Separation Versus Integration

Separation Versus Integration

Thomas Allen

After reading some of Martin Luther King’s works, I discovered that I, a racist bigot, have a much higher opinion of and more confidence in the American Negro than King did. King believed that Negroes were incapable of raising themselves without altruistic White aid. That is, King believed that Whites were solely responsible for raising Negroes from their unpleasant conditions; Negroes had no responsibility. Whites were to give Negroes everything, and Negroes were to take everything.

Like  Malcolm X and Roy Innis, I believe that Negroes are capable of raising themselves independently of Whites. Unlike King, who was an integrationist, they were separationists. Also, unlike King, who promoted the destruction of Negro culture and even the Negro race, they advocated the preservation and enhancement of Negro culture and the Negro race.

According to King, Negroes were blameless for their condition and, thus, had no responsibility for improving their condition. Whites were solely responsible for improving the conditions of the Negroes. However, under separation, Negroes have the primary responsibility for improving their conditions. Consequently, separation would have taught Negroes responsibility, independence, and self-reliance. It would have freed them from the slave mentality. Ironically, Jim Crow was teaching these lessons to Negroes and freeing them from the slave mentality until the civil rights movement killed Jim Crow. Unfortunately, under integration, most Negroes have failed to learn responsibility, independence, and self-reliance, and thus, the slave mentality continues to possess them.

If the country had followed the separationist road instead of the integrationist road, race relations would be much better than they are today. Now, race relations are so great that they are tearing the country apart.

Under separation, Negroes would know that what they have, they earned by their own efforts. Under integration, Whites have given Negroes much of what they have today. Consequently, Negroes do not know whether they earned what they have or whether they have been given what they have. Knowing that they earned what they have would give them more self-respect and the respect of others.

Moreover, under separation, the country would not have wasted trillions of dollars on the War on Poverty. (According to one study, the United States have spent more money on the War on Poverty than all other wars combined.)

Further, under separation, diversity, inclusion, and equity (equality of outcome and discrimination against Whites) would not have torn the country apart as they are doing today. (Ironically, inclusion destroys diversity. To be preserved, diversity requires segregation and separation. Inclusion requires integration and amalgamation.)

Another result of separation is that the White race would not be filled with self-hatred and the uncontrollable urge to genocide itself. Whites would not have opened the borders to third-world colonists, who are mostly Turanians from Asia and Latin America (Indians and mestizos) and Melanochroi from India, Pakistan, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa. Not only are these colonists destroying Whites, but they are also destroying Negroes.

Under integration, most Whites have become racial nihilists and practice the new morality of sacrificing the White race on the altar of humanity. Under separation, most Whites would have continued to practice the old morality of preserving, protecting, and promoting their race and would have become racial preservationists. 

Under integration, Negroes have become Black supremacists and practice the old morality. However, under separation, Negroes would have become racial preservationists while practicing the old morality.

Life in America under separation would not be a utopia. However, it would not be the dystopia that it has become under integration. Most likely, Negroes would have advanced further under separation than they have under integration. Under separation, their advancement would not have required bringing down the White race as has happened under integration. Moreover, wokeism would never have been born, and queerdom would have remained in the shadows.

Separation would have led to a society similar to that envisioned by Booker T. Washington. The races would be separated socially; little social interaction would occur between them. However, economically, the races would be interconnected; they would interact with each other economically.

Separation accords with God’s law, while integration rebels against God’s law.

Copyright © 2026 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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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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Nullification and Fugitive Slave Laws

Nullification and Fugitive Slave Laws

Thomas Allen

No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. (Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution)

When the States became members of the United States, they agreed to return fugitive slaves. As time passed and the Puritan Yankee abolitionists became highly influential in New England, New York, and the upper Midwest, the Northern States began refusing to aid in the return of runaway slaves. In other words, they began nullifying fugitive slave laws.

After the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, several Northern States effectively nullified it. (Presumably, Illinois and Indiana had no problem with the fugitive slave laws because they prohibited Blacks from entering them.)

Not unexpectedly, South Carolina objected to the nullifications. One reason that South Carolina gave for seceding was that various Northern States had nullified the fugitive slave laws. The reason that South Carolina listed slavery as a reason for its secession was that it was a prime example of the North’s hostility toward it and the North’s refusal to live by the Constitution.

Ironically, when South Carolina seceded, the Northern States no longer had a constitutional obligation to return runaway slaves to South Carolina. Thus, South Carolina’s secession effectively ended the need for the Northern States’ nullification, as far as South Carolina was concerned, because it was now a foreign country.

For South Carolina to secede to preserve slavery was absurd. Despite Northern States nullifying fugitive slave laws, slavery was better protected in the Union than outside it. Regardless of abolitionist rant, Republicans stressed that they had no intentions of abolishing slavery (see “Slavery Not the Reason” by Thomas Allen).

If South Carolina wanted to keep slavery intact, it would not accomplish that goal with secession. When it seceded, the United States ceased having any obligation to return runaway slaves to it.

Nevertheless, New England’s Puritanism, lust for plunder, and hatred of Southerners prevented them from letting South Carolina and the other Southern States leave the union in peace. The Yankee Puritans had seen the righteous, holy light, and they were determined to ram their vision of a sinless world down the throats of the Southern States despite the desiderata of the South. Puritans must free the world of sin so that Jesus can return — postmillennialism. (While the underlying principle of  postmillennialism is that the Holy Spirit becomes stronger, the underlying principle of today’s popular premillennialism is that the Holy Spirit becomes weaker.) Moreover, they would make the South pay for their liberation from sin by stealing as much wealth from the South as possible. (To the abolitionist Puritans, the greatest sin of all was slavery, despite the Bible not condemning slavery, which is why they abandoned the Bible.)

Jefferson, Madison, Calhoun, and most other proponents of nullification taught using it to void unconstitutional federal acts. Although Madison approved of nullifying constitutional federal acts that a State disliked, most of the others did not teach using it to void constitutional acts of the federal government that a State disliked.

According to Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, which is quoted above, the Constitution authorized fugitive slave laws. Moreover, it obligated States to return runaway slaves. Consequently, Northern States nullified fugitive slave laws not because they were unconstitutional, but because they disagreed with them. (Since the Northern States controlled Congress, why did they not repeal the fugitive slave laws or rewrite them to address their concerns?)

Nevertheless, if a State disagrees with a federal law that is constitutional, it has the right not to participate in its enforcement. However, it has no right to actively intervene or interfere with its enforcement, as some Northern States did when they nullified fugitive slave laws. If the law was unconstitutional, which the fugitive slave laws were not, a State has the right to interfere with its enforcement.

If the Puritan Yankee abolitionists found slavery so reprehensible that they would destroy the country and its constitution and cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in the process, they could have bought the slaves and set them free much more cheaply and without destroying the country and its constitution. These abolitionists cared only about Black slaves in the abstract. They did not care for them personally as did their owners.

Reconstruction showed how little Northerners cared about Blacks. They threw the slaves into the free-labor market. Most slaves had few skills beyond farm labor, and most had little training in taking care of themselves. Their masters had provided their housing, food, clothing, tools, medical care, etc., and took care of them in old age and when they were unable to work. After emancipation, they immediately had to learn to do all these things for themselves. Many failed, and many died.

Also, the North could have provided freed slaves with farmland in the territories. Yet, it did not because the territories were reserved for Whites.

Unfortunately, too many Blacks still have not escaped the slave mentality. Through various federal and State welfare and civil rights programs, they depend on governments to take care of them, as they had depended on the master — they have enslaved themselves to governments. Worse, they have enslaved taxpayers to support them.

During the Jim Crow Era, Blacks were making great strides in learning how to care for themselves and to free themselves from a slave mentality. Discrimination and segregation in the North and the South forced them to become independent and rely on themselves. Then came the Civil Rights Era. Consequently, this progress was retarded and thwarted.

Appendix. The Tenth Amendment Center

The Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) is a strong supporter of nullification. However, it goes beyond the teachings of Jefferson and Calhoun. While they wrote that a State has the right to nullify federal acts that it finds unconstitutional, as far as I know, they never promoted the nullification of constitutional acts with which a State disagrees. (When the Northern States nullified fugitive slave laws, they nullified constitutional laws with which they disagreed.) 

However, TAC goes beyond nullifying unconstitutional federal acts. It not only endorses a State nullifying unconstitutional federal acts but also endorses a State nullifying constitutional federal acts that it dislikes — except for Southern States nullifying civil rights acts of the federal government, including those that are unconstitutional, such as school desegregation and integration. (I have not found TAC expressly opposing or condemning the Southern States and communities attempting to nullify federal acts outlawing segregation and forcing integration. However, it does support Communist agents and Communist-front organizations nullifying State and local segregation laws and practices. Consequently, I infer that it opposes States and communities attempting to nullify these federal acts.) Thus, TAC supports Northern States' nullifying fugitive slave laws and opposes South Carolina's objection.

TAC seems to have a low opinion of Calhoun, despite him probably being the most brilliant and original political philosopher that the Western Hemisphere has ever produced, because he supported giving nullification real teeth. Calhoun argued that a State could prevent the enforcement of an unconstitutional federal law within its borders by vetoing it and thus making it unenforceable, as did Vermont’s nullification of the fugitive slave laws, which authorized arresting and penalizing federal officials attempting to enforce the fugitive slave laws. TAC objects to giving nullification teeth — at least in practice. Consequently, TAC rejects a State enforcing its nullification by jailing federal agents who attempt to enforce the nullified act in that State. In its opinion and Madison’s, such nullification allows one State to impose its will on the other States by preventing the enforcement of a nullified act within the nullifying State but not in the other States. Yet, TAC only weakly, if at all, objects to other States imposing their will on the nullifying State. In short, while Calhoun advocates nullification-heavy, TAC and Madison advocate nullification-light.

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Nullification and Interposition – Part 1

Nullification and Interposition – Part 1

Thomas Allen

When people oppose a federal act, most of them support the right of States to interpose and nullify that act. However, they oppose the right of States to interpose and nullify a federal act when they support that act.

Would the people who object to States interposing to thwart the federal government apprehending and deporting illegal aliens have also objected to States interposing to thwart the enforcement of fugitive slave laws? Most would probably support the States interposing and nullifying fugitive slave laws. Yet, the Constitution emphatically requires returning runaway slaves, but it does not expressly require or even authorize the federal government to deport illegal aliens. (See Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution.) Nevertheless, one can argue that deporting illegal immigrants is enforcing the nationalization statutes — but that is for each State to decide for itself.

If they are consistent, people who object to a State interposing to prevent the federal government from enforcing immigration laws that a State finds unconstitutional should also object to a State interposing to prevent the federal government from enforcing gun laws that it finds unconstitutional. Conversely, people who support a State interposing to prevent the federal government from enforcing gun laws that the State finds unconstitutional should also support a State interposing to prevent the federal government from enforcing immigration laws that it finds unconstitutional.

  For example, if the federal government outlawed private ownership of so-called assault rifles, most ardent Second Amendment proponents would support States nullifying that law and oppose the federal government overriding the nullification. However, if a State outlawed private ownership of assault rifles, most of these same proponents would urge the federal government to veto such a State law. If the State nullified the federal government’s veto of the State law, these same proponents would urge the federal government to override that nullification. Thus, only a few people support nullification in principle. Most support nullification if it supports their position and oppose nullification if it opposes their position.

Now, let us look at some definitions. “State” can mean either the government of a State or “we the people” of that State, who created the government of that State and are a community distinct and independent of all other States. “We the People” are not all Americans collectively forming one great community. (See “Meaning of ‘We the People’”  by Thomas Allen.) Sovereign power resides in the people of each State (“we the people”) independent of the people of the other States (“we the people” of each of the other States).

Being sovereign, a State may take three actions against an unconstitutional act of the federal government: nullification, interposition, or veto. Nullification nullifies an unconstitutional act regarding the nullifying State. Interposition is a State shielding its citizens from the federal government. Veto is the arresting or inhibiting an unconstitutional act of the federal government within the bounds of the State.

Nullification is not secession. With nullification, only the nullified federal act is unenforceable; all other federal laws remain enforceable. Confining the agent, the federal government, within the limits of its delegated powers is the objective of nullification. With secession, no federal law remains enforceable in the seceding State because the State is no longer in the union, and, therefore, it is no longer under the jurisdiction of the federal government. It is a foreign nation. Withdrawing as a member of the union relieves the seceding State of the obligations of the association, the union; that is the objective of secession. A seceding State also loses the benefits of the union. Thus, secession returns the seceding State to the relationship that it had with the other States before it joined the union. While a nullifying State remains in the union, a seceding State removes itself from the union. Secession deals with the acts of States that make remaining in the union unbearable. Nullification deals with the acts of the federal government, which is an agent of the States. Whereas secession divides the union, nullification preserves it and the Constitution.

Before the adoption of the Constitution, no State nor all the States could exercise any power over a State without that State’s consent. They were independent nations.

In the Declaration of Independence, the colonies declared themselves to be free and independent States (nations) and not a free and independent State (nation). Furthermore, the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which formally ended the American Revolutionary War, recognized the colonies as 13 independent States (nations). Also, they proposed the Constitution as independent States and ratified it as independent States. The ratifying States bound themselves to the Constitution, but they did not bind any State that had not ratified it.

When a State ratified the Constitution, it bound only its citizens and no other people. Thus, the Founding Fathers’ Constitution formed a union of States and not a union of individuals.

Since the Constitution, which the sovereign States brought into being with ratification, created a general government (the US government, federal government, or general government) as their agent, the created agent has no right to impose its construction of the Constitution on the States or any one of them. Thus, the Constitution of 1787 formed a political community of sovereign States (nations) where each State may determine for its citizens the extent of powers delegated to the federal government and those reserved to the States.

Accordingly, the Constitution of 1789 was a contract between independent sovereign republics, which created an agent, the federal government, to carry out specific and limited activities. Then, Lincoln came along and essentially voided that contract and usurped all the sovereignty and powers of the States, the parties to the contract. (Now, the States have only those powers that the federal government condescends to grant them.)

The Constitutional Convention rejected giving the federal government the power to prevent a State from opposing and preventing (interposing and nullifying) the execution of acts of the federal government. Also, it rejected authorizing the federal government the power to compel a State (its government and “we the people” of that State) to obey federal acts. Furthermore, it rejected giving the Supreme Court jurisdiction over all controversies between the United States and an individual State. Moreover, it rejected giving Congress the power to void State laws that Congress believed interfered with the interests of the union. Thus, the Constitutional Convention endorsed nullification by forbidding the federal government from enforcing its law in a State once that State objected to that law. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize the federal government to exercise any control over a State by force, veto, judicial procedure, or otherwise.

Moreover, a common and radical error that many people make is that the federal government is a national government; it is not. It is a confederate government. It is a misconception to view the federal government as a national government that can enforce its will upon the states in the United States' political system. If it were a national government, it would derive its power from a source higher than the States. However, since it derives its power from the States, i.e., “we the people” of each State, it is subordinate to “we the people” of the States, who are the sovereigns. That is, the federal government derives its power from the sovereigns. 

In its sovereign capacity, a State can decide independently for itself whether an act of the federal government is unconstitutional. If a State finds an act of the federal government unconstitutional, it has the right in its sovereign capacity to declare that unconstitutional act null and void. Moreover, the federal government has no right to enforce its notion of its powers against that of a State — the State’s notion prevails.

Nullification is based on the principle that a State has the right to defend its reserved powers from the encroachment of the federal government. Whether the Constitution has granted a particular power to the federal government, each State, as a sovereign, decides for itself. If a State finds that a particular act of the federal government exceeds its delegated authority, that act is null and void. Its citizens have no obligation to obey it. However, a State’s nullification does not affect citizens of other States.

To deny the States the right of nullification to defend their reserved powers results in the federal government deciding the extent of its powers and leads to the federal government assuming powers that the States reserved for themselves. History has proven this usurpation. In 1787, only the most radical Anti-Federalist could have imagined that the federal government would become as bloated and tyrannical as it is today.

Nullification seeks not to resist or diminish the powers of the union, but to preserve them as they are, without decreasing or increasing them. (Increasing the union’s powers can effectively destroy the union — as Lincoln proved — as diminishing them.)

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Part 2.