Category Archives: Quotations Freedom

A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide …

A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound. James Madison
In 1787 at the constitutional convention, regarding a proposal that was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state.

In this country written constitutions were deemed essential to protect the rights …

In this country written constitutions were deemed essential to protect the rights and liberties of the people against the encroachments of power delegated to their governments, and the provisions of Magna Charta were incorporated into bills of rights, they were limitations upon all the powers of government, legislative as well as executive and judicial.

U.S. Supreme Court in Hurtado v. California 110 U.S. 516 (1884)

A federal appeals court Thursday overturned a Mesa, Ariz. man’s federal …

A federal appeals court Thursday overturned a Mesa, Ariz. man’sfederal conviction of possessing five machine guns. A three-judgepanel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of San Franciscoreversed the conviction, ruling that the congressional ban doesnot apply to homemade machine guns and their parts becausethey were never in the stream of commerce. The court ruled thatthere was neither a transfer nor sale of the weapons or their parts,so Congress did not have the power under the Commerce Clauseto regulate homemade guns crafted from scratch.

( 11/13/03 )