Nullification and Liberty

Lew Rockwell ^ | 12/10/02 | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

[billbears]

bump

[Thane_Banquo]

Nullification is one of the most dangerous concepts to the continuation of the Union.

[Dixie republican]

If nullification is legal, then there never was a United States. How can one nullify a process that they voluntarily agreed to ascede.

[billbears]

A surprising number of my students, when nullification is explained to them, find it an intriguing idea. At the same time, I have plenty of students for whom Daniel Webster’s conception of an unbreakable union is so familiar, since they’ve all learned what American history they know from an absurd Lincolnian point of view, that they cannot imagine any other way of organizing society. They honestly believe that voting guarantees that only good legislation will be enacted, and that to defy "majority rule" is to commit some kind of blasphemy

so many students have been raised on the religion of democracy that they cannot even conceive of how a state or community might be oppressed by the untrammeled "democracy" of the remainder

[Ff--150]

Thanks for ping--will read later!!

[billbears]

How can one nullify a process that they voluntarily agreed to ascede.

By legal secession or by nullification of laws the seperate and sovereign states disagree with

[steve50]

Good read bill. We need to get the public aware of their right of jury nullification as well. The last line of protection is 12 of our peers, as it should be.

[xkaydet65]

Then does a county have the right to nullify a law passed by the state. Does a township have the right to nullify a law passed by a county, does a village have the right to nullify a law passed by the township, and finally does a citizen have the right to nullify any law based on his interpretation of the Constitution?

What makes the STATE the repository of the right of nullification? The ratification process did not include the apparatus of state governments, but conventions of citizenry. Therefore final power must rest, in the view of any believer in nullification, in the individual.

Would make for an interesting society, don't you think?

[A2J]

Nullification is one of the most dangerous concepts to the continuation of the Union.

Perhaps, but federalism is far more insidious and destructive.

[billbears]

I don't know, you tell me

Concert among the States for redress against the alien and sedition laws, as acts of usurped powers, was a leading sentiment; and the attainment of a concert was the immediate object of the course adopted by the [Virginia] Legislature; which was that of inviting the other States "to concur in declaring the acts to be unconstitutional, and to co-operate by the necessary and proper measures in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the States respectively and to the people."* . . . [B]y the necessary and proper measures to be concurrently and co-operatively taken, were meant measures known to the Constitution, particularly the ordinary control of the people and Legislatures of the States over the Government of the United States . . .Madison in letter to Edward Everett, 1830

Virginia Resolution of 1798 nullifying Alien and Sedition Acts

[philman_36]

That the central state here in America is on the side of every degenerate aspect of culture and society goes without saying, and this is true regardless of which party is in power.
WOW! How did the WOsD get missed in that? According to many, including many FReepers, drug use is a degenerate act and the central state surely isn't on the same side of the fence on that issue.
Generally a true statement, but not conclusive.

[Protagoras]

Nullification is one of the most dangerous concepts to the continuation of the Union.

I think the author would agree. The difference is in whether one thinks that is a good thing or a bad thing.

[Jason_b]

"How can one nullify a process that they voluntarily agreed to ascede."

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Does that or does that not support nullification in your view? In my view, that does not support the idea that people of a state enter a UNION with the intent to suffer forever as if in a miserable marriage that cannot be dissolved. If that were the case, no matter how unhappy we were with Great Britian, we would be required to suffer in silence and never have moved for separation from the mother country.

Also, in this country, we cherish the right to free association. That also implies the right not to associate. Is it consistent that individuals have the right to free association, but that those same people are subject to compelled association at the state level with a Union that may have changed into an entity that damages the rights of the citizens?

This thing: UNION---has become as an idol, in the biblical sense, a god above and before God, worshipped by the statists, who are willing to spill the blood of free citizens to maintain it. Hence the attitude of some that once the Union is formed, that is it.

If the Union were to dissolve or lose some of its constituent components, that would mean nothing else than the resumption to the states or to the people powers that they chose not to any longer delegate to a body they created. The statists (aka the ruling elite) don't want to lose the power, the tax revenue, the control, and become extremely ugly when their position is threatened. The statists forgot that the people gave them a job to do. Now the statists, absolutely corrupted and filled with arrogance, believe that they have a divine right to their position, that they will wage war to defend.

The ability of a state to leave the Union is an important check against the tendency of the Union to usurp excessive powers, disregard the principles of federalism, and abuse the people. If a state wants to leave, the Union should ask itself why. If a state cannot leave, the Union has no reason to act in a just manner toward the states.

Communist USSR had to disintegrate in order to release European states that had been absorbed by force at the end of WWII. Otherwise, those states would still, by force, and against their will, be part of the USSR. Are you suggesting that we should follow the communist example and keep the states that desire secession in the Union by force? That might be legitimate for the communist tyrrany, but it is not legitimate for a republic of free people, who are trying to maintain this ongoing concern of self-government.

[sweetliberty]

Excellent article.

[SauronOfMordor]

bump

[x]

What absolute drivel! Anyone who's studied the history of the 1860s -- or the 1960s -- would know that "sovereignty" was as much an idea of the state's rights, secessionist and segregationist camp as it was of the unionists or federalists who opposed them. Indeed, much more so. Absolute state sovereignty is the idea behind nullification and secession. Dressing this idea up in Jouvenalian garb of limited sovereignty is the cheapest and stupidest sort of intellectual transvestism.

There is always an either/or about sovereignty, and indeed, about government itself. Someone always has the final say. Nullification changes who has that say -- it doesn't resolve or do away with the basic problem.

Premodern monarchies of the sort that Hoppe celebrates -- and it has to be recognized that many despotisms didn't fit this pattern -- were distinguished by the fact that government didn't have control over large areas of public life. Unfortunately, it's not likely that state's rights movements would really do anything to restore this condition.

State's rights activists did not renounce far-reaching powers for state governments. State's rights was largely about protecting large-scale state exercises in social control and engineering. State sovereignty, nullification and secession wouldn't get government out of our lives, they'd simply shift the locus of power to different units.

Properly understood and applied, federalism doesn't include reckless ideas of unilateral nullification and secession, but it does apportion powers between the larger and smaller political units and balance power against power. Federalism draws disputants into the political sphere and brings them towards resolution there. It makes compromise more possible because the different units may follow different policies on important questions. Woods condemns political life entirely and promotes radical expedients that do more harm than good, leading not towards compromise but towards revolt, separation and, eventually, war.

Much of the current interest in secession and nullification can be traced back to Murray Rothbard,. Some samples:

"…there is another important reason for hailing the principle of secession per se: if one part of a country is allowed to secede, and this principle is established, then a sub-part of that must be allowed to secede, and a sub-part of that, breaking the government into ever smaller and less powerful fragments…until at last the principle is established that the individual may secede—and then we will have true freedom at last." -- "The Principle of Secession Defined" (1967)

"Secession is a crucial part of the libertarian philosophy: that every state be allowed to secede from the nation, every sub-state from the state, every neighborhood from the city, and, logically, every individual or group from the neighborhood." -- "Mailer for Mayor" (1969)

Rothbard reads like a logical lunatic. How exactly is the secession of the individual from the rest of society to happen? What will it lead to? How would society function?

Anarchism was the idea behind Rothbard's enthusiasm. It was not an ideal of the nullifiers and secessionists, though it is what unionists saw behind such concepts. And anarchism is a notoriously unworkable and destructive idea.

Moreover Rothbard's answer isn't likely to remove government and politics from our lives. Breakaway movements demanding their sovereignty and rights are more likely to bring politics, government, violence and war to the forefront than to promote free and peaceful development.

Identity politics and moral collectivism are more likely to be the result of secessionist ideas as liberty. Sandefur is aware of this. Rothbard and Woods are not.

[Free the USA]

I thought you might find the discussion interesting and have something to add.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Virginian political thinker Abel Upshur put it, since no common umpire exists between the federal government and the states to render judgments on breaches of the Constitution, each state – as a constituent part and co-creator of the Union – has to make such determinations for itself.

The states didn't make the Union. The people did.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

The vast majority of Americans know absolutely nothing about the US Constitution and what it authorizes...

That's why this blithering idiot thinks he can write this crap and get away with it.

Walt