States Rights And The Union

One of the more troubling aspects of the mainstream American political discourse is the constant emphasis on party politics. Its as though Americans have been conditioned to believe that solutions are to be found ONLY within the political duopoly in Washington. What is often conspicuously absent from any discussion is the power of the States to check and arrest laws which they deem to be unconstitutional. This is commonly referred to as state interposition or nullification. It is folly to assume that government will somehow limit itself. Thomas Jefferson, warned that if the Federal government became the final arbiter regarding the extent of its own power, the result would be tyranny. Consider that the Kentucky Resolutions state that:

"the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principles of unlimited submission to their General Government; but by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self Government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force:That to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming as to itself, the other party: That the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common Judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."  

It was upon these principles of nullification, that the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were penned. Now it appears that more State legislatures are awakening to the dangers of Federal tyranny, and are reasserting State sovereignty. Wyoming is now the latest State to reassert its reserved powers concerning the issue of gun rights. Story here.