by Diane Rufino
I wrote an article in support of Nullification (“Limit Federal Spending through Nullification and State Escrow Accounts”). A man responded with this comment: “You propose a remedy and say it’s based on Nullification… In other words, it’s based on crackpottery, along the lines of ‘sovereign citizens.’ SCOTUS has repeatedly rejected nullification and yet loons still pop out of the woodwork claiming to perform legal smoke-and-mirrors using it.”
I wrote the following to him in response:
You seem to understand very little of the most critical of the checks and balances that our Founders created in order that our government remained limited and the liberty of the American people (who had just seceded from the most powerful empire on the planet at the time because that King and Parliament refused to respect the rights of the colonists under the English Bill of Rights of 1689) remain paramount, protected, and unburdened. I’m talking about the federal nature of our government. State versus federal government. Sovereign versus Sovereign. Each acting as jealous guardians of their power in order that neither invade the sphere of power of the other. This was the unique design feature of our American government and the gemstone upon which our liberty was to be secure. I mean, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments certainly are not obscure, And that’s what Nullification is all about. It’s about recognizing this critical doctrine, giving it practical meaning, and about recognizing what Patrick Henry warned about in 1788 in the Virginia Ratifying Convention (Our eye must always be on Liberty….”give us that precious jewel and you can take everything else.”).
If you truly believe that the federal government has the exclusive right to judge the extent of its own powers, then you are unfit to preserve liberty for your grandchildren. You are fit for a master and deserve one.
If the federal government has the exclusive right to judge the extent of its own powers, as Madison and Jefferson warned in 1798-99, it will continue to grow – regardless of elections, the separation of powers, and other limits on government power. And then we will have a government no better than the one our forefathers fought a bloody revolution for or the ones that we fought a horrendous world war to wipe off the face of the planet.
You may trust 9 men who wear black robes and sit on the bench of the Supreme Court, but that’s all they are…. men (“motivated, as we all are, by the same passion for party, for power, for social change, and for legacy). And their power is the most dangerous because they are in office for life, and not responsible or accountable, as the other functionaries are, to Elective control. 4 members of the Court already believe that their job is to re-interpret the Constitution. How would you like it if an unaccountable group of people took a look at your mortgage agreement and decided that its terms all of a sudden don’t mean the same as when you signed the document? How would you like it if, for the good of the bank and its ability to lend more money to more people, it was going to increase your interest rate by 100% (that is, double it), or even triple it. A free people deserve transparency. They deserve to know that the document that protects them from the reaches of government is ironclad and means today what it meant yesterday and what it will mean tomorrow. Let me ask you this. You say the Supreme Court addressed the issue of secession and nullification and decided that they are unconstitutional. (I lump them both together since that is what most critics of Nullification seem to do). First of all, the justice who wrote the decision was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. He was promoted from Sec, of State to Chief Justice. He owed his career to Lincoln and the decision reads as if Lincoln himself wrote it. Second of all, Chase did not go to law school. He learned law pretty much by an apprenticeship. And you’re willing to say his decision should be worthy of being called “the law of the land”? Third, and finally, the ONLY job of the Supreme Court is to interpret strictly the Constitution (see Marbury v. Madison). As Justice Marshall wrote in that decision: “To take one step beyond the bounds of the Constitution is to violate the oath of allegiance that one takes to that document and that amounts to treason.” (I’ve paraphrased). Secession and Nullification are NOT addressed in the Constitution at all. Why? Because secession is a fundamental right, as explained in the Declaration of Independence. It is as fundamental to free individuals as is the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. (Go to paragraph 2; it’s all right there). And Nullification is implied in the very nature of federalism and in the Tenth Amendment. It’s like saying to an individual… “You have the right to life but you can’t defend it.” Well, we DO have the right to life and we DO have the right to defend it. The implied right is our right to self-defense and self-preservation, which is also in second paragraph of the Declaration. If the issue is NOT in the Constitution, the Court has nothing to interpret. It is beyond their jurisdiction. The Declaration is not a document for the federal courts to interpret or dismiss. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “To this I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all 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.” This is great advice and one that no one seems to heed.
You may put your trust in SCOTUS, but it is poorly-placed trust, my friend. That Court has taken away your right to alter or abolish your government, even when it becomes destructive of your God-given rights, it has taken your money (ear-marked for “social security”) and said it is NOT your property after all and the government can do what it wants with it, it has forbidden you to express your religion in public institutions, it has said you have no right to be informed or consulted if you child wants an abortion, and it recently announced that the government can use the taxing power to coerce ordinary Americans into doing what it wants them to do, As for me, I put my trust in Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the very men who remember why we separated from England and who wrote our founding documents (and therefore, understood them best).
