Follow-up to: The unanswered question

An easy read with excellent points

Peter Heck - Guest Columnist - 2/1/2010 8:30:00 AM

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column addressing how our current out-of-control leadership in Washington is attempting to pass laws they have no constitutional authority to enact.

After it was published, I received a host of emails from people that could be lumped into three main categories. The first group included those who said that the Constitution is outdated, and therefore irrelevant in conversations about modern American politics. Addressing the breathtaking ignorance and danger of such a proposition would take up the rest of this column and about 50 more. Suffice it to say that the frail paper under glass in Washington is all that stands between we the people and submission to tyrants.

The second group of responses went something like this: "I think you're right....I had never thought about that." As reassuring as it is to get positive feedback, in this case that kind of response only reemphasized my initial concern: our power hungry leadership knows the people are unaware of our foundational document and use that knowledge as an excuse to run roughshod over the carefully enumerated limits to their power.

But the largest reaction I received was from concerned citizens who, like me, have been complacent for far too long in demanding that our leaders stick to the Constitution. Citizens who, like me, excused unconstitutional behavior of the president – so long as it was a president from our political party. Citizens who, like me, might have been uncomfortable with the silent encroachment of those in power into our daily lives, but who accepted it because we "trusted" the ones who were facilitating it.

But greater than the sense of guilt that comes from realizing you have failed your solemn duty to defend principle above power must be the sense of resolve to never let it happen again. That is the way of patriots, and that is where I think a growing majority of Americans are finding themselves. As a result, they are wondering where to turn and are asking what to do to restore Constitutional government. The answer is closer than they think.

In 1798, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison authored the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions in response to the very type of federal government overreach that we are experiencing today. In those resolutions, these giants of American government tell us exactly where we as concerned citizens should be turning when Congress exceeds their constitutional authority – our state:

"The several States composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution...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."

As columnist Daniel Baker explains, what that means is that the States are co-partners in owning the Constitution, and collectively "hired" Congress, the president and Supreme Court to manage it. Like the owners of any business, if those they have hired to run it are abusing their duties and responsibilities – or assuming authority they have not been rightfully given – the owners (States) have the power to take corrective action.

This flies in the face of what has become conventional wisdom. We have wrongfully accepted the notion that since Article VI of the Constitution gives the national government "supremacy" over the states if the two have conflicting laws that must mean whatever the national government wants to do, the states must accept it. Wrong. The supremacy clause ONLY applies to those areas where the states have given the national government the authority to legislate.

But in areas where the national government has no constitutional authority to act (healthcare, education, etc.), the founders were clear: "where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy." That's right – the states must exert their authority and refuse to enact within their borders any national legislation that is beyond the national government's constitutional bounds.

And if the national government objects to the nullification of their laws, the Constitution gives them no recourse. As Jefferson wrote, "[the States] alone...[are] parties to the compact, and solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress not being a party, but merely a creature of the compact, and subject...to the final judgment of...[the States]."

Barack Obama made clear in his State of the Union Address that he has no desire to alter course and is calling on Democrats to double down on enacting legislation they have no authority to enact. Yes, that means it is our solemn duty to toss them from office at the first opportunity. But even more importantly, our immediate answer should be to elect state officials with the spine to flex their muscles and exert their rightful check on the abuses of the national government.

"The American Republic will endure until the day the Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." - Alexis de Tocqueville