The constitution has been watered down by many of the amendments after the bill of rights. The major one which usurped a huge amount of power from the states was the Seventeenth Amendment. By altering the way senators are elected, the states lost any representation they had in the federal government and that, in addition to violating the unamendable state suffrage clause of Article V, this led to the gradual "slide into ignominy" of state legislatures, as well as an overextension of federal power and the rise of special interest groups to fill the power vacuum previously occupied by state legislatures. Article V specifies the means by which the Constitution of the United States can be amended. It ends by forbidding amendments that would repeal the language in Article I, Section 9, which prohibits a ban on the importation of slaves prior to 1808, or the language in Article I, Section 3, which provides for equal representation of the states in the Senate. These are the only textually entrenched provisions of the Constitution. So the 17th amendment is unconstitutional and its inception has led to a huge growth of Federal power and a lessening of the power of the states.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 11:33:09 +0000
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