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OK. Some say that you can obey some Federal laws but ignore others. Some you must obey. Don’t like drug laws and immigration laws, well just ignore them. Horrified by abortion. Too bad. Those laws are strictly enforced. Sorry but a country that behaves in that manner is divided among itself. Some “Federalists” imagined that this issue was definitively settled in 1865. There will be barricades and dissolution unless Congress changes the laws or the current laws are enforced.

The Federal government clearly has the power to make immigration law under the constitution. What the article is questioning is whether they have the power to outlaw marijuana, and for that matter permit abortion. A true Federalist would say no to both.

Drug laws, except for interdiction of contraband at the national borders, should entirely be a matter for the states. Vigorous enforcement at the border is the sole Constitutional mandate permissible for the Federal government. The rest is up to the states. After the repeal of national alcohol prohibition in 1933 through passage of the 21st Amendment, a number of states, mostly in the South, remained dry for several decades. .

This country has grown too big for a powerful, centralized Federal government. How "representative" are our Congressmen when an average district includes 735,000 people, a population larger than that of any state at the time the Constitution was ratified. States rights cut both ways: conservatives will dislike anti-gun laws in New York or California while liberals will dislike restrictions on abortion in Texas or Tennessee. Brothels are legal in most of Nevada while strictly prohibited in Utah. Wyoming is more permissive on fireworks than Colorado, which is more permissive on marijuana than Wyoming.