The Constitution provides states with a high degree of sovereignty

Commentary by James Shott

When the founders of our young nation realized that the original governing document, the Articles of Confederation, was insufficient, the task of creating a better one began. Ultimately, during the process of creating and ratifying the United States Constitution to replace the Articles strong sentiment existed for specific rights to be guaranteed to Americans, and the Bill of Rights was created, consisting of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.

As time passed the strength of some of those first 10 amendments has been weakened, and some are under constant attack. As our once-limited national government has grown, the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have diminished.

The Bill of Rights guarantees such things as freedom of speech and religion, the keeping and bearing of arms, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and other protections from a government set on tyranny.

The several states, which represented the interests and will of their citizens, created the national government, and the Tenth Amendment emphasized that the states had protection from the acquisition of powers by the national government outside the limits set forth in the Constitution.

During the process of replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution, a series of essays known as The Federalist Papers stressed that under the Constitution’s governmental structure, the principle of popular sovereignty would continue, with Constitutional protections against the national government trampling on the rights reserved for the states. This was known as “federalism.” The national government has those powers assigned to it; the states or the people have those powers not assigned to the national government, nor prohibited by the Constitution.

The Ninth Amendment strengthens the Tenth, but more than 230 years later, who can argue that the Tenth Amendment's proscription against a power grab by the federal government has actually been respected?

Arguably, the Environmental Protection Agency is the greatest offender of 10th Amendment protections, as it writes regulations and rules with the force of law that have not been made into law by the Congress.

Or maybe it is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – that is a law made by Congress, but shoves Uncle Sam over the edge of the big government cliff. Imagine Washington, Jefferson, Madison and the rest of the Founders agreeing that the national government was allowed someday to impose a healthcare system on the people of the several states, even if it worked as advertised.

The idea that the federal government has the authority to change the operations of hundreds or thousands of individual insurers and healthcare providers in 50 different states, each serving its own separate customer base, into a single system controlled by Washington is as anti-Constitution as it gets.

Other areas of Tenth Amendment abuse are same-sex marriage and abortion, both of which originally were state issues, until the federal government found some way to finagle a national interest in these issues.

Until the Roe v Wade case of 1973, abortion had been a state issue, but the Supreme Court ruled that bans on abortion were unconstitutional on a “right to privacy” basis discovered in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And the federal government was never involved in marriage issues until 1996 when the Defense of Marriage Act was passed.

The Constitution also protected state sovereignty by the way Congress was organized. The House of Representatives, frequently referred to as “the people’s house,” consisted of Representatives directly elected by the citizens of the Congressional Districts. Members of the Senate, on the other hand, were to be elected by the state legislatures, and therefore senators’ loyalty was to the government of the state more than to its citizens.

This protection vanished, however, when the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913, and now the citizens of the states also elect Senators, in addition to the Representatives. Members of the Senate no longer have any special reason to protect the interests of the government of the state they represent, and that shifts the governing balance between the states and the federal government toward the federal government.

The result often is that federal mandates, about which the states themselves have nothing to say, not only can and do intrude on state sovereignty, but force states to pay for their implementation, as well.

Some people think these changes are just fine, such as those who have bought into the scare tactics of the climate change catastrophe gang, those who support abortion and same-sex marriage, and those who generally like big government and have never stopped to think how miserable they may be in the future if this big-government mania isn’t stopped.

There is some good news on this issue: States are fighting back against federal over-reach. Twenty-four states filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to strike down the Environmental Protection Agency’s new source performance standards that effectively prohibit the construction of new, coal-fired power plants. And 12 states are fighting the Obama administration’s LGBT rights mandates.

If the courts do not support restoration of state sovereignty in these and other issues, the states will have no other choice but to refuse to follow intrusive federal measures.

Cross-posted from Observations

Nullifying ObamaCare?

Nullifying ObamaCare?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Prior to the American “War Between the States,” the southern states began to nullify those laws passed by Congress they felt were overbearing, or would harm the people of the states in any way. It was a legal approach toward a too powerful federal government, which was created by the states to act as an agent of the states and not as the master of the states.

We don’t see much of that today. The federal government has had a great deal of success through their government run schools of re-educating the citizenry that the states are subservient to the federal government.

There are some reports that at least ten states are currently, or soon will be considering nullification laws in their sovereign states that would make ObamaCare illegal with their borders. Fourteen other states are suing in the courts in an effort to have ObamaCare overturned and tossed out. We wish them all good luck.

If a new bill, which has already been filed in Texas ahead of the 2011 session of the Texas state legislature should pass it would nullify Obamacare. The bill provides penalties of up to $5,000 in fines and up to five years in jail for anyone guilty of the "felony" of attempting "to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation" of ObamaCare.

The bill was pre-filed by Leo Berman, a Republican, from Tyler, Texas. It is House Bill 297 in case you would like to look it up.

The bill would simply nullify Obama’s federal health care law in the state of Texas. Texas HB 297 says that federal health care legislation is invalid in the state of Texas, is not recognized by the state of Texas, is specifically rejected by the state of Texas, and is null and void and of no effect in the state of Texas. The bill explains: “The federal Act is not authorized by the United States Constitution and violates the Constitution’s true meaning and intent as expressed by the founders of this country and the ratifiers of the Constitution.”

Just so everyone knows the bill is serious it says, plainly and simply the following: “"a person who is an official, agent, or employee of the United States or an employee of a corporation providing services to the United States commits an offense if the person enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule, or regulation of the United States in violation of this chapter." The bill goes on to say: “assumption of power by the federal government in enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590; Pub. L. No. 111-148) as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872; Pub. L. No. 111-152) interferes with the right of the people of this state to regulate health care as they determine is appropriate …”

Understand this: This nullification of a federal law within a state is legal. It is well within the scope of all the sovereign states. In fact, James Madison often praised as the writer of the Constitution, but undeniably one of those who did said that the states have a duty to assert their power as a sovereign state when the federal government oversteps its authority. Madison had this to say in the Virginia Resolution of 1798: “That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.”

Somewhere along the line, Americans have forgotten that the states are sovereign. They are separate countries with their own governments elected by the people of those states. We have forgotten the formation of the federal government was an act of the states, not to create their own master, but to create a servant of the states.

I suspect many of the leaders of the various states are frightened witless that should they buck the federal government, the same thing will happen to them as happened to the southern states when they asserted their right to secede from the union and form their own country over their dissatisfaction with a federal government that had grown, even at that early stage of American history, into a near tyrannical regime. They fear the revenge with which the federal government savaged the southern states. It was called “Reconstruction” and it was damaged the southern states even more than the shooting war.

As a southerner, I am convinced the current federal government has stepped way across the line with ObamaCare and deserves to be confronted with nullification laws in as many states as believe it to be the act of a federal government grown intoxicated with power and intend to use that power to force their will on the people of the states who want no part of the takeover of a huge chunk of the US economy and intervene directly into the lives of Americans who do not want them there.

The states have a right, AND the DUTY, to say no. We will not bow to the will of an out of control federal government that has over-stepped its constitutional restraints.

ObamaCare is a slap in the face to freedom loving Americans across this great land. The states must band together to stop it and destroy it.

J. D. Longstreet

NOTE: Two articles you might enjoy reading on this same subject can be found at:

Tenth Amendment Center
And theWorld Net Daily

Obama To Sue Over Arizona Immigration Law?

Obama To Sue Over Arizona Immigration Law?

Obama Regime Pushing States Toward The Unthinkable
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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The American left wing's sainted Secretary of State, Mrs. Bill Clinton, reportedly allowed, on Ecuadorian TV, as to how the Obama Regime intends to sue the state of Arizona over Arizona’s new immigration law. Even with the, oh, so “transparent” Obama Regime, the governor of Arizona had to learn this from a news report on TV! Is she angry? You bet your sweet bippy she is!

Look, the United States of America is, today, united in name only! If we have not as a nation divided into two camps, every bit as stark as the states just prior to the American War Between the States, then we are sure as heck approaching that condition.

The Confederate States seceded because they could not abide a growing central government dictating to sovereign states what they would and would not be allowed to do. They believed, so much, in the original constitution of the Founding Fathers that they copied it as the Constitution of the Confederacy. Google the Confederate Constitution and read it for yourselves. You will note a few changes, such as a single 6-year term for the President, but by and large, it is the original US Constitution.

We are living history today. We are watching our country break apart, a little at a time, and the root cause is the imposition of a central government, controlled by Socialist, Progressives, Marxists, Statists, Liberals, and even the odd Maoist thrown in here and there, which is drunk on power and lusting for even more.

Americans are losing their hard won freedom little by little as the Obama Regime takes advantage of every crisis, real or imagined, or just plain manufactured to instill fear in Americans that their only salvation is in falling at the feet of Obama, and his minions, and worshiping by sacrificing their freedom and swearing fealty to the current socialist regime which is, every day it seems, simply assuming the powers of an American dictatorship.

I have news for the socialists in charge of our government. Their orgy of power will end, and end very soon, or they will have only a part of the existing states to run rampant over with their atrocious acts of barbarism and vandalism aimed at the few freedoms the American citizens have left.

As much as the federal government likes to believe, and delude others into believing the states are not sovereign entities, they are WRONG!

Arizona, a former member of the Confederacy, WAS, and REMAINS, a sovereign state. The federal government CANNOT impose its will on the people of that state -- unless the Arizonans willingly accept it.

One of the extremely important facts about this country the democrats choose not to remember is that 11 states, and parts of two other states, are a part of the US ONLY BECAUSE THEY WERE FORCED, AT THE POINT OF A FEDERAL GOVERENMENT BAYONET, TO REJOIN THE UNION!

Revisionist history does not teach our students the horrible injustices done those former Confederate states after the war under the guise of “Reconstruction.”

If you want to know what an all powerful, vengeful, federal government can do to its own subjugated citizen, do a little research on the south for roughly seven to ten years after the war. You will be horrified.

I include these remarks about the so-called American Civil War and Reconstruction as a warning. Unless our government returns to governing as a constitutional republic, as much as I hate to consider it, Americans will be at each other’s throats.

History does repeat itself. The Obama Regime is making many of the same mistakes the Lincoln administration made. It is alienating its citizens.

The American people, as a whole, have a very long fuse, and we remind the federal government that at the end of that fuse lies an obstinate, stubborn, freedom loving people who have no intention of giving up their sacred freedom by lying down and rolling over for some would-be tin pot dictator and his flunkies in OUR nation’s capitol.

May God have mercy on America because there is a backlash, of biblical proportions, building today and it could explode at any moment.

J. D. Longstreet

Will Arizona Secede?

Will Arizona Secede?

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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I have no idea if Arizona will make an attempt at secession, or not. If they do, it will not be the first time. You see, back in 1861 Arizona chose to become a part of the old Confederacy during the War Between the States. You may read the Arizona Ordinance of Secession HERE.

So, secession, as unthinkable as you MAY think it is today, is NOT outside the realm of possibility.

Let’s see what others are saying about this issue:

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“Will Arizona be the first state to secede?”

Check this out HERE.

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HCR 2034:If Martial Law, Arizona Will Secede
1. “That when or if the President of the United States, the Congress of the United States or any other federal agent or agency declares the Constitution of the United States to be suspended or abolished, if the President or any other federal entity attempts to institute martial law or its equivalent without an official declaration in one or more of the states without the consent of that state or if any federal order attempts to make it unlawful for individual Americans to own firearms or to confiscate firearms, the State of Arizona, when joined by thirty-four of the other fifty states, declares as follows: That the states resume all state powers delegated by the Constitution of the United States and assume total sovereignty; … …”

You will find this story HERE.
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”Arizona Becoming First State to Secede From Union”
This is a VERY interesting article by Will Bunch and you will find it HERE.

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"The Civil War and Arizona"
“Arizona's Civil War story is a colorful one. Colonel John R. Baylor of the Confederate States of America (CSA) defeated Union troops in Arizona and New Mexico in March 1861. Arizona became a Confederate Territory when it was annexed by the Confederate President Jefferson Davis who was also the ex Secretary of War under President Abraham Lincoln.”Read the rest of this very interesting article HERE.
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"What will Washington do about the Arizona immigration law?"
You will find this article HERE.
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Now -- these are but a small sampling of the articles on the Internet.What you are seeing unfold between the political left in America, and the sovereign state of Arizona, over Arizona’s legal right to regulate illegal immigration into their state is but a small part of the overall plan the political left has of being rid of both the US/Mexican border and the US/Canadian border. Arizona, you see, just tossed a fly into the left’s “ointment,” if you please. That ointment? Why “Global Governance,” of course -- a “one-world government.” With a one-world government there will be no borders. None will be needed.

Arizona just spat in the faces of the political left all over the world. And they are seriously PO’ed!
Look, even a fool knows the US government could close, seal, and secure the borders -- if it wanted to. The simple truth is -- the American government does not want to secure her borders.
The progressives in the US government have been working for decades to pave the way for global governance, which would include the US. A global government would override the US Constitution, making it null and void. The same group has been working feverishly to destroy the US Constitution of 1787 by claiming it is a “living document” and crying out for a new US Constitution for the 21st century.

Understand: the proposed global government would be a socialist/marxist/communist government. The socialist Obama Regime (which actually believes it is running the country), the socialist Congress -- including both the US House and the US Senate, were necessary to move the progressive agenda for global governance to fruition. The so-called “Shadow Government” now has control of the Executive and the Legislative branches of the US Government and it is closing in on control of the third branch of our government – the Judicial branch. Anything that gets in the way of the socialist/progressives must be crushed. I give you: The Political Left’s War on Arizona!

If you have read the articles we pointed you towards (above) then you know that Arizona has prepared the way for the state’s secession from the USA. She has set the stage to claim, that which is hers -- her sovereignty.

We have warned countless times, in our scribblings, that what is happening in Arizona today was going to happen. History does, indeed, repeat itself.

We Southern folk know the history of this country leading up to the secession of the states that formed the Confederate States of America. We know the REAL history, not the bunk taught our children in the "government schools," or "indoctrination centers."

Look, dear reader, Arizona was mis-treated by the federal government, in exactly the same way as the Southern states were mistreated from, at least, 1820 until Confederate troops fired on Ft. Sumter in April of 1861. The "so-called" Civil War was NOT an overnight thing -- and it was not about slavery. The issue of slavery was a peripheral issue and NOT THE ISSUE that brought us the “War for Southern Independence.” It was, in fact, “State’s Rights!” It is the very issue we are dealing with today as the sovereign state of Arizona bucks the overgrown US federal government.

Just as they are today, the federal government was dictating to the states and simply ignoring the constitutional rights of those states. It went on for decades with the southern states continually warning the federal government that if the disrespectful treatment continued, at some point, the southern states would leave the union! Southern Senators and Representatives told the Congress and the President -- plainly -- they would be forced to secede.

Are Americans of the 21st century ready to revisit the dark days when US federal troops face off with Arizona National Guard troops -- or militias? Are we ready for another "brother against brother" confrontation? It is important to ask, for that is exactly where we are headed.

Rest assured the federal government stands ready to crush the sovereignty of ANY US state that tries to assert those rights. To the Obama Regime the US Constitution is an outdated piece of paper not applicable to 21st century America. They will walk all over it to ensure that Arizona does nothing that might lead to the securing of the open border between Mexico and America.

Any amateur historian can tell you where this all is leading. We are living in the early stages of the dissolution of the United States. The Rubicon has been crossed.

J. D. Longstreet
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J.D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom.

States Amend Constitutions To Ban Government Health Insurance Mandates.

States Amend Constitutions To Ban Government Health Insurance Mandates.
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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It was bound to happen. We warned about the sovereignty movement, early on in the Obama Regime’s reign, that the states were serious about preserving their sovereignty. When over half the fifty states reassert their sovereignty any NORMAL person would say “WHOA! Wait A Minute! What’s happening?” Not so, the Obama Regime. They have foraged ahead with their “Czarist”, “imperial” manner of governing and, guess what? The people, through their state governments, are rebelling.

OK, so the pitchforks and torches are not out YET, but, by golly, they are ready and waiting. Reports are becoming more persistent that conservative lawmakers, in about half the states, are forging ahead with constitutional amendments to ban government health insurance mandates.

Here’s the thing. We folks out here in the hinterlands (In my case, the swamp!) are not buying into the current conventional wisdom, which says that ObamaCare is dead. In fact, we are convinced that it is as alive today as it was before Brown won Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts. The Progressives/socialists are going to pass it into law. So, be prepared for it.

Incrementalism is the key. They will pass Obamacare one tiny bit at a time as parts of, or attached to, other bills moving through the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. It may take months, even years, but ObamaCare will become a reality in the United States.

Vigilance is now more important than ever. We must watch the Congress as we would a chicken hawk over the chicken coop! If we turn our backs, even for a moment, they will swoop and we will have ObamaCare. We must keep the pressure on our Congresspersons and on our Senators. In my case I only have one Senator I can, sometimes, count on. One is a progressive Obama acolyte and a supporter of ObamaCare, and the other is a moderate Republican. So, one cancels the other out.

As you can see conservative folks here in North Carolina have to depend upon themselves when in conflict with the Congress. We boondocks lobbyists have become fairly accomplished at applying pressure to our Representatives and Senators -- especially those of us with conservative blogs. We take our arguments, not just public; we take them to the world!

I learned as a young broadcast journalist many, many, years ago the best way to bring pressure to bear on a politician was through public ridicule and public embarrassment. It will get to them when nothing else will work.

For those of you reading this, in countries other than the US, understand that the states of the United States actually created the Federal Government to act as an agent of the several states. It was supposed to have VERY LIMITED power over the people of the states. (Check out The Bill of Rights – the first ten amendments to the US Constitution) It was supposed to act on behalf of the people of the states -- never against them -- as it is doing today. THAT is why the sovereignty movement amongst the states literally took off with state after state reasserting its sovereignty from the Federal Government. It is one step short of seceding from the US.

You are not hearing much about this in the mainstream media because they do not want to admit that it is happening, and, even more important, they do not want YOU to know that the people of the United States DO NOT LOVE THE CURRENT PRESIDENT of the United States! Understand this – the Mainstream Media in the United States is deeply in the pocket of the Obama Regime. The people of the several states ARE NOT!

The various state legislatures are taking steps to protect their citizen’s from the socialist/Marxist of the Federal Government. That is why many state legislatures are amending the constitutions of those states to ban health insurance mandates on the people of their states.

I remain convinced that the economic situation of America is much worse than Americans are being lead to believe. This is one of those times when I hope I am wrong, but fear I am right.

Recent polls show the 71% of the American people feel their national legislature is doing a poor job of governing. That is an incredible number of Americans to have agreed on ANYTHING! It is an extremely important number.

We must “box-in” the Obama Regime, at least until the Mid-Term Election in November. That will be the most important election in the history of the country. It will decide whether Americans live as a free people or become slaves to a socialist/Marxist government. Believe me: PURGE is NOT too strong a word to use to describe what must be done -- at the ballot box -- on that most critical of days in American history.

J. D. Longstreet