Consistency is Key - How Hamilton freed President Trump

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Posted on 11/27/2024 3:09:25 PM PST by TBP

Believe it or not, there are very few things new in politics today. Redefining terms for the sake of political expediency has been happening since the very birth of our Nation. Our very founders even flipped flopped on the meaning of phrases when the political expediency called for them to revise, or be restrained by their own words. This article will look at the snowball effect that this action had when Alexander Hamilton flip flopped on the meaning of "necessary and proper".

Over the last few months, Donald Trump has been liberated from prosecution thanks to the Supreme Court's decision on "Immunity" in the TRUMP v. UNITED STATES (2024) case. Just this week the case regarding January 6th was dropped by the Federal Prosecutor specifically because of the decision that the Supreme Court levied. The entire SCOTUS case was focused on the phrase "necessary and proper" and what that means.

So, what does this "necessary and proper" clause actually mean!?

If Antonin Scalia taught me anything, he taught me that it doesn't matter what a phrase means now, so much as it matters what the common citizen understood it to mean, when the phrase became actual law. Remember, we the people ratified the Constitution, and we did that with the understanding of the Constitution at that time.

This is where the deceptiveness of Alexander Hamilton came to play.

There was a lot of concern over the meaning of that phrase even in 1787 - 1791. In an attempt to sooth concerns of the people of New York, Alexander Hamilton wrote Federalist Paper #33 explicitly to address this clause, as well as the supremacy clause. This is how he sold the phrase to American's that ratified the Constitution: "They are only declaratory of a truth, which would have resulted by necessary and unavoidable implication from the very act of constituting a Fœderal Government, and vesting it with certain specified powers" Hamilton made it clear that it was regarding things that are "unavoidably" required to execute specific powers. In this case, it was the United States Congress ability to actually legislate. "What is a power, but the ability or faculty of doing a thing? What is the ability to do a thing but the power of employing the means necessary to its execution? What is a LEGISLATIVE power but a power of making LAWS? What are the means to execute a LEGISLATIVE power but LAWS? What is the power of laying and collecting taxes but a legislative power, or a power of making laws, to lay and collect taxes? What are the proper means of executing such a power but necessary and proper laws?" For the record, I didn't add those capitalizations or italics, Hamilton did. I added the bold.

Hamilton was making the sales pitch to the voters of NY that the clause referred ONLY to things required to execute a specific power. This simple train of enquiry furnishes us at once with a test by which to judge of the true nature of the clause complained of. It conducts us to this palpable truth, that a power to lay and collect taxes must be a power to pass all laws necessary and proper for the execution of that power Hamilton doubled down on it's limitations: And it is expressly to execute these powers, that the sweeping clause, as it has been affectedly called, authorises the national legislature to pass all necessary and proper laws. Again, the italicized text is Hamilton's, not mine. The clause was expressly declared, not sweeping in it's meaning. You can clearly see him mocking the notion that it was sweeping or a matter of convenience.

Then George Washington selected Alexander Hamilton to become the Secretary of the Treasury, and Hamilton wanted a National Bank. Now, Hamilton is in power, and he does not like the limitation of the clause as it had been ratified.

On February 17th, 1791 Hamilton writes the "Draft of an Opinion on the Constitutionality of an Act to Establish a Bank".

He complains about Thomas Jefferson's adherence to the ratified law, as it was sold to the American people: The Secretary of State has annexed a more strict sense to the word necessary which he considers as restricting the government to the employment of those means without which “the power would be nugatory.” Now, Hamilton wanted broader power, not originally granted by "We The People"

So, he set about redefining the clause from what he sold it as originally. the word necessary as equivalent , to requisite or needful or conducive And again: It would not signify, that it it is essential, or indispensable or absolutely requisite; or a thing without which she could not exist or prosper as a nation. Now he is making the claim that necessary doesn't mean necessary, because often time people use it to mean "convenient".

I know that was a lot to digest, but it's important to see what happened.

The Supreme Court case most cited in Trump v United States was the most famous case regarding the "necessary and proper" clause. None other than McCulloch v. Maryland (1819).

This case is significant because it was her that the legal definition of "necessary and proper" was changed.

Chief Justice Marshal wrote that "necessary" does not mean "absolutely essential" but rather includes actions that are "convenient" and "appropriate" to carrying out enumerated powers.

This was the precedent that the court used to decide if immunity was "necessary and proper".

They didn't apply what Jefferson, or Hamilton originally sold the term to the States to mean, but instead took the revised meaning from McCulloch v Maryland.

Hamilton's flip flop on the phrase set Donald Trump free.

The irony here is that it was Hamilton himself, in Federalist #69 that made it clear that once leaving office, the President was liable for prosecution for his actions while in. The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware. Justice Clarence Thomas recognized this fact, but applied the revised necessary and proper clause to override this component.

The more interesting thing is that for all of our history, that clause only applied to powers "expressly" granted to Congress. In the Trump v United States case, the Supreme Court gave it self powers (an act not granted in the Constitution), to grant powers, not "expressly" specified in the Constitution, to the Executive Branch through a clause that had only applied to the Legislature.

There are very few things new in politics today. Redefining terms, to usurp powers not ratified by "We the People", is as old as our Nation itself is. Even the very men that secured the liberties we enjoy today, partook in this act.

Words mean things, and we need to be careful that we do not redefine things for the sake of political expediency, as it will more often than not lead to more power taken from us, and given to the Government.

"Politics is the science of fraud." - Richard Henry Lee

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Hamilton's flip flop, accepted by the Marshall court (in apparent contravention of the written language) kept the Democrats from being able to continue to go after President Trump.

1 posted on 11/27/2024 3:09:25 PM PST by TBP

To: TBP

2 posted on 11/27/2024 3:16:33 PM PST by cowboyusa (YESHUA IS KING OF AMERICA, AND HE WILL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM!)

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