know it when I see it” sort of thing.
In 2009 a case came out of the trial courts in Missouri wherein a man named Donald Nash was convicted on purely circumstantial evidence of killing his live-in girl friend. She was murdered back in 1982. Her body found in an outhouse strangled with a shoelace and shot by shotgun. Car tracts found. Fingers and fingernails examined for blood or tissue to see if she had scratched the assailant. Fingernails clipped. Boyfriend was examined for scratches. No evidence putting him at crime scene miles from their home or at the separate place where her car was found. Fingerprints, not dead woman (Judy) found on her drivers side car window– not those of boyfriend. Car tracks were not that of defendant’s car. Some years later the fingerprints were identified as that of a felon who knew the decedent. Twenty five years later some prosecutor and cops take the DNA off of the fingernails which had been handled and not been properly seized and stored for DNA purposes (no DNA analysis was available in 1982). DNA sample then taken from Donald Nash. His DNA was found on one fingernail. Boyfriend convicted in State Court in Dent County on this evidence. He was not allowed to introduce the evidence of the fingerprints found on decedent’s abandoned car at the first crime scene of the now dead felon who had known decedent. Nor was the DNA of unknown person found on shoelace used to strangle her allowed to be offered into evidence or told to the jury. Donald Nash had been nowhere near either crime scene. Donald Nash convicted on this flimsy evidence.
The case is before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on a habeas petition.
This case is relevant to the notion of “Federalism” in state courts in the 21st Century. Donald Nash v. State of Missouri. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, argued September 22nd and awaiting decision. This can be found on Pacer. The briefs filed by Charles Weiss are excellent, as was his oral argument.
The important thing is what conference do they play in for football?