Nullification (complete with bonus Wilson-Thurmond update)
Michael Tomasky nails it: Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's latest excursus into the Republican Dixie suck-up, as he "urged fellow governors on Thursday to more frequently assert state sovereignty over the federal government and suggested that the country may increasingly see states suing the federal government," has a fabulous lineage--the nullification movement of 1832, led (surprise!) by South Carolina, which set forth the doctrine that the states had the right to nullify Federal law. In the run-up to South Carolina's declaration that it was not bound by Federal tariffs, the state had in 1822 passed a Negro Seamen Act, requiring that sheriffs arrest all free black seamen while their ships were docked, lest they join slave rebellions.
This is the proud tradition that today's moderate, nonfanatical northern Republicans embrace.
It is the same tradition that the Roberts Court has been promoting in the sort-of United States of America--which is why the Wednesday night heckler Joe Wilson of South Carolina has to be taken seriously.
Who said Wilson's former boss Strom Thurmond was dead?
Update: The Wilson story keeps on giving. Courtesy Jack Bass of the College of Charleston:
Several years ago, [now-Rep. Wilson] loudly denounced the claim of Essie Mae Washington-Williams as being a daughter of Strom Thurmond. Mr. Wilson called her story "unseemly" and a "smear." Her name today is listed on the State House monument to her father, alongside those of his white children.
Look at the bright side. Minnesotans will still have to pay into the federal health care pot. They just won't be able to make any withdrawals.
Maybe we're on to something here. If we can get more New Dixiecrat states to follow their lead, we'll break the back of rising health care costs in a trice!
September 11, 2009 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are gearing up today just as neo-fascist movements have geared up in other countries. Their political leaders will obviously go to any length to advance their own fortunes. Pawlenty proves himself to be just another Republican willing to completely debase himself to pander to the far right in the hopes of boosting his chances for a Presidential nomination. Sickening.
September 11, 2009 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, the old Federalism v. Nationalism debate. But the States, under the Constitution, still have rights, despite the natural propensity of Washington to control everything.
September 12, 2009 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Article 1 lists limits on state sovereignty, Article 4 requires full faith and credit, etc., and Article 6 uses this language:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Article 1 caps all with the blanket power granted to Congress:
"...To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
September 13, 2009 5:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Asked by a caller about the option of asserting the Tenth Amendment as a tactic to reject a successful health care overhaul by President Barack Obama during a tele-town hall organized by the Republican Governors Association, Pawlenty said, “that’s a possibility.”
I wonder if Pawlenty ever considers the other women of Minnesota he is supposed to represent. They don't even need the 10th Amendment to be without healthcare.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/09/stoesz/
September 12, 2009 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
If nullification gets going presumably we will eventually see the arrest of Pawlenty and his ilk by Federal authorities, making for some good theater.
The factor that could make one nervous about the nullifiers is that they probably would have the Supreme Court Five on their side at the end of the day, though. I honestly believe that the Constitution is a secondary judicial priority to the embarrassment of Democrats and Obama for these justices.
September 12, 2009 6:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I doubt it, since we haven't seen the arrest of a known perjurer to Congress; several known Congressional subpeona ignorers; and also several government higher-ups who broke international as well as our own laws. Why would we start with Pawlenty?
September 12, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
About a year ago I read a story that claimed there was a movement in South Carolina to invite all the fundamentalist Christians in the country to move there so they could make it an Evangelical Christian state.
September 12, 2009 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, if the nullification included union with Canada, I could go for it.
Don't underestimate Pawlenty. He's cynical, ruthless, and ambitious and he is as comfortable appealing to pompous over-educated, over-paid suburban white guys as he is appealing to wingnuts and the Christian right. He's particularly popular with those who believe they are entitled to have contempt for the unfortunate and vulnerable.
September 12, 2009 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ironically, it is the "unfortunate and vulnerable" who were intended to be the recipients of Tenth Amendment protections, as illustrated by the sad story of SC's (Secession Central's) attempt to arrest free black men.
September 12, 2009 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pawlenty et al should not forget the 14th Amendment, which was ratified so that the federal government could protect state residents from state governments.
I also recall that Andrew Jackson promised to bring an army down to South Carolina and hang John C. Calhoun from the nearest tree if he actually nullified federal law. Probably not the most diplomatic route, but it did send a message.
September 12, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, nullification has a far greater history than 1832.
In 1798, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison proposed the idea as a way to resist attacks on free speech in the alien and sedition acts
In the 1850s, it was used by a few northern states to resist the fugitive slave acts
In the war of 1812, CT and Mass used it to resist the use of militia (national guard troops) from being used in offensive war operations - (states should do this today to resist the Iraq war, for example)
More recently?
approximately 20 have have refused to implement Bush's Real ID act of 2005 - and it's gone.
13 states are refusing federal marijuana laws as they've passed their own medical marijuana laws in direct opposition to the fed gov.
And there's more. But that's an interesting addition, I hope.
September 12, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
CT and Mass and the rest of New England did not plan nullification in response to the War of 1812. They planned secession. (The war's end put an end to the movement.)
I would like to know what "power," or rights, Obama is denying to the state or to the people with his health care plan (purely notional at the moment).
September 12, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually the New England states - in the Hartford Convention - only discussed secession. It was dropped as a plan and was dropped before their final report.
Wiki gives a good overview of that:
"The convention ended with a report and resolutions, signed by the delegates present, and adopted on the day before final adjournment. The report said that New England had a "duty" to assert its authority over unconstitutional infringements on its sovereignty — a doctrine that echoed the policy of Jefferson and Madison in 1798 (in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions), and which would later reappear in a different context as "nullification.""
The point I was making was less about that specific issue - or even the current issue about health care, but more about nullification as a doctrine.
I was just clarifying that nullification has a much greater history than just 1832.
September 12, 2009 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the clarification.
You are right that nullification has its origin in response to John Adams' alien and sedition acts of 1798, which both Jefferson and Madison considered unconstitutional. While Jefferson continued to advocate for a nullification-like response to unconstitutional legislation for the rest of his lifetime, Madison came to believe that nullification itself was unconstitutional:
"A political system which does not contain an effective provision for a peaceable decision of all controversies arising within itself, would be a Govt. in name only. Such a provision is obviously essential; and it is equally obvious that it cannot be either peaceable or effective by making every part an authoritative umpire. The final appeal in such cases must be to the authority of the whole, not to that of the parts separately and independently. This was the view taken of the subject, whilst the Constitution was under the consideration of the people. It was this view of it which dictated the clause declaring that the Constitution & laws of the U. S. should be the supreme law of the Land, anything in the constn or laws of any of the States to the contrary notwithstanding."
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a6_2s43.html
Thus, Madison came to believe that the proper redress for conflicts between the state vs. federal powers was at the ballot box, specifically by voting for candidates at the federal level who would legislate or execute the laws properly (or appoint like-minded Supreme Court justices).
September 13, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
"That's offensive to me that they would take my heritage and make it into a Holocaust era type description."
South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson, back in November 1999, when he was still a state senator, regarding African Americans being upset that the Confederate flag was being flown over the statehouse. (h/t to the Rude Pundit)
September 12, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
One important fact about the Pawlenty position that the media is missing is this:
I think he might be using it as simply a partisan tool. Rhetoric, that is. While the governor is saying he might use the 10th Amendment to oppose a future health care plan, he sure didn't care about the 10th Amendment when he vetoed a medical marijuana law this year.
I pointed this out in a recent interview with Pat Doyle of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but that perspective didn't get into the article.
I wonder why the media is missing this major inconsistency.
September 12, 2009 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The really galling aspect of the whole federalism issue is the cherry-picking hypocrisy of the RW on the issue. How many RWers made a fuss about the armtwisting of Alaska into giving up legal weed, or the disregard of the CA referendum legalizing medical marijuana? Or on issues of affirmative action, or environmental protection (like VA's attempt to ban strip mining of coal), or any other PROGRESSIVE use of the power of the states? They only promote the idea of state autonomy to protect RW policies, not anything like gay marriage, economic justice or environmental protection
September 13, 2009 6:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
When you say "today's moderate, nonfanatical northern Republicans" I hope you're not implying T-Paw falls within that description.
Personally I rate him potentially more toxic and dangerous than GWB.
He has many of GW's worst interpersonal and political traits in spades and he's certainly no uniter. In MN he's already done enough damage which will continue to worsen even after his term is up due to his deliberately deceptive budget fudges.
If this country is foolish enough to elect him at least I have an international border close by.
September 14, 2009 1:16 AM | Reply | Permalink