Sheriff Richard Mack speaks at Nullify Now! Phoenix on 02-19-11
“I believe in state nullification. I believe in jury nullification. And I certainly belief in sheriff nullification”
“the responsibility of your state legislature is to nullify now!”
“Wouldn’t you rather count on your sheriff rather than Washington D.C.?”
“Sheriffs are waking up to the fact that they can nullify unconstitutional act from the federal government.”
James Madison: “We can safely rely on the disposition of state legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.”
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” The Declaration of Independence
For decades, there have been those who have not only coveted political power, but have gained that power and have, through a variety of cunning devises, used not only the legislative, but the executive and judicial bodies of our government to accomplish a system of the centralization of power that now affects every area in the lives of the People of this country. This pernicious system of centralization is stamped with the indelible character of a growing aggravated oppression.
Laws have been crafted in such a way that many give a special pecuniary interest to particular agendas, a variety of political beneficiaries and has done so with such ingenious political and legislative devices that, at times, makes it difficult to expose the actual character of the laws being passed and the effect those laws have upon this country and its People. Every pretext is utilized, every socio-political slight-of-hand is employed to confer upon the federal government unwarranted powers that far exceed the clearly defined limitations found within the Constitution. To this end, this government sets out every type of molestation upon this People, implemented restraints and placement of hindrances before them thereby preventing them from enjoying the very fruit of their labors and to live their lives as they deem proper.
A sectionalism has evolved, one that pits the power of the federal state against the People and it has, through various means of coercion, promoted all the beneficiaries of a ruling class upon those who enter the federal regime and are employed by its vast resources, all of which are plundered from the People. This Congress has, for years, resorted to numerous unwarrantable acts, legislations, statutes, regulations, taxes and schemes for the purpose of exercising powers not granted to them either by the People nor by the Constitution from which it receives its delegated, and thus subservient authority. They have usurped powers and authorities that do not belong to them nor are such powers and authorities based upon Constitutional principles, but emanate from the perversion of those very principles upon which this country was built. Through devious and subversive means, those within the federal government has changed both the character of government and the execution of government, reducing, as it were, the Constitution into a mere formality and upon the crumbling ruins of our Republic, they have gradually erected a highly centralized power that now borders on a consolidated despotism without any limitations to its powers and without the real checks or balances upon those powers.
This federal government has assumed powers not inherent to it, in fact the federal government actually possesses no inherent powers for all are delegated to it by the People and the Several States respectively. It was the People, through the agency of their respective States that created the federal government and at that creation they conferred upon the federal government its powers in a purely delegated manner and therefore limited form. All power within the federal government is based upon that act of delegation and each power delegated to it is based upon prescribed limitations enumerated within the voluntary Constitutional charter. Prior to the writing and subsequent ratification of the Constitution, each State was Free and Independent, each possessed full Sovereignty as provided by the People residing in those States from whom all Sovereignty rests. The character of that Sovereignty did not change by the ratification of the Constitution as each State entered into a compact with each other for the creation of the general federal government. The creation of that general government provided for very specific objectives that were intended to benefit each of the Several States, yet those specific objectives were framed within a narrow and strictly limited scope of powers.
Jefferson once said: “the Several States composing the united States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to the general government, but by a compact under the style and title of the Constitution of the united States, they Constituted a general government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, Reserving each State to itself the residuary mass of Right to their own Self-Government, and when-so-ever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are Un-authoritative, Void, and of No Force.”
It should therefore, be understood that the federal government is nothing more than an agency created by the States through the People Assembled in Convention; with that understanding it must also be recognized that the federal government can exert no power or exercise no authority beyond the prescribed limitations of power delegated to it by the Compact of the Constitution. The Constitutional Compact therefore, was not an agreement between the federal government and the States, but between the Several States themselves as they created the federal government as a beneficial agency to act upon the Will of the People within the Several States. Thus, the federal government can lay no claim to any power or authority that was not expressly granted to it by the People through the Several States Individually or Assembled; it can only assume such power and authority through virulent usurpation.
Has it not become evident that this Congress, as well as others before it, have both passed and attempted to pass legislative acts on numerous issues that, on the face, purport to be beneficial for the American People, yet such legislations usually result in the expansion of government, the regulation of all aspects of our society and the confiscation of the choice fruit of our labors. Such gross violations of the Constitution are the most deliberate and palpable, as such they assume some of the most dangerous assaults against the People’s future well being. The Congress even uses those powers that are properly and specifically delegated to it for entirely different purposes, perverting the legitimate powers for illegitimate goals.
The consequences of these violations have, over the decades, served to establish some of the most pernicious principles found within our government, creating a foundation that is now accepted as the norm, providing the greatest latitude of operation and application as government continues to consolidate its powers. Instead of applying the Constitution to government, the government has applied its perverted principles to the Constitution as it has consolidated the Several States and the representative government, by degrees of legalistic invasion, into a nationalized sovereignty.
This government has, through a myriad of contrivances, established an excessive exercise of its general legislative control over the interests and even the pursuits of the People of this country. In ignorance, the government has assumed that it has both the wisdom and ability to undertake the regulation of the lives, labors and properties of the American People. The once Free and Independent States are treated as though they are dependencies, mere colonies of the central government and the People, once the source of all Sovereignty are now subjugated to the all-powerful rule of the consolidated government. The Several States, as the People themselves, are no longer subject to their own interests, but to the interests of others, namely the government and its attempt to create a total dependent state, dependent solely upon the plentitude of the government benefits doled out at its own pleasure.
Indeed, pensions, subsidies, benefits have all been enlarged to such a extent that no other conclusion can be reached but that this government has established its pernicious principles with the purpose of the bestowal of gratuities on the political ruling class and those politically connected. Additionally, in order to achieve this type of usurpation, it has used methods of virtual enslavement, enticing great numbers of the People to become dependent upon the government dole, providing the political parties with a readily available voting block, providing a degree of legitimacy to its actions. Beyond this, the central government has created such a state of dependency that even the States themselves have become addicted to the government’s redistributive system of the Peoples monies.
By all appearances, Congress is evinced of its own power, determined to use its distributive powers to in all manner of new and creative ways to channel the resources of the People into favored avenues, ultimately to the benefit of the government, not the People. Essentially, the central government has sought to absorb all the powers of the Several States, becoming the premiere depository of all sovereignty and power in the Land. It has, in this grand grasp at power, assumed jurisdiction and guardianship over even the most mundane matters in this country, disregarding the fact that many, if not all those matters were either entirely the purview of the Individual or of the Several States in which the Individuals held their Citizenship.
This government has, through systematic manipulation of law, laid claim and assumed the right to exercise such claim, as well as control, over the ability to appropriate public monies in any manner it deems necessary. Like public monies, this government has also assumed complete authority for the appropriation of property, controlling public properties and regulating those, which are private. It has, on numerous occasions, asserted judicial supremacy, not only over the once Free and Independent States, but the Citizens of those States who are, by any estimation, the essential source of all legitimate Sovereignty in this country and by whom all government derives its power to govern by the consent of those State Citizens.
The practice of Patronage has been intentionally established in this government, from the Legislative Branch to the Executive Branch, in order to achieve its complete consolidation of power over this country and its People. Political and financial influences, undue and unjust, permeate the functions of this government. The Several States have been reduced to ancillary elements of the “Supreme Federal”, now nothing more than petty corporations, parts of the whole, and colonies dependent upon the central government for their existence and continued viability. The Several States have been effectively shorn of all hints of Sovereignty as the Sovereignty of the People has been effectively neutralized and their voices silenced.
Saturated thoroughly with the corrupting influences of political patronage and the power that results from such patronage, the government, comfortable in its cozy relationships lends its ear to its patrons while it maintains itself on the backs and payroll checks of the People. This Congress has been fully instructed in the arts of strengthening its hold on power, guarding its prerogatives and extending its reach into every possible aspect of our society.
The continued remonstrations of the People fall upon the stopped ears of our elected officials, all but ignored and answered only with the vainest of promises for reform; with no room for redress, no hope to find a common arbiter between those who seek to rule and the People. With all reasonable hope fading for redress, the People must turn to their States as a means of Interposition to stand in the gap between the People and this illegitimate government. There must come a time when the assertion of the Sovereign Rights of the People are once again expressed through the Several States to pressure this government to abandon its corrupt system of partiality, favoritism, monopolies and protectionism, unjust in its operations as it assumes powers, strengthening its authorities, that were never delegated to it by either the People or their States when they ratified the Constitutional Compact in assembled conventions.
Our forefathers rose up in their might for far less than this People now suffer under, yet, we continue to submit to this thralldom. The American People have become spoon-fed with the idea that our situation is normal, lawful and completely acceptable under the principles of the Constitution and yet, there are few legislative acts passed by this government that conform to those principles.
The governments of the Several States recline in complacency, no longer advocating the Rights of the People or their prerogatives under the Federative Compact agreed upon between the Free, Independent and Sovereign States. Is it not the Right of the People, through the agency of their individual State governments, to lay complaints, to demand redress remonstrating all infractions against them? Is it not the responsibility and the duty of the State governments to refuse any and all obedience to any legislative measure taken by the federal government that is manifestly a violation of the Constitutional Compact? Shall those within this federal government violate the Constitution with impunity?
As it appears, the vast majority of those who call themselves public servants, they must think themselves above the actual Law of the Land, giving lip-service to it while transcending the limitations as prescribed and authorized. The government no longer recognizes the Rights enumerated and completely ignore the fact that there are Rights Reserved to both the States and the People that are not enumerated. How could it be otherwise with the Sovereignty of the People, are they not the Sovereigns, is it not within the character of that Sovereignty that they must consent to the manner in which they allow themselves to be governed?
This government has a long line of measures intent on the annihilation of all hints of Sovereignty, whether it is the Sovereignty of the Individual or the Sovereignty imparted to the Several States by the People. The centralized government has wiped away the Independent nature of the States, consolidating all power in Washington D.C.; something that was never intended by the Framers of the Constitution, nor was there any design that could be construed to support such consolidation and concentration of power in the federal government by the Constitution. The powers being asserted by the federal government, controlling numerous internal measures within the States, in many cases, amount to little more than a form of legalized pillage as their Reserved Powers are trampled under the heel of a federal government that no longer shows interest in anything but its own interests.
So, what shall be done to redeem ourselves, to restore that which has been taken by both deceptive methods and by force of arbitrary laws that have resulted in a state of peonage for the People and a huge productive Vassal State for the complete benefit of the federal government? The question is of the gravest sort, the answer most solemn for if we are simply continue in our present state, waiting for this government to reform itself and return to some sense of justice then our wait will obviously be in vain and any hope can no longer be indulged. The sensibilities of the People have long ago been numbed, their estimation of their Rights lowered and they have been gradually taught to find comfort in their chains as though they were actually free.
The People, for most part, have resigned themselves to their condition and allow the voluntary relinquishment of the prospects of actual freedom to a class of politically advantaged, pecuniary benefits are secured to those who are politically connected by various laws and policies that favor them over the vast majority of the People and indeed over the general welfare of the Country itself. The political and corporate classes have joined forces to enrich themselves under the operation of laws, which are always crafted in the name of the public good.
The crisis has arrived and yet few recognize its arrival; the public is assured that there is nothing to worry about; the government has matters well in hand. It will soon be evident that it is useless to delude ourselves any longer; the time has indeed come when we must either take a very decisive course of actions or we must completely abandon all hope of remedy; there is no middle course. We will either surrender the Rights purchased by the Blood of our Fathers, or we will commit ourselves to the coming struggle that we might once again, as our Forefathers, provide our posterity the Heritage of Liberty.
There must no longer be any restraint in our expression of intent nor in the depth of our conviction that we will take any measure necessary to secure our Liberty and will never consent to be reduced to a state of total dependency or dictated to by un-Constitutional powers usurped and then mandated upon the People by this government. Has not our own experiences taught us the most lamentable truth, that this government is in open and total disregard of the limitations placed upon it by the Constitution and that our Liberty cannot be dependent upon such a government? Without Liberty there is absolutely no need to preserve this current union of States and if the complete Restoration of Constitutional Order cannot be achieved then the peaceful dissolution of the Compact reached between the States is preferable to the looming violent convulsion of revolution as this degenerate state of affairs continue to evolve.
If We the People are given no other alternative but to continue to submit to the injustices and coercive powers of this government, relinquishing to it the last remnants of our Liberty, then what shall we do but seek the only remedy left to us, that being the Revolutionary Right to defend ourselves and our Liberty. If such a point is reached then there can be no recreancy in our resolve, no hesitancy in applying the very hallowed principles provided us by the examples provided to us by our Forefathers.
“We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force. — The latter is our choice. — We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. — Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them…we will, in defiance of every hazard, with un-abating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.”
If therefore, the Several States do not possess the Right of Interposition to arrest the progressive pace of un-Constitutional advance, then all our claims to our Sovereignty, and indeed all claims of Liberty are in vain. If the Several States, through the Sovereignty of the People, are not allowed the fulfillment of the promise of a republican form of government, complete with every character associated with a federated union composed of Free and Independent States, then the People must be determined under all the obligations and duties to their own Liberty and that of their posterity, to resist all efforts of subjugation.
“Each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming as to itself the other party, that they alone being parties to the Compact, are Solely Authorized to Judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it; Congress being not a party, but merely the creature of the Compact, that it becomes a Sovereign State, to submit to undelegated, and, consequently, unlimited power in no man or body of men on earth; that in cases of abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the General Government, being chosen by the People, a change by the People would be the Constitutional remedy; but where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the Act is the rightful remedy; that every State has a natural Right, in cases not within the Compact, to nullify, of their own authority, all assumption of power by others within their limits, and that without this Right they would be under the dominion absolute and unlimited, of whomsoever might exercise the Right of Judgment for them; and that in the case of Acts being passed by Congress, so palpably against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration, that the Compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed to exercise over the States all powers whatsoever, by seizing the Rights of the States, and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government, with a power assumed of binding the States, not merely in cases made federal, but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent, it would be the duty of the States to declare the Acts void and of no force, and that each should take measures of its own for providing that neither such Acts nor any other of the General Government, not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be exercised within their respective territories.”
Alexander Hamilton made that quote in Federalist #85, not James Madison.
[...] onslaught of our Government.  There is the Fully Informed Jury Association, The Mises Institute, The Tenth Amendment Center, Oath Keepers, GOOOH (get out of our house), Downsize DC and I am sure a host of others that came [...]
[...] href=”http://mises.org/daily/”>The Mises Institute</a>, <a href=”http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/03/03/nullify-we-must-and-nullify-we-will/”>The Tenth Amendment Center</a>, <a href=”http://oathkeepers.org/oath/”>Oath [...]