“It is time for the sworn protectors of Liberty, the County Sheriffs, to walk tall and defend their citizens from all enemies of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.”

Americans are facing the stark reality that their Constitutional rights are being shredded. Nearly every action taken by the Federal government today violates the Constitution that sheriffs and the military have taken an oath to defend. The Sheriff may truly be the last hope for saving our constitutional Republic and our liberties.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in “The value of Constitutions”, that “there is no honorable law enforcement authority in Anglo-American law so ancient as that of the county sheriff whose role as a peace officer goes back at least to the time of Alfred the Great.”

The Office of the Sheriff has existed for over one thousand years and is the oldest law enforcement position in the United States. The word Sheriff is derived from the “Shire-Reeve” (who was the most powerful English law authority figure). Throughout history, the sheriff was recognized as the chief law enforcement officer in his shire or county, and was responsible for maintaining law and order and being an officer of the peace.

The County Sheriff is elected by, for, and of the People, and is our last line of defense against an oppressive and over-reaching government and tyranny. The Sheriffs are powerful executors of the law, and the Supreme law of the land is the Constitution.

In 1775, Edmund Burke declared, “Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.” By that definition, we have tyranny today. Thousands of new laws are being shoved down our throats, and most bear little resemblance to the Constitution. Indeed, the very essence of tyranny is defined by the blind enforcement of bad laws. A Sheriff has the power, the authority, and the responsibility to resist tyranny and unconstitutional laws and actions.

Our founders understood that Liberty was our most important asset to defend. Samuel Adams said,“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.”

The New American magazine article, “Sheriffs Oppose Encroachment of Federal Agents Into Their Jurisdictions”, stated: “There are dozens of candidates for sheriff nationwide who share [the] view on the supremacy of state government and the constitutional locus of police power. These lawmen read the Constitution and nowhere in it do they find authorization for the federalization of law enforcement. In fact, they argue, the Constitution’s federal system endows local police with greater authority than any federal agent when it comes to enforcing the laws in their counties.”

The article continued with, “… the sheriffs and sheriff candidates … firmly assert their preeminence in the field of law enforcement. Their principle premise is that as sheriffs are the highest elected law-enforcement agent in the land and they are directly answerable to the voters and chosen by them, then they stand on the top rung of the police ladder. Federal officials, they argue, are not on the ladder at all, as the Constitution does not endow the federal government with police power and therefore the Tenth Amendment reserves that right to the states and to the people.

In 1994, Sheriff Richard Mack stood up to the Federal government and filed a lawsuit to stop the “Brady bill” that was signed into law by President Clinton. Six other sheriffs from around the country joined the lawsuit. On June 27, 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the Brady bill was in fact unconstitutional and that the Federal Government could not commandeer state or county officers for federal bidding [Mack/Printz v. USA]. Justice Scalia wrote for the majority, stating, “The Federal Government may not compel the states to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program.”

In 2005, a bill (HB 284) was introduced in the Montana State Legislature which required the County Sheriff be notified before any federal agents are allowed to enter the state with the intention of carrying out law enforcement actions. The bill provided not only for pre-notification, but that the Sheriff must also give consent before federal agents may proceed. Every state legislature should draft a similar bill for their next session.

In his book titled, “The County Sheriff — America’s Last Hope”, Sheriff Richard Mack wrote: “If we are to get America back, if we are indeed to return to the constitutional Republic we were meant to be, then it will be up to us, the sheriffs of America… who have the guts and dedication to tell the feds that we will no longer tolerate their intervention, control, meddling, mandates, or criminal behavior.”

The Sheriff is the chief law enforcement authority in our county, and he is elected by the ultimate power source, We The People. It is time for us to elect County Sheriffs who will walk tall and defend their citizens from all enemies of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. The future of our constitutional Republic may depend on it.

Carl Bruning is a candidate for Sheriff in Larimer County, Colorado. He was previously the Colorado/Wyoming State Coordinator for Ron Paul’s 2008 Presidential Campaign, and was the interim State Coordinator for Colorado’s Campaign for Liberty group.

Copyright © 2010 Campaign for Liberty

Throughout the brief history of the United States we have encountered periods of conflict between federalism and nationalism.  Each period contains struggles pitting political powers attempting to concentrate governing authority in our national government and those striving toward the maintenance of clear separations of power among the several governing authorities.  Today we are in the midst of the most recent conflict.

News is filled with accounts of federal maneuvering apparently bent on ending this conflict once and for all in favor of nationalized democracy.  With out of control spending and enormous legislative bills being rammed through Congress, despite loud opposition from many people, today’s struggle may well break our supreme law of the land, ending this grand experiment.  Not since the days of Franklin Roosevelt has the national government seemed so determined to press for total centralization of power.  The few who believe they are smarter and more able to provide for fundamental, daily needs and wants are emboldened like never before.

Just as Roosevelt held lowly views of the Constitution and the idea of federalism so too does our current president, Barrack Obama.  The main difference is today too many decades of bad traditions, precedents, and expectations are favoring nationalism and we are working within a federalist façade ready to finally crumble.  Each of the past century’s assaults has torn down the resolve of many to embrace self-governing freedom over national entitlements despite knowing they are being promised things that simply cannot and will not be delivered.

Keystone to our liberty

As this struggle unfolds the notion of states’ rights and nullification, under the 10^th Amendment, once again are openly being discussed.  This is to be expected if we look back in our history.  It was the right of nullification that was at the heart of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions opposing the 1798 Aliens and Sedition Acts.  States’ rights were fundamental to John Calhoun’s arguments as he stood in opposition to Andrew Jackson in the early 1830s.  Each struggle returns us to the words of the 10^th Amendment, keystone to our federalist republic’s ability to maintain true checks and balance against centralization.  It simply 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.

While states’ rights generate a firestorm of emotions, with opponents claiming supporters simply want to return to the days of slavery and racism, nullification often creates a sense of confusion.   Many people feel they are well educated in the subject of federalism while holding a core conviction federal law is supreme.  After all, this is what they remember being taught in their high school and college American Government classes.  So, the idea of a State thinking it can declare federal law null and void simply fails to register.

To help counter this confusion Thomas Woods, Jr. has written a new book, appropriately titled Nullification, which clearly delivers the history and use of the principle.  With his usual style for clearly explaining the difficult (read Meltdown to understand economics) the reader is quickly taken through many of history’s struggles and comes away with a better understanding of why nullification is so important in saving federalism each time it has been challenged.

In this book another word is mentioned that may be new to many yet also serves historically to check nationalist intentions in the times of chaos created by progressive nationalists; interpose.  Some will say interposition and nullification are basically the same.  On the surface it may appear to be but in reality these are more like cousins than twins.

On June 8^th, 1789 James Madison pressed our new Congress to listen to his introduction of the amendments (those we know of as the Bill of Rights) to the new Constitution necessary for maintaining unity.  While delivering his background on common opposition of the Constitution he stated;

There have been objections of various kinds made against the constitution. Some were leveled against its structure because the President was without a council; because the Senate, which is a legislative body, had judicial powers in trials on impeachments; and because the powers of that body were compounded in other respects, in a manner that did not correspond with a particular theory; because it grants more power than is supposed to be necessary for every good purpose, and controls the ordinary powers of the State Governments. I know some respectable characters who opposed this Government on these grounds; but I believe that the great mass of the people who opposed it, disliked it because it did not contain effectual provisions against encroachments on particular rights, and those safeguards which they have been long accustomed to have interposed between them and the magistrate who exercises the sovereign power; nor ought we to consider them safe, while a great number of our fellow-citizens think these securities necessary. (Emphasis added)

According to Felix Morley, in his book Freedom and Federalism (Indianapolis, 1959, p. 19), “The keyword here, from the viewpoint of federalism, has been italicized because it was the first time the doctrine of Interposition was foreshadowed as a proper and desirable constitutional practice for the United States.”  He further delineates the two cousins by using ‘resolutions of Interposition’ and ‘acts of Nullification’ when discussing each.  He defines Interposition as;

…an official action on the part of a State Government to question the constitutionality of a policy established by the central government.  The action at least temporarily interposes the sovereignty of the State between its citizens and the distant authority of Washington.  Customarily there is some sort of formal declaration to the effect that the objectionable national policy will be opposed until or unless the moot issue of its constitutionality is satisfactorily resolved. (p. 240)

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolution were resolutions of Interposition.  Within the Kentucky Resolution the legislature clearlystated it was a “rightful remedy” of States to nullify laws interpreted as unconstitutional.  This was a peaceful protest by Kentucky yet it left no doubt its intention, should the Aliens and Sedition Acts not be overturned, was to nullify them within their borders and protect their citizens from national usurpation and oppression.

If the national government wants to avoid having the law in question declared null and void within the State(s) it must respond in some fashion or understand the law will be considered null and void in the State(s) that has interposed.  Recently 22 States interposed concerning the Real ID Act.  Rather than overturning the act federal officials have decided to simply back away from it (what Morley refers to as tacitly backing down).  This is one of the remedies the national government can take.  (Unfortunately, as Thomas Woods points out in his latest book, the federal government instead is attempting to repackage it under a different name.)

When a State or States pass resolutions of Interposition it is a documented check against national action deemed to be unconstitutional, whether a majority of the people are in support of the action or not.  Federalism is not majority rule on a nationwide scale and the United States is not a democracy no matter how often this mistaken label is applied by nationalists.  The two cousins of interposition and nullification stand upon the 10^th Amendment as a protective defense against oppressive usurpation and attempts to end federalism.

Our framers designed this system exactly because history repeats itself and federalism will help us restore liberty peacefully.  It is imperative today patriotic, virtuous citizens unite behind their State if the State is either passing resolutions of Interposition or nullifying federal laws that violate our supreme law.  It is also imperative citizens living in a State unwilling to perform their 10^th Amendment duty must demand it does if we are to weather this all out assault on the U.S. Constitution and our federalist republic.

Gary Wood is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Utah Tenth Amendment Center. He works with the Utah 912 States’ Rights Coalition and Hosts March of Liberty Radio every Saturday and Sunday evening at 7pm EST on Blog Talk Radio. He is a lifetime member of the VFW among other groups but more important to him is his title of grandpa. “According to Thomas Jefferson the 10th Amendment is keystone to our Constitution. We must restore the keystone so we can secure the blessings of liberty for our posterity, a goal of our Founders and a goal we must still strive to achieve.”

Copyright © 2010 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given

Let’s shed some light on why Arizona’s Governor just vetoed a great piece of Tenth Amendment legislation.

Popularly known as the “Light Bulb Bill”, HB2337 was recently submitted to Governor Brewer. This bill seemed to be exactly the kind of Tenth Amendment legislation she would enthusiastically support. Surprisingly, however, she announced that she had vetoed the bill for practical and strategic reasons. In her veto letter, she explained:

Despite any federal restrictions to the contrary, the bill would have allowed the possession, use, manufacture, purchase, installation, sale or exportation internationally of incandescent light bulbs manufactured in Arizona from Arizona raw materials and components.

While I have vetoed HB 2337, I share the bill’s underlying sentiment. The federal government continually infringes on the rights of States guaranteed in the United States Constitution and by over-regulating the lives of everyday Americans. As Governor, there has not been a more ardent defender of the State of Arizona’s 10TH Amendment rights — from suing the federal government for overreaching its constitutional authority in the recently passed federal health care legislation to signing the Firearms Freedom Act (HB 2307) into law last month.

In fact, HB 2337 was modeled in large part after HB 2307. Both bills invite lawsuits that would restore our Founding Fathers’ vision of a limited federal government based on the 10TH Amendment. I believe that the Firearms Freedom Act is the more immediate and practical vehicle for achieving this objective. The federal phase-out of the incandescent light bulb starts next year and is completed in 2014. HB 2337 would take many more years to achieve its goal because there are no active tungsten mining or mineral processing facilities in Arizona. Tungsten is necessary to manufacture the filament in incandescent light bulbs.

Sadly, what Governor Brewer and many of the bill’s sponsors are either unaware of, or fail to understand properly, are the concepts of nullification and interposition, which were expressed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. The ideas articulated in these very important, but mostly unknown documents, later became known as The Principles of ’98, and were invoked in almost every decade before the Civil War by states from every part of the Union in response to acts of federal usurpation.

If more people serving in our state governments familiarized themselves with the The Principles of ’98 and the classical liberal states’ rights tradition nobody knows, they might be less concerned with provoking federal lawsuits in the hope of obtaining a favorable court ruling.

Lawsuits and court battles can be part of a state’s overall strategy to arrest acts of federal usurpation and keep them from multiplying, but they are not essential. While favorable court rulings are welcome, even Supreme Court decisions should not be accepted as legitimate by state governments if such decisions uphold “laws” that clearly would have been rejected by the Constitution’s ratifiers.

Just like Thomas Jefferson, our elected state officials need to finally and permenantly reject the historical and legal fiction that the US Supreme Court is the final authority on constitutional issues.

As founder and director of the Tenth Amendment Center, Michael Boldin, wrote in a recent press release:

“The greatest problem with relying on lawsuits..for Constitutional protection is the reality that the Supreme Court has set years and years of bad precedent, allowing the federal government to control many aspects of our lives that the Founders and Ratifiers never authorized. The real question we must ask is this:

Does the Constitution mean what the founders [and Ratifiers] said it means, or does it mean what the Supreme Court says it means…until it changes its mind?

Like any legal document, the words of the Constitution mean today the same as they meant the moment it was ratified. The Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause have not been amended, and the original Constitutional meanings of those clauses do not permit the federal government to exercise such powers.”

Given the fact that the Supreme Court is part of the federal government and can no more be an impartial arbiter of constitutional disputes between the states and the federal government than the legislative or executive branch could be, I have a question.

Do we live in a republic where the Constitution, which has a fixed and knowable meaning, is the supreme law of the land? Or do we live in a judicial oligarchy where we are governed by case law, which changes from decade to decade according to the shifting opinions of nine unelected, unaccountable judges?

If the latter is the case, then our system of government resembles more closely that of Iran, where ultimate sovereignty resides with Islamic jurists, than the one established by the Constitution’s framers and ratifiers.

But if the former is the case, then states, and not the Supreme Court exclusively, have the moral and legal authority to decide when Congress has violated the Constitution. And the people of the several states, supported and defended by their state governments, have every natural and legal right to ignore or refuse to obey what Congress may attempt to call a “law” in cases where it has overstepped its constitutional boundaries.

Some will assert that this could lead to irregularity and legal chaos around the country. I contend that we are already faced with a far worse situation: institutionalized lawlessness and nationalized tyranny.

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Nullification is the talk of the day, especially as it regards the federal health care law. Many states’ legislatures are offering and passing legislation and resolutions to nullify the health care law on the basis it exceeds the authority of Congress. This is a step in the right direction. However, unless specific provisions are in place to guide and protect the citizen, nullification might prove pointless.

Unless a citizen produces proof of coverage under the federal mandate, he or she will be taxed as a penalty for failure to buy a federally-approved insurance policy. In states where nullification efforts have passed, most instances will leave the citizen in a state of conflict.

If I am penalized by the federal government, should I pay the penalty? While my state has indicated the penalty is Unconstitutional, there is still the Internal Revenue Service with which I will have to deal. It will assess further penalties against me. It will assess interest against me. It will come for my bank accounts. It will levy my property. It will come for my home. It might even prosecute me and put me in jail.

Against all this, my state’s legislature has simply said, “They can’t do that.” This is little reassurance. Nullification is more than a mere declarative statement. What good is nullification if it leaves the citizen in fear to the degree that he feels he is “on his own?” Many citizens, if not the vast majority, will likely reluctantly succumb and comply with the Unconstitutional mandate or pay the penalty. Of course, this is not the intent of nullification, and such a result will render nullification ineffective.

If state legislatures intend to serve their citizens through this conflict, they will need to do better than say, “The federal government can’t do that.” They will need to be specific. They will need to provide proof that every arm of state government is there to back the citizen.

Here are some loosely paraphrased examples of what states need to do to give their nullification efforts a reasonable chance of success (there can be many more):

(1) No court of this state shall relinquish jurisdiction over any citizen of this state or the subject matter of federal health care legislation to any federal court in this state.

(2) No judge in this state shall issue orders to levy or execute on the property of any citizen of this state to collect any amounts assessed against the citizen for failure to comply with any provision of federal health care legislation. Any person who violates this provision shall be subject to any disciplinary sanction available by the state bar, including suspension and/or disbarment.

(3) Any federal judge in this state shall be subject to sua sponte and citizen-initiated grievance procedures before the state bar for exercising jurisdiction over any citizen of this state in cases involving federal health care legislation. Any person who violates this provision may be subject to any disciplinary sanction available by the state bar, including suspension and/or disbarment.

(4) No federal or state officer in this state shall levy or execute on the property of any citizen of this state to collect any amounts assessed against the citizen for failure to comply with any provision of federal health care legislation. Any person who violates this provision shall be subject to€¦.

(5) No bank, credit union, trustee, investment broker or other depository in this state shall be authorized to pay over to any federal authority any sums claimed due under any writ of garnishment, if such writ is for purposes of collecting any amounts assessed against a citizen of this state for failure to comply with any provision of federal health care legislation. Any person who violates this provision shall be subject to€¦.

The foregoing are just a few examples. Provisions such as these must be implemented in order to convince citizens that their state government is fully in support of their rights. It is one thing to express merely one’s political will by nullifying, and it is another to effectively nullify. To effectively nullify, citizens will have to be convinced that civil disobedience against Unconstitutional laws will be fully-protected. Without widespread civil disobedience, nullification might go nowhere.

Jeff Matthews [send him email] is a practicing attorney in Houston. He graduated from the University of Texas, School of Law in 1993 and was licensed that year.

Copyright © 2010 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit to the author and this website is given.

In 1798, he secretly co-authored, along with Thomas Jefferson, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts. It was these resolutions where the principles of nullification and interposition first gained prominence in the American tradition.

In honor of James Madison’s birthday, March 16, 1751, we are pleased to announce the third installment of our “publications” section. This paper, “From Interposition to Nullification: Peripheries and Center in the Thought of James Madison,” by Kevin R.C. Gutzman, is a fantastic resource for understanding the political thought of Madison, which showed great changes over his career – from nationalism to state sovereignty and back.

It was originally published in the University of Virginia’s Essays in History, vol 26, 1994.

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From Interposition to Nullification: Peripheries and Center in the Thought of James Madison
by Kevin R.C. Gutzman

In 1836, the expiring James Madison offered “Advice to My Country”:

The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions, is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened, and the disguised one as the serpent creeping with deadly wiles into Paradise.

Madison’s concern for the future of the union had been piqued by the Nullification Controversy and the growing appeal of states’ rights.

There is a certain irony in Madison’s worries: the states’ rights strain of Jeffersonianism owed much to the actions and public writings four decades earlier of Madison himself. The story of Madison’s career can be seen as that of a creative politician whose very creativity came, at the end of his life, to threaten his foremost achievement. After his death, his intellectual heirs would rend the union asunder; the doctrine of state sovereignty under the federal constitution, which Madison had helped formulate in response to a perceived threat to republicanism, would be used to truncate the union, the extended sphere Madison had been instrumental in creating and in which he had long lodged his fondest hopes.

James Madison’s thinking about federalism prior to 1800 reflected the relative strengths of the federal and state governments at different times. Consistent theory yielded to political imperative; understanding was altered by perspective and experience. Madison had a consistent vision of the ideal polity, but the events of those years elicited the enunciation of doctrines and the support of constitutional interpretations of which, on sober second thought, he disapproved.

James Madison was integrally involved in the conception, drafting, and passage of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. Yet, he had emerged from the Philadelphia Convention eleven years earlier convinced that the old British imperium in imperio had been recreated, concerned that the federal government had not been given enough power vis-a-vis the states. To rectify the situation, he had proposed a constitutional amendment making certain basic freedoms enforceable by the federal judiciary against the states.

This apparent inconsistency need not be viewed as a sign of opportunism. The Virginia Plan and the Virginia Resolutions were both devices Madison hoped would preserve the hard-won gains of the Revolution. He did not want mere union, but a certain type of union; he did not want mere federalism, but federalism which would return control of the republic to those who could be trusted to act continentally. In the context of 1787, this desire led to advocacy of firmer union in the Virginia Plan; in that of 1798, to assertion of states’ rights in the Virginia Resolutions.

Thus, Publius could point to the reservation of rights to the states as a positive feature of the proposed federal edifice: while he would have preferred a more centralized union, Madison believed the union in prospect was superior to the Confederation government. As a statesman, improvement was Madison’s goal; as an heir to the thought of St. Augustine, Madison thought that imperfection was to be expected in any human creation; as a practical politician, he adopted popular arguments with which he did not necessarily agree in order to secure his aim.

Madison, like his friend Thomas Jefferson, partook of the ambient partisan excess of the 1790s. Because he tended to see the actions of the Federalist administrations in an extremely negative light, his enunciation of Republican values in the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and “clarification” in the Report of 1800 were inconsistent with his statements and behavior both before and after the Federalist period. Madison undermined the prospects for long-term durability of his work in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 by acting as he did in 1798-1800.

It was to the “Principles of ’98″ that James Madison’s successors in leadership of the Southern interest in federal politics turned until, in the 1960s, the South as an insular political entity was eliminated from American life. Despite what Madison said in his later years, the states’ rights tradition was firmly based on his and Jefferson’s writings in 1798.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL PAPER

Kevin R. C. Gutzman, J.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University, is the author of Virginia’s American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776–1840 and The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution. He is also the co-author, with Thomas E. Woods, Jr., of Who Killed the Constitution? The Federal Government vs. American Liberty from World War I to Barack Obama. His upcoming book, James Madison and the Making of America, will be published by St. Martin’s early in 2011.

Those who are mystified by the political concept called “interposition” can find a very compelling tutorial in a vignette from Larry McMurtry’s novel Lonesome Dove.

Led by former Texas Rangers Augustus McRae and Woodrow Call, the men of the Hat Creek Cattle Company left their village of Lonesome Dove, Texas to drive a herd of cattle to Montana. During a brief stop to replenish supplies and give their horses a rest, the cowboys encounter a small party of soldiers. Their commander, one Captain Weaver, approaches a Hat Creek Co. employee named Dish Boggett and explains that he seeks to “requisition” Boggett’s horse, along with any others the soldiers find suitable.

After Boggett replies that his horse isn’t for sale, Weaver tries to intimidate the man and his friends by saying that defying the U.S. Army is “treason” and that they could be hung. Once again, Weaver demands the animal, and once again Boggett refuses to sell it.

At this point, Weaver lets Dixon, his Army Scout, off the leash. The malodorous wretch beats Boggett to the ground and moves to steal his horse. This prompts young Newt – a teenager who more than carried his weight in the company – to intervene, grabbing the reins of Boggett’s horse and reminding the scout that the animal, an item of private property, was not for sale and not the government’s to take by force.

Newt’s act is a form of peaceful interposition in defense of his friend’s property rights. His reward is to be assaulted by the infuriated scout, who repeatedly lashes the young man with a quirt. From across the plaza, Woodrow Call – who had been shopping at a dry goods store – spies the assault on Newt, his only son (a fact not known to the young man).

After quickly saddling up and dashing on horseback the length of the town, Newt’s infuriated father knocks Dixon from his horse. Woodrow dismounts, kicks Dixon in the teeth – and then he gets rude.

A blacksmith’s shop nearby yields a branding iron that Woodrow wields as a club. His anger not abated, Woodrow then grabs the scout by collar and belt and hurls him, face-first, into an anvil. A pair of tongs then finds its way into Woodrow’s hands. He is approaching the battered and bloodied bully with lethal intent when he is lassoed by his best friend, Augustus, who drags Woodrow away to let his fury dissipate.

“I hate rude behavior in a man,” Woodrow politely explains to a group of stunned settlers who had witnessed the incident. “I won’t tolerate it.”

In addition to being the most beautiful scene in American literature, this episode illustrates several applications of the principle of interposition – the lawful, necessary intervention by one person in defense of the rights of another.

Newt interposed to protect his friend’s horse; Woodrow intervened with righteous violence to protect Newt from the Army scout’s criminal assault.

It could also be said that Augustus interposed on behalf of the scout by preventing his friend Woodrow from exceeding his moral authority: Yes, Dixon deserved a stout beating, but killing him outright would have been disproportionate.

By threatening the use of lethal violence against those who refused to surrender their property, the fictional Captain Weaver made explicit the implicit threat made every day by his analogues in real life. In terms of both morality and the law, Boggett’s refusal to sell or surrender his horse ended the matter. The violence that ensued was an entirely credible dramatization of what happens when agents of the state’s killing apparatus refuse to take “no” as the final answer to a demand for the legal property of a law-abiding man.

By using the term “law” we are not referring to the positivist enactments through which governments plunder the productive on behalf of the parasitical, and inflict criminal violence on anyone who objects; rather, we are referring to what Frédéric Bastiat described as “the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.”

While providing for that common defense is supposedly the purpose of government, it is government that most consistently threatens individual rights and property. Interposition could be considered a form of “citizen’s arrest” – that is, an action taken to arrest criminal aggression by government. The most basic form of interposition is defensive physical action, whether through peaceful non-cooperation or lawful exercise of defensive violence.

In political terms, interposition is an organized effort to accomplish the same end by way of deputized representatives. In the U.S. constitutional system, interposition can take the form of nullification of unconstitutional federal acts by a state government, or of the application of an unjust “law” by a jury (as in “jury nullification”).

Critics of the concept treat it as either an invention of fringe-dwelling conspiracists or the disreputable refuge of race-fixated segregationists. Typical of such people is self-styled “expert” on extremism David Neiwert (the author of a deeply silly and incurably dishonest book on “hate politics”), who – exhibiting his proprietary blend of ignorance and mendacity – refers to interposition and nullification as concepts supposedly created by the “militia movement” in the 1990s.

The truth, which is readily available to anyone with a library card (or access to Google) and a mind not shackled by statist prejudices, is that those concepts were first propounded centuries ago in England, and that they are part of the warp and weave of the U.S. constitutional system. The Magna Carta is the product of interposition. The pseudonymously published 17th Century Puritan tract Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (elements of which clearly anticipate the Declaration of Independence), describes interposition by legislative bodies as a critical means of restraining a lawless king’s corrupt ambitions.

The most systematic and compelling exposition of interposition and nullification was provided by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison – neither of whom was among the living during the much-hyped “militia” scare of the mid-1990s – in their 1798 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which were enacted by the legislatures of those states in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts.

The December 1798 Virginia Resolution condemned the Alien and Sedition Acts as an exercise of a power “no where delegated to the federal government” and subversive of “the general principles of free government,” including “the Liberty of Conscience and of the Press.” In the face of such usurpation, the states that created the federal government as their agent “have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil [represented by those Acts], and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.”>

Kentucky’s Resolution, which had been passed earlier, addressed the same concerns described in Virginia’s measure and focused particularly on the Alien Act, which provided for the deportation of non-citizens arbitrarily deemed to be threats to the “peace and safety of the United States.” The Kentucky measure declared that “alien friends are under the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the State wherein they are [and] that no power over them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the individual States, distinct from the power over citizens.”

In 1814, shortly before the end of a disastrous war with Great Britain,delegates from New England States met in Hartford, Connecticut. Using the same constitutional reasoning Madison himself had invoked in 1798, the Hartford delegates discussed the possibility of seceding from the Union as a way of interposing on behalf of constituents whose livelihoods and liberties were imperiled by “Mr. Madison’s war.”

Among the possible actions contemplated by the delegates was enactment of state measures nullifying federal laws “which shall contain [any] provision subjecting the militia or other citizens to forcible drafts, conscriptions, or impressments….”

From this we see that the concepts of nullification and interposition were not created by southern politicians seeking to preserve Jim Crow, as we’re told by Neiwert and other self-ordained pontiffs of “progressivism.” In fact, they were most forcefully articulated in opposition to war and conscription, and in defense of civil liberties and the rights of unpopular minorities.

Either out of deliberate deceit, incurable ignorance, or some alloy of the same, Neiwert acts as if this history is of no relevance to the current controversy over nullification.

In fact, when former federal judge Andrew Napolitano observed that state legislatures have the authority to enact health freedom measures intended to nullify Obama’s proposed “health care” legislation, Neiwert’s reflexive response was to traduce the judge as a proto-Klansman, rather than to engage his argument in the fashion of a practicing adult. (In a moderated debate with Judge Napolitano, Neiwert would be whipped more thoroughly than a pint of heavy cream in a French pastry shop.)

If so much as a particle of honesty resided within Neiwert he would acknowledge that many of George W. Bush’s left-leaning critics, to their credit, re-discovered the merits of the “states’ rights” perspective during his reign. Some of them eagerly practiced nullification and interposition à la carte, >particularly with respect to the so-called USA PATRIOT act.

In early 2002, the municipal government of Ann Arbor claimed the honor of being the first to enact a resolution urging outright nullification of key sections of that odious act; by 2005, hundreds of other municipal, county, and state governments had passed similar resolutions of their own.

Somehow those entirely commendable acts of nullification and interposition were spared the indignant condemnation of Neiwert and other anti-”hate” activists, who now insist that invocation of those principles is a rhetorical“dog whistle” – a type of political code used by cunning racists seeking a PR-friendly way to rile up their vast and stealthy constituency.

Likewise, during the late, unlamented Bush era, some 30 major U.S. cities enacted “sanctuary city” measures forbidding local police to enforce federal immigration laws. Unlike opposition to the PATRIOT (sic) act during the Bush era, and to much of the Obama administration’s agenda today, the “Sanctuary City” movement was obviously and undeniably rooted in racial politics, as practiced by foundation-funded (and often federally supported) ethnic lobbies such as MALDEF and La Raza. Yet those racially tinged acts of nullification and interposition – a form of city-by-city secession from a national immigration policy – escaped censure by Neiwert and other self-appointed titans of tolerance.

The desire for power frequently begets petty hypocrisy, which is among the world’s most tragically abundant resources. Just as many of yesterday’s leftist dissidents now treat political nonconformity as a species of treason, many of those who denounce the current president as a domestic enemy would have considered such rhetoric a Gitmo-worthy offense just a few years ago.

Many of yesterday’s most strident “peace” activists are either deferentially silent, or dutifully supportive, as their president slays thousands of innocent foreigners via remote control. Likewise, many (by no means all) of those who condemn Obama’s orgy of federal spending are recent converts to the church of public austerity, having endured eight years under the reign of the equally profligate Bush without audible complaint.

The problem here, of course, is that both sides in this manufactured conflict are manipulated by power-obsessed people into defining the enemy in “horizontal” rather than “vertical” terms; that is, the real threat consists of “those people” over there, rather than those who presume to exercise power over all of us. Rather than seeking an end to the Leviathan State, each side seeks to control its coercive appendages while protecting its own interests in the cynical and entirely misplaced confidence that the powers they surrender to the state today won’t be pitilessly deployed against them tomorrow.

There are at least a few campaigns that offer some modest cause for optimism:>

• Former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mac>k, who insists that the only legitimate function of peace officers is the protection of person and property (he denounces most “law enforcement” as “taxation by citation”) has been finding at least some traction in his campaign to educate county sheriffs regarding their duty to interpose on behalf of constituents threatened by federal agencies, including – no, especially – the IRS.
• New Hampshire’s Free State Project is seeking to cultivate an agorist society through both electoral politics and creative acts of peaceful non-cooperation with the state.

That’s interposition in its most elemental form. In what sense is this difficult to understand?

• South Carolina state representative Mike Pitts, who obviously has absorbed some of the lessons taught by the Ron Paul “End the Fed” movement, has proposed legislation to forbid the use of the Regime’s fraudulent script (Federal Reserve Notes, commonly called “dollars”) as legal tender in the Palmetto State. Although it is entirely symbolic at present, that measure may acquire substance as the collapse of the Regime’s fiat currency accelerates.
• The Second Vermont Republic has not confined itself to symbolic repudiation of the Regime’s currency. That movement, which promotes peaceful withdrawal from Washington’s empire, has minted a silver token with a face value of $25. Last month, the movement announced that it would field nine candidates for state-wide office, including gubernatorial candidate Dennis Steele.

A veteran of the U.S. Army, Steele reduces his political program to the essentials: The bastards who are running things are not getting his sons.

“I see my kids going off to fight in wars for empire 10, 15, 20 years from now,” Steele told Time magazine. Think of Captain Woodrow Call racing to rescue his son Newt, and you’ve got a good picture of Steele’s motivations.

That’s interposition in its most elemental form. In what sense is this difficult to understand?

William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.

Copyright © 2010 William Norman Grigg

Wyoming Bill Seeks to Combat Federal Distortions of Commerce Clause, 2nd Amendment – Includes Penalties of up to Two Years in Prison for Federal Agents Violating the Law.

Wyoming State Representative Allen Jaggi has introduced a “Firearms Freedom Act” (FFA) for the state – it’s filed as House Bill 95 (HB95).

While the FFA’s title focuses on gun regulations, it has far more to do with the federal violations of the commerce clause, which D.C. has used as an excuse to prohibit and regulate everything from wheat, to marijuana to guns.

If passed, the will would provide “that specified firearms that are manufactured, sold, purchased, possessed and used exclusively within Wyoming shall be exempt from federal regulation, including registration requirements”

Some supporters of the legislation say that a successful application of such a state-law would set a strong precedent and open the door for states to take their own positions on a wide range of other activities that they see as not being authorized to the Federal Government by the Constitution.

Wyoming joins 21 other states considering similar legislation – including New Hampshire, Virginia and Missouri.

In 2009, Tennessee and Montana passed a version of the Firearms Freedom Act into law. The Montana Shooting Sports Association (MTSSA) and the 2nd Amendment Foundation (SAF) have filed a federal lawsuit to validate the principles of the law.

NULLIFICATION

The principle behind such legislation is nullification, which has a long history in the American tradition.

When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned.

But nullification is more than just a mere rhetorical statement or a resolution affirming the position of the legislature. To effectively nullify a federal law requires state action to prevent federal enforcement within the state.

INTERPOSITION

Implied in any nullification legislation is enforcement of the state law. In the Virginia Resolution of 1798, James Madison wrote of the principle of interposition:

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

In his famous speech during the war of 1812, Daniel Webster said:

“The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be prevented by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and legal. It will be the solemn duty of the State governments to protect their own authority over their own militia, and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power. These are among the objects for which the State governments exist”

Here Madison and Webster assert what is implied in nullification laws — that state governments not only have the right to resist unconstitutional federal acts, but that, in order to protect liberty, they are “duty bound to interpose” or stand between the federal government and the people of the state.

PENALTIES FOR FEDERAL AGENTS

HB95 includes this principle, and if passed, would impose penalties for violations of the law:

Any official, agent or employee of the United States government who enforces or attempts to enforce any act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the United States government upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Wyoming and that remains exclusively within the borders of Wyoming shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be subject to imprisonment for not more than two (2) years, a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00), or both.

Sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center tell us to expect to see as many as 30 states consider similar legislation in 2010.

CLICK HERE – to view the Tenth Amendment Center’s Firearms Freedom Act Tracking Page

CLICK HERE – Firearms Freedom Act Talking Points from the Tenth Amendment Center.
(tri-fold brochure, printable in color or b/w, pdf format)

Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center

Copyright © 2010 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given

Q. What can I read that can give me a serious overview of the true impact of the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 on South Carolina?

A: I think the question of the impact of the protective tariff on South Carolina is the wrong question to ask. It is something of a diversionary tactic, for reasons I will try to explain below.

The questions to ask about that period of American history are 1) was the protective tariff just?; 2) was it good policy?; 3) was it constitutional?. A believer in free markets and constitutionally limited government can only give a resounding NO to all these questions.

It was not just South Carolina that objected to the tariff. From the earliest national period John Taylor’s writings and John Randolph’s speeches, along with many other Southern spokesman, were eloquent and firm on the unjustness of the “protective” tariff. From 1824 on, every Southern legislature strongly condemned the tariff. The only difference was that only South Carolina was willing to go to the extent of actual nullification. This was not because South Carolina had suffered any more than others, but because South Carolina was the only State in which decisions could be made without the input of national party leaders who wanted to avoid hard issues.

From 1824 on it was apparent that the manufacturers intended a high and permanent system of tariffs, which had not been obvious before, when tariffs had been thought of as revenue measures with perhaps “incidental” protection. The term “lobbyists” was first used in America in the 1820s for the agents of the New England/Pennsylvania manufacturers who began to haunt the legislative halls and hold out inducements to congressmen. The acts of 1828 and 1832 were blatant examples of log-rolling rather than policy decisions. The latter was also deceptively presented by the Jackson/Van Buren forces as a remedy to tariff opponents.

It was not only the South that vigorously opposed the tariffs of 1828 and 1832. The Northern free market men like William Gouge and Condy Raguet exposed the tariff and approved South Carolina’s action, and public meetings of Northern merchants and craftsmen denounced the protective tariff as did Democratic conventions in many Northern States at that time and later.

Historians have tried with considerable success to divert the question to an emphasis on South Carolina. The hidden assumption is that the tariff policy is so self-evidently good that there is something peculiar about South Carolina to explain the strong opposition. It must be exhausted soil and declining prosperity (or more recently fears over slavery) that drove South Carolinians to blame their problems on others. This is just a transmission of the claims of the tariffites’ propaganda of the time. New Englanders, then as now, were extremely self-centered and self-righteous. They said in Congress that the South’s economic problems were because Southerners were, unlike them, lazy and unproductive. (Calhoun pointed out that Southerners produced almost all of the country’s foreign trade in an open market while those who complained of Southern lack of enterprise enjoyed a protected domestic market.) Many New England spokesmen said that opposition to such a self-evidently good policy was itself treason. Not nullification, mind you, but opposition to the protective tariff was in itself declared to be treasonous. The historians who concentrate on “the effects on South Carolina” work from a basic assumption that Southerners are too stupid to know their own real interests, are always wrong and deceptive in their politics, and are naturally inclined to be traitors.

So, to approach the question of the tariff as an issue of the peculiarities of South Carolina is a diversion from the larger question of the impact of the tariff on the American economy as a whole. How can any freemarketeer doubt that the impact was unjust? Even more so because it not only benefited one group of people, but it also, on phony grounds of patriotism, diverted wealth from the South to certain interests in the North in a government that was supposed to benefit all parts of the Union. It was this (far more than the slavery issue) that drove Southerners to begin to question the value of the Union. Was the North to get all the benefits and the South to bear all the burdens?

What was the impact of the tariffs on South Carolina? This is an empirical question that, like any complicated situation, can be argued all sorts of ways. It would seem to be axiomatic to advocates of free markets that a government policy that artificially raises the costs of goods for the benefit of a particular interest is harmful. But in a sense that is beside the point. What was the economic effect of the Tea Tax on the American colonists in 1775? The point was that it was an unfair imposition based on an exercise of doubted power.

You can get a good overview of the Southern case from the section on Free Trade in my The Essential Calhoun, especially Calhoun’s speech on the tariff of 1842. Also my article on “Free Trade…” in the Genovese festschrift, Slavery, Secession, and Southern History, ed. Robert Paquette.

Q. How about the constitutional question – is there really no good constitutional argument on behalf of tariffs for protection?

A. There is no question that the Constitution gave certain taxing powers for the purpose of providing the general government with a source of support. The tax on imports was the best way to do this. It was paid by the consumer to the degree of consumption of imported goods, largely luxury items or highly specialized materials and equipment. Equally there is no question that a protective tariff is anti-revenue – using a law for a different purpose than that for which the power had been granted. The Supreme Court held that it was a political question, that it could not look beneath the law itself to its intentions or effects. In the Philadelphia Convention, proposals that the new federal government have the power to lay protective tariffs and to charter corporations failed to carry. As Tom DiLorenzo has recently reminded us, the Hamiltonians cavalierly disregarded the limits on federal power in both these cases in pursuit of their mercantilist, mimic England, agenda. It is perhaps also worth pointing out in this connection that the Constitution absolutely forbade any tax on exports.

Q. And finally, do you believe nullification would have to involve convening a special convention of the people, or could it conceivably be carried out by a state legislature?

A. The South Carolina nullification of 1832 was enacted by a convention of the people especially called for the purpose. By the South Carolina constitution such a convention could only be called by a three/fourths majority of both houses of the legislature. The South Carolinians wanted to make it clear that the act was a high constitutional one – based on the primary sovereignty of the people – like the acts that had made the State independent in 1775 and had ratified the Constitution in 1788. However, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, which laid out the power and right of state interposition against unconstitutional federal acts, were done by the legislatures.

A couple more points. “Nullification” was a derogatory, negative-sounding term invented by the opponents of the right. The proper name is State Interposition.

The historians tell us that Nullification of the tariff by South Carolina failed and federal supremacy was vindicated. That is not quite the truth. One can make a good case that it was a success. The historians note Jackson’s proclamation against nullification but they never mention that there was a great outpouring of public opinion against Jackson’s proclamation. The proclamation raised the possibility of the coercion of the people of a State by the federal government. Many people, North and South, were more alarmed by that than they were disturbed by nullification. (By the way, Webster DID NOT win the Webster-Hayne Debate. In the Senate, the press, and public opinion, Webster was the clear loser).

Nullification was a success. To defuse the crisis, Congress in 1833 passed the Compromise Tariff by which the tariff would come down by stages over the next ten years after which it would be at a revenue-only. Not bad for a small State against the world. True, the Whigs sought to forget and violate the compromise in 1842 but they did not entirely succeed and the most free-trade tariff in our history was passed in 1846. This would not have happened if it had not been for the action of “our gallant little State.”

Q: What is the proper reply to the states which, objecting to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, cited Article III, Section 2 as evidence that the Supreme Court is indeed the arbiter for disputes of power between the federal government and the states?

A: The States that took the position you cite were those deeply invested in Federalist hegemony – devoted to constructing a strong federal judiciary to control what they regarded as the evil and unenlightened masses. They said so very plainly. Was not this position thoroughly repudiated in the Kentucky and Virginia documents themselves, followed immediately by the triumph of the “Principles of 1798″ party in the elections?

Clyde Wilson [send him mail] was a professor of history but is recovering nicely, thank you. He is the editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun.

Copyright © 2010 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Around the country, twenty two states are currently considering a bill known as the “Firearms Freedom Act.” This bill declares that guns, accessories, and ammunition made within a state, sold within that state and kept in that state are not subject to federal laws or regulations under the “Interstate Commerce Clause” of the Constitution.

Montana and Tennessee passed a Firearms Freedom Act into law in 2009, and a number of states are moving that direction in the 2010 legislative session. In South Carolina, where a Firearms Freedom Act was also introduced in 2009, some representatives have taken things a step further.

NULLIFYING GUN REGISTRATIONS

Introduced in the South Carolina General Assembly this week is House Bill 4509 (H4509), which if passed, would make law that “no public official of any jurisdiction may require registration of purchasers of firearms or ammunition within the boundaries of this State.”

No caveat for regulations under the commerce clause. No caveat for types of firearms either. This bill says NO to all gun registrations – period.

The principle behind such legislation is nullification, which has a long history in the American tradition.

In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote in response to the hated Alien and Sedition Acts:

“The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government”

and

“where powers are assumed [by the federal government] 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 assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them”

In short, nullification means this: The state is taking a position that a particular federal law is unconstitutional, and thus, the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as that state is concerned.

But nullification is much more than just mere rhetoric. To nullify a federal law in practice requires active resistance to it by the people and the state government.

INTERPOSITION

In the Virginia Resolution of 1798, James Madison wrote of the principle of interposition:

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

Here Madison asserts what is implied in nullification laws – that state governments not only have the right to resist unconstitutional federal acts, but that, in order to protect liberty, they are “duty bound to interpose” or stand between the federal government and the people of the state.

H4509 includes strong language to assert this principle:

Federal agents have flouted the United States Constitution and foresworn their oath to support this Constitution by requiring registration of the purchasers of firearms and ammunition, and these requirements violate the limits of authority placed upon the federal agents by the United States Constitution and are dangerous to the liberties of the people

(B) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no public official of any jurisdiction may require registration of purchasers of firearms or ammunition within the boundaries of this State.

(C) Any person violating the provisions of this subsection (B) is guilty of a felony and upon conviction must be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both.

A GROWING MOVEMENT

Supporters of such legislation point to laws passed by other states that have effectively nullified federal laws around the country. Fourteen states have now defied federal laws on marijuana. And, two dozen states have refused to comply with the Bush-era Real ID Act, rendering that 2005 law virtually null and void today.

Guns, national ID cards, and weed might be just the early stages of a quickly growing movement to nullify other federal laws seen as outside the scope of their constitutionally-delegated powers. In states around the country this year, bills have been proposed to defy or nullify federal laws on health care, use of national guard troops overseas, legal tender laws, cap and trade, and even the process of collecting federal income taxes.

The final goal? It’s a long way off – a federal government that follows the strict limits of the constitution, whether it wants to or not.

CLICK HERE to view the Tenth Amendment Center’s Legislative Tracking Page for Current Nullification Efforts

Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center

Copyright © 2010 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Often, supporters of the 10th Amendment movement that’s been growing around the country say – “I love all the discussion and the resolutions in support of the 10th amendment, but where’s the enforcement? These actions need some teeth!.”

If teeth is what you want, you need to go no further than Georgia. House Bill 880 (HB880), introduced by Representative Bobby Franklin, is called the “State Authority and Anti-racketeering Act.”

Unlike the many 10th Amendment Resolutions that have been introduced around the country since 2008, HB880 is legally-binding legislation.

LIMITED: THE PROPER ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

Federal violations of the Constitution go far beyond anything the founders and ratifiers would have accepted.

James Madison, explaining the constitution, in Federalist Paper 45, said, “The powers delegated … to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.”

Thomas Jefferson emphasized that the states are not “subordinate” to the national government, but rather the two are “coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. … The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government.”

The founders made quite clear that a vast majority of powers would remain in the states. If passed, this principle would be codified in state law by HB880:

The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees to the states and the people all powers not granted to the federal government elsewhere in the Constitution and not prohibited by the Constitution

and

The State of Georgia hereby reclaims authority under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the states in the Constitution of the United States.

NULLIFICATION

The principles behind such legislation is nullification, which garnered first serious attention with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798.

When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned.

All across the country, activists and state-legislators are pressing for similar legislation, to nullify specific federal laws within their states.

A proposed Constitutional Amendment to effectively ban national health care will go to a vote in Arizona in 2010. Fourteen states now have some form of medical marijuana laws – in direct contravention to federal laws which state that the plant is illegal in all circumstances. And, massive state nullification of the 2005 Real ID Act has rendered the law nearly void.

But nullification is much more than a mere rhetorical statement issued by a state legislature. At its very core, it’s mass civil disobedience to the federal government by the people of a state with the backing of the state government.

INTERPOSITION

In the Virginia Resolution of 1798, James Madison wrote of the principle of interposition:

That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.

Here Madison asserts what is implied in nullification laws – that state governments not only have the right to resist unconstitutional federal acts, but that, in order to protect liberty, they are “duty bound to interpose” or stand between the federal government and the people of the state.

House Bill 880 includes strong language to assert this principle:

Any actions taken by the federal government through its agents or employees that are not authorized by the Constitution of the United States are unlawful; and being unlawful, they are criminal offenses against the affected parties

This bill would make it a crime – with imprisonment for up to 30 years for each offense – for “any judicial officer, law enforcement officer, agent, or employee of the federal government, any multinational government, any international government, or any global government” to attempt to “enforce any federal, multinational, international, or global law” reserved to the State of Georgia under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.

As of this writing, the bill has had two readings in the Georgia House.
Will such a strong piece of legislation go anywhere? Only time will tell. The reality, though, is this – it’s going to take some serious effort to push back against decades and decades of unconstitutional federal acts.

CLICK HERE to view the Tenth Amendment Center’s 10th Amendment Bills Tracking Page

Michael Boldin is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center

Copyright © 2010 by TenthAmendmentCenter.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.