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October 2, 2012 at 11:53 am
#14740
Participant
Tate, what Professor Gutzman argues in his body of work is this: although some people at the constitutional convention wanted a national government, complete with a Congress holding plenary legislative authority, etc., the resulting document was something else: a federal government of enumerated powers. This is, moreover, how the Constitution was described to the public in the ratifying conventions, and it is the meaning of the Constitution as discussed in those conventions, Madison says, which is definitive.