In 1798 with the ink on the Constitution barely dry, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed which featured provisions that made speaking ill of the government a crime.
And what was the answer to this unconstitutional “law”?
Kentucky, led by Thomas Jefferson, and Virginia, led by James Madison, helped pass nullification resolutions in opposition of the unconstitutional legislation. Fast forward five decades and multiple northern states took a stand to nullify the pro-slavery fugitive slave laws, federal legislation that required the return of runaway slaves. More recently state legislatures led a nullification movement against the REAL ID act that now includes over half of the states in the Union.
There are numerous other examples in our history, but let’s move little closer to the present.
The Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare and defended the unconstitutional expansion of federal power. This came after several attempts by the North Carolina Legislature to pass a mild Obamacare nullification bill over the previous governor’s veto; which was a better route to take than to rely on the Supreme Court whose record on decreasing federal powers is virtually non-existent.
The court, as history suggested it would, let the Constitution down and voted to uphold an expansion of federal powers — again. After all that wasted time and money, betrayal. The federal government’s powers expanded at the expense of State Sovereignty and individual freedom. With that ruling, there is nothing the federal government cannot make us do or buy. In fact, there are suggestions that gun owners should be required to buy gun liability insurance to cover any possibilities; of course, we know that the insurance will be prohibitively expensive as a way to control gun ownership.
What were Jefferson’s thoughts on relying on the courts to protect our rights? Well he once wrote in a letter that he found the view that the court is the top authority as wrong, for it would reduce us to an oligarchy. He later observed that the safest depository for the powers is in the people.
How would Jefferson and Madison suggest we respond to Obamacare and other modern day unconstitutional federal actions?
They would NOT COMPLY they would NULLIFY!
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