Nullification

In a Washington Post article on Jan. 26, 2011 titled "GOP invokes 1700s doctrine in health care fight," some legal analysts/scholars have either missed the point or need to go back to school and learn about the founding again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/26/AR2011012604912.html

The first area I have a problem with is as follows:

"The efforts are completely unconstitutional in the eyes of most legal scholars because the U.S. Constitution deems federal laws 'the supreme law of the land.' The Idaho attorney general has weighed in as well, branding nullification unconstitutional."

The problem with deeming the Constitution the "supreme law of the land" would suggest that the United States Constitution was binding on the federal and state governments which is false in the respect that most people think today otherwise, why would the individual states have their own state constitutions. The U.S. Constitution is binding only on the federal government inasmuch as it tells the federal government what specific powers they have been granted by the states. The only part of the U.S. Constitution that restricts the individual states is Article I section 10, which lays out areas that the states are forbidden to take part in. A couple of areas that the individual states are restricted according to the Constitution is in making treaties or coining money.

So as you see, the Constitution cannot be the supreme law of the land in the way that most people think because we would no longer have a federal government, we would have a national one where the central government would dictate to the states in all facets of life. Although we are living in a situation like this for the most parts, you have to remember that the states created the federal government, no the other way around.

"'There is no right to pick and choose which federal laws a state will follow,' wrote Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Brian Kane."

This statement is an example of one individual who needs to learn about the founding and the roles the individual states had in forming the federal government. Again, first came the states; then came the federal government. The problem we have today, is that the states have allowed the federal government to enact laws which were blatantly unconstitutional, and because they were popular, the states kept their mouths shut and let the federal government take power that they had no right to take without an amendment. Of course, the Supreme Court didn't help in all this. The Supreme Court is not made of perfect people, justices come to the court and "interpret" the Constitution and justify their rulings by twisting and turning words and phrases so they say what they want them to say. If they can't do that, they cite some document or letter that someone important wrote and say, "See, this is why Congress can do that." even when it isn't in the Constitution anywhere.

"'A lot people say, if the Supreme Court decides that it is constitutional, you have to live with it. My feeling is, the people should have the final say,' [Republican Sen. Scott] Beason [of Alabama] told The Associated Press on Tuesday. 'Frankly, the only recourse people have is for the states to try to flex some sovereignty muscle.'"

The only problem I have with this statement is in the last part of the first half of the quote where Mr. Beason used the term "the people" in saying who was the final arbiter in determining which laws are constitutional. I would replace "the people" with the states after all, it is the states that created the federal government, not the people. The preamble of the Constitution is misleading when it starts out "We the people" instead of "We the States." If it were truly "We the people" why didn't everybody have a say so in what the Constitution said and if it were to be ratified?

"'He[Thomas Jefferson] was at the Constitutional Convention,' [Idaho Republican Sen. Monty] Pearce said. 'He understood how this whole thing was going to be set up.'

"Actually, Jefferson was far away, in France, as the framers met in 1787 in Philadelphia to replace the Articles of Confederation."

While Jefferson wasn't physically at the Federal Convention of 1787, he was aware of what was happening before it started and when it concluded. Jefferson wrote a letter against ratifying the Constitution and that letter was used to urge against ratifying in the Virginia ratification debates. But this is just a side note.

"And his beliefs on nullification were nothing more than his opinions - there's no such mention in the Constitution, said David Gray Adler, a constitutional scholar who directs the University of Idaho's McClure Center for Public Policy Research."

Amazing that Mr. Adler would take this position when it is the left who twisted Jefferson's words to justify why school prayer was unconstitutional as well as every other "religious" prohibition in public. You can't have it both ways. Either Jefferson knows a little something about the Constitution or he doesn't. By the way, to all you people who say that an individual state can't have a state religion because of the first amendment, why did Connecticut have a state religion into the early 1800s? The answer is because the Constitution, which includes the amendments, dealt with the federal government not the state governments.

"'There's nothing in the Constitution to suggest that the states are superior to the federal government,' Adler said. 'We have a long string of Supreme Court decisions that reject their theory.'"

There is nothing in the Constitution that suggests that the states are inferior to the federal government either and since the Constitution is binding on the federal government, this means that any power not granted to the federal government or prohibited to the states are retained by the states. This may seem familiar because it is, essentially, the tenth amendment. Since nullification, or secession, isn't specifically discussed, one way or the other, in the Constitution, those options are still valid.

The rest of the article claims that nullification hasn't worked in the past. The first example used was the 1832 tariff hikes that had South Carolina threatening secession. What happened? The tariff rates were reduced. Another pre-Civil War example was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and Wisconsin's nullification of it. This is completely false as Wisconsin refused to abide by the law and even went as far as freeing a man that was in the custody of the federal government. If that is an example of nullification not working, I hope that all acts of nullification were as unsuccessful as that.

The other example was the school desegregation in the 1950s in Arkansas where the federal government sent in the army to force the desegregation of Arkansas schools.
While I don't agree with the ideas of segregation, the federal government has no say in the affairs of the states. But this shows how things got turned around as a result of the Civil War, or as I like to call it, the War of Northern Aggression. As a result of Lincoln's invasion of the south, the federal government started to think that its powers were limitless and could impose its will on the states but an in depth discussion of Lincoln's War is best saved for a later date. Just remember, nullification and secession are both valid and legal options no matter what "legal scholars" may say.