Federal Intervention Quotes
The 10th Amendment reserves powers to the states and limits the Federal Government’s powers. However, there are other clauses in the Constitution, like the Commerce Clause (Article I Section 8), which gives the Federal Government authority and control over Interstate Commerce, which in modern society permeates almost all activities of State government, The result is that the federal government / state government power division has been a political issue and not really a constitutional one. At the time Republicans advocated a literal 10th Amendment interpretation and the Democrats favored a stronger Federal Government with more authority and power as stated by the Commerce Clause. Roy had been trying to explain to his fellow Republican strategists that it is hard to attract Blacks to the remainder to the Republican Platform as long as they were insensitive to what the 10th Amendment meant to Blacks historically. The Southern states cited the 10th Amendment more than any other part of the constitution to justify their right to maintain slavery. It was the Federal Government that ended slavery. Under the rubric of the 10th Amendment the South managed to get rid of most of the racial civil rights Reconstruction reforms that were imposed by the Federal Government on the Southern States. And it was the 19th Amendment that was the authority for Segregation for 100 years. And the terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan and the lynching and terror imposed on Blacks by Southern states claiming the 10th Amendment right to do so. Finally, it was the Federal Government, overriding the 10th Amendment with the Commerce Clause and other parts of the Constitution that passed and enforced the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Desegregation and the end to Lynching and other Southern State-Sponsored terrorism. Blacks will not any time soon accede to having the 10th Amendment literal view of the role of government and if Republicans insist on that there would continue to be very few Black Republicans,
In February of 1861, in a last ditch effort to hold the Union together the Senator offered this proposed Constitutional amendment which would not only guarantee the existence of slavery in the South, but would assure that there could be no later Constitutional amendment to do so—the so-called "unamendable amendment." Surprising to us today is the fact that this amendment was not only supported by incoming President Abraham Lincoln, but was passed by the required two-thirds of both houses of Congress. However, before it could be ratified by the States, events overtook the amendment, the South seceded, and the Civil War began.
In addition, most state and local corrupt officials are detected, and prosecuted by Federal law enforcement officials as local and sometimes state corruption involves the local and state law enforcement officials as well as others so local authorities often turn a blind eye towards corruption.
