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Also in the constitution is the Interstate Commerce Clause, a loophole big enough to drive a country through. There's also the Fourteenth Amendment, which basic
by clock_tower 11y ago
Also in the constitution is the Interstate Commerce Clause, a loophole big enough to drive a country through. There's also the Fourteenth Amendment, which basically repeals federalism -- because federalism had proven itself unworkable.
("All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.")
The individual states are still allowed to administer themselves in uninteresting and uncontroversial areas, but they have no right to legalize dueling, or ban guns, or write their own marriage laws, or set up a state religion, or reorganize themselves as anti-clerical theocracies -- matters where a federal government would presumably let them do as they pleased. (See what I mean about parts of the federation coming to hate each other enough to go to war?)