The federal government is not the boss of the states.
In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Thomas Jefferson emphasized this point, writing, “The several states composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government.”
We’ve all heard the phrase “the states created the federal government, not the other way around.” That’s the very point that Jefferson was making. The states created a “general government for specific purposes” through a “compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto.”
By “compact,” Jefferson meant that the Constitution is essentially a legal agreement between the states creating a union for only special purposes. As Jefferson explained it, as part of that agreement, the states “delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving each state to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self Government.”
In other words, the federal government was only supposed to exercise those powers delegated to it, while the states and the people themselves would retain everything else.
But what happens if the general government tries to exercise powers that were never delegated to it in the first place? Jefferson said any such action would be “void.”
“Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”
That covers a huge majority of all the federal acts, “laws,” rules and regulations on the books.
Here at the Tenth Amendment Center, we’re working every day to reach and teach more people about these essential principles. We can’t do it alone. We need your help!
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But all this raises another question – one that might be even more important. Who decides when the general government has assumed undelegated powers?
Most people will answer, “The Supreme Court decides.”
But allowing the federal government to decide when the federal government oversteps its bounds only makes sense if the states were united on a principle of unlimited submission to the federal government.
Instead, Jefferson argues that since the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, it’s not up to the government to decide if the government violated the rules given to it - since that would make IT the supreme law of the land.
“The Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the constitution, the measure of its powers.”
Going further, it’s not just a matter of determining that the federal government has violated the Constitution and then yelling about it. There’s another step.
Stop the feds.
Jefferson laid out the strategy.
“Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.”
Not just a mere good idea – but THE way to deal with unconstitutional acts.
Concordia res parvae crescunt
(small things grow great by concord)
-Mike Maharrey
along with Michael Boldin, Alan Mosley
and the whole TAC team
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