Should the government maintain post roads or post offices? They may well need their OWN couriers and dispatches, of course, but it is a BASIC CONTRADICTION in the Constitution that granting some power to Congress suddenly creates a government monopoly in what should be an open market. Let there be government offices for sending correspondences to and from the government, if that is needed, but why does everyone else lose the right to carry mail?

At the end of Atlas Shrugged (pages 1083-1084 ppb) after John Galt has been rescued, we see scenes of life returning to normal as the producers take up the task of rebuilding the world. To Richard Halley's music in the deep background, Midas Mulligan is planning investments; Kay Ludlow studies shades of film make-up while Ragnar Danneskjold reads Aristotle; Ellis Wyatt, Hank Rearden, and Francisco d'Anconia discuss smelters. Judge Narragansett is in his library.

"He sat at a table, and the light of his lamp fell on the copy of an ancient document. He had marked and crossed out the contradictions in its statements that had once been the cause of its destruction. He was now adding a new clause to its pages: 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade...'" Beyond that, Ayn Rand was not specific about the contradictions in the Constitution.

Nothing in the federal Constitution actually applied directly to the States, except in the demarcation of proper powers. In other words, until 1990 you had NO FREEDOM OF RELIGION at the state level. Massachusetts collected taxes for the Congregational Church until 1839. Other states prohibited atheists from voting, serving on juries, being witnesses in court, or running for office. You could be TORTURED FOR A CONFESSION BY A LOCAL GOVERNMENT - and many people were legally tortured until Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, (1936) incorporated the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the States. Perhaps it would have been NON-CONTRADICTORY for the Bill of Rights to apply to everyone within every state, rather than just limiting the powers of the federal government.

The Income Tax, was a valid amendment, though not in the original document, of course. Also not in the original were the abolition of the Poll Tax, voting rights for 18-year olds, or moving the Inauguration to the 20th of January. Clearly, the amendment process must be accepted and it would be a contradiction for the Supreme Court to declare an amendment unconstitutional. Just as the Constitution has an amendment process, does it need a nullification clause to ensure non-contradiction of its basic principles?

Should we even have a legal voting age, but no poll tax? Having the tax without an age limit might be more capitalistic, more of an objective measure of a person's having earned the right to vote with care, concern, and intelligence.

Should the government set weights and measures? As weights and measures are fundamental to contract law, it would seem so. But nothing prevents you from having your own set, or from the general market ignoring the government, as we still use the English system in a nation legally on the Metric system. Industrial goods of many kinds come in many dimensions not defined by law; and yet, nothing falls down or collapses, no work grinds to a halt for the lack of a compatible fastener. So, why does the government need to define weights and measures?

Why does the government coin money? I understand and I assert that as an economic entity the government does have the factual need to create its own money objects. But we all do. Again, what makes a "dollar" may seem to be a matter of law, but many of the states legally defined the values of various coins according to local conditions. This was not any more objective than the Federal government doing it, but the point is that we did not need federally-mandated coinages. It would be fine as a matter of law, for example, for Congress to say that in paying taxes, the government accepts these and those coins and currencies at given rates of exchange. The US Mint published such tables occasionally in the early 19th century, showing the nominal and market rates of the Brazilian Joe, English Pound, and so on.

The constitutionality of the first and second Bank of the United States was an issue of the time. We can see the matter from several sides. But if the government - like any other entity - cannot establish its own bank, then it must deposit public funds in SOME bank -- and that creates the opening for the "pet banks" favored by President Andrew Jackson. Perhaps the Constitution should have defined a specific banking agency - or perhaps such a thing should have been expressly forbidden. I have no answer. Perhaps Judge Narragansett knew...