On 12/12/2012 7:45 AM, Warp wrote:
>
> Could someone explain to me how this is *possible*? Does nobody in the
> United States actually enforce the constitution and make sure that the
> member states follow it?
>

My understanding is that enforcing this would be a matter of 
constitutional interpretation, and would thus fall under the judicial 
branch.  Thus for the judicial branch to rule the clause in the North 
Carolina constitution invalid, a case would actually need to be brought 
to the court.  So long as North Caroline doesn't bother to enforce that 
clause, that's unlikely to happen, so the clause remains.  It's an 
artifact of the way that the US system has more in place to enforce a 
consistent execution of the law via reactive mechanisms, rather than a 
consistent letter of the law via proactive mechanisms.

When similar clauses have been challenged in recent times, they've been 
declared unconstitutional (often on grounds of the first and 14th 
amendments instead of the 6th).

Post a reply to this message