Please interpret the constitution for me.?
I read alot of people on Yahoo jumping up and down about the Constitution so I wonder; what do you folks think about Article I, section 8, which says;
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;...
(It goes on...)
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
Gee, it sounds like the Congress cannot fund an army beyond two years, Is Congress just ignoring the Constitution or is this provision just "quaint" as Alberto Gonsalez likes to say?
Answers:
"Our nation's first revenue raising Act was "...in a certain sense a second Declaration of Independence; and by a coincidence which could not have been more striking or more significant, it was approved by President Washington on the fourth day of July, 1789." [See, Twenty Years of Congress, James G. Blaine, 1884, Vol. 1, page 185]
James Madison, in discussing this Act before Congress identified a fundamental principal concerning the power delegated to Congress to lay and collect taxes:
"...a national revenue must be obtained; but the system must be such a one, that, while it secures the object of revenue it shall not be oppressive to our constituents."
The Act went on to imposed taxes, not on Congress' constituents, but on specific "goods, wares, and merchandise, imported into the United States", and not one dime was raised under the Act by internal taxation! Internal taxes were frowned upon by the Founders, especially when a national revenue could be had by requiring foreigners to pay for the privilege of doing business on American soil!"
- John William Kurowski, Founder Of The American Constitutional Research Service Before the Committee on Ways and Means, United States House of Representatives, June 1995 ( http://usafoundingfathers.blogspot.com/2... )
The Founding Fathers were also generally opposed to a standing army. So from their words one could safely assume that it was their intent to restrict any funding for such an army to only a time period for which an army would be required to provide for the defense of the country during a war.
"It is remarkable, that even in the two States which seem to have meditated an interdiction of military establishments in time of peace, the mode of expression made use of is rather cautionary than prohibitory. It is not said, that standing armies SHALL NOT BE kept up, but that they OUGHT NOT to be kept up, in time of peace.
...
The legislature of the United States will be OBLIGED, by this provision, once at least in every two years, to deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force on foot; to come to a new resolution on the point; and to declare their sense of the matter, by a formal vote in the face of their constituents. They are not AT LIBERTY to vest in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #26 ( http://www.foundingfathers.info/federali... )
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and ... degeneracy of manners and of morals. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people." - James Madison
"A well regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country." - James Madison, 1st Annals of Congress, at 434, June 8th 1789.
"As the greatest danger to liberty is from large standing armies, it is best to prevent them by an effectual provision for a good militia." James Madison, notes of debates in the 1787 Federal Convention
"I am for government rigorously frugal and simple," and for retiring the national debt, eliminating a standing army and relying on the militia to safeguard internal security, and keeping the navy small, lest it drag the nation into "eternal wars…I am for free commerce with all nations; political connections with none." - Thomas Jefferson
"Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - Henry St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England
"standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil power." Virginia and Pennsylvania Constitutions
"Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
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"What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty." Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789.
"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." - George Washington
See also:
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0409a.asp...
http://www.bu.edu/rbarnett/original.htm...
http://notaxhike.net/founders.shtml...
It doesn't sound to me like it means that Congress can not maintain an army longer than two years. Only that the appropriation or budget has a limit of two years, at which time it is to be superseded by a new appropriation.
It means that at least every two years, the appropriation must be revisited.
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