The Revolt of the States

Warning Signs ^ | 14 April 2010 | Alan Caruba

[K-oneTexas]

The Revolt of the States

By Alan Caruba


President Obama, his weird circle of advisors (czars), and the ideologues within the Democrat Party led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid only have a few months left to completely destroy the separation of powers between the States and the federal government.

A major battle is looming over the Tenth Amendment which declares that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Almost everywhere one looks today, the States are in rebellion to the overreaching of the federal government. The process involved is called nullification, a legal theory that a U.S. State has the right to nullify, i.e., invalidate, any federal law deemed unconstitutional. Since the Supreme Court moves at a glacial pace, the States through their legislatures have taken the lead in many cases.

Nullification is not secession as in the case of the Civil War, but there is a history of nullification that includes the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions against the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both argued that the States are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution, arguing that the States could “interpose” themselves to protect their citizens from unconstitutional national laws.

Much of the discord in the nation today has its roots in the vital difference between a conservative attachment to traditional values and a liberal ideology that would impose a One World Government on our sovereign nation.

The great philosopher of American conservatism, Russell Kirk, wrote “True conservatism is the antithesis of ideology. It is the negation of ideology. For conservative is grounded in the past. Its principles are derived from the Constitution, experience, history, tradition, custom, and the wisdom of those who have gone before us—‘the best that has been thought and said.’ It does not purport to know the future. It is about preserving the true, the good, the beautiful. Conservatism views all ideologies with skepticism, and the more zealous and fanatic with hostility.”

A case in point is the way that State after State has lined up to oppose through the courts and by individual legal action the imposition of the president’s healthcare legislation, passed on strict party lines by the Democrat Party and only after the most vile revelations of bribery and backroom deals. It is a bill whose content Speaker Pelosi said Americans should supinely consider only after it was passed.

There has been a rapidly growing awareness and rejection of the assertion that the federal government can “own” General Motors or that the government should be in the business of buying and selling mortgages.

Pending financial reform legislation would permit the federal take over any company to install its own board of directors and thus control the economy. The failure to exercise existing regulation of the financial sector hardly calls for more regulation. It calls for stronger enforcement of existing laws.

The increasing awareness and rejection of the false “theory of global warming” is being rejected on the basis of the widely perceived cooling of the earth during this decade and the wild projections of warming 25, 50, a hundred or more years into the unknown future. More and more Americans now know it is based on feeble and deliberately false “computer models”.

That is why the Cap-and-Trade bill, a huge tax on energy use, awaiting action in the Senate, even if imposed in the same fashion as the healthcare bill, will be rejected by the States. There is no need to regulate carbon dioxide, a natural gas that has nothing to do with “warming”, but a rogue government agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, is set to assert this falsehood through massive regulation that will destroy the nation’s economic base.

With increasing pace, the States are demanding that the Second Amendment protecting the right to own and bear arms be respected and asserting their right to pass laws permitting gun ownership, including the right to carry concealed arms for self defense. States that have enacted such laws have seen a dramatic decrease in crime.

The assertion of unconstitutional federal powers lies at the heart of the State’s rejection of these efforts. Unfunded federal mandates are bankrupting the States and they want an end to them. The rapacious taking of State lands is crippling theirs and the nation’s ability to access our natural resources.

A growing spectrum of federal laws intruding upon the sovereignty of individual States is being challenged and this is a good thing. We should all take heart from these challenges as well as the spontaneous occurrence of the Tea Party movement that is a dramatic demonstration that the spirit of individual liberty and of States rights is alive and well in America.

A new generation of Americans is learning that the Constitution was designed to ensure a small and limited federal government and that the States, like the Union, are individual republics.

The battle has been joined.

[kevao]

Can you just imagine the kind of delegates states like CA, NY, MA, CT, IL, etc, would send to a con con?

I guarantee they won’t be of the Madison or Hamilton variety.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The constitutional convention can ignore both the delegates and interests of up to 12 States. But for all intents and purposes, a CC would not be a place of great debate. 38 States would have to be in agreement *prior* to the delegates even being seated.

The important part happens after they have passed a draft and returned it to the States for an up or down vote. Once 38 States have passed it, likely the CC will remain seated, with just a simple majority (26) of the States, needed to do one thing: relieve and replace any federal official or officer who refuses to carry out the new constitution.

This oddity exists until all federal officials and officers can be re-sworn to the new constitution. If they refuse to do so, or refuse to carry out the changes required, a simple majority of the convention can vote to replace them with someone who will.

Importantly, this has to happen between two federal elections. Until the following election, the US government will be a caretaker government, and it will be stripped of the power to interfere with the CC, or to pass its own constitutional Amendments, until the CC has been dissolved.

[K-oneTexas]

Crafting specific amendments to accomplish without misrepresentation is considerably easier than than creating a document better then what we have.

The one we have needs to be followed and with proper amendments and proper unambiguous congressional statues accomplishes that.

A Constitutional Convention is called to replace what is there and that is unnecessary. A Constitutional Convention would be an utter disaster and create chaos that would immediately drag the country into anarchy. To many local politicians and State Governors are Dem/Lib and would ensure disaster in order to mold this country to their way of thinking.

Amendments that repeal of the 16th & 17th Amendment, term limits on members of Congress, explicit spending limits, and a narrowing of the scope of the Commerce Clause. A ‘Federalism Amendment’ to strengthen the 10th Amendment (such as http://www.federalismamendment.com/) would create the reversal of course that many American are seeking.

Another step is to elect conservative individuals who believe in the original intent of the Constitution this November.

A Constitutional Convention is the WRONG answer and utterly absurd.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I disagree completely. Some of the suggested changes to the constitution have been waiting in the wings for so long that they were even integrated into the constitution of the Confederacy.

The problem is that there is no motivation at all within the federal government to improve itself in this manner, because they would be losing power to do so. Nor will there be in the future.

Only by putting the reorganization into the hands of the States, who as a group hold equal power to the federal government, and who are motivated to change the federal government, for *their*, the States advantage, will actual change take place.

I listed the three major blocks of Amendments that have been added to the US constitution over time. Each one of them was done for “sectarian” reasons at best, especially by the progressive movement. And that is where we got the *bad* ideas of the 16th, 17th and 18th Amendments.

The 19th Amendment, Women’s Suffrage, was done *not* for women, but because the progressives thought that women would vote far more for progressives than their husbands. An Amendment to increase their political power.

This is completely different from how the States would do things, because they would be acting in the furtherance of their own powers, not those of some small group or ideological faction, like the “Nasty Nellies” in favor of alcohol prohibition.

And the proof of this is that this is exactly what is happening right now.

States are forming “nullification” blocs, for gun rights, marijuana, against Obamacare, and for the 10th Amendment. No sectarianism in that at all. All to increase their State power at the expense of the federal government.

And this is what a constitutional convention would do. There is no proof at all that it would be a radical agreement, or that it would gut the existing constitution. Instead, most of its changes would be to add “clarifications” to existing misinterpretations.

A good example is the Commerce Clause. “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”.

A constitutional convention would undoubtedly *add* to that, not take away from it, in such a way as to considerably narrow the scope of what the CC means.

This is not radical. It is anti-radical. And it is purely to enhance the power of the States.

You may continue with your pipe dreams that some candidate will wave their magic wand and correct 200 years of problems, with a few amendments, but it won’t happen, and even if it did will not be anywhere near the changes needed.

[K-oneTexas]

I think yours is a pipe dream, the Constitutional Convention. I also believe it is radical and overkill for the situation at hand. If things are really that bad, then every citizen needs to march on Capitol Hill and reclaim it as was done in the Revolutionary War.

A good example is the Commerce Clause. “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”. --- A constitutional convention would undoubtedly *add* to that, not take away from it, in such a way as to considerably narrow the scope of what the CC means.

Undoubtedly those politicians sent by the individual States would break it down to everyones front door. A Constitutional Convention would be a home for ner-do-well politicians and political sycophants sent by the Governors and/or Legislatures with very few concerned citizens.

Everything you are asking for can be handled in the Amendment process as the Founding Fathers expertly crafted. Concerned citizens can force their elected leaders to their will, the time is ripe for it ... regardless of the Dem/Lib mind set.

The post-Civil War Amendments were crafted by the 'winning' Northern politicians. It is a bit different to day and many of the amendments have been crafted by legal scholars and conservative who never served day one as a politician.

[theBuckwheat]

I was of the same opinion against a Convention until I realized that the mood that we see in so many states taking this action against health care makes a strong statement about the type of proposed amendments they would ratify.

We can also see this in how many states have been increasingly receptive to having “shall issue” concealed carry laws. A state that would pass “shall issue” will not turn around and ratify a destruction of the RKBA.

So, we have two checks with the Convention: what it would vote to pass on to the states and what the states would ratify with a sufficient super-majority.

In any case, I think it is productive to discuss what changes would be made. That process has been begun by Prof. Randy Barnett's Federalism Amendment. See: www.federalismamendment.com

[K-oneTexas]

"Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the FIRST Convention, I would tremble for the result of the SECOND." ~ James Madison

Our constitution is not the problem. Enforcing it is! This problem would not change with an enhanced constitution.

I do not believe that there are any politicians or candidates for office today that can improve on our Founding Fathers. Holding such a Convention would be fraught with special interests vying for their piece of the pie in a new Constitution.

Even if citizens got into the local State Convention they would not be the ones sent to a National Convention as the 'ruling' politicians and political party would make that choice. A constitutional convention would be open to anyone, and what the elite statist politicians want they will get. A constitutional convention in this political climate would destroy the Bill of Rights. Once it begins, it will be impossible to stop. The Bill of Rights will be removed.

I say again ... Our constitution is not the problem. Enforcing it is!