Page 384 - Beers With Our Founding Fathers

Beers with our Founding Fathers

federal government’s empowerment, any violation of these

standings in favor of a treaty with a foreign country or international
organization shall be considered a strict liability treasonous act and

immediate impeachment.
To what degree is a state sovereign? The Constitution provides

in the Tenth Amendment which empowers the people of those not
designated to the states, and the federal government to those not

designated to the states. However, our Founding Fathers, in favor of
states’ and individual rights with less government, intentionally gave

more latitude for the interpretation of state sovereignty. It is
important to understand this interpretation is essential – otherwise

you have a ‘what came first, the chicken [state’s rights] or the egg
[individual rights]’ question – individual rights come first, which

cannot be infringed upon by the state or federal governments, and
states’ rights cannot be infringed upon by the federal government.

In that regard, states are similar to native Indian tribal nations.
Tribal sovereignty is the inherent authority of native Indian tribes to

govern themselves within the borders of our Country and the
several states. This concept pre-dates the Declaration of

Independence, and is referenced throughout our founding
documents (‘untaxed Indians’). The federal government recognizes

tribal nations as ‘domestic dependent nations’ and has established a
number of laws necessary to clarify the intra-relationships of the

federal, state, and tribal governments. The Constitution and later

federal laws grant local sovereignty to tribal nations, yet do not
grant full sovereignty equivalent to foreign nations, hence the term
‘domestic dependent nations’. This term was given by the Supreme

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