In May Rasmussen Reports took a survey of a thousand adults asking if they believed that States have the right to secede. “One-in-five Americans believe individual States have the right to break away from the country, although a majority doesn’t believe it will actually happen.”

That a Tea Party movement sprang to life in the midst of the protests against Obamacare and then was instrumental in transferring political power in the House of Representatives in the 2010 election cannot be dismissed. People—lots of them—are increasingly wary of the central government, particularly one that has burdened them with more debt in the last three years than in the entire prior history of the nation.

In October, Pelican Press will publish “Rethinking the American Union for the Twenty-First Century” in which a number of scholars edited by Donald Livingston, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, examine the implications of secession, possibly by regional groupings of States, from the present federal government.

Prof. Livingston is a political philosopher and scholar, the author of two books on the British philosopher David Hume and may well be one of a handful of people who have given serious thought to the question of whether the present Union has either outlived its usefulness or, worse, become a sinkhole of power aggregating to itself total control over the States.

The Tenth Amendment clearly states 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.”

That is true, but I doubt there is a single Governor of any of the fifty States who cannot enumerate the ways the federal government has wrested power from them while imposing costs. When Arizona finds itself the object of a federal legal suit to prevent it from trying to control its border with Mexico, you know there’s a problem.

In an article, “Decentralization for Freedom”, by Prof. Livingston, he raises some issues that are increasingly troubling to a growing number of Americans. He addresses the measures States can take “to protect their citizens from usurpations by the central government.” Among these are the passing of resolutions. “A continuous flood of resolutions from the States about the constitutionality of this or that issue (and widely publicized) would serve to educate the public.”

Thereafter, Prof. Livingston recommends a resort to the Tenth Amendment by State legislators and governors in order to recover usurped authority. We are beginning to see another measure, the refusal to accept federal funding as regards its centralized control of education.

Resistance to Obamacare is based on the question whether the federal government can require individual citizens to purchase something they do not want. The House has passed a measure to repeal it, but it is stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Reverse the situation and you have a federal government telling Americans what they cannot buy, as in the case of the 100 watt incandescent light bulb in use since the days of Thomas Edison.

“Genuine federalism in America can be recovered only by political action in the name of the State’s own authority and not by Supreme Court legalism,” says Prof. Livingston.
“To all of this it is often said that State interposition, nullification, and succession were eliminated as policy options by the Civil War. Brute force, however, cannot settle moral and constitutional question.” While Lincoln did “save the Union”, he did so at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and the destruction of the South.

Clearly the central government has grown so large, so unwieldy, so wasteful, and so unresponsive to the problems and costs it has imposed that people are beginning to wonder why 435 Representatives in the House and 100 in the Senate should control the lives, the economy, and the education of more than 300 million people in fifty sovereign States.

The President virtually makes law with “executive orders” and the nine members of the Supreme Court exercises final authority of the constitutionality of laws. Congress is so divided by raw partisanship it is barely functioning.

“The only remedy,” says Prof. Livingston “is territorial division of the Union through secession into a number of different and independent political units.”

“The current central government of the United States hates inequality, but it also fears the people,” says Prof. Livingston, noting that “There is no law an American State can pass that cannot be overturned by the arrogant social engineers of the Supreme Court who in the last fifty years have played with the inherited moral traditions and federative policy of the American people like a quack with a hapless patient.”

“Constitutionally, this means that the States must reassert their sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and recall those powers they have allowed to slip out of their hands to the central government.”

This is not a call for anarchy. It is the realization that the modern presidency has aggregated to itself powers it does not have or, in the case of Libya, is ignoring the War Powers Act that limits its ability to engage the nation in conflicts Congress does not ultimately authorize.

It is the realization that every United Nations treaty the United States signs deprives it of its sovereign rights.

It is a call for consideration that regional groups of States with common interests might provide better government within such groups, leaving to the central government the responsibility to protect the nation via a common military, conduct foreign affairs, and return to the gold standard that would protect the value of a common currency.

When one-in-five Americans give credence to the right of secession, it is clear that the problems being experienced in all fifty States, the massive regulation of all activities within those States, the imposition of a centralized “core” curriculum to be taught in all schools, is arousing a rediscovered sense of liberty among Americans.

What steps must be taken to retain that liberty and even to restructure the Union are as yet undetermined, but they are increasingly entering the public debate.

There is no debate that something is terribly wrong when a president is elected whose eligibility and legitimacy is in serious question while the courts do nothing to address this critical constitutional issue and the Congress does nothing while sending bills for his signature.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America

States Distancing Themselves From The Federal Government.

NINTH AMENDMENT to the US Constitution: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

TENTH AMENDMENT to the US Constitution: 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.

As I have observed over the past few months the “State Sovereignty Movement” continues to sweep the nation with well over three-quarters of the fifty states taking action, through their respective state legislatures, re-establishing their “sovereignty”.

It is being reported that there are over 40 states with state sovereignty declarations as of this writing. If true, that is heartening.  There is no doubt the states have been relegated to second-class citizenship in the US.  That is just WRONG and must be corrected!

We found reports on the Internet stating that THERE ARE 12 NEW STATE SOVEREIGNTY DECLARATIONS IN PROGRESS, RIGHT NOW!! THEY INCLUDE ALABAMA. NEBRASKA, Rhode Island, WYOMING, WASHINGTON, INDIANA, KENTUCKY, GEORGIA, KANSAS, MISSOURI, MISSISSIPPI, AND MARYLAND!

WYOMING is the newest constitutionally sovereign state. The bill was signed into law on March 8^th, 2010. Utah did the same on the 25^th of February 2010. The debate continues in my home state of South Carolina, but my guess is it will pass the state legislature and be signed into law by the “Sandlappers” very soon now.

Here in North Carolina, House Bill H849 “supporting the state’s right to claim sovereignty over certain powers under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States” has been filed.

Here’s the full text:

Whereas, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: “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;” and

Whereas, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and

Whereas, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and

Whereas, today, in 2009, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government; and

Whereas, many federal mandates are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

Whereas, Section 4 of Article IV of the Constitution of the United States says, “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government,” and the Ninth Amendment states that “The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” and

Whereas, the United States Supreme Court ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S. Ct. 2408 (1992), that Congress may not simply commandeer the legislative and regulatory processes of the states; and

Whereas, a number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from Congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States; Now, therefore,

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives:

SECTION 1.  The North Carolina House of Representatives supports the State’s right to claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government or reserved to the people by the Constitution of the United States.

SECTION 2.  The North Carolina House of Representatives urges the federal government, as the agent of the State, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of any constitutionally delegated powers.

SECTION 3.  The North Carolina House of Representatives further urges that compulsory federal legislation which directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.

SECTION 4.  The Principal Clerk shall transmit a certified copy of this resolution to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and each member of the North Carolina Congressional Delegation.

SECTION 5.  This resolution is effective upon adoption.

Read more on North Carolina’s efforts to re-establish its sovereignty HERE.

I took a look in my crystal ball and, for the life of me; I could see no indication of the effect the sovereignty movement will have on future relations between the states and their “agent”… the federal government. Only time will tell.

However, I must tell you, it does this old southern boy’s heart good to see “State’s Rights” again brought to the fore in the United States.

James Madison, The Founder we refer to as “The Father of the Constitution,” wrote the following: “To preserve the Republic, it is in the hands of the people. We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments”

As with all Americans we “Southerners” get a lot of things wrong.  But we have been right on the issue of “State’s Rights” all along.  See, southerners had a bit more than just a signature invested in the creation of the Constitution, itself. There was never any doubt, in our minds, about who “the greater” and who “the lesser” was/is in this association of states and federal government.  I must tell you, I am more than a little pleased to find the names of several northern and western states, and even northeastern states, included in the list of the names of the states involved in the State Sovereignty Movement.

Washington would do well to take notice, serious notice, of this movement. The Congress and the President may have forgotten, but it is “the boss” filing this complaint. It is very easy to sit in Washington and spend North Carolina’s money, or the money of the folks from Texas or Oklahoma.  But, believe me when I tell you that we have been paying attention and we do not like having our state’s treasuries looted by a heavy-handed federal government.

The current Congress would also do well to read up on the “Ordinance of Nullification” passed by my home state of South Carolina in 1828.  You can read it for yourself HERE. Suffice it to say State Sovereignty is NOT a NEW issue in this country.  It appears we will have to visit it — yet again.

© J. D. Longstreet

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom at: http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/

 

WesternFront America

Lawmakers in 20 states are pushing to regain their states sovereignty from the US Government under the ninth and tenth amendments to the US Constitution!

We warned this was coming many months, even years ago, in this very space. Many readers gave me grief saying that I had no idea what I was talking about, that I was blowing smoke, that I was a dumb ole redneck looking to secede from the Union. None of that was, nor is, true. The fact is that I live in the real world where people are not afraid to speak their minds.

Some months (possibly even years) back, I pointed out to readers there was information that indicated there were, at that time, 22 active secessionist movements within the United States. That information was brushed aside. So, we come to today.

Today we have lawmakers, in the state legislatures of at least 20 states, introducing bills to assist their states in re-establishing their constitutional sovereignty from the Federal Government. The federal government has just become entirely too overbearing as strong central governments always do. You might even say… as our current federal government has become.

There is an excellent article on this HERE.

Now, as an amateur historian, very amateurish, I stress, I have spent a good deal of time studying the period in the early to mid 1800′s when the US had reached a point similar to the one we find ourselves at today.

You see, by 1860 the Gross National Product of the southern states of America was three times that of the northern states. The southern states were providing well over 60% of the money necessary to keep the US afloat. The US government was demanding more and more of the southern states and simply would not listen when my southern ancestors complained about it to the Congress. Finally, the southern states threatened to leave the Union and set up their own country. The US Constitution did not; repeat… did not … forbid the secession of any state, at any time, for any reason. (The Articles of Confederation did bar secession unless all the states seceded. Not so, the Constitution which followed.)

Eleven states, plus parts of two more states, left the US and formed the Confederate States of America with a Constitution, a Congress, a President, an Army, a Navy, a Marine Corp, and a land area several times larger than that of the 13 original colonies when they left the Mother Country to form their own nation.

Unfortunately, the history of what happened next, over the next four years of war and then the abomination called reconstruction, has been rewritten to favor the Federal Government’s side of the dispute and it has given a permanent black eye to my region of the country. I maintain that the south would be a separate, prosperous, country today had my ancestors not been dragged back… forced back… into the Union at the point of a bayonet… all quite illegally.

I expect that many of you will be will be surprised to learn that the Federal Government was created by the states to act as a agent of the states, taking direction from the states. That has all been changed today. Today the states take orders from the Federal Government, which was originally meant to be an inferior agency. Some people around the 50 states are beginning to wake up to this fact and when enough get riled up, there will be hell to pay… all over again.

The Ninth Amendment to the US Constitution says:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution says:

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.

Now, you can argue this point every which way from Sunday, and it has been. But, when the smoke clears away, the tenth Amendment makes it absolutely clear that the Federal Government is limited only to the powers granted to it in the Constitution. It says so… right there in the tenth amendment!

To see that the Federal Government has exceeded it’s authority all you have to do is look around you.

We, the people, are swamped with rules, and regulations, and laws handed down by the Federal Government that are smothering the states and draining our state treasuries, just as the Federal Governement did before the American Civil War. It is plain to see that the states and the Federal Government are headed for some kind of confrontation … and it won’t be pleasant.

I am convinced that the Congress we have seated today, and the President in the Oval Office today, will do more to bring about the dissolution of the United States than any government since that of Lincoln in 1860. We warned, even before the President was sworn in, that his government would over-reach. They began almost immediately. The so-called “Stimulus Bill” could well be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Eight states have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Washington (state). Some analysts expect that in addition, another 20 states may see similar measures introduced this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine, and Pennsylvania. We recommend you read an article titled: “State Sovereignty Movement Quietly Growing.” You’ll find it HERE.

No less than James Madison, himself, one of our Founding Fathers, wrote in “The Federalist” the following: “The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.”

Interestingly, James Madison was one of the chief writers of the US Constitution. I think it is safe to take his word as an authority on what it meant.

The plain fact is… as one state lawmaker has said… the states are tired of being treated as branches of the Federal Government. The profligate spending by the Federal Government and those unfunded mandates dumped on the states are strangling the states… just as they did to the Southern states in the 1800′s.

We Americans don’t know our own history. America has a couple of generations of Americans who believe history started they day they were born. Those of us, who have studied the past, see the warning signs flashing all around us. We are headed for a constitutional crisis, which may tear the country apart. And I am not writing of this recession, which is nowhere near as bad as the current government would have you believe. I am pointing to a power struggle between the “creator”(the states), and the “created” (the federal government).

This Americans, who do know their history, know, all too well, that America is in another situation very similar to the one over which she fought the American Revolution and, approximately 80 years later, the American Civil War.

Am I worried? You’d better believe I am worried!

© J. D. Longstreet

J. D. Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”.

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom

 

WesternFront America