STATES SOVEREIGNTY AND OUR CONSTITUTION

America, do you want to know how to regain your Freedom and take back your God given Rights? The answer lies in our own CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The forefathers anticipated a Government becoming so powerful as to diminish the Freedom of the governed, the People.

Read and listen to the VOICE of OUR FOREFATHERS:

Is there a constitutional remedy, a solution short of secession or violent revolution, to the concentration of political power in Washington, D.C.? Jefferson believed there was. The constitutional remedy rests with the states. The states are the contractual constituents of the Union. They enjoyed independence long before the Constitution came into effect. They expected protection against a federal government they themselves had created.

The federal government is a creature of the states, with no exclusive authority to make judgments on the Constitution. If so, the consequence would be concentration of power in the federal government if handing down rulings in its own favor. The states had to make their own interpretations of the Constitution. Even Alexander Hamilton, the architect of growing central power, said earlier in Federalist #28; "the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority."

Jefferson believed the only way in a state could remain in the Union and retain its liberties, was for the state to declare unconstitutional federal actions null and void, not to be enforced within the borders of that state. Jefferson anonymously penned the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, describing the objectionable parts of the Alien and Sedition Acts and the states’ rightful response for nullification. Madison wrote a similar resolution approved by the Virginia legislature. The Virginia and Kentucky resolutions together became known as the "Principles of ’98." American liberty had to be faithful to the spirit of the Constitution to prevent the expansion of the federal government.

The Principles of ’98 traced nullification back to the Virginia ratifying convention. At that convention, Patrick Henry expressed his fear that the clause of the Constitution, giving the federal government all powers "necessary and proper" to carry into effect the powers granted in Article I, Section 8, would be interpreted by the federal government as a boundless grant of power. It would take the limited government supporters of the Constitution expected, into an unlimited government that would menace the people’s liberties. He was likewise concerned about the "general welfare" clause, since government could justify practically any action it might take by some strained reference to the general welfare.

Edmund Randolph disagreed, saying the only powers possessed by the federal government are those expressly conceded to it by the states. Even before the 10th Amendment, he said "All rights are therein declared to be completely vested in the people, unless expressly given away. Can there be a more pointed or positive reservation?"

George Nicholas, another member of the committee, told the convention that if Virginia assented to the Constitution it would be on the basis of the clear and manifest meaning of that document. “If thirteen individuals are about to make a contract, and one agrees to it, but at the same time declares that he understands its meaning, signification and intent, to be, what the words of the contract plainly and obviously denote; that it is not to be construed so as to impose any supplementary condition upon him, and that he is to be exonerated from it, whensoever any such imposition shall be attempted – I ask whether in this case, these conditions on which he assented to it, would not be binding on the other twelve? In like manner these conditions will be binding on Congress. They can exercise no power that is not expressly granted them.”

They ratified it and announced to the people of the other states how they understood the document. Virginia would be excused from it should the central government stray from their understanding. They accepted a compact establishing a federal government that possessed only those powers expressly granted to it and no more.

The Federalists and later, the Whigs, had other plans. They believed a nation with a growing economy should be organized and managed, as was done in Europe, to suit that growth. The states were seen as barriers to national progress. Henry Clay proposed the American System as a program for economic development. Clay's idea was that the federal government should implement protective tariffs to benefit American industries, encourage internal improvements, and create a national bank to help develop the nation's economy in an orderly and planned manner, with national debt, loans to approved industries and projects, the kinds of things done now under Obama.

Clay said, “Are we doomed to behold our industry languish and decay yet more and more?” He said, “There is a remedy, and that remedy consists in modifying our foreign policy, and in adopting a genuine American System. We must naturalize the arts in our country, and we must naturalize them by the only means which the wisdom of nations has yet discovered to be effectual, by adequate protection against the otherwise overwhelming influence of foreigners.” This was just like European mercantilism.

Clay promoted the building of national roads, railroads, canals, the chartering of the Second Bank of the United States in 1816, and the first protective tariff, which was also passed in 1816. Federalists and Whigs wanted a strong, managing central government. In the late 1820s resistance to the role the federal government played in economic development escalated to the point that South Carolina threatened to withdraw from the Union over a tariff in what became known as the "Nullification Crisis." The 19th century Democrats objected to central control and continued to promote states’ rights. The dispute was finally settled by the Civil War, in which the Hamilton-Clay, and now Lincoln position, was upheld by the force of bayonet and bullet.

Controls centralized in Washington became an opportunity for special interests to feed at the public trough. Our central government could best be described as operated by the Sopranos. Washington is a money-pit for filling the pockets of those with influence. This is why the Tea Party Movement grew, as Americans want control closer to home to benefit them, their offspring and their Nation. It is time again for the Principles of ‘98.

claysamerica.com