Hugh Curley

Where States get their Power

State’s Powers

Question: Where does the state government get its authority to make laws, tax and punish (including incarceration and execution) its citizens?
Answer: From its citizens.
Inference: The citizens can take back that power when they believe the government is abusing its authority.

Note: this blog is about the powers claimed by the 50 individual states. Federal power comes from a very different source.

Note: this blog is to educate. If you read that the author is for or against anything, either you read in more than is written or the author inadvertently chose the wrong words and apologizes.

Consider long ago the individual with no social contact, wandering the earth in search of his next meal. He was bound by no government or social laws. Only those more powerful than our individual could incarcerate, tax, or execute him; in other words – a “might makes right” attitude.

As these individuals gathered in the form of tribes or towns for friendship, protection, sharing of workload, work specialization and other benevolent reasons, they needed guidelines to dictate behavior within the group. These guidelines, either oral traditions or written, were the early laws. To enforce the laws, an individual or a group was selected to interpret and enforce the laws. Frequently it had to be the strongest to handle the people who did not wish to submit to certain laws or any law.

Someone who did not want to submit to the will of those in charge could leave and try to find another tribe or town with more compatible laws. In the early day, laws would be created to resolve problems as they arose. In different regions or areas, different problems would come up and so laws were different.

As the tribe or town grew, projects for the common good became necessary. Converting a trail through town into a street needed to be completed by a central authority. Consider, if you will, what the street would be like if each individual had to build and maintain that portion that adjoined her property. This central authority needed money, so taxed each person who would benefit from the improvement. Other taxes could be to build a school, church or a town hall building. In these early days, taxes or their equivalent could be paid in money, product such as food or supplies, or work.

People would come together to discuss the laws and taxes and the penalty for violation. Because the tribe or town was small, the laws, taxes and penalty were personal and easily understood.

As town became cities, as transportation became faster, as communication became better we needed an overall government to administer for the greater good; hence the idea of states was born. In the United States of America, this refers to the original 13 states when the United States was formed, and it refers to the 50 states in the United States now. We could no longer have each town providing services and nothing between towns. The citizens of the states gave up their individual freedom for security, comfort, and to let others do what they could not do themselves.

The states created a set of laws dictating behavior in that state, a set of punishments for violation of those laws, roads to connect the cities, dams to control water flow within its boarder and militia for protection. As with the tribes or towns, the states acquired their power from the governed.

Before the Great Depression, the state government collected and used taxes to fund projects for the common good and protection of its citizens. During the Great Depression, many people in the states saw the devastated economic condition of many of their fellow citizens and following the lead of President Franklin D. Roosevelt implemented taxes to provide a safety net until the conditions improved. With these new taxes, the state took on the challenge of welfare. Should the state provide welfare for its citizens? The Russian Revolution of 1917 may answer that question. The citizens of Russia revolted against the Czars because they (the citizens) had nothing to lose and the Czars were rich. The citizens in states with welfare have the welfare to lose if they revolt; hence welfare may help keep the government stable.

As the towns became cities and the cities joined to become states, and the government of the state became more removed from the citizens and more powerful. As the tax rates became higher, and we get more and more laws in more complex language, the distance between the government the citizens initially created and the citizens themselves became much greater. Government and laws no longer seem personal as they once did. Our government now says, “Send us this amount of money or we will put you in jail.” The laws which we originally instituted to give us freedom have now mushroomed to become restrictive. The tax for welfare we originally instituted to help our neighbor has mushroomed to provide for ner-do-wells and generations of welfare families.

But, before you feel helpless and frustrated, before you complain, remember that the state in which you reside got its power to make laws, tax and punish from its citizens. The citizens can take back the power when they deem the state has exceeded its authority. The government we have today is the government a majority of the citizens of the state wants.

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