New Hampshire legislation -- beginnings of a civil war or what?

[ITR_champion]

@Freddy_the_Pig

No, it’s on the New Hampshire Legislature web site. The resolution has been introduced by four members of the NH Legislature.

Perhaps the situation will be slightly more comprehensible if we mention the fact that New Hampshire has the largest legislature of any state, with something in the neighborhood of 400 members. With a size like that, it’s inevitable that some nuts manage to sneak in.

[ElvisL1ves]

NH attracts more than its share of this kind of whacko, with its “Live Free or Die” stuff and its now-obsolescent “Pledge”. The Free State Project foolishness hasn’t helped, either.

Anyway, it takes nothing to introduce a bill (in my state, you don’t even have to be a legislator). Getting it passed is another thing, and incomprehensible in this case.

Just another nutter, move along now, nothing to see.

[VarlosZ]

@Lumpy

Ok, I for one could use a basic constitutional law primer here. What laws does the federal Congress have the authority to make and enforce? What are they forbidden to legislate? Is it the case that most federal laws today rest on vastly expanded interpretations of an originally vague mandate (“interstate commerce”)?

Article 1 of the Constitution deals with the composition and powers of Congress. The Constitution itself is not a terribly long or difficult read, and IMO every American should give it a good once over at some point.

Anyway, the relevant part of the Article is Section 8:

@Article 1

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;–And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Sections 9 and 10 detail some things that Congress and the individual states may *not *do, which will be at least indirectly relevant to the questions in this thread. For now, I’m not going to pass judgement on whether the Congress (along with the national government in general) has overstepped its prescribed constitutional authority in the past 150 or so years.

[Public_Animal_No.9]

OK. So NH decides it’s had enough and leaves. Is that good, bad, or indifferent? Besides those driving to Maine, would anyone notice?

I’ve barely driven into NH myself, so I really can’t say much about it. Would NH’s cecession have any major impact on the rest of us?

[BrainGlutton]

Nullification never flew before the Civil War and it ain’t gonna fly now.

As for the Tenth Amendment, based on the case-law history it means very little. (And nobody really knows what the Ninth means.)

[Leaper]

@Public_Animal_No.9

OK. So NH decides it’s had enough and leaves. Is that good, bad, or indifferent? Besides those driving to Maine, would anyone notice?

I’ve barely driven into NH myself, so I really can’t say much about it. Would NH’s cecession have any major impact on the rest of us?

Well, the thing that’s worried folks most about it since the start is precedent. I’d say that’s probably the major one here too.