RE: [ihc] About those parking brakes .....

[Tom Harais <THarais@xxxxxxxxx>]

> there's a $150 per vehicle "out of state import fee".  

That sounds like another unconstitutional limitation to me.  Only the
federal government has the right to regulate interstate commerce (Article I,
Section 8, Clause 3).  That was the main impetus behind forming a federal
government in the first place:  The individual states (colonies) were
imposing tariffs and restricting imports/sales of out of state goods.  This
stiffled commerce and had the negatively impacted the general economy of the
Americas.  Wise leaders saw the need to form a limited scope, federal
government to prevent the interstate rivalry from erroding things. Funny
that they survived from the end of the revolutionary war (1783), until the
ratification of the constitution (1790).

  
Clause 3. Commerce Power 
Section 8. 
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and
Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general
Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be
uniform throughout the United States; 
		To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the
several States, and with the Indian Tribes; 




  POWER TO REGULATE COMMERCE 

  Purposes Served by the Grant 

This clause serves a two-fold purpose: it is the direct source of the most
important powers that the Federal Government exercises in peacetime, and,
except for the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth
Amendment, it is the most important limitation imposed by the Constitution
on the exercise of state power. The latter, restrictive operation of the
clause was long the more important one from the point of view of the
constitutional lawyer. Of the approximately 1400 cases which reached the
Supreme Court under the clause prior to 1900, the overwhelming proportion
stemmed from state legislation. 578 The result was that, generally, the
guiding lines in construction of the clause were initially laid down in the
context of curbing state power rather than in that of its operation as a
source of national power. The consequence of this historical progression was
that the word ''commerce'' came to dominate the clause while the word
''regulate'' remained in the background. The so-called ''constitutional
revolution'' of the 1930s, however, brought the latter word to its present
prominence. 






Of course, IH hadn't even been imagined at the time. But if they had been
around, I'd bet they'd have made one hell of a carriage as well as a sturdy,
dependable, non-percusion long gun.

:-)

Tom H., '76 Travler