Thank you for passing on this information. As you know, I am an opponent of the theory of state nullification of federal laws and do not believe that the Tenth Amendment grants any such power to the states. I believe that the very idea of state nullification is much more in keeping with the Articles of Confederation, than with the United States Constitution that, as we know, had as its purpose the setting aside of the Articles of Confederation in favor of a comparatively stronger federal government. Like the Southern Secessionists who gave us the Civil War, and like the Ron Paul supporters today, such supporters of state nullification may claim the mantle of the Constitution, but in fact they are the advocates of the Articles of Confederation. In time, I shall demonstrate historically and principally how this is so; but, for now, it will be good to read the musings of the opposition. For that reason, I very much welcome this information. Keep in mind, I am a friend of liberty; but, unlike the advocates of state nullification, I know that liberty is protected by the United States Constitution, as it really is, not as Libertarians imagine it to be. The Articles of Confederation - or, as it is known today, the theory of state nullification of federal laws - leads to the kind of political and social disunion that only helps tyrants subdue liberty. Lawlessness is the enemy of liberty - a lesson Libertarians deny, but which history demonstrates to be true. As much as I oppose big government excess today, I shall not regard disunion and lawlessness as acceptable antidotes.

I know that you do not consciously advocate lawlessness. Nevertheless, I contend that the doctrine of state nullification of federal law is lawless, regardless of what I may presume to be the good intentions of its advocates. It is lawless, conceptually and effectively, because it is a form of insurrection against the rightful prerogatives of federal power, as enumerated in our United States Constitution. That is to say, it is lawless, because it undermines most onerously the division of power between the federal and state governments that defines our federalism, by tilting more power to states than allowed in our United States Constitution. If the issue with respect to a federal law is its constitutionality, then we have a mechanism imbedded in the United States Constitution itself for determining that a particular federal law is unconstitutional and for voiding it. I am not here referring to the doctrine of judicial review, as the Supreme Court has abrogated to itself since the Marbury v. Madison decision. In my mind, the doctrine of judicial review has allowed the Supreme Court to assume a role rather akin to the Mullahs in Iran - a prerogative that tilts far more power to a handful of unelected jurists than envisioned by the framers of the United States Constitution. Rather, I am referring here to the power of the President, as expressed in the United States Constitution, to make sure that the "laws be faithfully executed." This means more than the commonly held notion that the President oversees the execution of federal laws by staffing and managing the federal bureaucracy. As we know, there was very little bureaucracy in the early years of our Republic to staff or to manage; and our early Presidents did not see their own role as that of a "Chief Executive Officer" of a regulatory system. More so, this phrase means that the President makes certain that the federal bills passed are in line with what is allowed in the United States Constitution. If such bills become law, then he makes sure that the execution of those laws is in accordance with what is allowed in the same Constitution. This is how the first several Presidents viewed their job. President Washington, as a prime example, would not use his veto pen because of a personal policy difference with a majority in Congress. Rather, he would use his veto pen if and when he perceived that a bill passed in Congress did not pass constitutional muster. The first President to start vetoing bills just because he disagreed with them - whether or not he considered them to pass constitutional muster - was President Andrew Jackson. Because of his willingness to intercede directly in the policy disputes of the time, rather than narrowly see himself as the primary protector of the constitutionality of federal laws, Jackson was castigated as a "king" and a "despot," an out of control executive who had "politicized" the office of the Presidency way beyond what was envisioned by the framers of the United States Constitution. We are never going to go back to the time when Presidents modeled themselves more on the example set by George Washington than by Andrew Jackson. Nevertheless, constitutionally speaking, a President assuming the role of a "chief constitutional protector" would be much more in keeping with what the United States Constitution envisioned, than the common Libertarian misreading of the Tenth Amendment to the same Constitution. If the President refuses to take his role seriously as a "chief constitutional protector," then the people can remove him from office. If the people do not care enough to replace such a President with someone who really is serious about making sure that the "laws be faithfully executed," then the people ultimately deserve the overarching government that is bestowed upon them. Ultimately, the salvation of our Republic depends upon the willingness of most of the people to be intellectually mature enough to demand that their own Presidents serve, rather than subvert, the United States Constitution. If the people are too stupid, or partisan, or dependent on the welfare state to elect Presidents who will serve in sincerity the United States Constitution, then no amount of "Tenth Amendment" posturing will save them. Thus, the United States Constitution provides already a mechanism for finding federal bills to be unconstitutional - and that mechanism is neither the doctrine of judicial review, as the Supreme Court has interpreted it over the years, nor the doctrine of state nullification. What we need to do is to make sure that we elect Presidents who recognize that their chief duty is to veto unconstitutional federal bills, to work for the legislative repeal of unconstitutional federal laws, and to execute those federal laws that are still on the books in a manner that is allowed by the United States Constitution. Those who have promoted state nullification in the past have done so not because they regarded the federal law in question as unconstitutional, but because they disagreed with it on a policy basis. For example, in the South Carolina Nullification Crisis (1832-1833), those Southern politicians who clamored for South Carolina to nullify the high, federal tariff then in effect did not seriously believe that the federal tariff was unconstitutional. For the most part, they did not argue that the United States Constitution did not grant to Congress an authority to pass such a law. Rather, they argued that the high, federal tariff was not in their specific interest politically and economically. In other words, they were upset that they lost the vote in the United States Congress on this issue and were willing to derail our Constitutional view of federalism - which gives unto Congress, and not unto the States, the unique authority to determine the size and the scope of a tariff - in order to achieve their narrow interest. Remember that federalism does not simply mean that the federal government respects the prerogatives of the states; it equally means that the states respect the prerogatives of the federal government. State nullification is lawless, because it allows the states to amend or to repeal federal laws simply because one or some of the states (depending upon which of the state nullification theories prevails) disagree on a policy basis with the federal laws. As may be seen readily, such a system would make it virtually impossible to maintain any but the most innocuous of our federal laws, thus tilting power in favor of the states individually and collectively to such a degree as to do away with the very idea of federalism envisioned by the United States Constitution. As I said in my previous email, we would return in effect to the system of de-centralized governance called for in the Articles of Confederation. Those who support such a system at least should acknowledge that they do not favor the United States Constitution so much as the Articles of Confederation. Congressman Paul - who advocated state nullification in one of the Presidential debates - does a real disservice whenever he claims to champion the United States Constitution. He should be intellectually honest with himself and his supporters and acknowledge that his real, abiding love is for the vision of state sovereignty called for in the Articles of Confederation. As for me, in keeping with my Republicanism, I shall favor the federalism actually envisioned in the United States Constitution and, like our first Republican President, shall oppose state nullification and all other forms of lawless insurrection.

Our political positions, however they may be understood and articulated intellectually, in the end reflect our moral stance. If we are morally weak, then we shall favor a lawlessness that masquerades as "liberty" over a law that demands responsible citizenship. We shall favor a demagogue peddling conspiracies over a statesman offering real leadership. We shall favor the Jackson Democrat, or the Ron Paul Libertarian, over the Lincoln Republican. At first, an embittered mob inspires fear. In time, it is shown to be an unruly gathering of the weak, the collective tantrum of those who refuse to acknowledge their God given role as moral agents in an imperfect world. Because they are weak, they lack courage. This is why mobs seldom prevail as revolutions; and, even when they do for a while, as in the case of the Jacobins in France, they give way in due time to the machinations of a tyrant like Napoleon. They may be destructive only to a point, because few of them are willing truly to put their lives on the line for the slogans that they profess. For the same reason, they are even less creative. Of the mob, it may be said that they are at most the plaything of bored tyrants and the soldiers of aspiring ones. Their moral weakness does not give them the capacity to be otherwise. As for casting pearls before swine, I wonder sometimes if pearls indeed may be cast in any but a few directions nowadays without falling before something akin to squealing pork. I am often reminded of how Christ Jesus wondered aloud if, when He returns, there will be in fact any faith left in the world. Will even the preaching of the Gospel be a pearl so cast? Will we be so deaf as to no longer warrant the prophetic cry of the few for whom God is their trust?

My opposition to "other forms of lawless insurrection," as written in the last sentence of my previous email, refers to secession. State nullification leads inexorably to secession, since it undermines the very idea of federalism that is the basis of our national unity. While it may not be necessarily a violent form of secession, as we witnessed in the Civil War, it is of the same result - namely, a de-centralization of power that returns our American Republic to the Articles of Confederation. I regard this as lawless, not because a confederacy of sovereign states is of itself lawless, but because it is in defiance of our United States Constitution - a document adopted expressly to turn us from a confederacy of sovereign states to a national union based on federalism. Since the United States Constitution is the basis of our law, my view is that anything that defies our United States Constitution is by definition lawless. How does state nullification undermine the very idea of federalism? Federalism depends on the federal and the state governments respecting each others' prerogatives. Just as federal overreach undermines federalism by robbing the states of their own prerogatives, so does state overreach undermine federalism by robbing the federal government of its prerogative. State nullification is an example of the latter, since it would allow for a state (or a collection of states) to rob the federal government of its ability to make and to execute laws that the United States Constitution confers expressly upon the federal government.