Bill Text: MO HCR28 | 2010 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Establishes this State's position on the power and limits of the federal government
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2010-05-14 - Referred: Special Standing Committee on General Laws (H) [HCR28 Detail]
Download: Missouri-2010-HCR28-Introduced.html
SECOND REGULAR SESSION
House Concurrent Resolution No. 28
95TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVES COX (Sponsor), NANCE, FISHER (125), CUNNINGHAM, GUERNSEY, FUNDERBURK, ERVIN, THOMSON, SMITH (150), PRATT, WILSON (130), JONES (89), GRISAMORE, DAY, McGHEE, SANDER, SCHAD, BURLISON, RUESTMAN, DIECKHAUS, NOLTE, FLANIGAN AND GATSCHENBERGER (Co-sponsors).
Now, therefore, be it resolved by the members of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-fifth General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the Senate concurring therein, that the several States composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government - the federal government - but that by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto they constituted a general government for special purposes; and
Be it further resolved that to this compact each State acceded as a State and delegated to that general government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self government; and
Be it further resolved that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution defines and limits the powers delegated to the Congress as follows:
(1) To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
(2) To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
(3) To regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
(4) To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
(5) To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
(6) To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
(7) To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
(8) To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
(9) To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
(10) To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
(11) To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
(12) To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
(13) To provide and maintain a Navy;
(14) To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
(15) To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel Invasions;
(16) To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
(17) To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; and
(18) To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department of Officer thereof; and
Be it further resolved that Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment delegates to Congress the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of the Amendment, namely: that all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside; that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and that no State shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws; and
Be it further resolved that according to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people; and
Be it further resolved that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; and
Be it further resolved that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself - since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers - but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress; and
Be it further resolved that the principle that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it stops nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their power; and
Be it further resolved that in the cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the general government being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy; and
Be it further resolved that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits; that without this right, they would be under dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them; and
Be it further resolved that the Chief Clerk of the Missouri House of Representatives be instructed to prepare properly inscribed copies of this resolution for each member of the Missouri Congressional delegation.
