Being new here I'm not sure if I should step on your tail, but isn't there a bit of cognitive dissonance in touting the Bill of Rights in your signature and avatar while dissing the 10th Amendment in your statement?
Paul and his supporters, along with many conservatives, incorrectly believe the 10th Amendment authorizes the states to reject Federal laws they consider Â’un-Constitutional,Â’ or conflict with state laws, or that the Federal courts have no authority over state legislators.
Constitutional case law illustrates this to be untrue.
Since the First Quarter of the 19th Century the Supreme Court has acknowledge the supremacy of Congress over the states, and CongressÂ’ authority to enact Federal legislation per the unremunerated powers provided in the Constitution: See:
McCulloch v. Maryland and
Gibbons v. Ogden
That the 10th Amendment doesnÂ’t authorize the states to ignore Federal law was reaffirmed in
United States v. Darby
From the beginning and for many years, the [Tenth A]mendment has been construed as not depriving the national government of authority to resort to all means for the exercise of a granted power which are appropriate and plainly adapted to the permitted end. Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 324, 325; McCulloch v. Maryland, supra, 405, 406; Gordon v. United States, 117 U.S. 697, 705; Lottery Case, supra; Northern Securities Co. v. United States, supra, 344-345; Everard's Breweries v. Day, supra, 558; United States v. Sprague, 282 U.S. 716, 733; see United States v. The Brigantine William, 28 Fed.Cas. No. 16,700, p. 622. Whatever doubts may have arisen of the soundness of that conclusion, they have been put at rest by the decisions under the Sherman Act and the National Labor Relations Act which we have cited. See also Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 330-331; Wright v. Union Central Ins. Co., 304 U.S. 502, 516.
In
Cooper v. Aaron (1958), the court finally put to rest the myth of ‘states’ rights,’ ruling that the states were subject to the Federal courts, and decisions by the Supreme Court:
No state legislator or executive or judicial officer can war against the Constitution without violating his undertaking to support it. Chief Justice Marshall spoke for a unanimous Court in saying that: "If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery . . . ." United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch 115, 136. A Governor who asserts a [358 U.S. 1, 19] power to nullify a federal court order is similarly restrained. If he had such power, said Chief Justice Hughes, in 1932, also for a unanimous Court, "it is manifest that the fiat of a state Governor, and not the Constitution of the United States, would be the supreme law of the land; that the restrictions of the Federal Constitution upon the exercise of state power would be but impotent phrases . . . ." Sterling v. Constantin, 287 U.S. 378, 397 -398.
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Consequently there is no ‘cognitive dissonance’ with regard to the 10th Amendment and the
Barnette ruling; indeed, the principle of the rule of law expressed in
Barnette goes to the necessity of ensuring that every American enjoy the protections established in the Bill of Rights, that no American forfeits his civil rights merely as a consequence of his state of residence, and that the Constitution prevents the tyranny of the majority, as men are incapable of ruling justly.
You or anyone else are welcome to cite Supreme Court cases overturning the case law noted above.
