The Unconstitutional Federal Vaccine Mandate

[Achilles]

The Unconstitutional Federal Vaccine Mandate

By Guest Author Bronson Yake
Published October 24, 2021 at 7:03pm



Many people are objecting to the mandate to get vaccinated and there are a number of lawsuits working through the courts. For the most part, people are arguing for an exemption. The core question should be “Does the Federal Government have the legal authority to issue a vaccine mandate?” In a word, no.

State Vaccine Mandates Can be Permissible
The foundational and still-controlling legal authority is Jacobson v. Mass, 197 U.S. 11 (1905). In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a vaccine mandate issued by a town. The Court reasoned that the town’s legal authority flowed from the State’s general police powers.
Massachusetts law empowered local boards of health to mandate vaccines for when a contagious disease has an outbreak. During a Small Pox outbreak, the Cambridge board of health mandated that all adults who were fit candidates had to be vaccinated or pay a $5 fine. The Supreme Court found that the concern about an outbreak of a deadly and contagious disease justified this use of the state’s police powers.

The Court acknowledged the states’ inherent police power regarding public health and discussed why Massachusetts’ mandatory vaccination law was reasonable. It found the small pox vaccine “strongly tends to prevent the transmission or spread of this disease…” but conceded not everyone believed the vaccine prevented the disease, however it was generally held to have the “decided tendency to prevent the spread of this fearful disease and to render it less dangerous to those who contract it.” Jacobson at 34 (quoting Matter of Viemeister v. White, 88 A.D. 44, 84 N.Y.S. 712 (N.Y. App Div. 1903)[1].

The Tenth Amendment, though often ignored or neglected, explicitly excludes powers to the federal government that are not granted to it in the Constitution (or implied by the powers that are granted), the effect is that the federal government does not have general “police powers”. The legal phrase describing the federal government is that it has “limited and enumerated powers.”

The Tenth Amendment states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Taken together, the Tenth Amendment and Jacobson leave no doubt that the ability to create vaccine mandates belongs to the states. The Federal Government has NO authority to issue vaccine mandates. A state’s mandates will be upheld as long as it isn’t enacted or enforced in an unreasonable, arbitrary or oppressive manner (see Jacobson, at 39,40), so the Supreme Court’s refusal to stop the Maine mandate is not surprising.

The Supremacy Clause Does Not Rescue Biden’s Mandate
The Supremacy Clause makes it crystal clear than in areas where the feds have Constitutional authority, federal law overrides any state or local law to the contrary. Think of it as the inverse of the Tenth Amendment. For a federal law (or regulation or executive order) to be “supreme”, it must first be Constitutionally permissible. A federal vaccine mandate[2] is void ab initio!

Did Biden Issue a Vaccine Mandate?
Biden knows he doesn’t have the legal authority to issue a direct vaccine mandate, so his mandate is masquerading as a work rule to hide it behind the Interstate Commerce Clause. Nevertheless, by creating a coercive choice between destitution and submission, there is no way to see his actions as anything other than an attempt to appropriate state powers that are denied to him. If “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet[3],” then this is a mandate. This mandate-disguised-as-a-work-rule is such a cynical attempt to “work around” the federal government’s lack of authority to issue a mandate any federal judge should see through it.

Jacobson is old, bit it is still the law
Jacobson age implies very strong stare decisis (think a snowball rolling down a hill). Any change would re-write the relationship between the states and the federal government, and essentially repeal the 10th Amendment. Truly, if the federal government can use the Interstate Commerce clause to decide what medicine you have to take if you want to be able to work, there is nothing to stop it from preventing you from being employable if you eat French fries, or drink alcohol, or have unprotected sex, or have too many kids, etc.

It’s Not About the Vaccine, It’s about the Unconstitutional Order
Biden is aware[4] the power to issue vaccine mandates rests with the states. There is no COVID exception to the Constitution. At the time the Constitution was drafted, the Founders were well acquainted with plagues and outbreaks of various disease. Such occurrences were a fact of life for them, and yet they refused to create special “plague” or pandemic powers for the federal government. Since Biden is actively attempting to over-reach the limits on his power, and subvert the explicit authority of the states, he has become an active threat to the Constitution.

Biden’s actions violate the Tenth Amendment. Every federal employee (and every lawyer) swears an oath to protect the Constitution. Our obligation is to oppose the mandate and all efforts by this administration to appropriate powers that belong to the states and to coerce the people. The Constitution can’t protect itself.

[1] It makes one wonder, given the vaccine’s poor performance in that it doesn’t prevent people from catching the or spreading the disease, and its ability to mitigate the severity of the disease is questionable, would the Jacobson court have found a state COVID-19 vaccine mandate permissible.
[2] Conceivably, a vaccine mandate as part of a national defense situation would likely be permissible, but, unless President Biden is going to declare the pandemic to have been an act of biological warfare, which would endanger his family’s revenue stream, that won’t happen for COVID-19
[3] Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 2, Wm. Shakespeare.
[4] To the extent that he is aware of anything.




https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/202...ccine-mandate/

[dmatic]

" To the extent that he is aware of anything."

[Hoppalong]

" To the extent that he is aware of anything."

Ah you may be all wrong about the unconstitutional about mandated vaccines~

Is the federal vaccine mandate constitutional? Yes, and history says so

With COVID-19 cases on the rise once again in the United States and a worrying plateau of vaccination rates, President Joe Biden announced a vaccine mandate for all federal workers and contractors on Sept. 9 (Associated Press 2021). The mandate did, however, also include an option for continued masking and weekly testing for those who cannot receive the vaccine due to medical or religious reasons. Moreover, the Department of Veterans Affairs issued a mandate for all frontline workers at its facilities, and President Biden urged military leaders to consider compulsory vaccinations in order to more quickly reach herd immunity. The mandate proposed by Biden has come under intense scrutiny from multiple Republican politicians and voters, who accuse it of being unconstitutional (Politico 2021). At the moment, the constitutionality of the mandate necessitates further evaluation, but historical decisions regarding vaccine mandates for other diseases potentially foreshadow its eventual approval from various courts.
Firstly, it should be noted that the federal government’s ability to mandate vaccinations is completely within its constitutional authority. The Supreme Court has upheld local and state mandates twice in U.S. history. In 1905, the Court reviewed the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, which centered around the plaintiff Pastor Henning Jacobson’s refusal to comply with a state law requiring residents to be vaccinated against smallpox following a localized outbreak. The Court sided with the state, affirming that the law was a legitimate exercise of the state’s power and right to ensure the safety of its citizens (“Jacobson v. Massachusetts”). 17 years later, officials in San Antonio, Texas prevented a young woman from attending a public school because she also refused to be inoculated against smallpox. Arguing that she was deprived of her 14th Amendment rights, the woman’s case continued to the Supreme Court, where they once again sided with the state. The final opinion of the Court noted that, like in Jacobson, it was within the police power of the state to enforce compulsory immunization in order to ensure widespread public health and safety (“Zucht v. King”).

https://miscellanynews.org/2021/09/2...story-says-so/

[Buster]

Do “the other” mandates have carve outs for special groups

[Off-Grid Organics]

I doubt if he remembers, but ol' Joe said absolutely no mandates - along with fraudci and pelousi echoing the same thing.

[Ivan88]

The Constitution was made to prevent American Men from regulating their public servants at all levels.
Freedom of religion was designed to give rights to the enemies of what was our America, us and who we slander with the word god.
We are getting what we deserve.
If we don't like it, we can keep it, or we can confess our wrongs and stop doing them, Then, the Savior can heal us.
The Constitution is one of our idols. It cannot save America.

[Bear]

Hopalog, your posted article specifically proves you wrong. Again…

The Supreme Court has upheld local and state mandates twice in U.S. history.

This was not approval of the federal government making a national mandate, for which there is no authority. It was approval of a state mandate. All powers not designated to the federal government are reserved to the states.

See the OP for reference.

[AWM]

Nuremberg Code


1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.


This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.


The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.


2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.


3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.


4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.


5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.


6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.


7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.


8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.


9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.


10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probably cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.

[Oscar Wilde]

Ah you may be all wrong about the unconstitutional about mandated vaccines~

Not likely ....

O.W.

[Hoppalong]

Not likely ....

O.W.

Why? Have you taken a class like is offered by Hillsdale College as Rush used to advertise for? Are you a constitutional scholar?