The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

A loophole big enough for a battleship


Daniel Webster made a speech in the House denouncing Madison and the Democrats both for starting the war of 1812 and for seeking to draft people to fight it, in December of 1814.

He declaimed drafting people to fight an offensive war unnecessary to the defense of their liberties, their country, their homes, or their families was unconstitutional.

He thus left open the possibility that a draft for a war to serve the nation’s vital interests could be constitutional.

And that makes one wonder what he thought of all those Brit troops who had invaded America and burned Washington DC to the ground.

Anyway, who has not heard of Cap Weinberger’s stunning declaration that there is no place so remote or insignificant in all the world that the US does not have vital interests there?

Who is not aware that the supporters of Mr. Wilson's war insisted America had to fight to make the world safe for democracy?

Or that, according to FDR's supporters, Hitler was out to conquer the whole world, America included, just as the Kaiser had been?

Or that, without America's cold war efforts, communism after WW2 (but apparently not after WW1) was a serious threat to overtake the whole world with Stalin-like tyranny, us included?

Madison, by the way, left Webster undisturbed, so far as I know.

Lincoln would not be so mild toward Clement Vallandigham.

Interestingly, Daniel Webster in his speech of 1814 rejecting the constitutionality of the draft directly addressed the claim that the bare necessity of the thing made it constitutional because the congress and the government in general had to be thought of as endowed with the power to do anything necessary to the achievement of its legitimate, constitutionally prescribed or allowed ends.

And he denounced that idea as Tommyrot.

He flat denied the power of the congress to raise armies, in particular and for example, entailed the power to do anything necessary to raise armies adequate to their admittedly constitutionally authorized purposes.

Yes, at the cost of losing.

What do you think of that?

Wouldn't you think that a claim that congress has so awful a power, so terrible in its impact on the people, on  individuals and on families, could and should be backed by some shred of text?

Surely Webster was right this is far too heavy a weight for the necessary and proper clause to carry?

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