*Sigh* Where to begin? :banghead:
That's not how I understand it.
[SARCASM]I’m shocked you don’t understand it.[/SARCASM]
Congress has the power to regulate commerce among the states, with foreign nations, and with Indian tribes.
You might want to read Article I of the US Constitution, because they have a little more power than that.
They're going to need regulators to regulate, so they created the US Customs Service.
Actually Customs did NOT come into existence to regulate commerce between the states or with Indian tribes. Rather Customs came about to collect and enforce tariffs on imported goods. For more info on the history of US Customs, now ICE, see this link:
http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/toolbox/about/history/history.xml
There are also a few federal crimes outlined in the Constitution, . . .
Well there doesn’t need to be crimes defined in the Constitution because Article I gives Congress the power to pass laws. Common sense people, the Legislature (aka Congress) exists to legislate.
. . . though Federalist #17 says that they were never to have a general police power.
Whoopee! Here’s some shocking news, the Federalist Papers, and the Anti-Federalist Papers were just part of the debate over the Constitution, they are NOT part of the Constitution. Only what was properly ratified as part of the Constitution, or added through amendment is the Constitution. The Federalist papers help to understand what SOME of the framers thought, but they are not the Constitution itself.
But, to enforce laws against those crimes, they'll need cops, so they created the US Marshalls.
Well as noted earlier the US Marshals Service (one L people please, they’re cops not a department store), were not created through the Constitution, they were created through legislative action. The USMS, just like every other fed LE agency to follow was created by Congress, and given specific statutory authority to enforce federal laws. As you yourself admit they needed people to enforce federal law, so they created federal law enforcment. Just because the USMS was the first, doesn't mean they were only ones the Constitution allowed. As pointed out earlier the Constitution did not create the USMS.
But later on, they wanted to regulate guns and drugs. Lacking the authority to regulate guns and drugs, they passed "taxes" which were really drug and gun regulations (NFA, Harrison Act, Marihuana Tax Act). They didn't create a US Firearms Enforcement Service or a US Drug Enforcement Agency, since they lacked the power to create those things. They instead created Bureaus within the Treasury Department.
But those "Treasury Bureaus" were really new law enforcement agencies, enforcing a new regulatory power, not a new tax. .
Thanks for skipping over all the other federal crimes, and making this discussion just about guns and drugs.
Here’s a clue, it doesn’t matter what department in the government gets the statutory authority from Congress to enforce the law, if Congress passes the law under Article I, it’s signed into law under Article II, and the withstands scrutiny of the courts under Article III, then whom Congress assigns to enforce that law is irrelevant.
Also, breaking a tax law is still breaking a law, so let's not pretend creating LE agencies under the Treasury Department was part of some sneaky plot.
Regardless, no matter what department they are organized under Congress gave specific agencies, statutory authority to enforce the law.
Of course, later on the Constitution grew, and things like drug prohibition and gun prohibition became Constitutional under the commerce clause, and now we find ourselve in a situation in which the Supreme Court is deciding whether a homegrown cannabis plant for personal consumption, or a homegrown machine gun for personal consumption, are any of the federal government's business at all.
No the Constitution didn’t “grow,†Congress passed laws, under their authority from Article I of the COUS, and sometimes the Courts have said they exceeded their authority and declared the laws un-Constitutional, and other times the Courts said they were within their authority.
We can debate all day long whether certain laws are or are not Constitutional, (all though Article III really gives that power to the Court, and Article V gives us the power to change that) however there is NOTHING in the Constitution, which prohibits the federal government from enforcing the laws it passes. If Congress passes the law, and it withstands review by the courts, then the federal government is able to enforce it. If you want to change that, I again refer you to Article V of the Constitution.
