> the founding generation thought The thoughts of the founding generation do not determine constitutionality, though with regard to the ratifying conventions t

> the founding generation thought The thoughts of the founding generation do not determine constitutionality, though with regard to the ratifying conventions they can inform our grasp of contemporary understanding of the document's meaning. In fact, the first few presidential administrations illustrate how fraught was their relation to the constitutional structure. > Federal law enforcement is clearly justified under the necessary and proper clause. It doesn't have to be justified in that way, because it's provided for in the document. One of the constitutional powers of Congress is "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions." You recommend that I imagine "the Department of Justice having to call upon the state militia to arrest a state's governor"; I have no difficulty doing so. Are there inconveniences attendant on that method of law enforcement? Of course, but my response is twofold: first, it's the "necessary and proper" clause, not the "convenient and desirable" clause. Not everything the federal government might find convenient and desirable lies within their power, because, second, the Constitution was written to make the exercise of federal power inconvenient in cases where it is in conflict with the will of the states. > There is no sovereignty without the ability to deploy violence to enforce it. You say this as though sovereignty were a uniquely federal phenomenon. Not only do the states hold a measure of sovereignty, but the ultimate sovereignty in the United States resides in the people, of whose power the state militias were intended to be an instrument. Both these loci of sovereignty are endangered by precisely the distortion of the constitutional order that you approve.