The Federalist Blog

commerce clause | constitution | General Welfare

How States & Nations Regulated their Commercial Intercourse
ByP.A. Madison June 30, 2011August 4, 2025
43 Comments

The United States Supreme Court tells us that its “case law firmly establishes Congress’s power to regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic ‘class of activities’ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” In a September 2009 press release, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asserted, “The Constitution gives Congress broad power to regulate activities that affect interstate commerce.” The question explored here is whether such “case law” or public assertions are supported in any way by…

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14th amendment | citizenship

Nothing Unusual about States Denying Citizenship to Alien Born Children
ByP.A. Madison January 12, 2011August 4, 2025
4 Comments

James Ho, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, repeats common misunderstandings over what “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” under the Fourteenth Amendment was declared to mean by its primary framers, the United States Attorney General and the Supreme Court, and concludes that any effort by States to refuse citizenship to children born to undocumented aliens to be unconstitutional. Ho never addresses what the primary framers declared the words to mean, but instead singles out a minor discussion between Senators Cowan and Conness…

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Religion

Was the United States Founded on Christian Religion?
ByP.A. Madison December 16, 2010July 30, 2011
5 Comments

I’m often asked if the United States as a nation was founded upon Christianity and the answer is clearly no because religion was not an object of concern delegated to national government by the member States who formed it. National government was formed with very few and limited objects such as war, uniform bankruptcy laws, foreign commerce, etc. All other imaginable concerns dealing with everyday domestic affairs of the people remained with the people themselves within their individual and independent States. A…

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constitution | immigration

How to End Humiliating TSA Screening & Patdowns: Profile
ByP.A. Madison November 22, 2010July 30, 2011
9 Comments

I’m afraid overbearing domestic airport security is really not about serious domestic threats to airline safety but more about modern liberal political correctness that says profiling is wrong. Because profiling would be considered a greater tragedy then what occurred on 9/11 by Civil and Human Rights Activists, everyone is left to equally endure the humiliation of full-body screening and painful boarding delays. President Obama has stated the government’s case as: At this point, the Transportation Security Administration, in consultation with our counter-terrorism…

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1st amendment | Religion

Misunderstanding Jefferson’s ‘wall of separation’ metaphor
ByP.A. Madison November 19, 2010June 12, 2012
11 Comments

Not intending to revisit what has already been written following the Coons/O’Donnell Senate debate over church and state under the First Amendment, I do though want correct an erroneous assertion that Jefferson’s use of the phrase “wall of separation between Church & State” is somehow improper or erroneous. The fact is there is nothing wrong with Jefferson referring to the Establishment Clause as a wall between church and state in his famous Danbury Baptists letter. Jefferson was simply describing in a colorful…

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constitution

Is it Constitutional to Recall a U.S. Senator?
ByP.A. Madison November 18, 2010July 25, 2011

The New Jersey Committee to Recall Robert Menendez v. Nina Wells addressed the question whether it is proper to recall a siting U.S. Senator by holding: The matter is ripe for adjudication and the text and history of the Federal Constitution, as well as the principles of the democratic system it created, do not allow the states the power to recall U.S. Senators. Those portions of the UREL and the State Constitution which authorize the recall of U.S. Senators are unconstitutional. Personally…

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2nd amendment

Second Amendment Fallacies
ByP.A. Madison September 28, 2010June 28, 2017
107 Comments

Summary: The Second Amendment served as an important declaration that said armed citizen militias were preferred over standing armies during times of peace. I wanted to take the opportunity today to add some late commentary over the recent court holding in McDonald v. Chicago that extended the protection of an “individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia” against state infringement which had been an open question since the earlier gun case of District of Columbia v. Heller….

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immigration

City of Hazleton, Immigration and the Tenth Amendment
ByP.A. Madison September 10, 2010September 27, 2011
7 Comments

Yesterday the Third Circuit ruled against the City of Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance, which set out to fine landlords who rented to undocumented immigrants and would have penalized companies that employed them. Additionally, tenants would have had to show proof they were citizens or lawful residents, register with the city and pay for a rental permit in order to receive an occupancy permit. Chief Judge Theodore McKee of the appeals court wrote in a 188-page decision: Deciding which aliens may…

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gay rights

Proof Marriage not Protected Under the Fourteenth Amendment
ByP.A. Madison August 13, 2010September 28, 2011
7 Comments

Need proof the 39th Congress who debated and adopted the Fourteenth Amendment did not consider State laws of marriage to come under the amendment? Former rebel States under Reconstruction were required to frame new constitutions and have State statutes that conformed to the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. Constitutions and questionable laws had to first receive approval of the House and Senate before any of the former rebel States could be restored. This included lengthy floor debates over each States new Constitution…

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14th amendment | gay rights

California’s Same Sex Marriage Ruling Flawed
ByP.A. Madison August 5, 2010June 26, 2013
68 Comments

Yesterday in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker enjoined California’s Proposition 8 from being enforced on the grounds California has a “constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis.” Judge Walker finds California’s anti-SSM law violates both the Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses under the Fourteenth Amendment. Here are some of my quick preliminary thoughts on the ruling. One difficulty with the Due Process route is that it requires treating marriage as a fundamental…

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