The ‘Forces’ of Law

1990 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Waluchow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Important Distinction

In Law’s Empire, Ronald Dworkin introduces an important distinction between what he calls the ‘grounds’ and the ‘force’ of law. The former primarily interest Dworkin in LE and concern the “circumstances in which particular propositions of law should be taken to be sound or true.” (110) Propositions of law, we are told, are “all the various statements and claims people make about what the law allows or prohibits or entitles them to have.” (4) That Canadians owing income tax to the federal government must file their returns before April 30 or face a late penalty is presumably an example of a proposition of law. That the United States constitution prohibits slavery is another. These (true) propositions of law simply report the law’s (present) requirements, requirements which normally should be respected but which might justifiably be disobeyed or disregarded in exceptional cases. A true proposition of law, then, does not necessarily entail an answer to the question: What should I do, or decide (if called upon to render a judicial decision)? It also does not necessarily entail an answer to the question: Should the coercive power of the state be exercised against this person?

Inter-American Trade in the Early 1870s— A State Department Survey

1977 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 593-612 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Pletcher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
State Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
American Business ◽  
Permanent Cure ◽  
Centennial Celebrations ◽  
American Trade

A hundred years ago the United States had one of the worst depressions in its history. The disastrous drop in wages, prices, and output threw the mid-1870s into deep gloom and made the Centennial celebrations of 1876 seem to many persons no more than a bad joke. In subsequent years no one found a permanent cure for depressions, but during the late 1870s and 1880s a conviction developed that the Federal government must do more to aid American foreign trade. Thereafter the State Department cooperated increasingly with American business to expand the nation’s influence abroad.

scholarly journals The Commerce Clause From Expansion To Extortion

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Reville ◽  
William A. Bottiglieri
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Interstate Highway ◽  
Commerce Clause ◽  
Government Power ◽  
Indian Tribes ◽  
Tenth Amendment

The Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution gave the federal government power over foreign trade, trade with the Indian tribes and trade “among several states.”  By lack of further enumeration and the passage of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, it would be reasonable to conclude that commerce that is truly intrastate would, therefore, be within the regulatory province of the states.  In fact, that was the interpretation initially reached and subsequently followed by the United States Supreme Court.  But in 1942, that changed and, over the course of the following 60+ years, to date the Court has concluded, by an expansive interpretation of that federal power granted, that Congress and the federal government have virtually unbridled power to regulate not only those areas that would traditionally be considered “commerce” or “interstate commerce”, but, moreover, in areas that seemingly have nothing to do with commerce, interstate, or otherwise.  This paper will trace the journey that the justices have taken down this judicial interstate highway and the methods that the federal government has employed to achieve its objectives.  Hence, the subtitle of this paper:  From Expansion to Extortion.

scholarly journals THE BEACH EROSION BOARD

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Dabney O. Elliott
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coastal Engineering ◽  
The State ◽  
Beach Erosion ◽  
Corps Of Engineers ◽  
Navigation Channel ◽  
Indian River ◽  
Local Agencies

The purpose of this paper is to describe the methods by which, and the extent to which the Federal Government participates with local agencies in the control of beach erosion. The Beach Erosion Board of the Corps of Engineers is the instrumentality through which this participation is affected. However, before describing this Board, it is necessary to sketch very briefly the background of the beach erosion problem as viewed from the national standpoint. The necessity for the control of beach erosion by one means or another has no doubt been recognized from the beginning of the practice of coastal engineering in the United States. The early technical records of the Corps of Engineers contain numerous references to the mutual effects which navigation structures and the adjacent shorelines exert upon each other. As an example, chosen at random, I may mention the construction in 1874 of twelve stone groins along the shore of the State of Connecticut between Welshs Point and Indian River, and of a stone jetty at the mouth of that river in the following year, to stabilize the shoreline and to prevent the movement of sand into the navigation channel of that river.

Towards a Theory of Taxation

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-173
Author(s):  
J. R. Lucas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
District Of Columbia ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
State Governments ◽  
The Cost ◽  
George Iii

“Towards a Theory of Taxation” is a proper theme for an Englishman to take when giving a paper in America. After all it was from the absence of such a theory that the United States derived its existence. The Colonists felt strongly that there should be no taxation without representation, and George III was unable to explain to them convincingly why they should contribute to the cost of their defense. Since that time, understanding has not advanced much. In Britain we still maintain the fiction that taxes are a voluntary gift to the Crown, and taxing statutes are given the Royal Assent with the special formula, “La Reine remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult” instead of the simple “La Reine le veult,” and in the United States taxes have regularly been levied on residents of the District of Columbia who until recently had no representation in Congress, and by the State of New York on those who worked but did not reside in the State, and so did not have a vote. Taxes are regularly levied, in America as elsewhere, on those who have no say on whether they should be levied or how they should be spent. I am taxed by the Federal Government on my American earnings and by state governments on my American spending, but I should be hard put to it to make out that it was unjust. Florida is wondering whether to follow California in taxing multinational corporations on their world-wide earnings.

The Responsibility of the Federal Government for Violations of the Rights of Aliens

1914 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-80
Author(s):  
Nelson Gammans
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
American Flag

“The only government of this country, which other nations recognize or treat with, is the Government of the Union; and the only American flag known throughout the world is the flag of the United States.” The Government of the Union, as the only internationally recognized agent of the state, bears the responsibility for any violations of the rights which it owes to aliens, whether these rights are the result of treaty obligations or of international law.

Neo-Conservative Ideology and Opposition to Federal Regulation of Child Care Services in the United States and Canada

1993 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Teghtsoonian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Federal Regulation ◽  
Conservative Ideology ◽  
Care Services ◽  
Canadian Context ◽  
Child Care Services

AbstractThis article explores neo-conservative ideology in the industrialized West through a comparative analysis of the arguments advanced against a strong role for the federal government in regulating child care services in the United States and Canada. Existing analyses of neo-conservatism suggest that it is composed of many different elements which may lead to contradictory policy prescriptions; this literature also downplays the presence of a “pro-family” component in the Canadian context. The article illustrates the presence of an “anti-statist,” a “pro-market” and a “pro-family” strand of neo-conservatism in each country, and shows that they converge in opposing federal regulation of child care services. It also suggests that, while there appears to be a shared neo-conservative vision of the appropriate relationship between families and the state across national contexts, discussions of the state and its relationship to the market take on a distinctive tone in each country.

The Federal Common Law of Crime

1986 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Government ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Federal System ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
The People

The United States Constitution established a federal system, not a national government. States continued necessarily and by design as active and important centers of governmental activity. States were institutions of inherent authority, while the federal government by original intent and then explicitly by amendment, was a government of only delegated powers. Since the federal government derived its power directly from the people and acted directly on individuals, it was decisively more powerful than the pre-Constitution Confederation. But the Bill of Rights itself is evidence of the continued worry, pervasive until modified by the Reconstruction Amendments, that the federal government might, but should not, overwhelm the states.

Religious Liberty and the Founding Fathers

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-102
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Hollis ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The People

This essay traces the development of the idea of religious liberty from its origins among the "Commonwealthmen" in seventeenth-century England to its embodiment in the United States Constitution. The Commonwealthmen believed that the theory of natural law-natural rights guaranteed civil liberties, including religious liberty, and that these natural rights should be protected by the state. The Commonwealthmen also believed in a fundamental constitution derived from the people rather than the state, and the concept of individual sovereignty.

State and School Lands

2020 ◽  
pp. 247-252
Author(s):  
Danny M. Adkison ◽  
Lisa McNair Palmer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Public Lands ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Common Schools ◽  
School Lands

This chapter focuses on Article XI of the Oklahoma constitution, which concerns state and school lands. Section 1 provides for acceptance by the state of all grants of land and donations of money by the United States under the Enabling Act. In 1982, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that this section, when considered with the Enabling Act, is an irrevocable compact between the United States and Oklahoma for the benefit of the state’s schools. In accepting grants from the federal government to establish the permanent school fund, Section 2 requires that the fund may only be used for the benefit of Oklahoma common schools, and that the $5 million principal of the fund shall never be spent. The state is also required to reimburse the fund for all losses that may occur, and no portion of this fund is to be used for any other purpose. Meanwhile, Section 4 confers on the legislature exclusive power to set the rules and regulations for selling public lands granted to the state by Congress for charitable and other purposes.

scholarly journals Reassessing the Fair Tax

2016 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Santoro ◽  
Caleb S. Fuller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Ultimate Ownership ◽  
Optimal Tax ◽  
Austrian Tradition

In the United States, debates over the optimal tax-base have raged since the implementation of the income tax in 1913. Recently, the controversy has centered around the Fair Tax. Advocates of the Fair Tax contend that it will achieve two goals. First, they claim it will maintain revenue neutrality. Second, they claim it will tax only consumption rather than impinging on income and savings. In this paper, we use insights from the Austrian tradition of economics to question the desirability of the first claim and to question the feasibility of the second claim. We conclude that debates over taxation in general would be more fruitful if they returned to more fundamental issues—namely the quantity of resources over which the state possesses ultimate ownership.

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