Quote:
Originally Posted by wodin
One of the ways the USA differs from Europe and much of the rest of the world is that the US has an extra layer of Government. The United States of America is exactly that, a[...] federation of Governmental entities called States, which theoretically have the sovereignty of an independent nation but who have united together for certain functions like the common defense and interstate commerce.
[GREAT BIG SNIP]
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Indeed, some of the individual states retain (by treaty) some of the rights they had as independent nations. For example, Texas has the right to maintain its own Navy, to carry out foreign policy separately from the rest of the US, and the right to split into 3 states (thus winding up with 6 Senators instead of 2) should they choose to do so.
Or maybe that should be "had the right," as I'm not sure whether those rights survived the US Civil War. They certainly had those rights when they joined the Union, though.
The Texas Navy certainly survived the Civil War, and is er... quite real (for certain values of "real"). It has one ship (The U.S.S. Texas -- a WWI battleship decommissioned from the US Navy and permanently docked), a very few enlisted men, and a whole bunch of Admirals! For a long time now the only thing the Texas Navy has been used for is as a way to recognize native sons who have done well in life, by having the Governor appoint them to the position of "Admiral of the Texas Navy."
I seem to recall that a few other states have (or had) various treaty terms left over from when they joined up. California springs to mind, but I can't remember what (if any) odd-ball treaty provisions still survive there. But I digress.
Anyway, in theory relatively local issues like basic law-and-order are left to the states or to counties/cities/etc.; the Federal government deals only with a small set of national issues like common defense and interstate commerce. For example, there are no Federal laws against murder -- that's entirely an issue for the individual states.
This changed during the great depression -- FDR was quite upset that most of the legislation from his first 90 days was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. So he informed the justices that he was asking the Congress to pass similar bills again, and that if the Supremes struck them down again, he'd just appoint enough additional Supreme Court Justices to outvote the existing members of the court. (The number of Supreme Court justices is
not specified in the Constitution, although the manner of their selection
is specified.) For some odd reason, the Supremes didn't strike the bills down the second time 'round.
Instead, they discovered that nearly every human activity has an impact on interstate commerce and that as a result the "commerce clause" of the Constitution can be invoked to allow the Federal government to legislate on whatever topics they like. [Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depends on the viewpoint and political outlook of the reader...]
Anyway, nowadays the Federal government has its fingers in nearly every pie, without regard to little details like the enumerated powers of the constitution.
Xenophon
(Sorry about wandering all over the map in the above...)