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The United States Constitution offers a limited safe harbor for conscience, particularly from being coerced in matters of belief and expression. State constitutions may offer other protections, and federal and state statutory law and regulations may offer still more.
- Dwight G. Duncan
- 2007
- I. Introduction: The Evolution of Federal Coercion
- II. Federal Coercion During The Confederation and at The Founding
- III. Federal Coercion in The Pre-Civil War Era
“Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?” 1asked Abraham Lincoln following the outbreak of the American Civil War. The Republican President was faced with a constitutional dilemma as the states of the Deep South, one after another, seceded from the Union: could t...
1 Need for Federal Coercion: Articles of Confederation and the Inadequacy of Congressional Requisitions
Following the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the 13 original American states set up a continental union, governed by the Articles of Confederation. The constituent states of this “firm league of friendship” 6 retained the traditional attributes of sovereignty, 7 the Continental Congress resembling “an international assembly of ambassadors” with no formal power to make law binding on state courts. 8 Moreover, the Continental Congress had no power of taxation over individuals, and it lack...
1 Federal Coercion in the Early Republic
Following the adoption of the Constitution, the establishment of the new national government implied far-reaching change. The Constitution challenged the received wisdom of the time, namely that republicanism could only function in small communities. 94 Although the Revolution had consolidated nationalist ideals, American identity–to the extent it existed–was not necessarily assimilated with the national government. 95 Moreover, the new constitutional order was characterized by the framers’ e...
2 South Carolina Nullification Crisis and the Threat of Federal Coercion
The reasons underlying the Nullification Crisis of 1832-1833 merit to be briefly outlined before the question of federal coercion is addressed in its context. The nullification debate arose from a protective external tariff imposed by Congress. American manufacturers had benefited from substantial domestic demand in the early 1800s, due to the disruptions in foreign commerce as a result of the War of 1812 against Great Britain as well as the contemporary Napoleonic Wars in Europe. 137 As thes...
3 Secession and Federal Coercion
For the discussion on federal coercion and secession, it is again helpful to sketch an outline of the historical context. The root cause for southern secession and the ensuing Civil War was slavery. While the Union had been divided for a long time into slaveholding and “free” states, the constitutional status of slavery in the federal territories – and the fear of its spread to free states – was an important question for the development of the armed conflict between the North and the South. 1...
- Pekka Pohjankoski
- 2016
First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Put simply, both commandeering and coercive conditional spending transfer control of state governments from their electoral constituencies to Congress. This is constitutionally problematic because the representational relationship between states and their constituencies is a crucial element of the American constitutional structure.
Jul 23, 2022 · Coercive federalism is a period of American federalism that began in the late 1960's. It is characterized by substantial growth in the power of the federal government relative to the states and by the ability of the federal government to override state powers and impose policies on the states.
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Jul 3, 2019 · The doctrine of states’ rights holds that the federal government is barred from interfering with certain rights “reserved” to the individual states by the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
