Tag Archives | History

Something Historic is Happening: Nullify Now

By TAC Daily Updates on October 13, 2010 in Activism, Nullification 1

TODAY’S SPECIAL: 50% off Nullify Now! Tickets – (Chattanooga 10-23, Phoenix 01-29, L.A. 04-23) – read below for details, get tickets at http://www.nullifynow.com/tickets/ or call 888-71-TICKETS

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At this past weekend’s Nullify Now! event in Orlando, FL, hundreds of activists gathered to celebrate the 10th Amendment and find an answer to the essential question of our day – what do we do about it?

For more than a century, We the People have been marching on D.C. in the hopes that federal politicians would see the light and limit federal power. We have been suing in federal courts in the hopes that federal judges would limit federal power. We keep “voting the bums out.” But every federal election cycle we end up with new bums that expand federal power!

Asking, demanding, hoping – that the federal government will limit its own power – just doesn’t work. Thomas Jefferson wrote that when the federal government “assumes undelegated powers…” a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.

NULLIFICATION – has a long history in the American tradition. It is happening across the country RIGHT NOW. Tom Woods was quoted in reports by The New American and the Florida Sunshine News as saying – “Something historic is going on here.”

“For more than 100 years, we’ve had a federal government that has — in a completely unchallenged way — determined the scope of its own powers. And the results are all around us: unpayable debt, impossible entitlement liabilities, crazy foreign policy, crazy monetary policy — everything is crazy about this regime,” Woods continued. Continue Reading →

States’ Rights Are Not Wrong

By Michael Boldin on July 7, 2010 in Nullification, State Sovereignty, The Opposition 1

A very long, but well-documented article on the history of nullification – and its current efforts in ….of all places …. the Huffington Post.

Read it – it’s really good, and gives great ammo for discussing this issue with your friends on the left. We all have them. Admit it. (I even have a few friends on the right, too!)

Here’s a tiny excerpt of Nullification ≠ Discrimination: States’ Rights Are Not Wrong

Next time you hear the word nullification, think Underground Railroad. Or war resistance. Or legalized pot. Or “Down with Big Brother.”

Resisting the Fugitive Slave Act

By Derek Sheriff on June 3, 2010 in Nullification 1

Whenever the mainstream media finally decides it can’t ignore the efforts of today’s “Tenthers” to use the tools of state level nullification and interposition, their attempts to associate them with slavery, Jim Crow and segregation are as predictable as the sun rising in the East.

The fact is that nullification and interposition were never used by the southern states to protect the institution of slavery and later unsuccessful attempts by some of them to defy federally mandated desegregation of schools are only a tiny, yet overemphasized paragraph in the otherwise noble history of nullification.

Nullification and interposition were used successfully however, by several northern states in the 1850’s to resist federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. Walter Coffey summarizes these little known episodes in American history in his recent article, which every American should read!

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Our States’ Rights Tradition

By Michael Boldin on April 14, 2010 in Founding Principles, State Sovereignty 0

The Classical Liberal States’ Rights Tradition

The fourth of ten lectures from the 2006 Steven Berger Seminar: Thomas DiLorenzo on Liberty and American Civilization, recorded at the Mises Institute, 06-06-2006.

Eeek, a Dissident Idea

By Lew Rockwell on February 18, 2010 in Media, Nullification, The Opposition 0

The most important job of regime intellectuals of all stripes, besides promoting wars past, present, and future, and anything else that enhances the glory, power, and centralization of the state, is to smear opponents. Here Salon attacks Tom DiLorenzo and Tom Woods for dissenting from official history.

Of course, mullification orginates with Jefferson and Madison in 1798, not with Calhoun’s anti-tax strategy. And slavery could not have been abolished without a dictatorship and killing 600,000 people. All the other countries that got rid of this great evil peacefully are illusions.

BTW, CPAC did not invite these two great scholars to speak. All credit goes to the Campaign for Liberty. (Thanks to Norm)

originally posted on the LewRockwell.com Blog

Video: Nullification is Taking Off!

By Michael Boldin on January 27, 2010 in Constitution, History, Nullification 2

Tom Woods Speech at the Campaign for Liberty Regional Conference in Atlanta Georgia 1/ 15/2010 – talks about the Federal Reserve, and the principle of nullification in history and modern times.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Jonathan Bean on Lysander Spooner

By Patrick Krey on November 27, 2009 in Constitution, Federalism 3

Recently, I wrote about Lysander Spooner’s dubious argument that the unamended Constitution as originally ratified prohibited slavery in a book review I did for The New American.

Jonathan Bean, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and professor of history at Southern Illinois University, commented on my review of his book “Race & Liberty in America” (I believe it was him … you never know) and defended Spooner with the following.

Spooner may have been wrong about the Constitution (people disagree) when he wrote the argument that it did not — and could not — uphold slavery. While you may disagree, his argument is actually an extremely _strict_ interpretation of the law as a) protecting individual rights well-accepted in Anglo-American law; and b) contracts must be consensual: by tracing the history of American charters and constitutions, he shows that blacks never “signed over” their rights to the Government and submitted to slavery. And they had no right to hand over their children. There was no legal basis for man-stealing. It happened over time AND THEN it was codified. So he is arguing against a “living Constitution” theory that the law must grow to accept new conditions (namely slavery).

While I agree that slavery is vile, horrific and thankfully abolished, I must disagree that Spooner is “arguing against a living Constitution” and for a strict interpretation.

Slavery was definitely around at the time of the ratification and was debated by both the drafters and ratifiers. They both decided to mostly leave it as a state issue to be solved by popular sovereignty.

Spooner’s argument that the Constitution was not binding on African-Americans is actually much stronger but if you follow this line of thinking to its logical end, then you must conclude that the Constitution is not binding on anyone who wasn’t alive at the time of the ratification. And that’s actually what Spooner eventually argued.

BTW, if you’re interested in a good stocking stuffer, Bean’s book might be just what you need.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0813192315?tag=tenthamendmentcenter-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0813192315&adid=0EQXSSW3WC4QYR3QBTQE&

Every day should be Constitution Day

By Michael Boldin on September 17, 2009 in Constitution, Government 4

Writes Josh Eboch:

We the People must stop allowing our founding documents to be marginalized as artifacts of a long-dead history. We must demand that our natural rights, partially enumerated and fully protected by the Constitution, be recognized, respected, and restored.

If we would deserve the freedom that has been passed down as our birthright for 229 years, then every day from now on must become Constitution Day.

Amen, Josh!

A Stately Affair?

By Michael Boldin on September 4, 2009 in History 0

Tom Woods, who’s not only a brilliant historian, but a best-selling author on the economic crisis, has a great review of the new booklet by John McManus, Restoring the Rights of the States and the People.

Here’s a prime excerpt:

From the period of the early republic until the misnamed Civil War, the states repeatedly defied the federal government on issues ranging from war, conscription, and trade, to free speech and fugitive-slave laws. Students are not generally taught this history in school. They learn instead that the only reasons anyone might not want to repose all decision-making power in the hands of our wise overlords in the federal government is an incorrigible desire to oppress minority groups in one way or another. (Good thing most college students don’t read what their professors assign them, or we’d be in real trouble.) Although not his primary purpose, McManus deftly lays out the case in Restoring the Rights that those Americans who favor these resolutions — and, we hope, the follow-up actions by the states involved — are demonstrably in the right from a constitutional and historical (not to mention moral and political) point of view.

It’s certainly worth a few minutes of your time. Click here for the full review

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