4 ms·
The federal government was quite limited for the vast majority of its history. It wasn't until the New Deal where the president and congress teamed up and threa
by c3534l 7y ago
The federal government was quite limited for the vast majority of its history. It wasn't until the New Deal where the president and congress teamed up and threatened to pack the court if they didn't play ball that the whole limited federal government, but strong state government thing became a relic of the past.
- wahern 7y agoPrecedent for New Deal decisions can be traced directly back to the Mann Act, which included all-encompassing language like "to aid or assist in obtaining transportation" and "to induce, entice, or compel". See https://archive.org/stream/283075-the-mann-act-1910/283075-the-mann-act-1910_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/283075-the-mann-act-1910/283075-t... Actually, IIRC you can go back further to the fugitive slave laws to find precedent where activities only incidental to interstate commerce were deemed to be reachable by Federal powers. I say this not to defend it, but to point out that the history is complicated. And that there's not a simple liberal vs conservative dichotomy. Historically conservatives have supported expansive morality and pro-business laws and liberals expansive social programs and protections going back a century before the New Deal, and each used precedent set by the other. (Small 'c' conservative and small 'l' liberal because linkages to particular parties and political interests gets messy quickly, especially the wider the window of time.)