Talk:United States v. Butler

Fundamental inaccuracy?

It appears that there is some disagreement in the article as to whether the act was declared constitutional or unconstitutional. I fixed one instance in the first paragraph, but due to the lack of citation, I doubt the accuracy of the article as a whole. Also, I may have missed other instances of the same thing. Added "Contradict" and "Unreferenced" templates. Mattpat 17:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't write the article, but I can assure you that the act was declared unconstitutional. Maybe someone can find some references on Britannica or something to confirm and can reference it. --71.146.34.138 21:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Unconstitutionality

Hey guys,

I'm new to Wikipedia, so I don't feel comfortable updating stuff, but I thought I'd throw in my $.02: US v. Butler, though it spoke broadly about Congress's power to spend for the general welfare (as in, it can do so as an independent power and not in furtherance of its other enumerated powers), struck the law because it violated some other portion of the Constitution -- in this case, the 10th Amendment, reserving certain powers to the States.

So basically, it expanded the powers of Congress over spending, but drew the outer limits as well. Hope that maybe clears it up if someone is looking to edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Palsgraf (talk • contribs) (on 1 April 2007).

This analysis is exactly right. It says that Hamilton's view of widepread power for Congress under the spending clause is correct and Madison's more restrictive view is not. Yet, it strikes down the law because that type of Agricultural restriction is a state right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Burddog (talk • contribs) on 29 April 2007

Actually, the Court struck down the Federal processing tax in this case by viewing the tax as, in substance, not a tax but an attempt to "regulate." The Court judged that the Congress did not have the power to regulate in this particular instance. The power to tax and the power to spend, according to the Court, are limited by the language of the first enumerated provision of Article I section 8 -- which is that the taxing and spending be for the "general welfare" -- which is of course a somewhat vague, "general" concept. The Congressional power to regulate, under the Butler Court's view, must come from some some subsequently enumerated provisions (clauses 2 through 18 of section 8). Famspear 15:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Citation

I'm not really familiar with how to edit pages, unless I can copy and paste, but if there's a citation, why not just cite to the case itself? The case citation is given in the article, right? Random Goblin 16:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

A link exists in the article to the full text in Findlaw. I suppose what is needed is citation to the interpretation of the case. Interpretation of case law is a touchy subject. Original interpretation (even if it is from the case text itself) counts as original research, and should be avoided. Mere statements reflecting the opinion as acceptable; however, there is a fine line between summary and interpretation Nicholas SL Smith 03:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we should look to the interpretation of Oyez [1] Nicholas SL Smith 03:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)