One of the main points of contention between federalists and anti-federalists was the absence of a list of fundamental civil rights in the constitution. Many federalists argued, as in Federalist No. 84, that the people had not renounced their rights when the Constitution was adopted. In several States, however, the ratification debate in some States depended on the adoption of a bill of rights. The solution became known as the Massachusetts Compromise, in which four states ratified the Constitution but at the same time sent recommendations for amendments to Congress. When the Constitution was submitted to the States for ratification after the Constitutional Convention, they would not approve it until citizens were guaranteed specific rights deriving from the fundamental values on which the country was founded. While I am correct about the pre-emption test of the priority clause, in some cases, the application of this test requires the courts to interpret the relevant federal statutes in order to identify all the statutes that establish those statutes. This is a more controversial project than non-lawyers might assume. Federal laws are often understood to imply certain things that they do not say at first glance, and legal guidelines that are implicitly established may be just as valid as other legal guidelines. However, different judges have different views on the circumstances in which courts may correctly interpret things in federal statutes (and perhaps the extent to which courts may correctly formulate subsidiary rules to implement those laws). Competing schools of thought include an approach called “textualism” and another called “purposivism.” The constitution also appeals to followers of all visions. The preamble talks about “We the people of the United States.” The U is capitalized, and it looks like a single national corporation — until you dig deeper and learn that the original draft listed the thirteen states (“We, the people of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations.”) with the list ultimately for style and to avoid embarrassment when some states rejected the Constitution (as Rhode Island originally did). Federalists, on the other hand, may point out that the Constitution still treats the term “United States” as a plural noun.
The founders also established a procedure by which the constitution can be amended, and since its ratification, the constitution has been amended 27 times. In order to avoid arbitrary changes, the amendment procedure is quite complex. An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress or, if two-thirds of the States so request, by a convention convened for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-quarters of the state legislators or three-quarters of the conventions requested in each state. In modern times, changes have traditionally set a timetable within which this must be achieved, usually a period of several years. In addition, the Constitution provides that no amendment may deny a State equal representation in the Senate without the consent of that State. I came across the phrase “the constitutional law of the land.” What is it exactly? Hello love the true value of our Constitution. It is the supreme law of the land. God bless us all Everyone can point to some support in the revered figures of history and our founding documents. Abraham Lincoln, in the Gettysburg Address, dated the birth of the nation to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence, not 1788 and the Constitution. He always maintained that the nation preceded the states, writing to Congress in 1861: “The Union is prior to all states, and indeed it created them as states.” Much of the debate, which was conducted in secret to ensure that delegates expressed their opinions, focused on what form the new Parliament would take. Two plans are competing to become the new government: the Virginia plan, which divides representation based on each state`s population, and the New Jersey plan, which gives each state an equal vote in Congress.
The Virginia Plan was supported by the larger states, and the New Jersey Plan was favored by the smaller ones. In the end, they agreed on the Great Compromise (sometimes called the Connecticut Compromise), in which the House of Representatives would divide the people by population; the Senate would represent the divided states equally; and the president would be elected by the Electoral College. The plan also provided for an independent judiciary. Once the details and wording of the Constitution had been established, the Convention proceeded to put the Constitution on paper. It is written in the hands of a Pennsylvania delegate, Governor Morris, whose work gave him some control over the actual punctuation of certain clauses of the Constitution. It is also attributed the famous preamble quoted at the top of this page. On September 17, 1787, 39 of the 55 delegates signed the new document, many of those who refused to sign objecting to the absence of a bill of rights. At least one delegate refused to sign because the constitution codified and protected slavery and the slave trade. I do not think that the primacy clause itself forces this understanding of the preventive effect of federal laws. In my view, the fact that valid federal laws are “the supreme law of the land” and that “the judges of each state are bound by it” means that the judges of each state must follow all legal guidelines that are valid in those laws. In all cases where compliance with any aspect of state law would require non-compliance with a statutory directive validly provided for by a federal statute, judges should conclude that state law is anticipated; If judges have to choose between the application of Land law and the application of a statutory directive validly issued by a federal law, the primacy clause gives priority to federal law. But as long as state law doesn`t contradict federal law in that sense (so judges must decide which one to follow), nothing in the primacy clause prevents judges from following both.
History gives us some kind of answer. It shows a steady flow of power from the states to the federal government – episodic and generally against at least temporary resistance from the Supreme Court, but consistently. This happens as a result of constitutional amendments – notably the Reconstruction Amendments (the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth), which gave new powers to the federal government and imposed new limits on the states, but also the changes of the Progressive era (the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth). And this happens as a result of the Supreme Court`s approval of expansive demands from the ruling Congress, as happened during the New Deal era and also in the Warren Court era. Just as television coverage of breaking news can “anticipate” programs that would otherwise be broadcast, existing federal laws can anticipate state laws that would otherwise apply. This is a consequence of the primacy clause that makes valid federal laws part of the “supreme law of the state” and states that “the judges of each state shall be bound by it, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Constitution or the laws of any state.” But what exactly does it mean to say that federal laws are “paramount” over state law? Under what circumstances does the priority clause require judges to disregard the law of an otherwise applicable state because it violates federal law? The Constitution of the United States calls itself the “supreme law of the land.” This clause is understood to mean that if constitutions or laws passed by state legislatures or the National Congress are contrary to the federal constitution, they have no force. Supreme Court decisions over two centuries have confirmed and strengthened this doctrine of constitutional primacy. In modern times, the Supreme Court has recognized various ways in which federal laws can replace or “anticipate” state law. Some federal laws contain explicit “preemption clauses” that prohibit states from enacting or enforcing certain types of laws. Other federal laws have been interpreted as implicitly depriving states of their legislative authority in a particular area. But even if a federal law does not contain an explicit preemption clause, and even if the law does not implicitly occupy an entire domain to the exclusion of state law, the guidelines that the law actually establishes still supersede any conflicting guidelines that the law of a single state might claim to provide. As the highest court in the United States, the Supreme Court has the power to revoke a federal law passed by Congress if it is found to be unconstitutional, showing that the Constitution actually rules over the rest of the government.
There is something to be said about a document that has been valid for more than two hundred years. The concept of a “supreme law in the land” is impressive. The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a speedy trial by a peer jury, to be informed of the crimes of which they are charged, and to confront witnesses brought in by the government.
