We now now that it has given itself the power, by the approval of a secret court, to suspend the Fourth Amendment when it deems it necessary, which strangely it almost always does. A government that can excuse away a key component of the Constitution is a government not bound by a Constitution.
Strangely, many people oppose a Convention or conference to alter the Constitution because they fear they might lose some precious right. I understand, but ask if the present trajectory of the Federal Leviathan is going to leave us with many rights as it arcs from today into the future. We must act while there is still time, and we still have the means to do so.
]]>While all nullification may not be the same as seceding, seceding is certainly the most severe form of nullification. The constitution does not forbid a state to secede from the union. And President Lincoln had no constitutional right to stop the southern states from seceding, but how did that work out? I posit that nullification has been tried and does not work so well.
]]>In the North Carolina Ratifying Convention, James Iredell explained that the supremacy clause meant only that:
“when Congress passes a law consistent with the Constitution, it is to be binding on the people.”
And he emphasized that:
“the question, then, under this clause, will always be whether congress has exceeded its authority.” ~ Elliot, Jonathan. Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (2d ed. Washington, D.C., 1836) Volume 4 page 179
William R. Davie, discussing the supremacy clause said a federal law stated:
“can be supreme only in cases consistent with the powers specially granted and not in usurpations.” ~ Elliot, Jonathan. Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (2d ed. Washington, D.C., 1836) Volume 4 page 182
In the Virginia Ratifying Convention, John Marshall assured the Ratifiers that the supremacy clause did not extend to all cases; that a federal law:
“not warranted by any of the enumerated powers’ would constitute “an infringement of the Constitution.” ~ Elliot, Jonathan. Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (2d ed. Washington, D.C., 1836) Volume 3 page 553
In the New York Ratifying Convention, Antifederalist’s saw “the Supremacy Clause” and pointed to it with alarm. Alexander Hamilton assured them that each government [federal and state] was supreme in its sphere, stressing that:
“this balance between the National and State governments…is of The Utmost importance…It forms a double security to the people.” ~ Elliot, Jonathan. Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (2d ed. Washington, D.C., 1836) Volume 2 page 257
In Federalist #33, Hamilton wrote that laws:
"which are not pursuant to its Constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the States” will be merely “acts of usurpation," not "the supreme law of the land".
Chief Justice McKean told the Pennsylvania Ratification Conventions that the meaning of the supremacy clause:
“is simply this, that the Congress have the power of making laws upon any subject over which the proposed plan gives them a jurisdiction, and that those laws thus made in pursuance of the Constitution, shall be binding upon the States.” ~ McMaster, J. B., and Stone, F., Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution 1787-1788 (Lancaster, Pa., Inquirer Printing, 1888). Page 277
laws which shall be made in ("pursuance thereof") emphasis added.
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