Nullification Reconsidered

With the destructive evil of centralized power becoming every day more evident and 10th Amendment resolutions appearing in various State capitals, publication this month of the second volume of Professor W. Kirk Wood’s magisterial three-volume Nullification: A Constitutional History, 1776–1833 is serendipitous.

For the first time in a half century and long past due, serious people are beginning to search for ways that the famous "checks and balances" of the American constitutional order might be invoked against a regime which recognizes no limits to its power. Such a search leads naturally to a new look at accepted history and "law." Prof. Wood, whose knowledge of the primary documents of early American history is astounding and incomparable, has marshaled overwhelming evidence on the matter.

There is not the least doubt in the mind of any HONEST person who has studied the record, that the preponderance of people who framed and ratified the Constitution intended to form a more perfect Union "for the United States of America," not to establish a United State, a sovereign national power. This understanding was reemphasized in the first Ten Amendments, clearly stipulated restrictions on the powers of the central apparatus. The understanding was sealed in concrete, so people mistakenly believed, when Jefferson and his party took office on "the principles of 1798," the unequivocal declarations by Virginia and Kentucky of their right to block acts of the central government that exceeded its delegated powers.

True, there was an element among the Founders who wanted an unchecked central power. Like every other push for more centralized power since, the primary motive of the Hamiltonians was rent-seeking. But, of course, rent-seekers always portray their agenda as essential for some good purpose – general prosperity, equality, national defense, or some other alleged social good. But so strong was the allegiance to a confederal understanding of the Constitutional regime, that the central power men had to lie about their intentions. In power Hamilton began to push actions that he had argued in the deceitful polemic, The Federalist, that the central government would never, ever do.

Professor Wood’s evidence is not likely to influence academic historians, political scientists, and law professors. With a few exceptions they are not interested in evidence, only in fashion. False and even childishly superficial arguments about our history and the Constitution flourish today and have long done so. The assertion that Americans’ "original intentions" were a centralized state has always rested upon coercion, chutzpah, and lies. The most egregious being when Lincoln declared the deliberate, open, democratic, and constitutional acts of secession of the Southern states to be mere "combinations" of criminals too numerous to be arrested by the marshals.

The centralists made a great rhetorical coup when they formed the argument so that their version of the Constitution seems the natural, unquestionable one, and the position of the critics is merely "a compact theory" made up after the fact by bad people for evil purposes. Wood’s evidence makes it clear that the opposite was the case. It was the centralists who made up theory post facto against established understanding. Their theory was bolstered by semantics and false history. James Madison was not the "Father of the Constitution" but a weaselly trimmer who constantly contradicted himself. Which is why he is the hero of every bad historian, "political philosopher," and tyrannical judge in the land. Daniel Webster did NOT win the famous debate with Robert Hayne of South Carolina on State rights. In the Senate and in public opinion Webster was the loser. He became the winner only by subsequent propaganda. South Carolina’s bold nullification of the tariff in 1832, against nearly the entire American establishment, is always stated by the historians to be a failure. But it accomplished its purpose – to bring down the rate of taxation.

by Clyde Wilson

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