photo credit: Randy Son of Robert

While many people assume that the thirteen colonies which declared independence from Great Britain did so jointly as part of a newly-formed (or -forming) nation, this is incorrect. This belief is not only erroneous, but also dangerous.

If one assumes that a conglomeration of the colonies secured independence and international recognition as a single unit, then this warped view of history would lend support for seeing our country today as similar in nature: a singular entity, “The United States.”

History tells a different story. For example, an 1840 history book written by Abel P. Upshur notes the following:

The people of one colony owed no allegiance to the government of any other colony, and were not bound by its laws. The colonies had no common legislature, no common treasury, no common military power, no common judicatory. The people of one colony were not liable to pay taxes to any other colony, nor to bear arms in its defence; they had no right to vote in its elections, no influence nor control in its municipal government, no interest in its municipal institutions. There was no prescribed form by which the colonies could act together, for any purpose whatever.

Prior to the creation and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the states were separate countries—sovereign political bodies with no superior authority. This is evidenced, among myriad other sources, in the Declaration of Independence, where we read of the King’s “establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States” as well as the colonies being affirmed as “Free and Independent States”. The Treaty of Paris that ended (most of) the conflict between the Crown and the states recognized each state individually, by name, as opposed to “The United States”. Indeed, the Declaration references “the united States of America” with a lowercase ‘u’, indicating that the several states were united in objective but separate in status.

After successfully seceding from Great Britain, the several states voluntarily entered into a political association under the Articles of Confederation. Fiercely jealous of their newly-secured sovereign powers, the states insisted and agreed upon veto power over any action made by the confederate government that exceeded its express authority.

One of the provisions in the Articles stated, for example, that “Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.” While the Articles certainly had their flaws, they nevertheless recognized and operated upon the understanding that each of the states were voluntary participants in the “Perpetual Union” created by the document.

When several of the states later decided to secede from this “Perpetual Union” created by the Articles in order to accede to the new government (a “more perfect Union”) under the U.S. Constitution, they did so independently through ratifying conventions, and over a span of several years. Their accession to and affiliation with this new government was still voluntary, and their sovereignty still recognized, with federal supremacy pertaining only to the specific, limited, enumerated powers which had been delegated to the new government.

In order to further emphasize the fact that the Constitution empowered the federal government only with the powers contained in the document, the ninth and tenth amendments were passed. These specifically state that the powers and rights nowhere delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, nor enumerated therein, are reserved to the states and people. In other words, in all matters not relating directly to those delegated by the states to the federal government, the states retain their sovereignty and the people their rights.

While on paper this arrangement appears rock solid, an abundance of examples exist demonstrating either the inability or the unwillingness of the federal government to restrain itself accordingly. Despite those oft-referenced “checks and balances,” the states have, over two centuries, seen a steady and severe erosion of their sovereign powers. Thomas Jefferson warned of this trend long ago:

When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.

So much power has been arrogated to the federal government that its title is now commonly written with a capital “U”, as in “The United States of America,” singular.

But despite its capitalization and therefore increased prominence in the title of the country, a quick peek underneath the surface reveals a political climate in which unity is difficult to actually find. The easiest way to observe disunity, of course, is to analyze a circumstance in which one state objects with another. It should be noted, however, that unity can be said to exist in regards to all powers delegated to the federal government within the Constitution; having previously agreed to subject themselves to the federal government on certain issues, one might say that they are then united in accordance with whatever decisions are made in regards to those issues.

On all other issues, though, no such agreement has been made, let alone unity established. When the federal government passes an unconstitutional law, a variety of responses can be found amongst the several states. Some might object primarily on principle, opposing the abuse of authority that was not delegated. Other states, whose citizens like the law, may not show any concern for its unconstitutionality. Others may justify an unconstitutional law with all sorts of intellectual gymnastics, preferring the new law to the contrary. And other states may object because the unconstitutional law’s effects are keenly felt amongst its populace.

The latter example can be found in the case of Massachusetts, one of the New England states that was hit hardest by an 1807 embargo, with its supplementary laws enacted in succeeding months, imposed by the federal government which prohibited American ships from departing to any foreign port, anywhere in the world. A federal district court ruling the following year, United States v. The William, ruled the embargo constitutional, but Massachusetts disagreed. Their legislature, in both houses, declared it to be “in many particulars, unjust, oppressive, and unconstitutional.” In an effort to help its citizens “find protection against outrage and injustice in the strong arm of the State government,” the legislature affirmed that the embargo was “not legally binding on the citizens of this State.”

While the effects of this embargo could be felt around the country, some states with strong manufacturing bases benefitted, as a termination of the influx of foreign goods sent Americans looking domestically of necessity. They, along with others whose hostility to the British was enough to rally support for such an embargo, praised the law. Others, like Massachusetts, openly defied the federal government, and in other cases, their citizens engaged in smuggling or civil disobedience to make the embargo an utter failure.

“Why should not Massachusetts take the same stand, when she thinks herself about to be destroyed?” asked a New York congressman at the time. Another legislator from Connecticut rhetorically asked: “If any State Legislature had believed the Act to be unconstitutional, would it not have been their duty not to comply? … I consider that the state legislatures, whose members are sworn to support the Constitution, may refuse assistance, aid, or cooperation as to an Act of Congress which they sincerely believe to be unconstitutional.”

Due to the widespread resistance amongst several states, the embargo failed and was later repealed. Rhode Island’s objections summarize the opposition of many of the states which felt a duty “to interpose for the purpose of protecting [the people of their respective state] from the ruinous inflictions of usurped and unconstitutional power.”

State-led opposition to unconstitutional federal mandates, however, do not always enjoy such broad support. A decade earlier, when Jefferson and Madison penned the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, the other states found no problem with the Alien and Sedition Acts to which the aforementioned states objected. In such cases, what is a state to do?

The post-”Civil War” style of “Union” suggests that the federal government is supreme, and states are duty-bound to comply with the mandates it produces. But a staggering list of examples demonstrate that, for a state concerned with retaining its sovereignty, there are numerous other opportunities for resistance and recourse that have been and can be employed. Court challenges are a common method, but have a large achilles heel; relying upon one branch of the federal government to overturn the actions of another branch is something which might sound okay on paper, but has too infrequently succeeded. Jefferson knew the danger in deferring all such decisions to the courts:

To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.

Other, more fruitful and proper avenues exist for opposition, such as interposition and nullification. Interposition could best be summarized by Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull, who convened a special session of his state’s legislature in 1809 to deal with the embargo mentioned previously. He said:

Despairing of substantial relief from any other quarter, the people are now looking with anxious solicitude and hope, to the wisdom and direction of the Legislature of their own choice [their state legislature] ; and seem confident that some mode may be devised to remove the pressure under which they are at present suffering. To your collected wisdom and prudence they submit the task. And may it not be hoped, that, with our united efforts under a temperate, discreet and firm consideration of our situation and circumstances, we may be able by the influence of divine aid, to fulfil the just and reasonable expectations of our fellow citizens? Whenever our national legislature is led to overleap the prescribed bounds of their constitutional powers, on the State Legislatures, in great emergencies, devolves the arduous task—it is their right—it becomes their duty, to interpose their protecting shield between the right and liberty of the people, and the assumed power of the General Government.

Interposition is an official action taken by a state government to publicly question the constitutionality of a federal law. The state government affirms its sovereignty and states its intent to protect its citizens from unnecessary or unlawful mandates. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions fall into this category, being vocal, official protests to an unconstitutional policy. In addition to simply stating an objection, interposing actions often declare that if no resolution is to be found within a certain time frame, the law will be nullified.

Nullification can be viewed as the next step in and escalation of opposition towards an unconstitutional federal law. Thomas Jefferson regarded it as “the rightful remedy” to an encroaching federal government. It is, in effect, a state simply refusing to obey with a federal mandate it views as clearly unconstitutional.

While nullification is not to be treated lightly nor employed for casual motives only, consider the circumstances. A sovereign state is part of a federal government, surrendering a few of its powers to that government. When that government decides to exceed its authority and force the state to comply, what should the state do? Bending over in submission has not worked well over the past two centuries. Relying upon federal courts—a branch of the very government exceeding its authority—has, in too many cases, proven a futile endeavor; lawyers in black robes have historically shown little concern for the sovereignty of the several states.

If the word “union” means anything, it means the joining of separate, distinct bodies into one. The states have explicitly authorized such unity in all matters relating to the powers delegated to the federal government. On any other issue, no such unity as been promised, nor does it exist. Just as unity would not exist between my wife and I if I were to force her to comply with an unreasonable or abusive request, so too are states not united with each other when unconstitutional mandates are produced and enforced by their creation, the federal government.

If our “more perfect Union” is to shed some of its saturating hypocrisy, states must affirm the voluntary aspect of their affiliation with the federal government; being forced to comply with mandates it neither agreed to nor desires is plenty of reason for a state to become defensive against federal aggression.

Indeed, states are, in our current political system, in bondage. They are in bondage to a federal government which, like an abusive husband, demands many unreasonable things, and brutally enforces its mandates. (To be sure, some of this bondage has been invited by the states who have succumbed to the temptation of “federal funding”.)

In addition to bondage to “The United States of America,” states may soon be in bondage to one another. Last week, Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT), Co-Chair of the Tenth Amendment Task Force, introduced an idea for a constitutional amendment he will be sponsoring in Congress. The purpose of the amendment is, in his words, to “provide citizens, through their elected state representatives, with a powerful tool to check an overzealous and power-hungry federal government.”

You’d think he was describing nullification. Instead, however, his “Repeal Amendment” simply states:

Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed.

Note that, of course, this amendment refers to all laws passed by the federal government—not just those which exceed constitutional authority. Thus, even though the states have empowered the federal government with taxing authority, a few dozen states could overturn any given tax through a coordinated set of resolutions.

While this might be interpreted by some supporters of state sovereignty as a good thing, I believe otherwise. This amendment would, in effect, further erode a state’s sovereignty by requiring that any opposition to an unconstitutional edict be likewise supported by two-thirds of the other states in the “Union”. In other words, states wanting to declare opposition to an unconstitutional federal law would only be able to effectively do so when such opposition is agreed upon by a majority of Americans. (If this amendment dealt only with constitutionally-authorized laws, that would be a different thing, and one which I might consider supporting.)

But what of Virginia and Kentucky, whose opposition to the clearly unconstitutional and detestable Alien and Sedition Acts found no such support? This amendment creates a structure of bondage not between a state and the federal government, but between a state and its peers. Under such a law, a state’s sovereignty would further be subjected to majoritarian law and popular opinion. Nullification would surely be seen, with this amendment’s passage, as a less viable and desirable option, for opponents would no doubt argue that if a federal truly was unconstitutional, most of the states would agree with that opinion.

What happens, though, when a federal law is both unconstitutional and narrow in focus? What if its effects are only negatively felt in one or a few states, with the rest showing either ignorance or apathy in mustering up enough opposition to come to the aid of those other states? Should the sovereignty of any state be subjected to popular vote?

A quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin states that “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” Defensively contesting an unlawful action of aggression is what nullification is and does. Rep. Bishop’s proposed amendment, on the other hand, is a system described by the former sentence—a state’s sovereignty would be contingent upon the democratic decisions of a majority of other states. This is bondage.

States, like that lamb, should be free to determine their own fates. They should be able to voluntarily participate in a “Union” of their choosing, as they have, and upon the terms they agree to. Those terms are outlined in the U.S. Constitution, where the states have surrendered supreme authority in regards to a few powers only; all others authoritatively remain to the states and the people. They should be (and are) able to refuse to comply with any act that clearly falls outside of that delegated authority. Interposition and nullification are the foundational political tools used to achieve that end.

In 1854, Justice Smith of the Wisconsin Supreme Court noted the importance of these tools of resistance when he wrote:

But the real danger to the union consists, not so much in resistance to laws constitutionally enacted, as in acquiescence in measures which violate the constitution. It is much safer to resist unauthorized and unconstitutional power, at its very commencement, when it can be done by constitutional means, than to wait until the evil is so deeply and firmly rooted that the only remedy is revolution.

States must free themselves of the shackles of bondage—both to the federal government and to each other. Danger to our true union stems not from resistance to certain laws deemed unconstitutional, but to the long-standing deference to federal authority in all matters, and the systemic unwillingness of Americans to stand up to such federal aggression.

Connor Boyack [send him mail] is the state chapter coordinator for the Utah Tenth Amendment Center. He is a web developer, political economist, and budding philanthropist trying to change the world one byte at a time. He lives in Utah with his wife and son. Read his blog.

A defining – but so far unasked – question regarding the Civil War is the political status of the states: specifically, was the “United States of America” indeed, as our popular Pledge of Allegiance claims, “one nation, indivisible?” Or was it, rather, a union of sovereign nations, bound only to each other by mere treaty, as with any other treaty – such as the current United Nations? (As a point of fact, the term “union” is the only term used in the text of the Constitution to refer to the United States, while the word “nation” never appears a single time).

This question seems to be the proverbial “elephant in the room” of American law and history, for its answer is key in defining a state’s right of secession: this question marks the difference between, for example, Boston seceding from Massachusetts, and Spain seceding from the United Nations. While in the first instance, few would question the legal right of state officials to use force in preventing local urban inhabitants from seceding with a state’s city, such an exercise against a sovereign nation in the latter example would be (hopefully) viewed as nothing short of ruthless imperialism equivalent to that of Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler or Genghis Khan.

As such, similar implications accrue to United States President Abraham Lincoln from this question, in appraising him as either an upholder of law or a dictator, regarding his particular instance in history of using military force. If on the one hand, the states were held – by law – irrevocably to the Union, then Lincoln would have simply been performing his sworn duty as necessary under extreme conditions, and his defenders might have firm ground in excusing his having “bent a few rules” to get the job done.

If, however, the states were indeed separate nations, then this would define Lincoln as both the ultimate traitor, and most ruthless imperialist of his time, via breaching his oaths to defend the existing order of a self-defined republic of separate nations in order to overturn it in favor of what fits the official definition of an “empire;” likewise, his defenders and supporters would likewise classify as both similarly ruthless power-seekers, and what Lenin termed “useful idiots.”

To resolve this dichotomy, we must examine the relevant facts:

Lincoln claimed in his famous First Inaugural Address that “no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union.” He could only have been referring to “the Union” as set forth in the Constitution; for, prior to this, there can be no disputing the fact that the states were free and sovereign nations – as established in the Articles of Confederation, which under Article II states that:

“Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”

Here the term “delegated” requires contextual definition, meaning literally “to make lesser law;” when powers are “delegated,” they are merely passed down a chain-of-command to a subordinate agent by a superior principal authority, in order to provide that agent with representative “proxy” authority to carry out respective duties. In no way may does this delegated authority ever supersede or negate that of the delegating body – any more than a company employee who is delegated authority by his manager, can give orders to the firm’s owner, or override the dictates of such. Rather, such a representative can be overridden at any time at the behest of the superior – or discharged entirely.

As such, a “delegation” clause cannot be seen as a compromise or surrender of sovereignty in any way.

Thus, the force and effectiveness of this sovereignty which was thus “retained” from the Declaration of Independence, was equivalent to that of any other nation; this was made clear in the Declaration, via the statement:

“That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do” (emphasis in original).

(Note that the term “state” used here in the Declaration, is clearly used synonymously with the term “nation” for the purposes of this document; as such, the United States had no more claim in binding South Carolina or Virginia, than it had in binding England or France, and the term “United States” literally meant “United Nations.”)

Lincoln and his defenders, then, must believe that the states somehow “surrendered” their status as sovereign nations, in the act of ratifying the Constitution (or, as Lincoln added in his First Inaugural, “the union matured”). However this is negated by the 10th Amendment specification that powers were merely delegated, i.e.,

“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” (emphasis added).

In this context, therefore, powers were delegated to the federal government via the Constitution by the states ratifying it, not out in the interest of any sort of collectivism, but merely for the purposes of practical harmony in co-existence – with both union and non-union nations – solely for advancing the individual benefit of the respective delegating state.

Meanwhile, the 9th amendment likewise states that:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Since the term “others” as used here, clearly refers to rights not enumerated in the text of the Constitution, then it thus implicitly preserves those rights enumerated via prior documents – such as the Articles of Confederation, which specifically retains the “sovereignty, freedom and independence” of every state – which the Constitution does not exclude anywhere (but rather preserves, since states would have to retain their sovereign powers in order to delegate them).

Here the term “the people” must likewise be defined, with this term referring to the same “people” referenced initially in the Constitution’s preamble – and which, as has been well-established elsewhere, did not refer to all persons in the United States collectively; rather, the term “the people” refers solely to the citizens of the states individually and respectively, speaking through their elected officials – and even then, only those states ratifying the Constitution at the time.

This is further implied in the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 2, statement that:

“The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.”

Clearly, separate reference to “citizens of each state,” as opposed to “citizens in the several states,” clarifies that citizenship was strictly state-specific and derived, and not union-related in any way whatsoever: in fact, the term “Citizen of the United States” was never known prior to the passage of the 14th amendment following the Civil War – being a pure post-Lincoln invention – , and would have no more meaning prior to that war, than “Citizen of the United Nations” in today’s context to imply similar supremacy.

As such, it is clear that the Ninth Amendment implicitly reserved the right of every state, to the same sovereignty, freedom and independence which existed previously, i.e., no less than that of any other nation in the world.

Finally, even when admitting all of the above, anti-secessionists almost unanimously claim their proverbial “trump-card” in the Constitution’s so-called “Supremacy clause” of U.S. Constitution Article VI, which states that:

“This Constitution… shall be the Supreme Law of the Land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the laws or constitutions of any state notwithstanding.”

The level of absurdity in declaring any sort of logical victory, based on such an obviously flawed argument is astounding; for here the explicit language regarding this “Supreme Law” clearly, specifically and unmistakably states – in plain English, no less – that this “law” is binding on “the judges in every state – ” and only the judges.

In contrast, the remainder of the Article omits all other officials from any such bond, using very different language in describing its relation to them; to wit:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Any person literate in the English language – not to mention the language of law and logic – should be able to recognize that such explicitly omissive and separate treatment, translates to the fact that the Constitution does not claim any legal binding effect whatsoever, on anyone but state judges; rather, such language merely implies recognition of the Constitution by officials as a mere mutual good-faith agreement. It is simply absurd, after all, to claim that the phrase “state judges shall be bound by law, while all others shall be bound merely by a promise or agreement to support the law,” somehow translates to the notion that “all officials are bound by law – ” particularly when the final clause specifically precludes any religious test from implying the term “oath or affirmation” as binding via any common “higher law,” such as an oath specifically to God, Allah or the Buddha – even allowing religions for which oath or affirmation has no higher context.

As such, the implication here is that the Constitution is a mere treaty between separate and sovereign nation-states – a treaty which state officials simply agree to “support,” as opposed to being bound to obey such as a law, under penalty of such. Rather, this treaty is written as merely a bi-lateral agreement, with each side bound solely by its own conscience and good reputation – and as such, may be thus dispensed with entirely, if either side believes a breach of faith has been committed by the other.

To claim otherwise, i.e., that every state committed itself to the supreme and final binding arbitration (and mercy) of the Federal government in settling disputes – under force of law wielded by such – would not only be nonsensical for the purposes of protecting the states from possible abuses by this same Federal government, but moreover is nowhere expressed – or even implied – in the Constitution or any other document.

With the Constitution thus expressing nothing contrary to individual states retaining their status as sovereign nations, Lincoln found it thus necessary to invent such, claiming in his First Inaugural Address that “Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.”

Here Lincoln commits a pure logical fallacy – if not an outright deception – via switching context and assuming, outright, that the Constitution defines a “national government.” This assumption is not only supported nowhere in the Constitution or prior documents, but in fact his statement “implied if not expressed” specifically contradicts Ninth and Tenth Amendment reservations that all un-expressed rights and powers – including those of state sovereignty, freedom and independence – were retained by the states; even expressed powers of the United States were likewise mere delegations of state authority – thus implying their status as separate sovereign nations.

In conclusion, I cannot imagine why anyone would imagine that separate nations, would knowingly and willingly surrender their individual sovereignty – particularly, as in the case of the United States, after their having just won it via bloodshed from centralized and consolidated tyranny firsthand, against all believed likelihood of success; perhaps such persons believe Lincoln’s claim – which he makes in his First Inaugural Address once again – that “All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties [sic] and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them” (emphasis added).

In like manner, I cannot answer how any rational or thinking person can be so naive, as to actually believe that any laws or order can be made so perfect as to preclude any incidence whatsoever of government breaches or excesses – to the extent of such “never arising” – so that the supreme protection of national sovereignty was no longer considered necessary or even desirable to the people of any state in the Union. Rather, I can only prove that such supreme national sovereignty was established and recognized by law for each and every state – and that no law or document that surrendered or compromised it in any manner whatsoever, was ever passed or ratified by them.

Brian McCandliss [send him mail] is a business and economics graduate of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, a law student, and a businessman in Detroit, Michigan.

Copyright © LewRockwell.com

The Establishment Media is hyping the dire prophecy of a Russian professor that the United States will have a bloody civil war and “disintegrate,” after which the secessionist regions will be absorbed by other nations. The Establishment Media Moral: we must patriotically embrace our federal government or face horrendous consequences.

Certainly a full-blown civil war would be hellish. With modern weapons the casualties could exceed all our other wars. The disruption of food production and distribution chains in our specialized economy could trigger famine. To be imperially dominated by other nations could well mean the loss of our civil liberties.

However, our political establishment is playing a rhetorical game when it strives to link secession and civil war. There won’t be a civil war if we the people support a constitutional amendment to allow the fifty states of the United States to peacefully become fifty independent nations through voluntary disunion.

And why should we do that? Because unlike Alexander Hamilton in his parlor-game speculations known as The Federalist Papers, we’ve had generations of firsthand experience with the defects of federal government. We see today that every alleged benefit that Hamilton hypothesized for federal government has been perverted in practice.

Hamilton proposed that a federal government would resist foreign domination. In reality, our politicians prostitute our superpower military at every sufferance. We fought one world war to make the world safe for Imperialism and another to make it safe for Communism. Today our politicians bow to Israel, tomorrow possibly China.

Hamilton’s strength-in-numbers argument failed during the Cold War, when our military stockpiled thousands of nuclear weapons yet still feared a first strike attack. What if, though, Massachusetts had seceded with only ten warheads? Wouldn’t the Soviets have refrained from attacking sovereign Massachusetts for fear of losing ten of their cities?

Disunion would protect the planet from thermonuclear destruction. By consolidating our vast arsenal of nuclear overkill under federal command, however, we equip a lone fallible human to destroy civilization – a power we would not want in the hands of the wisest saint, and wise saints aren’t elected President.

We witnessed the crippling weakness of centralized command in the 9-11 attacks, when the Commander-in-Chief was too busy hiding to bother with scrambling interceptors. And if it can’t protect its own headquarters from airline hijackers, what does a superpower military protect us from?

Moving to economics, Hamilton warned in The Federalist Papers that if the states remained independent, they would enact high tariffs that would cripple prosperity. A federal government, he asserted, would promote free trade. That myth, of course, didn’t survive the first session of Congress.

With Congress as battlefield, every state wages perpetual economic warfare against every other state. Our representatives legislate national tariffs (and regulations, subsidies, and import quotas) to benefit producers in their home states by afflicting consumers in other states, and then compete for “pork barrel” appropriations that loot the national treasury.

As one observer remarked, the attitude of the Michigan automakers in seeking a federal bailout is, “You won’t buy our crummy cars, so we’ll make you pay for them anyway.” Under federal subjugation, the citizens of forty-nine other states must endure such exploitation with little recourse except vengeful reciprocity.

Hamilton also claimed the national debt would encourage the wealthy to “Invest in America.” Instead, politicians “invest” in their patrons at the country’s expense. Raise taxes to pay off debt, and politicians borrow more. Hamilton called the national debt a “blessing,” but aren’t state and local debts “blessings” enough?

Today’s federal government infringes citizen rights far more than did the British Crown of Hamilton’s time. Hamilton’s fantasies about the benevolence of an all-powerful central government may be excused as historical naïveté, but today anyone who insists the federal leviathan is other than maliciously imperious is either blind or bribed.

How can anyone not recognize the monster is uncontrollable, when governors must resign over petty corruption but a President deceived us into war and bankrupted the nation yet stood divinely unimpeachable – as if the ancient pagan ritualism that equated kingship with godhood never went away.

An America of sovereign states, whose governments are more human-sized, will dismiss egomaniacs who proclaim that a citizen’s “glorious duty” is to sacrifice in “full measure” to the Federal Imperium. Let’s abolish the Cult of Federalism, before our wannabe-caesars can extract more of that kind of blood-drenched “glory” from us.

Today it is our corrupt federal government that drags us toward collapse. Disunion will help us become more secure and prosperous, and affirm the ideals of liberty for which the American Revolution was fought. To accomplish this won’t require civil war – just a constitutional amendment, and common sense.

Joe Schembrie is a writer who lives in Bellevue, Washington.

Copyright © 2009 LewRockwell.com

You may not have heard much about it, but there’s a quiet movement afoot to reassert state sovereignty and stop the uncontrolled expansion of federal government power. Almost half of the state legislatures are considering or have representatives preparing to introduce resolutions which reassert the principles of the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution and the idea that federal power is strictly limited to specific areas detailed in the Constitution and that all other governmental authority rests with the states.

In the version of this bill being considered in Washington state, they appeal to the authority of James Madison in The Federalist who wrote:

“”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.”

The founding fathers believed in a balance between state and federal power. This state sovereignty movement clearly arises from the belief that the balance of power has tilted too far and for too long in the direction of the federal government and that it’s time to restore that lose balance.

The emergence of this movement is a hopeful sign of the people asserting their rights and the rights of the states and finally crying “enough” to runaway government. With the threat of increasingly out of control federal spending, some of these sovereignty bills may stand a fair chance of passage in the coming year.

There’s a lot of excitement about these bills, but there are also a lot of misconceptions, with people claiming that some states have already declared sovereignty and that the movement is much farther along than it really is. Contrary to popular rumor, none of the states has actually enacted a sovereignty law yet. Some have come close. Oklahoma’s bill passed their lower house overwhelmingly but stalled in the Senate last fall and is being held over for consideration in the new year.

Contrary to the fantasies of some extremists, these sovereignty bills are not the first step towards secession or splitting up the union, nor are they an effort to block collection of the income tax, appealing though that might be. For the most part, they are not so much political statements of independence as they are expressions of fiscal authority directed specifically at the growing cost of unfunded mandates being placed upon the states by the federal government. Despite the movement picking up steam as he came to office, the target of these bills is not President Obama, but rather the Democrat-dominated Congress whose plans for massive bailouts and expanded social programs are likely to come at an enormous cost to the states.

It has become increasingly common for Congress to pass legislation which dictates policy to the states, but which comes without adequate federal funding and the expectation that the cost of these programs, which the states had no real say in approving, will come out of state budgets. This has been a long-term problem with Medicaid and Medicare, but the unfunded mandate which stirred up the most ire recently was the No Child Left Behind program. More concern has been raised with the recent reauthorization and expansion of the SCHIP program which has a history of requiring more expenditure than is provided for in the federal budget.

The text of the bill proposed in Arizona makes the clearest statement of the intent to block unfunded mandates:

“That this Resolution serves as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.”

and

“That all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.”

What this movement is most similar to is the Nullification Crisis of 1832 where the State of South Carolina asserted that it had the right to nullify the authority of federal laws within its borders. In this case the states are not asserting anything as broad as the Doctrine of Nullification, but are merely reasserting the limits which the 10th Amendment places on federal authority, specifically as it applies to spending, the idea being that they don’t have to pay for federal mandates if their legislators choose not to.

Not all of the bills fall within these limitations. Missouri’s bill actually goes somewhat further and does assert the right fo the state to negate federal law, specifically in reference to the proposed federal Freedom of Choice Act, which some fear would bar states from passing laws regulating abortion. New Hampshire’s bill actually goes so far as to lay out a very strongly worded variant of the Doctrine of Nullifcation which specifies acts by the federal government (many of them currently being proposed in Congress) which would effectively negate the Constitution and the authority of the federal government within their state. Hawaii’s proposed sovereignty bill comes very close to being an actual act of secession, based on native tribal rights.

As things stand right now it looks like Oklahoma, Washington, Hawaii, Missouri, Arizona, New Hampshire, Georgia, California, Michigan and Montana will all definitely consider sovereignty bills this year. They may be joined by Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Alaska, Kansas, Alabama, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania where legislators have pledged to introduce similar bills. Twenty states standing up to the federal government and demanding a return to constitutional principles is a great start, but it remains to be seen whether legislatures and governors are brave enough or angry enough to follow through. As the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress push for more expansion of federal power and spending that may help provide the motivation needed for the sovereignty movement to take off.

Dave Nalle has worked as a magazine editor, a freelance writer, a capitol hill staffer, a game designer and taught college history for many years. He now designs fonts for a living and lives with his family in a small town just outside Austin where he is ex-president of the local Lions Club. He is on the board of the Republican Liberty Caucus and Politics Editor of Blogcritics Magazine. You can find his writings about fonts, art and graphic design at The Scriptorium. He also runs a conspiracy debunking site at IdiotWars.com.

It is completely out of control in Washington DC. We have a bunch of bumbling idiots in charge of the treasury and the country’s future. Talk of trillion dollar deficits, cap and trade, bailouts, tax welfare to those that don’t pay, taking over our healthcare and economy; like in the Meatloaf song “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” where the woman screams – “STOP Right There, before we go any further do you love me, will you never leave me…”

The state Governors must pull out their pocket constitution and read the 10th amendment carefully for their next step in strategy. Instead of putting their hands out, they should be shutting the door on the federal government. As Raficki in the Lion King says to Simba- “It is time…”

It is time to refuse the unfunded mandates, audit the cost the federal programs like Medicaid, and the impact it is having on the states both financially and socially, review our Return on Investment of our tax dollars in Education, and decide if we are a nation of freedom or going to allow the federal march toward tyranny?

If the Governors had the guts that our Founding Fathers had, this would have been done a long time ago. They gave the states the rights, now we need some leadership to stand up for those rights. The states are not perfect but at least we can drive to our State Houses to protest, support or influence our government. It is closer to home and more controllable.

We need the feds to focus on national security, the war on terror, trade policy and that’s it! They have shown no competence to handle even those things but as a constitutionalist, we have to give them their legal due. Just a thought…

Rich Hand was a 2008 candidate for congressional district 5 in colorado. Formerly a Republican, he has left the party after 16 years because of his disappointment with its direction. He is a dedicated family man, the author of My Life; Ignored! and a musician with 3 CD’s. Visit his blog at http://whoisrichhand.blogspot.com/

“States’ Rights” is an Anti-Libertarian Concept

The concept of federalism is properly used to describe a system of government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between the federal government and the states.

In contrast, the term “states’ rights” is a fraudulent and profoundly ANTI-Libertarian concept that has no other purpose but to deceive and rob us of our natural, inalienable, inseparable, non-transferable rights as human beings.

The Ninth Amendment says: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain RIGHTS, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People.”

In other words, just because the Constitution doesn’t mention a particular right, that doesn’t mean we don’t have that right – and those rights are retained by the people, not the State or the Federal Government.

The Tenth Amendment says: “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.”

States and governments have powers, but not rights. Only people can have rights. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights were conceived and written to limit government, not allow it to usurp our rights through some insipid oxymoron like “States’ Rights.”