Who is this "Martin Luther King" and why does he have his day off today?

[MichaeltheGreat]

The US is a dual sovereignty system. Each state that voted to ratify in the first place was an independent sovereign entity, and they never fully relinquished that sovereignty. And a "state" can't be a traitor, or in rebellion. That concept wasn't embodied in the Constitution. The original Articles of Confederation were even more slanted toward state sovereignty, but to the extreme that the federal government was virtually powerless to do anything. It's more clear if you read the original language - for example, federal appointments requiring confirmation only by the Senate, foreign treaties requiring Senate ratification, but with the original system where senators were elected by the state legislatures (especially when states often had more restrictive voting franchise laws than the federal standard for electing Representatives), with each state having the same number of senators (and thus equal representation in the part of Congress that most constrained federal power) States also had their own laws of treason against the state, wholly independent of the federal notion of treason. States at the time viewed themselves as fully sovereign, indpendent entities who were agreeing to a limited and constrained sort of superalliance with their neighboring independent sovereign states. There's nothing in the record that indicated any broad acceptance of the modern view that a state is a just a subdivision government entity analogous to a county within a state. Even the most ardent federalists stopped short of that position.

[Hauldren Collider]

Most people still stop short of that position, at least nominally. The Republican Party has seen a resurgence of the view that states are fully sovereign, particularly the new crop of governors that were elected between 2009 and 2011.

[regexcellent]

States also had their own laws of treason against the state, wholly independent of the federal notion of treason.

They still do, but those laws are used about as often as the federal treason charge(never).

States at the time viewed themselves as fully sovereign, indpendent entities who were agreeing to a limited and constrained sort of superalliance with their neighboring independent sovereign states. There's nothing in the record that indicated any broad acceptance of the modern view that a state is a just a subdivision government entity analogous to a county within a state. Even the most ardent federalists stopped short of that position.

Anyone with any knowledge of our government knows that states don't operate w.r.t federal government anything like counties do to their respective states. States are unitary governments which have absolute power to decide what counties can do, while the federal government is highly limited in what it can tell the states to do. You presumably know this though, so this is really for the benefit of the euros.

The big thing that's changed since the Constitution was ratified was the 14th amendment. Prior to that the states were pretty much free to do what they want and weren't constrained by the federal bill of rights.

[kentonio]

The US is a dual sovereignty system. Each state that voted to ratify in the first place was an independent sovereign entity, and they never fully relinquished that sovereignty. And a "state" can't be a traitor, or in rebellion.

Abe Lincoln disagrees.

Most people still stop short of that position, at least nominally. The Republican Party has seen a resurgence of the view that states are fully sovereign, particularly the new crop of governors that were elected between 2009 and 2011.

Who gives a toss what some governors think?

Anyone with any knowledge of our government knows that states don't operate w.r.t federal government anything like counties do to their respective states. States are unitary governments which have absolute power to decide what counties can do, while the federal government is highly limited in what it can tell the states to do.

Yeah? How are those state legalized marijuana laws working out for you. :P

[Hauldren Collider]

Who gives a toss what some governors think?

Governors have a lot of power, Kentonio. Their opinion matters. The states can still do a hell of a lot to limit the authority of the federal government. That, combined with the fact that state legislatures are almost uniformly more popular than congress means they can score a lot of political points by doing what the federal government won't. And it's not just conservatives. We saw this with Cuomo in New York with gun control.

[kentonio]

Governors have a lot of power, Kentonio. Their opinion matters. The states can still do a hell of a lot to limit the authority of the federal government. That, combined with the fact that state legislatures are almost uniformly more popular than congress means they can score a lot of political points by doing what the federal government won't. And it's not just conservatives. We saw this with Cuomo in New York with gun control.

Being more popular than congress is like being more trusted than Bernie Madoff. A governor might have a fair bit of power, but not enough to redefine the relationship between the federal government and the states. That's just blind optimism on their (and your) part.

[regexcellent]

Governors are typically more powerful than senators.

There is an innumerable list of things that states have control over that the federal government doesn't. Basic crimes, education, law enforcement, transportation, local government, public safety, licensing of drivers, licensing of businesses, zoning...I couldn't hope to name them all here. Almost all of the things that government does which affect people directly are on a state or local level. And local government gets all of its power from the state; it usually has its powers directly written into the state constitution or delegated by the legislature.

[MrFun]

Waco, Texas, 1916. A possibly illiterate, possibly retarded black teenager was accused of raping and killing a white woman who was the wife of a prominent cotton farmer. He worked on the farm, so he had the opportunity, but there were no witnesses. The sheriff arrested him, and initially, to protect him, had him in custody in Dallas for about a week, after he "confessed." The locals didn't like that much, so the sheriff brought him back from Dallas, and they had an hour long trial (at which he supposedly pled guilty), then the jury took four minutes to reach a verdict and the judge immediately sentenced him to death. The lynch mob was already waiting, and they even had a photographer on site who wanted to make commemorative postcards and sell them. Folks in Waco thought it was a grand old thing (burning was actually pretty common in lynchings, pre or post mortem), but it got a lot of other kinds of attention elsewhere in the country and was one of the first issues where the NAACP had a prominent role.

Since the city officials and sheriff and his deputies watched and did nothing, and it was pre-planned (not much time to get set up in an hour long trial, it holds a special place in the history of American lynchings in the south, since it's sort of at the intersection of a mob lynching with a judicial execution.

I have a photograph collection book called "Without Sanctuary." It's a collection of photos of lynchings in America.

[Hauldren Collider]

The Supreme Court healthcare decision was a huge transfer of power back to the states. There is now a factual test as to whether a government mandate creates undue burden on the power of the states.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Abe Lincoln disagrees.

He was wrong.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I have a photograph collection book called "Without Sanctuary." It's a collection of photos of lynchings in America.

It's a good reference to parts of our history that shouldn't be whitewashed or forgotten, although they do lump in extrajudicial lynchings of murder suspects, etc., with plain ol' domestic terrorism racially motivated lynchings. They're really two separate things, and I think it dilutes the effect.

[Dr Strangelove]

Actually I thought that Abe Lincoln was fighting aggressors who fired on Federal troops and took US property.

[Lancer]

Ha! What say you to those points MtG? Ft Sumter was blockading, wasn't it?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Actually I thought that Abe Lincoln was fighting aggressors who fired on Federal troops and took US property.

Federal troops who were trespassing and attempting an armed resupply of their position.

[Dinner]

How can they be trespassing on Federally owned land?