Rhode Island’s Nullification

Rhode Island’s Nullification

Thomas Allen

Recently, Rhode Island enacted a law prohibiting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from operating near polling places in Rhode Island. Naturally, many people strongly object to this Rhode Island law. Some even urge the arrest of the legislators who voted for the law, the governor who signed the bill into law, and any State and local official who attempts to enforce it.

Unfortunately, Rhode Island enacted this law not because it thought ICE was acting unconstitutionally in enforcing the immigration laws. Likely, it enacted the law as a protest against President Trump. Nevertheless, regardless of its motivation, does Rhode Island have the right to nullify a federal law and its enforcement?  Under the Constitution that the Founding Fathers gave the country, the answer is “yes.” (Nowhere does the Constitution deny this right to the States, and therefore the Tenth Amendment reserves it for the States. Also, Article IV, Section 4 guarantees this right.) However, under the Constitution that Lincoln gave the country, the current Constitution, the answer is “no.” (States  have only those rights that the federal government condescends to allow them.)

Whether a State can nullify a federal law within that State depends on whether a State is sovereign. If a State is sovereign, it has the right to decide for itself whether its agent (the federal government) is complying with the compact (the US Constitution) of which it is a member. Consequently, Rhode Island has the right to determine the constitutional limits of the federal government's enforcement of immigration laws. If a State finds that the federal government is acting unconstitutionally, it not only has the right, but also the duty, to nullify or otherwise intervene to prevent such unconstitutional acts or actions. At least this is true if sovereignty resides in “we the people” of each State independently of all other States, as Jefferson and nearly all the other founding fathers claimed. However, if, like Lincoln, the opponents of Rhode Island’s interposition believe that a State does not have this right, then the States are not sovereign, and sovereignty resides in the oligarchs who control the federal government. Like Lincoln, they seem to believe that States have only those rights that the federal government condescends to grant them. (The Lincoln Constitution reduces the States to administrative districts of the federal government. [Lincoln’s War was not a war between the States; it was a war  against the States.])

(Vermont nullified a federal law that was clearly constitutional merely because it disliked the law. Not only did it nullify the law, but it also authorized the arrest and jailing of any federal agent trying to enforce it. [See “Nullification and Fugitive Slave Laws” by Thomas Allen.] However, Vermont was acting under the Constitution of the Founding Fathers and not the Constitution of Lincoln [For the differences between the two, see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” by Thomas Allen.])

Opponents of nullification argue that federal courts should resolve the issues between a State and the federal government. However, this is an extremely poor solution. Being part of the federal government, federal courts are not impartial arbitrators between the States (the creator) and the federal government (the creation of the States). (See “Analysis of When State Resistance Meets the Constitution” by Thomas Allen.)

If a State lacks the right to nullify a federal law, it is not sovereign. If it is not sovereign, it does not have a republican form of government, although it may have a governmental structure that appears to be republican. Only a sovereign can have a republican form of government. Only a sovereign can be a republic. Therefore, a State must be sovereign to have a republican form of government.

Furthermore, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution guarantees that each State has a republican form of government. Thus, if a State lacks sovereignty, the Constitution is being violated. (See “Returning Republican Governments to the States” and “Republican Form of Government” by Thomas Allen.)

Would the people who oppose Rhode Island enacting a law that interferes with the enforcement of the federal immigration law also oppose a State interfering with the enforcement of a federal law that they despise and urge the arrest of State officials for enacting and enforcing such a law? They would if they are consistent and believe, as Lincoln did, that the United States is a consolidated national empire instead of a federation of sovereign nations, as nearly all, if not all, of the Founding Fathers thought. (See “False States’ Rights” by Thomas Allen.)

Personally, I disagree with Rhode Island on this immigration issue and believe that federal agents have the right to apprehend illegal immigrants at polling places. However, that is an issue for “we the people” of Rhode Island, as represented by their legislature in this instance, to decide, and not for me, the federal government, or anyone else to decide.

(For more about States' rights, nullification, and the Constitution, go to https://tcallenco.weebly.com/political.html.)

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Analysis of When State Resistance Meets the Constitution

Analysis of When State Resistance Meets the Constitution

Thomas Allen

In “When State Resistance Meets the Constitution,” January 30, 2026, Benjamin Osborn (https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/when-state-resistance-meets-the-constitution/) discusses the protest against federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota. Correctly, he argues that the protestors are acting unlawfully when they attempt to prevent the federal government from enforcing federal immigration laws. Additionally, neither the governor nor city officials have any legal authority to actively interfere with federal enforcement. All that they can do legally is to refuse to aid in that enforcement. However, his argument rests on Lincoln’s unhistorical concept of the Union, and a nationalist, rather than a federalist, perspective of the Union, where the federal government is all-powerful, and the States are impotent. This analysis discusses Osborn’s disdain for States’ rights and federalism and his admiration of federal tyranny.

Osborn rejects the notion that a State has the right, duty, and authority to nullify any federal act that it, i.e., “we the people” through their legislature or special convention, finds unconstitutional. (See “Returning Republican Governments to the States" by Thomas Allen.) If a State nullifies a federal act that it finds unconstitutional, that act is void in that State, i.e., does not exist in that State. Nullification is a reserved power under the Tenth Amendment. (See “Nullification and Interposition” by Thomas Allen.) Moreover, the way that the country was founded and the Constitution was ratified not only implies that nullification is lawful, but it also makes it a fundamental principle. Therefore, if any federal agent attempts to enforce a nullified act, he is violating the Constitution and his oath of office.

Before 1861, States could do what Vermont did to the federal fugitive slave law. Not only did Vermont nullify it, but its nullification also authorized the use of force to prevent the enforcement of the fugitive slave law. (See “Nullification and Fugitive Slave Laws” by Thomas Allen.) If he were consistent, Osborne would oppose what Vermont did. 

Unfortunately, Lincoln’s War ended that option. Now, we have what is occurring in Minnesota. (See “Blue Cities’ Response to Deporting Illegal Immigrants” by Thomas Allen.)

Osborn claims, “The Founders designed a system in which states retain meaningful sovereignty, but that does not include veto over federal execution.” For a State to have meaningful sovereignty, it must be sovereign. As a sovereign, it is and has to be the final judge of compliance with any contract that it voluntarily enters into, such as the US Constitution. Thus, it is the final judge of the constitutionality of all acts of the federal government. In other words, before a State can be sovereign, it has to have the right, duty, and power to nullify any federal act that it finds unconstitutional and the right and power to enforce the nullification, including jailing any federal agent trying to enforce the nullified law, as Vermont did when it nullified the fugitive slave law (see “Returning Republican Governments to the States" and by Thomas Allen).

Osborn cites the Supremacy Clause and argues that any law enacted by Congress and not vetoed by the US Supreme Court is constitutional. He is mistaken. The Supremacy Clause applies only to laws enacted pursuant to the Constitution. Only those laws are constitutional; all other federal laws are unconstitutional. Should the creators, the States, or the creature, the federal government, decide if a law is made pursuant to the Constitution? Osborne claims that the creature decides. (He is a true Lincolnian.)

Originally, the purpose of the Supremacy Clause was to ensure that unconstitutional laws were not supreme or binding. Only federal laws implementing the specifically delegated powers of Congress were constitutional; all other laws enacted by Congress were unconstitutional.

Now, the federal government uses the Supremacy Clause to ensure that federal laws and treaties have precedence over State laws and State constitutions except in the few instances where the federal courts have declared the federal law unconstitutional. No longer do federal laws have to be made pursuant to the Constitution, i.e., be constitutional, to have precedence over State laws. (See “Four Poisonous Clauses” by Thomas Allen.) Osborn supports this usurpation of the federal government.

If a State disagrees with a federal act, it “may litigate, protest, and seek political change.” Osborne’s solution of litigation means that he supports letting the federal government decide the limits of its power; that is what litigation means, as it will occur in federal courts.

(To use an analogy, if Osborn [a State] and I [the federal government] have a dispute, he should not object to my wife [the federal courts] deciding the dispute. One branch of my marriage would be as impartial in deciding a dispute involving another branch of my marriage as one part of the federal government is impartial in deciding a dispute with another part.)

Osborn cites James Madison’s explanation of interposition. He is correct: Governors lack the authority to nullify. However, proponents of nullification claim that “we the people” of each State, through their State legislatures, do have the authority to nullify federal laws that they find unconstitutional. (Being a nationalist at heart and desiring a strong federal government, Madison, unlike Jefferson, is not the best supporter of States’ rights and nullification. His approach to nullification lacks teeth and results in failure, as the Southern States proved in the 1950s and 1960s. [See “A Nullification That Failed” by Thomas Allen.])

Osborn writes, “The American system channels disagreement into courts, elections, and legislation.” Of course, he means federal courts and federal legislation. State courts and legislatures have only those powers that the federal government allows them. They certainly have no power or authority to interfere with the federal government, no matter how tyrannical, despotic, and unconstitutional it becomes.

Osborne is a strong proponent of making the States, which created the federal government, slaves of their creator. He implies that States have only those rights and privileges that the federal government concedes to give them. He is a strong proponent of federal supremacy and States’ subservience, which is tyranny and contrary to the very foundation of the Constitution — at least the Constitution of 1788, although not of the Lincoln Constitution, which is our current constitution. (For the difference between the two, see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?”) Based on this article, Osborn prefers America after Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment to America before them. (See “Before and After” by Thomas Allen.)

A primary reason that the country is in the turmoil that it is today is that no State has nullified any of the multitude (probably more than 85 percent) of the unconstitutional federal acts. Today, political power is centralized and concentrated in the federal government. States’ rightists’ political solution to America’s crisis is the decentralization and dispersal of political power, of which nullification is an important part.  (The major cause of America’s problems is moral decay.)

Personally, I believe the federal government has the constitutional authority to enforce naturalization and immigration laws by arresting people who are in the country illegally and deporting them, although some of the tactics being used may not be legal or constitutional. However, the constitutionality is something that "we the people" of each State need to decide for themselves.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Yankees Need the South

Yankees Need the South

Thomas Allen

Yankees need the South and Southerners, but Southerners do not need Yankees. Furthermore, Southerners are better off without Yankees. 

Yankees are extremely self-righteous, arrogant, hypocritical, greedy, disagreeable, and bossy. They possess the typical Puritan attitude: they lust to remake America and the world into the perfect image of themselves. (For more descriptions of the Yankee, see “The Yankee,” “The Puritan Yankee,” and “Cusson’s Description of the Yankee” by Thomas Allen.)

Although many Northerners are not real Yankees, many, unfortunately, have become Yankeefied. Likewise, many scalawag Southerners have become Yankeefied. (Most governors of Southern States have been Yankeefied: Examples are Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Roy Cooper of North Carolina. Two recent Southern governors are real Yankees: George Bush and Jeb Bush.)

Because of their need for Southerners, Yankees could not let the South go in 1861 and cannot let them go today. Furthermore, Yankees believe that the solution to America’s problems is to rule the South with an iron fist.

Yankees have a psychological need for the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy.  Could it be that Yankees know in their hearts that the leaders of the Confederacy were morally and ethically superior to Lincoln and the leaders of the North? Yankees needed and still need the “Myth of the Lost Cause” to reassure themselves that Southerners were and still are fiendish, diabolical, and abominable to justify their power, privilege, and amour propre.

Being void of virtue, Yankees need to steal virtue from others. Since the South is part of the American empire, stealing virtue from the South is convenient and easy. Thus, every good thing that comes out of the South is not really Southern; it is American, i.e., Northern, especially New England.

Moreover, Yankees need to belittle Southerners to feed their self-esteem. Without having Southerners to disparage, Yankees would be nothing. Thus, Yankees view themselves as righteous and Southerners as evil.

Although Yankees have lure and ideology, Yankeedom has no civilization; they have no culture. Therefore, they need the South to provide them with a culture.

Sanctimonious Yankees need Southerners so that they can have someone to whom feel superior. Condemning the South gives Yankees a sense of identity and importance because they feel superior to Southerners.

Additionally, Yankees need a scapegoat to blame for their sins and failures.  Being part of the American empire makes the South a convenient scapegoat. Consequently, every undesirable thing that happens in the North, such as racial strife in Northern cities, results from the sins of the South. Yankees blame Southerners for the racial hatred and social pathologies in the North. Moreover, they blame Southerners for the evil that Yankees have caused. Thus, all economic, social, and psychological problems are the fault of Southerners. Needing someone to blame for their failures, Yankees blame Southerners.

No Yankee is going to let the truth detour his hatred of and hostility toward Southerners, whether they are reconstructed or remain unreconstructed.

Appendix

In America, two primary branches of Protestantism compete with each other. They are the Yankee religion and the Southern religion.

The Yankee religion is Calvinist and Puritan, that is, disciplined, communal, and focused on the purification of the community. It places evil in the object, e.g., drugs, guns, and the living environment. Thus, it seeks power and stresses social improvement. Being on the right side of history is a personal virtue. Out of the Yankee religion have come abolitionism, millennialism, progressivism, prohibition, feminism, the civil rights movement, neoconservatism, political correctness, social justice, wokeism, and Antifa. Furthermore, it is the parent of the the concept of "the city on the hill.”  Usually, the sermons of the Yankee religion are on current events.

The Southern religion is spiritually Anglican, although it is not structurally Anglican. That is, it is folkish and focuses on the individual and his soul. It places evil in the hearts of men. Thus, it seeks sanctification and manifests in a person’s private life, and goes unnoticed by intellectuals and historians. It stresses faith and piety with the notion of a Christian gentleman. A virtuous person is valuable to his fellow man. Usually, the sermons of the Southern religion are on salvation.

The Yankee religion represents worldly power and prestige more than does the Southern religion.

Reference

Wilson, Clyde N. Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture. Second edition. Columbia, South Carolina: Stonewall Publishing LLC: 2005, 2025.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Lincoln’s Curses

Lincoln’s Curses

Thomas Allen

 

1. Lincoln’s worst curse was converting the United States from a federation of independent sovereign republics to a consolidated national empire with the States reduced to administrative districts. As a corollary to this curse, the States lost their republican form of government; their governments remain republican in appearance but not in substance. (See “Returning Republican Governments to the States" by Thomas Allen.) He effectively repealed the Tenth Amendment.

2. Lincoln cursed America and most of the world with the notion that once a territory (State, province, country, or whatever) becomes part of another country, union, or federation, whether voluntarily or by conquest, it cannot leave without the consent of the country, union, or federation of which it is part. 

3. Lincoln cursed the United States with the “unquestioned mystique of might-makes-right and the coercive unitary nation-state.” This notion is the foundation of American hegemony and globalism.

4. Not only did Lincoln curse the country with an imperial president, which has grown stronger over the years, but he also cursed the country with a kritarchy. Following Lincoln, the Supreme Court began converting the country into a kritarchy. This goal was fully achieved with the Warren Court. Because of Lincoln, the United States have become a kritarchy with an imperial president and an impotent Congress. The Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court declares it to mean. (Thanks to Lincoln, kakistocrats, ideocrats, and kleptocrats have ruled the United States at various times.)

5. Lincoln suppressed the freedom of the press. Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt followed his example. Biden did likewise during the COVID-19 plandemic. Now, censorship primarily applies to the internet, as the oligarchs who control the federal government also control the press outside of the internet.

6. Lincoln cursed the United States with the income tax. He gave the country its first income tax. Later, the Supreme Court ruled that the income tax was unconstitutional. This ruling was followed by the Sixteenth Amendment, which made the income tax permanent. His income tax also cursed the country with the Internal Revenue Service.

7. Lincoln normalized and made the corrupt and cartelized business-government partnerships permanent. As a result, the military-industrial complex, the security-industrial complex, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Insurance, and other Big Businesses work closely with the federal government. In exchange for special governmentally granted privileges and benefits, they aid the federal government in expanding its power. (The oligarchs that control the federal government also control the collaborating businesses.)

8. Protective tariffs of Lincoln’s Republican Party were the primary cause of the secession of the States of the Lower South. Between Lincoln’s War and World War II, protective tariffs were the primary way that the federal government subsidized Big Businesses. Following World War II, Big Businesses began turning against tariffs. They discovered that they could profit more from producing goods in foreign countries and importing them into the United States.

9. Lincoln gave the United States their first legal tender fiat currency, the U.S. note or greenback. Although the country returned to the gold-coin standard in 1879, the fiat U.S. notes remained in circulation and were issued until their issuance was discontinued in 1971. (Unlike gold certificates, people were not required to turn U.S. notes in. They remained in circulation until they wore out or the banking system redrew them. One may occasionally find them in circulation. The author received one about ten years ago.) Between 1879 and 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt ended the gold standard, U.S. notes were redeemable at par in gold. 

10. With the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864, Lincoln nationalized the American banking system. In 1913, the Federal Reserve System replaced the national banking system.

11.  Other curses of Lincoln include establishing a large standing national army, legitimizing martial law even in areas where civil courts are open, ignoring habeas corpus and jailing dissidents and others without trial or due process, and establishing mostly permanent conscription (currently, conscription is out of favor; however, it can be resurrected at anytime, especially since the leaders of the United States want to subdue everyone in the world to their will).

Although Lincoln is credited with freeing the slaves, he freed no slaves. If he and the abolitionists wanted to free the slaves, they could have started by buying slaves with their own money and setting them free. Since they did not, they proved that they loved their money more than freeing slaves.

Reference

Rothbard, Murray N. “The Nationalities Question.” Mises Daily. April 18, 2022.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Confusion About the Constitution

Confusion About the Constitution

Thomas Allen

Many people believe that we live under the Constitution ratified in 1788. We do not. We are living under the Constitution that Lincoln gave us, further developed by Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, and carried to fruition by the Warren Court. Although the words may be the same, their meaning has significantly changed. Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment fundamentally altered the country and its government. (For a description of some of these fundamental changes, see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” and “Before and After” by Thomas Allen.)

Before Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, the States were independent sovereign republics. Also, before the Fourteenth Amendment, the United States were a monoracial country (see “The Constitution of 1788 Was Only for White People” by Thomas Allen). After Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, the States lost their independence, sovereignty, and republican form of government, and became little more than administrative districts in a consolidated multiracial national empire. (Stripping the States of their republican form of government violates the Constitution of 1788, but not Lincoln’s Constitution. For a State to have a republican form of government, it has to have the right to decide for itself whether a federal law is constitutional or unconstitutional. If it finds that a federal law is unconstitutional, it has not only the right but also the duty to nullify that law and make it unenforceable in that State. This right is denied them under Lincoln’s Constitution. [See “Returning Republican Governments to the States” by Thomas Allen.]) Furthermore, Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment transferred the sovereignty of “we the people” of each State to the oligarchs who controlled the federal government.

Moreover, under the Constitution of 1788, Congress was the strongest of the three branches of the federal government, and the judiciary was the weakest. Under today’s Lincoln’s Constitution, the country has a kritarchy with an imperial president and an impotent Congress.

Additionally, under the Constitution of 1788, the federal government was strictly limited to a few delegated powers. All other powers remained with the States. Under today’s Constitution, the federal government has almost unlimited powers, while the powers of the States are only those allowed by the federal government.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Jews’ and Lincoln’s Treatment of Negroes

 Jews’ and Lincoln’s Treatment of Negroes

Thomas Allen

The following are some comments on the Jewish treatment of freed slaves and Lincoln toward Blacks and slaves.

Jewish Treatment of Freed Slaves

In “We Thought They Were White,” Dontell Jackson discusses the prominence of Jews in the slave trade during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He provides some interesting information about Jewish exploitation of Blacks during Lincoln’s War and Reconstruction:

Writing in the journal of his travels throughout the South in the mid 19th century, author Fredrick Law Olmsted noted: “There is a considerable population of foreign origin, generally of the least valuable class; very dirty German Jews, especially, abound, and their characteristic shops (with their characteristic smells, quite as bad as in Cologne) are thickly set in the narrowest and meanest streets, which seem otherwise to be mainly inhabited by negroes. . . . A swarm of Jews has, within the last ten years, settled in every Southern town, many of them men of no character, opening cheap clothing and trinket shops, ruining or driving out of business many of the old retailers, and engaging in an unlawful trade with the simple Negroes, which is found very profitable.” Similarly, Mark Twain commented: “In the U. S. cotton states, after the war, the Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negroes’ wants on credit, and at the end of the season was the proprietor of the negro’s share of the present crop and part of the next one. Before long the whites detested the Jew.”

Civil War Union William Tecumseh Sherman on arriving in the South was astonished by the number of Jewish carpetbaggers and scalawags that he encountered operating in the Confederate states, saying: “I found so many Jews & speculators here trading in cotton and secessionists had become open in refusing anything but gold that I have found myself bound to stop it.” General Ulysses Grant wrote to the Assistant Adjutant General of the US Army on December 17, 1862, : “I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into post commanders, the specie regulations of the Treasury Department have been violated, and that mostly by the Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied have I been of this that I instructed the commanding officer at Columbus to refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently had them expelled from the department. But they come in with their carpet-sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel anywhere. They will land at any woodyard on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy cotton themselves, they will act as agents for someone else, who will be at a military post with a Treasury permit to receive cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes which the Jew will buy at an agreed rate, paying gold.”

Lincoln on Blacks and Slaves

Abraham Lincoln is the most idolized President of the United States. Although he never freed any slaves and did not want to live among freed Blacks, he is known as the Great Emancipator and the forefather of racial equality. Furthermore, he is praised for saving the Union, although he destroyed the Union organized under the Constitution that the Founding Fathers gave the country and converted it into a consolidated empire primarily for the benefit of big business and big finance.

In “The Consolidation of State Power Via Reconstruction, 1865–1890,” Thomas J. DiLorenzo provides some interesting yet little-known information about Abraham Lincoln.

– Lincoln was a White supremacist and believed that the races should be segregated.

– As a supporter of African colonization, he wanted to repatriate freed slaves to Africa or send them to another country; they should not be allowed to remain in the United States as social or political equals of Whites. They certainly should not be allowed to settle in the territories because they were reserved for Whites.

– He married into a slave-owning family, and slave labor from the family’s plantation subsidized him and his wife.

– Lincoln supported the Illinois “Black Codes,” which restricted the trades and occupations of Blacks. (During Reconstruction, the federal government prevented Southern States from adopting such codes.)

– Moreover, he ordered Union officers to return runaway slaves to their owners and required his cabinet to sign a pledge to support the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution.

– When he was in the Illinois Legislature, he supported amending the Illinois Constitution to forbid the immigration of Blacks into the state. Also, when he was in the Illinois Legislature, he voted to deny blacks the privilege to vote. Further, he opposed Negro citizenship and opposed allowing them to serve as jurors or hold public office. Moreover, he favored taxing Blacks to help pay for schools for White children.

– As an Illinois lawyer, Lincoln defended slave owners, but he never defended a fugitive slave.

To DiLorenzo’s list, Clyde Wilson, in “Getting Right With Abe,” adds that instead of emancipating the slaves that his wife inherited, he sold them. Additionally, in “Erasing Black Confederates,” Wanjiru Njoya notes that Lincoln personally supported an irrevocable constitutional amendment, commonly called the Corwin Amendment, that protected slavery forever.

(For more on Lincoln’s attitude toward Blacks, see “Lincoln on the Negro Race” and “Some Nineteenth Century Thought on the Negro” by Thomas Allen.)

With their rapine, Jews, Yankees, and Republicans impoverished the South so severely that more than a century elapsed before Southerners and Southern Blacks recovered from the poverty caused by Lincoln’s War and Reconstruction. 

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton

Thoms Allen 

In To the Victor Go the Myths & Monuments: The History of the First 100 Years of the War Against God and the Constitution, 1776 - 1876, and Its Modern Impact (Appleton, Wisconsin: American Opinion Foundation Publishing, 2016), Arthur R. Thompson provides some interesting information about Allan Pinkerton of the Pinkerton detective fame.

In Scotland, Allan Pinkerton (1819–1884) became a leader of the Chartists and formed the Glasgow Democratic Club. (Chartists were communistic revolutionists.) As a young man in Scotland, he was involved in radical activity and frequently disobeyed the law. Because of his involvement in the communist Chartist movement, he fled to the United States to avoid arrest.

In 1843, Pinkerton left Scotland and settled in Chicago, where he became the first police detective in Chicago. In 1850, in response to problems that various railroad companies were having that required a security system, Pinkerton partnered with E.G. Rucker to form Chicago’s first detective agency. A year later, the partnership dissolved, and Pinkerton provided the security for the railroads with his own agency, which became known as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Lincoln, who was an attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad, became a friend and patron of Pinkerton while he was providing security.

Since Pinkerton was a contact for John Brown, Brown was often a guest at Pinkerton’s house. Frequently, he disobeyed the law and aided and abetted the terrorist Brown. He aided Brown in his move to Kansas. After Brown’s arrest, Pinkerton developed a plan to free him. Disguised as a Southern planter, he learned the layout of the prison and concluded that he could not free Brown. Consequently, the plan never came to fruition. 

As a participant in the Underground Railroad, Pinkerton aided in moving escaped slaves to Canada. Furthermore, he was instrumental in creating the psychological basis for the events that brought Lincoln’s War into being. 

At the beginning of the war, Pinkerton became the Union’s main intelligence officer and helped form the US Secret Service. “As one wag of the day quipped, ‘While Pinkerton's right hand caught lawbreakers, his left hand broke the law.’” (P. 352.)

Pinkerton warned Lincoln that an assassination attempt would be made on him as he journeyed to Washington for his inauguration. As a result, Lincoln disguised himself and switched trains. However, no evidence existed that such an assignation attempt was planned — except in Pinkerton’s mind.

If he were alive today, Pinkerton would be a leading supporter and spokesman for the Democratic Party. His radicalism would have melded effortlessly with that of today’s Democrats.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Blue Cities’ Response to Deporting Illegal Immigrants

Blue Cities’ Response to Deporting Illegal Immigrants

Thomas Allen

Several blue cities, cities controlled by Democrats, have become notorious for trying to prevent the apprehension and deportation of illegal immigrants. Instead of using the constitutional method to stop the enforcement of immigration laws, they prefer an unconstitutional approach. The political leaders of these cities support violent protests against federal agents attempting to apprehend illegal immigrants.

The constitutional approach is to have the State, i.e., the people of that State, through their legislature or special convention, find the federal immigration law unconstitutional and nullify or veto it in that State. Thus, the immigration law would no longer be valid in that State because it would not exist in that State. Any federal agent who tried to enforce the federal immigration law would violate the Constitution and could be subject to penalties. (See “Nullification and Interposition” by Thomas Allen.)

At least that is the way it would work under the Constitution that the Founding Fathers gave us. Under that Constitution, the people of each State were sovereign. As sovereigns, they decided whether the acts of their agent, the federal government, were contrary to the agreement (the Constitution) that they had entered into with the other sovereigns, i.e., the people of the other States.

However, Lincoln and the Republicans usurped the sovereignty of the people of the States and gave it to the oligarchs who control the federal government.

Unfortunately, today, the country operates under the constitution that Lincoln as furthered developed by Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and carried to fruition by the Warren Court gave it. Under the Lincoln constitution, States have only those rights that the federal government grants them. (For the difference between the Constitution of the Founding Fathers and Lincoln’s constitution, see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” by Thomas Allen.)

President Trump, most Republicans, many conservatives, and all Democrats, when they control the federal government, have little use for the Constitution of the Founding Fathers. They prefer the Lincoln constitution because it gives them more power and will ignore any nullification. Consequently, since the peaceful method of nullification is not available, blue cities are reduced to violence to try to stop the enforcement of what they perceive as unconstitutional laws. 

Nevertheless, the US Supreme Court allows city, county, and State officials to refuse to aid the federal government in the enforcement of federal laws. (A State may require local officials to cooperate with the federal government in enforcing federal laws.) However, they cannot actively interfere with the federal government enforcing federal laws.

(Personally, I believe that the federal government has the constitutional authority to apprehend and deport people who have entered the country illegally. However, that is a decision that the people of each State have the right to make for themselves.)

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Nationalists and Federalists

Nationalists and Federalists

Thomas Allen

Since the ratification of the Constitution of 1788, nationalists and federalists have been struggling to control the government of the United States. With the possible exception of the Cleveland administration, the nationalists have controlled the US government since the election of Lincoln. (Federalists should not be confused with the early Federalist Party of Washington and Adams, which was primarily a nationalist party. As contradictory as it may sound, the Antifederalists of that era were the real federalists.) The following is a comparison of nationalists and federalists.

1– Nationalists support a living constitution where the US Supreme Court, the President, and Congress continuously change the interpretation of the Constitution to meet current needs, i.e., to satiate their lust for power. Among their favorite clauses are the Interstate Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause (which means that anything Congress deems to be for the general welfare), and the Necessary and Proper Clause. They give these and other clauses extremely elastic interpretations.

On the other hand, federalists support a strict, limited interpretation of the Constitution. They advocate interpreting the Constitution to mean what the proponents of the ratification of the Constitution explained it to mean and its intent. Records of their remarks are available in the debates of the ratification conventions, the Federalist Papers, and other writings that promoted the Constitution.

2– While nationalists advocate the consolidation of political power where the national government (a.k.a. the central government, the federal government, the US government, and the general government) has unlimited power, federalists advocate the dispersal of political power where the federal government has limited, enumerated power.

3– According to nationalists, the Supreme Court is the final arbitrator of the constitutionality of federal acts (and even most State acts). Thus, the national government is the sole arbitrator of its political power.

Federalists assert that “we the people” of each State, either through their legislatures or special conventions, are the ultimate and final arbitrators of the constitutionality of a federal act. If a State finds that a federal act is unconstitutional, it is void in that State, but it may continue to be applied in the other States.

4– Nationalists maintain that all federal acts are constitutional until the Supreme Court declares them unconstitutional, which it rarely does. (Being a branch of the national government, the Supreme Court cannot be an unbiased arbitrator. Most of the time, it decides in favor of the national government and against the States.) 

However, federalists maintain that only federal acts pursuant to the Constitution are constitutional. Any federal act that does not implement or apply one of the powers expressly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution has not been made pursuant to the Constitution. Therefore, it is unconstitutional, i.e., it is not a law and consequently void.

5– Nationalists loathe States’ rights. They consider States to be merely administrative districts of the national government.  

Quite the opposite, federalists are ardent proponents of States’ rights. States, i.e., “we the people” of each State, are the heart and soul of the Constitution and the federal government that they created. Without the States, the Constitution and federal government would not exist. Furthermore, each State acting independently is the final judge of the constitutionality of all federal acts. Consequently, if a State finds a federal act unconstitutional, it is duty-bound to nullify that act within its jurisdiction.

6– Nationalists place the power of the national government above all. Therefore, they view secession as treason and a sacrilege.

Federalists place the welfare of their community, people, and land above the federal government. Thus, they view secession as a means of preservation.

7– Nationalists are inclined toward foreign intervention and imperialism and are, therefore, bellicostic. They seek hegemony.

Contrastingly, federalists desire not to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries and seek peace and trade with all. Consequently, they prefer peace to war.

8– Nationalists favor government-business partnerships, mercantilism, protectionism, centralized banking, easy credit (inflation), and government indebtedness. Thus, they favor big business, big labor, and the concentration of economic power. Prosperity is created through mercantilism, i.e., corporate welfare, protectionism, and central banking. 

On the other hand, federalists favor free trade, free markets, free enterprise, decentralized banking, the separation of government and banking, the stable value of money, and minimum or no government debt. Thus, they favor the dispersal of economic power. Free markets create prosperity.

9– Nationals accept the welfare state, for it increases the national government’s control over the people and, consequently, its power.

Federalists prefer private and church charities to governmental welfare. However, if a government is to be involved in welfare, it should be the local government.

10– Nationalists rely on the national government to promote and preserve the virtues of the people. Making people righteous is a primary function of the national government. (Today, perversion is often considered righteousness.)

Federalists rely on the independence of citizens to promote and preserve the virtues of the people. Making people righteous is primarily the work of churches (true churches and not today’s woke churches).

11– Nationalists construe the Constitution as a teleological document (establishing a society based on abstract principles of natural rights, equality, democracy, etc.)

Federalists construe it as a nomocratic document (bringing government under the rule of law).

12– Nationalists lean toward inclusion and, therefore, amalgamation.

Yet, federalists lean toward diversity and, therefore, separation. Moreover, 

federalists are more tolerant than are nationalists.

While nationalists promote the concentration of political, economic, and social power, federalists promote their dispersal.

Regrettably, most State governmental officials have sold their souls to the nationalists. Since most State officials prefer lucre to liberty, the nationalists have bought them with federal grant money. (Nowhere does the Constitution delegate the federal government the authority to issue grants — much less to use federal funds for bribery.)

In summary, while nationalists are centralists, federalists are decentralists (see “Centralism Verses Decentralism” by Thomas Allen.) Furthermore, while nationalists are statists, federalists are libertists (“Statists Versus Libertists” by Thomas Allen). Consequently, nationalists prefer the constitution that Lincoln and the Republicans, as further developed by Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and carried to fruition by the Warren Court, gave the United States, while the federalists prefer the Constitution of the Founding Fathers (see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” by Thomas Allen).

Federalism is achieved when more people know the names of their governors and State legislators than know the names of the President and their members of Congress.

Afterthought. Generally, nationalists divide into two major factions. One follows the attributes in the above list. The other follows the political and social attributes, although they disagree about the virtues that the national government should impose and the extent of the welfare state. However, the second faction agrees more with the federalists on economic matters. Further, some nationalists are less favorable to foreign interventionism than others.

Unfortunately, not all federalists are consistent. Many act like nationalists on economic matters. Some federalists are inclined toward the warfare state (foreign interventionism) and welfare states and support such endeavors, especially when their State receives money from the federal government for military bases and various social and welfare programs.

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Republicans, Democrats, and Populists

Republicans, Democrats, and Populists

Thomas Allen

Following Lincoln’s War, the Republicans used the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendment to debilitate the Democratic Party and destroy the South, which was the backbone of the Democratic Party. (Ironically, following World War II, both the Republicans and Democrats used them to destroy what remained of the South.) Before the Populists captured the Democratic Party following the last Cleveland administration, the South and the Democrats opposed most of the Republican Party’s policies and agendas.

Later, the Republican Party would use the Fourteenth Amendment to destroy the United States as a whole. (After World War II, Democrats joined the Republicans in using it to destroy the country.) This destruction began during the Eisenhower administration with the Warren Court. With the arrival of the Lyndon Johnson administration, the Democrats began surpassing the Republicans in bringing down the country and have now left the Republicans far behind in their mayhem.

In general, the Republican Party supported and mostly still supports a strong central government, government-business partnerships, mercantilism, protective tariffs,[1] internal taxes, corporate welfare, centralized banking, profligate spending, large-scale public works, growing federal debt, a large standing army, expansionism and imperialism, and a loose, expansive interpretation of the Constitution. It opposed States’ rights, free trade, and a limited, prudent, frugal federal government. Furthermore, it opposed State sovereignty and maintained, in practice, that sovereignty resides in those who really control the federal government. Hamilton is the forefather of the Republican Party.

On the other hand, the Democratic Party supported States’ rights, a small, limited federal government, little or no federal debt, free markets, free trade, tariffs for revenue only, decentralized banking with the States regulating banking, personal freedom, a strong emphasis on the Bill of Rights, and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. It opposed a strong centralized government, corporate welfare, protective tariffs, internal taxes, centralized banking, a large standing army, and a large federal debt. Moreover, it supported State sovereignty, i.e., “We the People” of each individual State were sovereign. Jefferson is the forefather of the Democratic Party. (By the time of the Wilson administration, the Democratic Party had abandoned Jefferson for Hamilton.  President Wilson was an admirer and imitator of Lincoln. Both were imperial presidents.[2])

During the Franklin Roosevelt administration, the Democratic Party became the image of the Republican Party. Most of the programs that Roosevelt adopted were extensions of Hoover’s programs. Following World War II, the Democratic Party became more Republican than the Republican Party. After the Republicans brought the country integration, affirmative action, and quotas, the Democrats pushed integration, miscegenation, and amalgamation with more vigor than did the Republicans.  Consequently, the Democratic Party promoted genocide of the White race with more ferocity than did the Republican Party. Additionally, the Democratic Party moved on to promote political correctness, wokeism, diversity-equity-inclusion, queerdom, and other perversions. Today’s Democratic Party is the logical conclusion of Lincoln’s Republican Party.

Ironically, today, the political philosophy of many rank-and-file Republicans is closer to that of the traditional Democratic Party than to the philosophy of the traditional and contemporary Republican Party.

In general, Populists agreed with the fundamental principles of the Republican Party. Their primary disagreement was that they wanted to use the power of the federal government to favor farmers and workers instead of big business. Like Progressives, they favored the envy-driven progressive income tax (the Sixteenth Amendment) and the direct election of US Senators (the Seventeenth Amendment), which weakened the States. Moreover, Populists favored cheap credit, cheap money (low-quality money), inflation, and cheating creditors by paying off debt with less valuable money. Unlike today’s Democrats and most Republicans, Populists want to restrict immigration.

Endnotes

1. Following World War II, the Republican Party abandoned advocating protective tariffs because most major American corporations had become international corporations. Protective tariffs no longer suited their needs. They wanted managed foreign trade. As a result, the Republican Party supported free trade agreements such as NAFTA, which USMCA replaced, and GATT, which managed trade to benefit multinational corporations.

2.  Like Lincoln, Wilson supported and promoted centralized banking and government-business partnerships — only Wilson was more fascist than Lincoln. Additionally, both had little regard for the Constitution of 1788, which they largely ignored. Furthermore, like Lincoln, Wilson suppressed free speech and imprisoned political opponents. Both were warmongers who led the country to an offensive war that could have easily been avoided. However, Lincoln had a more aggressive approach to the racial issue. While Lincoln wanted to ship Blacks out of the country, Wilson settled for segregating the races. Ironically, Glenn Beck ranks Lincoln as the best or second-best President and Wilson as the worst or second-worst president (Jackson is his rival). However, their similarities far outweigh their differences.

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Rothbard on Lincoln

Rothbard on Lincoln

Thomas Allen

In “Just War,” which is based on a talk given in May 1994 and posted in March 2012 (https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/whats-a-just-war/), Murray Rothbard gives an excellent description of Abraham Lincoln (Rothbard [1926-1995] was a libertarian economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, and political theorist. He was a proponent of  anarcho-capitalism and part of the post-World War II Old Right.)

The War for Southern Independence (Lincoln’s War) gave Lincoln the opportunity to invoke statist tyranny of reform liberalism — and he fervently took advantage of the opportunity. He overthrew States’ rights, which was the foundation of the Constitution of 1789, and the ownership of slaves (by making all Americans slaves of the oligarchs, although only a few realize that they are slaves). 

Lincoln’s “major emphasis was on Whig economic statism: high tariffs, huge subsidies to railroads, [and] public works.” Being a leading lawyer for the big railroads, he was the candidate of the big railroads.

Granville Dodge, an Iowa railroad entrepreneur, delivered the Iowa delegation to Lincoln at the Republican convention. As a reward, “Lincoln appointed Dodge to army general.” Dodge’s job was to drive the Indians from the path of the Union Pacific, “the country’s first heavily subsidized federally chartered transcontinental railroad.” Thus, “conscripted Union troops and hapless taxpayers were coerced into socializing the costs on constructing and operating the Union Pacific.”

Nevertheless, Lincoln’s chief focus was raising taxes — especially tariffs. During his administration, tariff rates greatly increased (consequently, he embargoed the importation of iron and steel). At the beginning of his administration, he was placatory about not interfering with slavery. However, he insisted on collecting tariffs at Southern ports.

“Lincoln was a master politician, which means that he was a consummate conniver, manipulator, and liar.” He deceived the South and maneuvered it into firing the first shot.  Thus, he made the South appear to be the aggressor. (He who causes the first shot starts the war, which is often not the one who fires the first shot.)

The Lincoln administration and the Republican-controlled Congress enacted most of the Whig economic programs. At least 10 tariff bills were enacted. Alcohol and tobacco were heavily taxed — “sin” taxes. An “income tax was levied for the first time in American history.” Also,  transcontinental railroads received large land grants and monetary subsidies. Moreover, “the government went off the gold standard and virtually nationalized the banking system to establish a machine for printing new money and to provide cheap credit for the business elite.”

Furthermore, Lincoln conscripted a huge army, jailed dissenters and peace advocates, and abolished habeas corpus.

Although Lincoln was not religious, “he adopted all the attitudes and temperament of his evangelical allies.” Personally, he opposed using alcohol and tobacco. Also, he “opposed the private carrying of guns.”

Moreover, he abandoned his fiancee, who came from a humble family, to marry Mary Todd, who was wealthy and whose family was friends of Henry Clay (shades of Newt Gingrich, who divorced his first wife when she was dying of cancer, but who fortunately survived, and divorced his second wife because she objected to sharing him with his mistress, who became his third wife). Further, he “refused to attend his dying father or his father’s funeral.”

Rothbard concludes his discussion of Lincoln by stating:

Lincoln, too, was a typical example of a humanitarian with the guillotine in another dimension: a familiar modern “reform liberal” type whose heart bleeds for and yearns to “uplift” remote mankind, while he lies to and treats abominably actual people whom he knew. And so Abraham Lincoln, in a phrase prefiguring our own beloved Mario Cuomo, declared that the Union was really “a family, bound indissolubly together by the most intimate organic bonds.” Kick your own family, and then transmute familial spiritual feelings toward a hypostatized and mythical entity, “The Union,” which then must be kept intact regardless of concrete human cost or sacrifice.

How can any self-respecting conservative idolize such a despicable charlatan as Lincoln? Nevertheless, they do. It makes one wonder if these Lincoln idolizers are really conservatives. They certainly are not constitutionalists, i.e., advocates of the Constitution of 1789 that the founding fathers gave us.

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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A Nullification That Failed

A Nullification That Failed

Thomas Allen

From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, the Southern States failed in their attempt to nullify federal acts that forced desegregation and integration, following the recommendations of Madison, which the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) endorses. Not only did the Southern States dislike these acts,  but most of them were unconstitutional. 

In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the US Supreme Court based its desegregation ruling primarily on personal biases, sociology, and politics, with the US Constitution playing only an insignificant role. When Congress proposed the Fourteenth Amendment, it did not intend for it to apply to schools. Shortly after its ratification, Congress established a racially segregated school system for the District of Columbia.

According to TAC, Madison identified four appropriate methods that a State and “we the people” of that State could use to oppose and nullify an unconstitutional federal act or even a disliked federal act. A discussion of these four follows.

1. Popular protest by the people. “We the people” of a State may vigorously and vociferously protest against an unconstitutional or even disliked federal act. Southerners protested resolutely and vehemently against forced federal integration acts, but the federal government successfully suppressed their protest. Their protest did nothing more than bring more federal oppression and less liberty.

2. Refuse to cooperate with the federal government. Wholeheartedly, the Southern States not only refused to cooperate with the federal government, but they also interfered with its enforcement of federal integration acts. With great fervor, they opposed federal integration acts. Their disobedience and lack of cooperation did nothing except invigorate the federal government’s resolve to become more tyrannical and oppressive.

3. Formal protest by the governor. Few governors have ever protested unconstitutional acts of the federal government as did Governor Faubus of Arkansas and Governor Wallace of Alabama. All their protest did was cause the federal government to use military force against Arkansas and Alabama to quell their protest. Other governors protested, but to no avail. Their protest led to more subjection and despotism.

4. Legislative action. Legislative action includes resolutions formally protesting the federal government’s usurpation and unconstitutional acts. Legislatures may forbid agents of the State and its local governments from cooperating with the federal government in enforcing the federal act. It may even include interfering to prevent the federal government from enforcing an unconstitutional federal act. However, legislative action does not extend to preventing federal agents from enforcing unconstitutional federal acts with imprisonment or fines. State legislatures of the Southern States took actions to thwart the enforcement of federal integration acts, short of jailing federal agents. Again, the results were the same: more oppression, tyranny, and loss of liberty.

Madison believed that if adjoining States protested against a federal act and sought to nullify it with the aforementioned actions, their actions would cause the federal act to become void. Madison was wrong. The Southern States were unified in their protest of the federal government’s integration acts. Yet, their unity did nothing to stop the federal government’s tyranny.

The Southern States did not resort to jailing federal agents attempting to enforce school integration. However, this action would have also failed because the philosophy of "might makes right" dominated the country. (With the possible exceptions of the Cleveland, Harding, and Coolidge administrations, this philosophy has been the dominant governing principle of the federal government since 1861 — even superseding the Constitution.) Since the federal government used military force against Arkansas and Alabama in response to much milder forms of nullification, it would have used even greater force against a State that jailed its agents. (If a State had nullified these federal acts following Calhoun’s philosophy instead of Madison’s, these acts would not have applied in the nullifying States. Consequently, the federal government could not have lawfully used the military to enforce them because they did not exist in the nullifying States. However, since the federal government ceased following the Constitution in 1861, it would have used troops anyway.)

As a result of the Southern States’ failure to nullify the federal government’s integration acts, America’s education has deteriorated significantly. Worse, their defeat gave birth to racial quotas, political correctness, diversity-equity-inclusion, wokeism, and ultimately the death of the White race, Christianity, and Western Civilization. Such has been the goal of the Puritan Yankees since the mid-nineteenth century. Only the South stood in the way of this goal; that is why Lincoln and the Republicans had to destroy the South.

Madison may have wept over the utter defeat of the Southern States’ failure to nullify these unconstitutional federal acts. However, based on inferences from its writings, TAC has not.

However, the Southern States’ attempted nullification did lead to two of the three wars that the United States have won since World War II: Eisenhower’s war against Arkansas, Kennedy’s war against Alabama, and Reagan’s war against Grenada. Defeating these three world superpowers is the height of US military prowess in the post-World War II era.

Since Lincoln’s War, States have been highly successful at nullifying federal acts against vice, e.g., prohibition, which the Constitution authorized the federal government to prohibit the manufacturing, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors, and marijuana, which the federal government has no constitutional authority to outlaw or regulate. However, the nullification of most unconstitutional federal acts has been highly unsuccessful. The only nullifying acts that States are allowed are unenforceable protests and resolutions, and not participating with the federal government in enforcing federal laws (even this one seems to be fading under Trump).

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Nullification and Interposition – Part 2

Nullification and Interposition – Part 2

Thomas Allen

The federal government is obliged to cease enforcing a nullified act in a State that has nullified it. If the federal government attempts to enforce a nullified law, such action would be like humans trying to oust their Creator, God — the created agent trying to overthrow the creator sovereign “we the people” of the nullifying State. Although the former is impossible, Lincoln accomplished the latter.

There are only three constitutional ways to overturn the nullification of a federal act. One way is to persuade the nullifying States that it is wrong, which results in the State rescinding its nullification. Second, the federal government repeals or rescinds the nullified act. The third is that the Constitution is amended to clarify that the federal government has the power that has been nullified or that the nullified power is a reserved power that the federal government should exercise.

Although Congress can call forth the militia “to execute the laws and suppress insurrection,” this power does not apply to nullification because the law does not exist in the nullifying State. Since the act of nullification has declared the law null and void, it does not exist in the nullifying State.

One argument against nullification is that the Supreme Court is the final arbitrator of the constitutionality of all federal and State acts. If the US Supreme Court is the final arbitrator, it means two things. First, the creature (the federal government) is superior to the creator (the States). Such usurpation is like man (the creature) usurping the power and authority of the creator (God). Misery and despotism are the results. Second, of the three branches of government, the Supreme Court is the superior branch. However, the Constitution makes Congress the superior branch and the federal courts the weakest. Before it emasculated itself, Congress could restrict the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to the few items named in Article III and could deny it jurisdiction over most acts of the States. Further, Congress can strip the Supreme Court of its appellate authority. Moreover, since Congress created all inferior courts, it can abolish them. Also, Congress can and has restricted the jurisdiction of inferior courts, which includes the authority to decide the constitutionality of federal and State acts. Further, the President can follow Lincoln’s precedent and ignore the rulings of any federal court, including the Supreme Court.

Another argument that opponents of nullification use is the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2:

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.

Thus, they assert that all federal laws are the supreme law and prevail over the States, and a State cannot judge the constitutionality of a federal law. Deciding the constitutionality of a federal law is the job of federal courts.

Conversely, most founding fathers who were involved with the development and ratification of the Constitution of 1787 (most notably, Madison and Jefferson) assert that only federal laws made pursuant to the Constitution are supreme. That is, only those federal laws necessary to execute specifically delegated powers are constitutional. Any federal law that goes beyond the specifically delegated power is unconstitutional; it is not a law and, therefore, is void and of no force or effect. A State’s nullification makes a finding that a particular federal law is not made pursuant to the Constitution and is, therefore, not a law.

Who ultimately decides if a federal law is constitutional? It cannot be the Supreme Court because that would make the federal government, the creature or agent, the judge of its limits. The only logical arbitrator of the constitutionality of a federal law is “we the people,” that is, “we the people” of each State acting independently either through their legislature or a special convention. Since “we the people” of each State independently ratified the Constitution of 1787 and, consequently, formed the union created under that Constitution and its government, they should be the ultimate and final judge of the constitutionality of all federal acts.

Therefore, federal laws are supreme only if they are constitutional. An unconstitutional federal law or other federal act is null and void. Being the principals of the contract, the US Constitution, that created the federal government and delegated to it certain powers, each State, acting individually, is the final judge about whether a federal action is constitutional.

Another major argument against nullification is that the majority has the right to govern, i.e., the will of the majority must prevail — the majority of the whole or an absolute majority. As a practical matter, the will of the whole community is the will of the stronger interest. (Most people who hold this view demur when the majority turns against their favorite project.) 

There are two ways to estimate the majority. The first is a majority of the whole community in the aggregate. The second is a majority of political interests (different classes, communities, etc.) formed into one general confederated community. In the second case, the majority is a majority of the various classes or communities, with the assent of each taken separately. The concurrence of all constitutes the majority — concurrent majority. People who object to nullification because it thwarts the majority are referring to the first type of majority.

Since the Constitution came into being through a concurrent majority, an absolute majority conflicts with the Constitution. (The concurring accent of all the States formed and ratified the Constitution and not a majority of the whole in the aggregate.)

People who object to nullification assert, in effect, that the federal government has the sole right to decide the extent of its own powers and, by that, place the reserved powers of the States at its whim and mercy — thus, destroying the equilibrium of the system.

Nullification is an important but rarely used means to keep the federal government within its constitutional bounds. Without nullification, the federal government, the agent of the States that created it, will assume powers never delegated to it and expand delegated powers beyond what was intended. History proves this point. Since nullification essentially died in 1865, the federal government has exploded far beyond its constitutional bounds, and the States have shrunk to near insignificance. 

Do the States have the right to interpose and nullify federal laws? Under the Constitution that the Founding Fathers gave to the union, the answer is “yes.” According to the Founding Fathers’ Constitution, the States are independent sovereign republics, i.e., independent sovereign nations. Just as nations that enter into a treaty or compact can each independently judge adherence to that treaty or compact, so can the States independently judge adherence to the Constitution. Moreover, the States not only have the right, but they also have the duty to decide independently if the Constitution (a treaty and compact between the States) is being violated.

Under the constitution that Lincoln gave to the union, the answer is “no.” According to Lincoln’s constitution, the States are merely administrative provinces. They can only do what the federal government allows them to do. The rights of the States are mere concessions that can be revoked any time. “Might makes right” is the underlying principle of the Lincoln constitution. (For the difference between the Constitutions of the Founding Fathers and Lincoln, see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” by Thomas Allen) 

Even under the Constitution of the Founding Fathers, the people who controlled the federal government avariciously lusted after power and, therefore, preferred “might” to “right” and objected to a State nullifying even the most unconstitutional acts of the federal government.

Ending grants to State and local governments would be one of the best things to occur in this country. It would give the States the courage to nullify unconstitutional federal acts and to interpose to prevent their enforcement. If the cowardly States cared about protecting themselves and their citizens, they would nullify thousands of federal acts.

Afterthought. A great irony of today is that the woke politicians and other wokesters supporting nullifying federal acts of deporting illegal aliens are using, most likely unknowingly, the political philosophies of Jefferson and Calhoun. What makes their support of nullification so ironic is that they have declared Jefferson and especially Calhoun persona non grata, who should be erased from history.

For more on nullification, see the following works of John C. Calhoun:

The Disquisition on Government,

Fort Hill Address,

Important Correspondence on the Subject of State Introposition [sic], Between His Excellency Gov. Hamilton and Hon. John C. Calhoun, and 

“Against the Force Bill”

Also, see these articles:

The Kentucky Resolves of 1798

The Kentucky Resolves of 1799

Virginia General Assembly Report of 1800

Also, see these articles by Thomas Allen:

 “Calhoun and Concurrent Majority,”

“States’ Rights,”

“States’ Right and Society,”

“Jefferson and States’ Rights,”

“Calhoun and States’ Rights,” and

“More Thoughts Related to the US Constitution.”

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Part 1.