Editor, Gazette-Journal:
We are distressed by the federal government’s overreach and disregard for the Constitution. But what is the solution?
Amending the Constitution is fraught with pitfalls. And, if Congress won’t abide by the Constitution we have now, why think they would respect an altered one?
But we have the solution—the Tenth Amendment—state nullification. This is based on enforcing the Constitution, which dictates that the federal government may exercise only those powers that were delegated to it. The 10th Amendment states: “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.” Thus, nullification requires each state’s ability to nullify, or invalidate, unconstitutional federal measures.
Nullification is founded on the fact that the sovereign states formed the union, and as creators of the contract, they have the ultimate auth...