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Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Real Constitution: Article I, Section X (Prohibitions on the States)

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.


No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.


No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
Partly continued from the discussion on Section VIII:

The first debate that broke out in terms of how much power to give Congress was a proposal in Edmund Randolph's original resolutions to give power to the Congress "in all cases to which the State Legislatures were individually incompetent". Some people felt that this phrasing was too vague, and could be used to take away just about any power from the States. Randolph again denied that was his intention. Madison for his part, remarked that
he had brought with him into the Convention a strong bias in favor of an enumeration and definition of the powers necessary to be exercised by the national Legislature; but had also brought doubts concerning its practicability....But he should shrink from nothing which should be found essential to such a form of Govt. as would provide for the safety, liberty and happiness of the community. This being the end of all our deliberations, all the necessary means for attaining it must, however reluctantly, be submitted to.
This was sufficient to convince the room; only Connecticut had any meaningful doubt over the provision. Meanwhile, although the original Virginia Plan contained a provision allowing the use of force against a "delinquent State", Madison, a key shaper of the plan, expressed his own doubts over the proviso and "hoped that such a system would be framed as might render this recourse unnecessary, and moved that the clause be postponed," which it was.

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