Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas

Thomas Allen

Mark Paoletta writes an excellent article about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: “What Makes Clarence Thomas Great,”  Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture,  June 2026, pages 12–15 (https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/what-makes-clarence-thomas-great/#comment-63457). He presents Thomas as a strict constructionist, i.e., he interprets the Constitution literally and narrowly, limits the federal government’s powers to those explicitly and clearly granted in the text, and declares that all powers not expressly enumerated in the Constitution are reserved to the States or the people unless the Constitution expressly denies such powers.

According to the article, Thomas claims that the Constitution is color-blind. He errs; it is not. White men wrote it for Whites and only for Whites. The Preamble tells us so.  (“We the People of the United States . . . to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Who are “ourselves” and “our posterity”? They are the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution and their descendants, all of whom are Whites.) Also, the author, Charles Pinckney, of Article IV, Section 2, Paragraph 1 of the US Constitution (“the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States”),  said, “At the time I drew that Constitution, I perfectly knew that there did not then exist such a thing in the Union as a black or colored citizen, nor could I then have conceived it possible such a thing could ever have existed. . . .” (For proof that the Constitution was written for Whites, see “For Whom Is the Constitution Written?,” “Addendum to ‘For Whom Is the Constitution Written?’,” and “The Constitution of 1788 Was Only for White People” by Thomas Allen.)

If the Constitution were color blind, the Fourteenth Amendment, which was illegally and unlawfully ratified, would not be needed except to disenfranchise Southerners. Moreover, the Congress that drafted the Fourteenth Amendment also adopted a segregated school system for the District of Columbia. Obviously, this amendment was not intended to require school integration. That is why the Supreme Court based its school desegregation decision more on sociology and foreign policy than on the Constitution. (For more on the Fourteenth Amendment, see “Founding Principles of the Governance of the United States,” “Addendum to ‘For Whom Is the Constitution Written?’,” and “Before and After” by Thomas Allen.)  The constitutional rulings in Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal) and Brown v. Board of Education (school desegregation) should have held that education is a State matter; the Constitution grants the federal government no authority over public education, except in the District of Columbia and the territories.

Moreover, if Thomas were a strict constructionist, he would not apply the first nine amendments, the Bill of Rights, of the Constitution to the States. Through the incorporation doctrine, the Supreme Court applies most of the Bill of Rights to the States via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since the incorporation doctrine was not discovered until about a generation and a half after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, obviously, the drafters and ratifiers of this amendment did not intend for it to be used to apply the Bill of Rights to the States. (The constitutions of each State have their own bill of rights.) Since Thomas applies the incorporation doctrine, he is an inconsistent strict constructionist. 

In District of Columbia v. Heller (the Second Amendment confers an individual right),  Thomas, who supported the ruling, acted as a strict constructionist because the ruling applied to an agency of Congress but not to the States. However, in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, Thomas, who supported the ruling, applied the Second Amendment to the States, which was contrary to strict construction. These rulings illustrate Thomas’ inconsistency as a strict constructionist.

Furthermore, when he rules against federal laws that discriminate against Whites, he is a strict constructionist. When he rules against State laws on segregation, integration, or discrimination, he is not a strict constructionist. Such issues are reserved for the States or the people thereof under the Tenth Amendment. For the most part, Thomas, unlike most other Supreme Court Justices, is a strict constructionist.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen. 

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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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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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Republican Form of Government

Republican Form of Government

Thomas Allen

Article IV, Section 4 of the US Constitution, guarantees each State a republican form of government.  Ty Bodden describes the attributes of a republican form of government in “Restoring a Constitutional, Republican Form of Government: States Push Back Against Direct Democracy and Bureaucratic Rule,” January 16, 2026 (https://thenewamerican.com/us/restoring-a-constitutional-republican-form-of-government-states-push-back-against-direct-democracy-and-bureaucratic-rule/).

Each State should be a constitutional republic with a republican government. A republican government is “grounded in constitutional limits, representative lawmaking, and the rule of law.” It “requires clear lines: Legislatures make the law, executives execute it, courts interpret it.” Moreover, a “republican government demands transparency and public accountability — not self-perpetuating appointment systems.”

A constitutional republic is governed “by law, exercised through elected representatives, with safeguards that protect God-given rights against both mob passions and unelected bureaucrats.” Thus, States “ have a duty to structure their institutions in ways that preserve representative lawmaking, checks and balances, and protections from majoritarian tyranny.”

Under a republican government, “major policy decisions remain accountable to the people through their elected representatives.” Legislators cannot evade their responsibilities by delegating legislative authority to executive boards and commissions. Consequently, unelected rulemaking boards and commissions are incompatible with a republican government. If they exist at all, rulemaking “administrative bodies must remain subordinate, not function as a fourth branch.” 

The purpose of a constitution is “to restrain government and protect rights.” Bodden notes, “A constitution is not meant to be a running policy notebook, rewritten whenever a slim majority is persuaded by slick advertising.” Thus, it should not be changed on a whim of a bare majority, or else “liberty becomes temporary and rights become negotiable.”

Consequently, amending State constitutions should require a supermajority, e.g., 60 percent. State constitutions should not allow amendments through ballot initiatives. Furthermore, the amendment process should require more than just a statewide majority. It should also require majorities in various districts throughout the State, e.g., congressional districts. Such requirements ensure that the amendment has broad support. If both of these approaches are combined, which Bodden does not do, before an amendment becomes part of the constitution, it would need 60 percent of the vote statewide and would have to receive a majority vote in each congressional district or, alternatively, in two-thirds of the districts.

Bodden concludes, “Will states be governed as republics, under the rule of law, or as democracies, under the whims of shifting majorities and unelected managers? A republic restrains power to protect the people. A democracy too often unleashes power — first against the minority, and eventually against everyone.”

Bodden fails to address two important issues. One is that today the States are not republics and cannot become republics; therefore, they cannot have a republican form of government merely by making the changes that he recommends. The other is the electorate.

As a result of Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, no State today is a republic (See “Before and After” by Thomas Allen). Although the governments of the States appear to be republican in form, they are not. Only a republic can have a republican form of government (see “Returning Republican Governments to the States” by Thomas Allen).

For a State to have a republican form of government, a State must be a republic. Before a State can be a republic, it must be sovereign, and as a sovereign, it is the final judge of the constitutionality of acts of the federal government. In other words, before a State can have a republican form of government, it has to have the right, duty, and power to nullify any federal act that it finds unconstitutional and has 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 “Nullification and Fugitive Slave Laws” by Thomas Allen). Until States regain their sovereignty, they cannot have a republican form of government.

Who is the electorate of a State? It is “we the people” of that State, i.e., it is the body politic that ultimately wields political power (see “Meaning of ‘We the People’” by Thomas Allen). Today, almost anyone more than 18 who breathes is part of the electorate. (As Landslide Lyndon in 1948 and Biden in 2020 have shown, even dead people are part of the electorate.)

When the US Constitution and the constitutions of the original States were ratified, the electorate was limited to people who had a vested interest in the community. That is, only White males who owned a minimum amount of real property were members of the electorate. During the Jacksonian Era, most White males more than 21 received the vote. The Fifteenth Amendment extended voting to Black males, and the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the vote. The Twenty-fourth Amendment removed the requirement to pay taxes, and the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the voting age to 18. (Every time suffrage was expanded, liberty declined.)

An important component of returning a republican form of government to the States is to restrict suffrage to people who have a vested interest in the community. Only people who own a minimum amount of real property or pay a minimum amount of direct taxes (property, income, and capitation taxes) would have the right to vote and be part of the body politic.

Most States already have the governmental structure in place to have a republican form of government. What they are lacking is the sovereignty of “we the people” and restricting “we the people” to those who have a vested interest in the community.

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas 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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Before and After

Before and After

Thomas Allen

Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment made fundamental changes to the United States and the Constitution of 1788. Although they did not alter the words of the Constitution that existed in 1860, the Constitution that was ratified in 1788, they changed their meanings. Moreover, the Fourteenth Amendment destroyed the fundamental principles on which the Constitution was based. Furthermore, it was illegally and unlawfully ratified (see “Addendum to ‘For Whom Is the Constitution Written?’” by Thomas Allen).

Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment slew the Tenth Amendment. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court will occasionally resurrect it to give “we the people” of the States the illusion that they still have rights.

Before Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, the States were independent, sovereign republics.[1] 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 national empire. (For the difference between Lincoln’s Constitution and the Constitution of 1788, see “What Is Your View of the US Constitution?” by Thomas Allen.)

Before 1860, most people who preferred a national empire to a federation of republics considered the United States as a federation of States and the federal government as having limited powers.

Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment demolished the Jeffersonian tradition of States’ rights by which the people of the States were the masters rather than the servants of the federal government. Afterwards, the federal government became the master of all, and the people, other than the oligarchs, were reduced to servants, even slaves, of the ruling elite.

Before Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, most people viewed the Constitution as restraining the federal government and not the people. Even people who wanted little or no restraint saw the Constitution limiting their lust for power, which is why they had Lincoln and the Republicans change it. Afterwards, it no longer restrained the federal government; they gave it almost unlimited powers. 

Before Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, people became citizens of the United States by being citizens of a State. Afterwards, people were citizens of a State by being citizens of the United States. (Moreover, the United States ceased to be referred to in the plural [are] and became referred to in the singular [is].) Thus, citizenship was changed. Additionally, before, only Whites were citizens. Although a State could grant Indians and Blacks certain privileges of citizenship, they were not and could not be citizens. They were aliens.

Before Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, sovereignty resided in “we the people” of each State. Afterwards, sovereignty resided in the oligarchs who controlled the federal government. Thus, the location of sovereignty was changed.

Before Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, the country was monoracial. The founding fathers said so (for proof, see “The Constitution of 1788 Was Only for White People” by Thomas Allen; also see “For Whom Is the Constitution Written?” and “Addendum to ‘For Whom Is the Constitution Written?’” by Thomas Allen). Afterwards, it was multiracial.

As a result of the Fourteenth Amendment, the descendants of the people who built this country, i.e., Whites, Aryans, are being genocided. In 1950, 89 percent of the population was White; by 2020, only 61 percent were White.

Between Monroe and Lincoln, many of the presidents and other political leaders favored a consociated national empire and, with one exception, would not have objected to what Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment did to the country. That exception was the Fourteenth Amendment turning the United States into a multiracial country. After Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, all presidents, except for Cleveland, supported a consolidated national empire, where the States were no longer independent republics but were districts of the empire. Moreover, before World War II, nearly all would have objected to the Fourteenth Amendment turning the United States into a multiracial country.

Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Thus, if right to vote for judicial officers of a State is denied to any eligible voter (male citizens 21 years old and older at that time), the number of Representatives in the House of Representatives shall be reduced in the proportion to the number of male citizens denied the vote to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. Only in 21 States do the voters elect all judges. In the other States, the Supreme Court and most appellate court judges are appointed or selected by the legislature. Therefore, only the 21 States where all judges are elected should have representation in the House of Representatives.

Endnote

1. Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment voided the first part of Article IV, Section 2, which guarantees States a republican form of government. 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 government. As a sovereign, a State, i.e., “we the people” of that State, has the right to decide if an act of the federal government is Constitutional. If a State finds that an act of the federal government is unconstitutional, it may nullify that act and prevent its enforcement in that State. Moreover, it may withdraw from the compact, i.e., secede. However, Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment stripped the States of their sovereignty, and, consequently, they denied the States the right to have a republican form of government. (See “Returning Republican Governments to the States” by Thomas Allen.)

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Nationalization of Federal Elections

Nationalization of Federal Elections

Thomas Allen

Trump and many of his supporters advocate for the nationalization of federal elections. They want to require voters to prove citizenship with governmentally approved identification.  As support for their position, they cite Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, which reads, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.” Using this clause, they argue that the federal government can establish the qualifications of voters in federal elections. To prevent confusion, most States will adopt the federal standards for State elections.

However, does the Constitution authorize the federal government to set qualifications for voters even in federal elections? The delegation only allows Congress to set the time, places, and manner of holding federal elections. Congress has set the time, and most States elect their State and county officials on that date. It can identify the locations of federal elections. Finally, it can describe the manner of election. That is, Congress can require or prohibit the use of paper ballots, machine-voting, etc., for federal elections. However, this clause does not authorize Congress to establish qualifications for voters.

If Congress could establish voter qualifications, there would have been no need for the Fifteenth Amendment (extended voting to Black males), the Nineteenth Amendment (gave women the vote), the Twenty-fourth Amendment (removed the requirement to pay taxes), and the Twenty-sixth Amendment (lowered the voting age to 18). Instead of going through the arduous process of amending the Constitution, Congress could have merely changed voter qualifications by statute. (Since presidents keep legislating through executive orders, the president could set the qualifications for voters with an executive order.)

Historically, the duty for setting voter qualifications rested with the States. If not, the Constitution would not have needed to be amended to establish national standards for voting qualifications.

The proponents of nationalizing federal elections argue that nationalization is necessary to prevent fraud. It is not. (In “Trump Calls to ‘Nationalize’ Elections. The Constitutional Solution Is Local,” February 5, 2026, Veronika Kyrylenko identifies many steps that States and local governments can take to reduce corrupt and fraudulent elections. She also discusses some major flaws in the proposed legislation; one is that it will become part of the federal government’s digital surveillance of Americans. [https://thenewamerican.com/us/trump-calls-to-nationalize-elections-the-constitutional-solution-is-local/?mc_cid=abab48bd20]) They claim that presenting some kind of federally approved identification to vote is necessary to prevent or at least reduce fraud, which is true. However, should the federal government undertake such action? If Trump succeeds in nationalizing federal elections, he will set a dangerous precedent that the Democrats will use to their advantage when they regain control of the federal government. They can amend the law to prohibit voter ID. Moreover, they can require that all federal elections be held by mail-in ballots and that only Democrats can count the ballots. If federal elections are nationalized, all federal elections can become as corrupt and fraudulent as the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, Georgia. 

(Personally, I believe that requiring voter identification would reduce corrupt and fraudulent elections. However, the States should impose the requirement rather than the federal government. The more centralized voting becomes, the easier it is to corrupt.)

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Founding Principles of the Governance of the United States

Founding Principles of the Governance of the United States

Thomas Allen

Discussed below are some of the founding principles of the United States. They are the relationship of church and state and the destructiveness of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Separation of Church and State

In “Religious Liberty and the Genius of the American Founding,” Imprimis (December 2024 | Volume 53, Number 12), Glenn Ellmers argues that America’s founders solved the problem of establishing the sacredness of the law while avoiding religious conflict and persecution. They combined human reason and divine revelation to establish religious liberty. (First, today, the country lacks reason. Second, whose religion is used to establish the sacredness of the law? Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all claim to be descended from Abraham’s religion. Yet, they are incompatible with each other. Further, Hinduism, which is growing rapidly in the United States, is even more incompatible.)

The Founding Fathers recognized that people “are born into both a physical and moral world that” they did not create. American politics was built on this foundation. (Unfortunately, many American political, religious, academic, business, and other leaders have been diligently working to destroy this foundation.)

Next, Ellmers discusses the problems that the Founding Fathers solved. “First, they solved the split between piety and citizenship by supplying a common ground for morality.”  With reasoning, people can understand the difference between virtue and vice. Thus, “the law can enforce moral precepts that are acknowledged by both political and ecclesiastical authorities.” (What about vices that some religious authorities recognize as vice, but political authorities do not? Gambling is an example that some religious authorities condemn, but many political authorities do not. Through State-sponsored lotteries, some States use gambling as a source of revenue. This action prevents them from considering gambling as immoral, although some religious authorities do.)

“Second, this common ground of morality makes it possible to delineate in a clear way the political and religious realms.” Thus, “the separation of church and state becomes possible.” The Declaration of Independence’s “teaching about the laws of nature and nature’s God establishes a kind of political theology, a non-sectarian ground of legitimacy that makes the laws ‘sacred’ without getting the government involved in theological disputes about the Trinity, faith versus works, etc.” 

“Third, the Founders solved the problem of religious persecution. Because the government and the churches can agree on a moral code that is compatible with both reason and revelation, each can operate in its proper realm without intruding on the other.” Consequently, a religious test for office was prohibited. (Although no government today requires a religious test for office, some States in the early years of the United States did.)

(What happens if the law is used to protect immorality instead of prohibiting it? Abortion and sexual immorality, such as homosexual acts and miscegenation, are examples. Abortion and abortionists are protected in many States. Likewise, homosexual marriages and miscegenation are protected in all States. Yet, traditional Christianity condemns them as sins that should be legally prohibited. When the political realm [reason] conflicts with the religious realm [revelation], the political realm prevails, at least in this world, because it wields the rifles.

In spite of the separation of church and state, today, the political realm has chosen the religion of secular humanism as the state religion. When it conflicts with the other religions, the political realm [the government] nearly always sides with secular humanism.)

The Fourteenth Amendment

The  Fourteenth Amendment is unconstitutional because it is incongruent with fundamental principles of the Constitution that it amended. Not only was it ratified unlawfully and illegally, but it also violates at least three basic principles underlying the Constitution. 

(1) The Fourteenth Amendment usurped the sovereignty of the people of each State and gave it to the oligarchs who controlled the federal government. Before the Fourteenth Amendment, the States were independent nations that were members of a federation. The federal government was their agent that attended to foreign affairs and a few domestic issues. It had no sovereignty. Accordingly, the Constitution of 1788 was a contract between independent sovereign republics, which created an agent, the federal government, to carry out specific and limited activities. The Fourteenth Amendment voided that contract and usurped all the sovereignty and powers of the States, the parties to the contract, and placed them in the federal government. Now, the States have only those powers that the federal government condescends to grant them. Thus, the Fourteenth Amendment changed the United States from a federation of sovereign republican States to an empire.

(2) It changed the fundamental principle of citizenship. Before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, individuals were considered citizens of the United States by being citizens of a State. After the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, individuals became citizens of a State by being citizens of the United States.

(3) (This one will really anger most people, especially conservatives and libertarians.) The Constitution was written by Whites, for Whites, and only for Whites. The Fourteenth Amendment changed the Constitution from being monoracial to being multiracial by making Negroes citizens. Consequently, it changed the United States from a White country for Whites only to a multiracial country (and all today's problems with nonwhite immigration). 

Consequently, because the Fourteenth Amendment is incompatible with the underlying principles of the Constitution and is, therefore, unconstitutional, courts should ignore it until it is repealed.

Before Lincoln’s War and the Fourteenth Amendment, the States were independent sovereign republics. 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 empire.

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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Trump and Evangelicals

Trump and Evangelicals

Thomas Allen

Below is a letter to the editor that I wrote in response to another published letter on Trump and evangelicals. This person, whom I refer to as Mr. S, has written several letters criticizing Trump and evangelicals. Mr. S suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Also, he loathes evangelicals as much as he loathes Trump — perhaps, even more.  Some of my comments in brackets provide additional context for my response.

The Letter

Mr. S’s letter displays more prejudice toward evangelicals than evangelicals show toward brown people. Moreover, his letter speaks of love, yet it shows more hatred toward evangelicals and Trump than either shows toward brown people and foreigners.

If Trump ceases being a Zionist, he will lose the support of most evangelicals. Supporting Israel and Zionism is of the utmost importance to them. [Mr. S is convinced that both Trump and evangelicals hate brown people, and the primary reason that evangelicals support Trump is because he hates brown people. Much of his lengthy letter is filled with derogatory remarks about evangelicals.]

Unlike the justice that Biden appointed to the Supreme Court, who does not know the difference between a man and a woman, at least Trump’s appointments do. [Mr. S faults Trump’s Supreme Court appointments.]

Moreover, Obama and Biden were much more fascistic than Trump has been. [Like all good Democrats and left-wingers, Mr. S declares Trump to be a fascist. I would be surprised if he really knew what a fascist is.]

If Trump is trying to eliminate political opposition, he is just following Biden and other Democratic leaders. They came close to succeeding. By calling for the arrest of Democrats, Trump is just following Biden and the Democrats. They arrested and tried Trump and imprisoned many of his supporters. Moreover, Biden and the Democrats crushed the freedom of speech of their opposition.

All these Democrats yapping about Trump deporting illegals never remonstrated when Clinton and Obama were deporting illegals. Apparently, they do not object to deporting illegals; they only object to who is doing it.

When it comes to following the Constitution, Trump is in good company. No president since Coolidge has even attempted to follow the Constitution. Based on their actions, most have less understanding of the Constitution than the typical kindergartner. [Mr. S criticizes Trump for failing to follow the Constitution; however, I have never seen him criticize a Democrat for failing to follow it.]

All the Constitutional safeguards that Mr. S refers to ceased to exist with the Lincoln administration. As for the rule of law, it means no resistance to the Democratic Party's agenda under Obama, Biden, and whoever is the next Democratic president. The rule of law is whatever their arbitrary whim dictates. [Mr. S accuses Trump of abandoning the rule of law.]

In short, almost everything that Trump has done since he has been in office, Democrats have done before.

Nearly all of the founding fathers despised democracy and believed that it was one of the worst forms of government. H.L. Mencken wrote, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

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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The Constitution of 1788 Was Only for White People

The Constitution of 1788 Was Only for White People

Thomas Allen

In “National Constitutionalism: An Originalist and Structuralist Analysis of Border Policy, Immigration and Naturalization Law, and the Fourteenth Amendment,” Preston Terry Damsky argues that the US Constitution that was ratified in 1788 was written for Whites and only for Whites. To support his argument, he uses quotations from the proponents of the Constitution. Some of these quotations follow.

Damsky writes, “Crucially, national constitutionalism rests in large part upon an originalist analysis of the meaning of the phrase ‘the People.’ The theory posits that although the People were an identifiable entity capable of political action prior to the ratification of the Constitution, the ratification process itself — and the political advocacy which propelled ratification forward — produced the controlling definition of the People for the purposes of constitutional interpretation.” Then, he proceeds to quote proponents of ratification of the Constitution.

In The Federalist No. 2, John Jay writes that the Americans are “a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.” Also, in The Federalist No. 2, Jay writes, “To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people . . . As a nation we have made peace and war; as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies; as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign states.”

In The Federalist No. 14, James Madison writes that “the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies.” Additionally, he urges Americans to “[h]earken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that [Americans], knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; . . . [and] can no longer be fellow citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire.”

The authors of The Federalist spoke with admiration about the people possessing an exclusive ancestral identity that should be jealously guarded. Thus, Americans were one race, the White race. (Blacks and Indians were not true Americans in the sense that the founders used the word.) Moreover, they believed as Alexander Hamilton wrote, “[H]uman nature . . . that its affections are commonly weak in proportion to the distance or diffusiveness of the object;” (The Federalist No. 17.), and thus, “a man is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large.” (The Federalist No. 2.)

Another supporter of the Constitution, John Dickinson, remarked, “[T]he people were so drawn together by religion, blood, language, manners and customs, undisturbed by former feuds or prejudices.”

Damsky writes, “In the debate over the slave trade during the constitutional convention of 1787, Roger Sherman opposed the introduction of African slaves into the United States on the grounds that Black slaves ‘prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country.’”

In the 1821 congressional debate on the Missouri compromise, Charles Pinckney, who wrote the Privileges and Immunities clause of the US Constitution, stated that “at the time I drew that constitution, I perfectly knew that there did not then exist such a thing in the Union as a black or colored citizen, nor could I then have conceived it possible such a thing could ever have existed in it; nor . . . do I now believe one does exist in it. . . .” Then, he explained “that belonging to the White race was an enduring prerequisite for becoming an American citizen.”

Although he supported abolition, Thomas Jefferson “believed that Blacks could not be made citizens due to the risk of interracial conflict and miscegenation.” Further, he dreamed that the United States would “cover the whole Northern, if not the Southern continent with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar forms, & by similar laws.” Additionally, he could not “contemplate, with satisfaction, either blot or mixture on that surface.”

Thus, the authors of The Federalist and other supporters of the Constitution were clear that the Constitution was written for one people, i.e., one nationality, i.e., one race. That intent is expressed in the Preamble. When the drafters wrote in the Preamble “‘ourselves and our Posterity’ (with ‘ourselves’ plainly being synonymous with ‘the People’ and ‘our Posterity’ being the posterity of ‘the People’), they conceived of the Constitution applying only to their race, the White race. To them, preserving as a racial matter, a common ancestry and the blood of the People was of great importance. Consequently, the Constitution was drafted and ratified by and for Whites and only for Whites. (Also, see “For Whom Is the Constitution Written?” by Thomas Allen.)

The great importance that the founding fathers placed on race is shown in the Naturalization Act of 1790 and the immigration law of 1803. They placed great importance on Americans sharing a common ancestral heritage, i.e., a common race.  Furthermore, they desired that Americans continue to share that common heritage. 

The first naturalization act passed by Congress enshrined this goal. The Naturalization Act of 1790, which the first Congress passed, limited naturalization to “any alien, being a free white person, who . . . is a person of good character” upon their “taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the constitution of the United States.” It was well understood by the members of the Constitutional Convention that a “uniform Rule of Naturalization” would be tied to race. “Thus, the 1790 Naturalization Act ‘discouraged the immigration of non-White people from other countries by creating legal barriers to their economic and political participation.’”

Similarly, the first permanent federal regulation of immigration, which passed in 1803, punished the importation of “any . . . person of colour . . . into any port or place of the United States, which port or place shall be situated in any state which by law has prohibited or shall prohibit the admission or importation of such . . . person of colour.”

Regardless of their support for slavery, most of the founding fathers “unambiguously conceived of the United States as a White country.” Thus, the views of the leaders of the founding generation can safely be assumed to reflect the views of their constituents. Consequently, the original meaning and original intent of “the People” and “posterity” refer to Whites and only to Whites.

Damsky shows that “The People” is synonymous with “nation.” A “nation” or “nationality” is a people who have a common genetic ancestry (of the same biological race [species]), culture, language, and history; who have common traditions and customs; and who are capable of forming or constituting an independent country or nation-state.

(Damsky seems to imply there was only one “We the People” when the Constitution of 1788 was ratified. If that is what he meant, he errs. Then, there were 13 “We the People.” Each State was a “We the People.” The Fourteenth Amendment, which brought Lincoln’s constitution into effect, consolidated the 37 “We the People” in 1869 into one “We the People.” More egregiously, it transferred the sovereignty of the 37 “We the People” to those who controlled the federal government, which was not and still is not “We the People” in the aggregate. For more on “We the People,” see “Meaning of 'We the People'” by Thomas Allen.)

The Fourteenth Amendment

Furthermore, Damsky reasons that the Fourteenth Amendment is unconstitutional because it is incongruent with fundamental principles of the Constitution that it amended. By changing the Constitution from being monoracial to being multiracial by making Negroes citizens, it fundamentally altered the Constitution. Moreover, it was ratified illegally and unlawfully (see “Addendum to ‘For Whom Is the Constitution Written?’” by Thomas Allen).

Because of the Fourteenth Amendment, the United States were changed from a White country for Whites only to a multiracial country. Moreover, it usurped the sovereignty of the people of each State and gave it to those who controlled the federal government.

(Although Damsky does not discuss it, another aspect of the Fourteenth Amendment that makes it incompatible with the Constitution is that it changed the fundamental principle of citizenship. Before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, people were citizens of the United States by virtue of being citizens of a State. After the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, people were citizens of a State by virtue of being citizens of the United States.)

Furthermore, because it is contrary to the fundamental intent of the Constitution of 1788, the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave Black males the vote, is also unconstitutional. It supports the Fourteenth Amendment in converting the United States from a monoracial White country to a multiracial country.

Thus, these two amendments dismember the Constitution, and are, therefore, incompatible with its existing framework because they seek to achieve a conflicting purpose. Also, Article V authorizes the amendment of the Constitution; it does not authorize fundamentally changing it, as do the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. As noted above, they changed the United States from a White country to a multiracial country. The United States were founded as a race-based country “for the preservation and betterment of White Americans (the People).” This objective is clearly stated in the Preamble and revealed by the country’s history. Therefore, it is difficult to see how the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments “do not amount to unconstitutional, revolutionary usurpations by the constituted government power.”

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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