Nullification: An Old Approach to a New Challenge

The voters in the State of Missouri passed a resolution last Tuesday which says, basically, that the Obama health care initiative does not apply to them. Many other states, perhaps up to the three-fourths needed to amend the Constitution, are considering or have passed motions through their legislatures claiming the same thing. All of this is background noise to arguably more shrill issues: Arizona and illegal immigrants, perhaps the entire Tea party movement, and the recent talk about modifying the 14th Amendment. We may even throw in the gay marriage thing, as Article the Fifth says that states must respect the public acts of other states. All of this points in one direction: the chance of a genuine Constitutional crisis which may rock our nation profoundly.

We need one, quite frankly, and it can happen without the destruction of our proud country if all parties agree to be reasonable. But a showdown with the Federal Government may be necessary if the states are ever again going to be able to resume their proper role in our constitutional scheme. We need the States to reassert their rights. We need the people to reassert theirs.

At one point in our history there was a movement for what was termed nullification. The idea was that individual states could decide for themselves whether a federal dictum applied to them. That is essentially what some locales are claiming today.

It is admittedly difficult to know where exactly to draw the line. Indeed we realize that something such as nullification is fraught with peril: anyone may claim it on any issue which they find critical. Still, when Washington holds all the cards as they currently do, are there any options besides pushing the bonds which bind the United States to their limits?

Liberals will say: appeal to the courts, or elect new messengers to the Congress if you feel that way. But as with most things, talk is cheap. Especially when you are the card dealer. We only need to look at recent actions to see that such an appeal is unlikely to work: the courts have struck down California's gay marriage ban and the supposed worst of Arizona's recent laws aimed at illegal immigrants. Do you really think they will abide by the actions of a conservative Congress? No; they will go to the courts if a new Congress thwarts them, because it's what liberals do when they can't get their way otherwise (and by that we mean, through the legitimate legislative process). They have no true respect for law; they have no real respect for the Constitution, which they twist and squeeze in seeking to make it appear to support their wants. Then they have the unmitigated gall to accuse the right of tampering with it when it proposes amendments. It's hypocrisy on two counts: telling us to go to the courts when they know they've a system in place which tends to support them, then acting as though the 'living' Constitution can't be changed if a change should gore their preferred oxen. Things change, liberals: embrace and accept it. That's what you always tell us.

How they will fight change when they don't like it. But we also go beyond our immediate argument in pointing that out. The bottom line here is that the States have rights too; the People as well. Isn't that the whole point of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments? Why doesn't the left see the value of them? Merely because they think any action regulated or initiated by the Federals as automatically superior to any action initiated by a State or Individual. Any why? Because, as our history has thus far developed, that's where the power is, and it's all about power.

It is time to fight back. It is time for the power of the people to rear its head and make Washington tow the line. It is time for the States to reassert themselves in this Constitutional scheme of ours and fight for their rights as States. It is all well and good to recognize federal authority where it legitimately rests. It is the end of our history as a free people to give it a free pass or free reign.