Wednesday night, as I tried unsuccessfully to lull myself to sleep, I decided to speed up the process by catching up on some light reading: The Federalist Papers. For those of you who don't know, the Federalist Papers, although not law in and of themselves, were written by our founders to help ratify the constitution and are, therefore, used as the primary source for interpreting its intent. I happened upon Federalist number 44 written by our 4th president, one James Madison, on January 25th, 1788. This particular paper concerned the amount of autonomy granted to each state. Not surprisingly, a great deal of autonomy was granted to the states with certain restrictions like "no kings or nobles" or "no printing your own money" etc. What was surprising, however, was how something very relevant to today was in the very first paragraph:
1. "No State shall...pass any...ex-post-facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts..."
Upon reading this, I couldn't help but immediately think of what the state of Connecticut, led by its Attorney General and fueled by an unfounded populism, is attempting to do to AIG. It's pretty plain: No state shall pass a law and make its effect retro-active (like hiking up the tax on AIG's bonuses to 90%) and no state shall pass a law that will impair the obligation of contracts (like trying to make the payment of the contractually obligated bonuses illegal). These two thoughts, though seemingly unrelated are right next to each other in the first paragraph. It's as if Mr. Madison knew what was going to happen at AIG! Not only is what the government is trying to do unprecedented, but it is explicitly forbidden in a writing that helped frame our most precious government document.
For those of you who missed it, here's Glenn Beck vs the Connecticut Attorney General
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxVi1EzUmMI
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksVitzMsLYA&feature=channel
1. "No State shall...pass any...ex-post-facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts..."
Upon reading this, I couldn't help but immediately think of what the state of Connecticut, led by its Attorney General and fueled by an unfounded populism, is attempting to do to AIG. It's pretty plain: No state shall pass a law and make its effect retro-active (like hiking up the tax on AIG's bonuses to 90%) and no state shall pass a law that will impair the obligation of contracts (like trying to make the payment of the contractually obligated bonuses illegal). These two thoughts, though seemingly unrelated are right next to each other in the first paragraph. It's as if Mr. Madison knew what was going to happen at AIG! Not only is what the government is trying to do unprecedented, but it is explicitly forbidden in a writing that helped frame our most precious government document.
For those of you who missed it, here's Glenn Beck vs the Connecticut Attorney General
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxVi1EzUmMI
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksVitzMsLYA&feature=channel
Links to this post
Create a Link