quote:
Originally posted by geoschmo:
We stopped being a federation of States when the constitution was signed.
I have to disagree with that one, strongly. We stopped being a federation of States in a slow, leak process, as the Federal government slowly took over more and more powers from the States and the people--powers that are supposedly reserved to the States and the People in the 9th and 10th Amendments to said Constitution.
These are the two Amendments that most courts seem to ignore.
While I'll agree the leak process began at the signing of the Constitution, it's taken quite a while, and there have been major bursts of activity driving us toward a single Union: the Depression and the New Deal which was implemented for the express purpose of getting us out of said Depression (and subsequently didn't work); before that certain policies instituted under Wilson, and before that Reconstruction. By the time we got to the Lyndon Johnson administration, the leak process was mostly finished and even Republicans pretty much accepted that there were no longer such things as "States" except in a few areas such as education.
The LBJ administration eliminated "States" as far as education goes. And so forth.
(OK, why is rambling about silly political ideologies of the past soothing to me?
)
Eric