Martin Luther Quotes
For six years the senators are rendered totally and absolutely independent of their States, of whom they ought to be the representatives, without any bond or tie between them: During that time they may join in measures ruinous and destructive to their States, even such as should totally annihilate their State governments, and their States cannot recall them, nor exercise any controul over them.
Martin and other anti-Federalists argued against ratifying the new Constitution as they thought that it was inimical to the state’s interest. The notion of Federalism as a danger to states is clearly stated in this quotation for the debate on Constitutional ratification. Fundamentally, are Senators representatives of their states or of the Federal Government. If the former, who can the senators be recalled or impeached by the states to who the presumably owe their loyalty? This issue, like so many others, was compromised. The States would control the selection and method of selection of the Senators but could not recall or impeach. Looking back, we see this as logically inconsistent. However, looking at it as a political compromise between two legitimate points of view, it seems quite reasonable. Early America was a combination of idealism and pragmatism which has carried throughout American history.
Martin Luther, 1748-1826, Maryland Attorney General, Maryland Delegate to the Constitutional Convention (Left before it ended.), Genuine Information, 1788
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Mason’s view prevailed. What is interesting is that Mason saw the State as the State Legislature as opposed to the people of the state directly voting for the Senators as we do today.
The United States is almost unique among nations in their respect. While there are Federal law enforcement officers, the number is very small. For example, the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation complement of agents is outnumbered by one of the three shifts of the New York City Police Department. The vast majority of the police officers in America are not even at the State level; it is at the local level.
On June 12, 1789 a Senate committee proposed a federal court system for the nation. Maclay described it as:
Commonly referred to as the Kentucky Resolution. This concept of Nullification was one of the factors that aggravated the tensions leading to the Civil War. Were the individual States to be the arbiters of whether or not a Federal act was Constitutional or was it to be the Supreme Court.
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.
At the time most of the members of Congress were worried about the “General Government”—their term for the Federal Government---than they were, the state governments from which they had come and were in their minds represented. If would be almost a century before it was generally accepted that the States themselves must follow the Constitution and its amendments. Madison was way ahead of his time, and saw that rights must be protected from all levels of government.
Martin Luther, O.S.A. was a German professor of theology, priest, author, composer, Augustinian monk, and a seminal figure in the Reformation. Luther was ordained to the priesthood in 1507. He came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church; in particular, he disputed the view on indulgences. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His refusal to renounce all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Holy Roman Emperor.
