False States’ Rights

False States’ Rights

Thomas Allen

During the Clinton and Obama administrations, left-wingers wanted State officials to enforce federal anti-gun laws — even using force if necessary to coerce the States to enforce federal laws when bribery (federal grants) and extortion (withholding federal grants) failed. On the other hand, right-wingers strongly objected to States enforcing federal gun-control laws and claimed that States were not obliged to enforce federal laws. The Supreme Court agreed with the right-wingers.

Now, the left-wingers and right-wingers have switched positions. Under the Trump administration, right-wingers want State and, by extension, local officials to enforce federal immigration laws or at least be required to aid federal officials in enforcing federal immigration laws. They approve of the federal government using bribery or extortion to reward or punish States for enforcing and aiding in the enforcement of federal laws. Left-wingers object and assert that State and local officials do not have to enforce or aid in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Although both sides give lip service to States’ rights, neither believes in nor supports States’ rights. Both reject the notion that the United States is a federation of independent sovereign republican States. Both support the notion that the United States is a consolidated national empire with the States serving as administrative districts.

If they believed in and supported States’ rights, they would support States refusing to enforce federal laws, regardless of the law. Moreover, they would object to coercing States to enforce federal laws, even with bribery or extortion. (Extortion, i.e., withholding federal grants if a State fails to enforce a federal law, is a favorite weapon to compel a State to enforce a federal law.) 

Moreover, if they believed in States’ rights, they would support the right of “we the people” of each State to declare through their legislature or special convention, whether a federal law is constitutional. If a State (“we the people”) finds that a federal law is unconstitutional, it could and should nullify that law and make it unenforceable in that State and even jail federal agents who tried to enforce the nullified law. (Governors and city and county officials do not have the right to nullify federal laws; however, they may refuse to enforce or aid in the enforcement of federal laws unless a State law requires them to enforce or aid in the enforcement of federal laws.)

People who oppose a State’s right to nullify a federal law that they support oppose States having a republican form of government as guaranteed under the Constitution.[1] (see “Returning Republican Governments to the States” by Thomas Allen). Moreover, they oppose sovereignty residing in “we the people” of each State. Consequently, they support sovereignty residing in the oligarchs who control the federal government.

Endnote

1.  As explained in “Returning Republican Governments to the States,” 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.

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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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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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 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.

Three Facts About the South

Three Facts About the South

Thomas Allen

Discussed below are the States’ right of secession, music, and the South was right.

States’ Right of Secession

Nowhere does the Constitution deny a State the right to secede. Secession is not expressly stated in the Constitution because the States reserved that right in the Tenth Amendment. 

Each of the original 13 States had seceded twice when they ratified the Constitution of 1787. First, they had seceded from Great Britain, and then they seceded from the Union formed by the Articles of Confederation. That the States would deny themselves the right to secede from the Union formed by the Constitution of 1787 is absurd — especially since the Constitution did not expressly deny them this right. Even New York and Virginia declared in their ratification that they retained the right to secede. Further, the New England States claimed that they had the right to secede. Moreover, the Declaration of Independence asserted that the States (the colonies) had the right to secede. Thus, the Southern States had the right to secede in 1861.

Besides, when the States drafted the Constitution of 1787 and joined the federation created by that Constitution, they retained their sovereignty. (Because the States were republics and the Constitution guaranteed each State a republican form of government, the States could not surrender their sovereignty and still remain republics. [See “Returning Republican Governments to the States” by Thomas Allen.]) Sovereigns have the power to secede from any union or federation to which they have acceded.

When the Southern States seceded, they were merely exercising their right as sovereigns to leave the Union peacefully as the States did from the Union created by the Articles of Confederation. The Tenth Amendment guaranteed the right of secession.

For a more detailed discussion of a State’s right to secede, see Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States: Its Causes, Character, Conduct, and Results, volume 1, by Alexander H. Stephens, 1868.

Music

How long will it be before American music is outlawed? Why should American music be outlawed? Because, with rare exception, all neoconservatives, establishment conservatives, liberals, progressives, and libertarians are Dixiephobes. They loathe the South and Southerners. Therefore, they disdain everything Southern.

What does this have to do with music? All significant genres or styles of American music of any significance originated in the South. Thus, American music is the product of slavocracy, Jim Crow, White supremacy, and their descendants. Rock ‘n roll, jazz (including ragtime, boogie-woogie, Dixieland, and swing), blues, country, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, soul, funk, Tejano, Cajun, zydeco, gospel, spiritual, sacred harp, barbershop, and more are Southern. All of them came out of the South.

Because of their hatred of the South, neoconservatives, establishment conservatives, liberals, progressives, and libertarians seek to destroy everything that is Southern. Consequently, American music, which is really Southern music, must be destroyed. They have to destroy Southern music before it completely contaminates the virtues of Yankeedom.

(Reference: Daniel, Tom. “Academy of Southern Music.” Abbeville Institute: The Abbeville Blog, June 1, 2021. https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/bthe log/academy-of-southern-music/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=d073b88d-f677-448c-9c41-191b5e0c631f accessed June 2, 2021.)

The South Was Right

In “The Power of the Powerless” (November 4, 2020), James Rutledge Roesch provides an excellent description of the Puritan Yankee mentality that wars against the South, which proves that the South was right (https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/the-power-of-the-powerless/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c24f9d1b-a791-4b69-be6a-ca8b5d96ed4b):

In the meantime, however, we can take some bittersweet solace in the fact that despite the sadistic iconoclasm against the symbols of the American South, the polarisation/radicalisation of American politics, the dysfunction of the American system of government, the corruption of the American party system, the degeneracy of American culture, and the disintegration of American society represents the ultimate vindication of the Southern critique of American millenarianism (i.e. “The City Upon A Hill” and “The Last, Best Hope for Mankind”), American gnosticism (i.e. “The More Perfect Union” and “The Indissoluble Union”), American teleocracy (i.e. “The Proposition Nation” and “The Redeemer Nation”), American hubris (i.e. “The Exceptional Nation” and “The Indispensable Nation”), and other Hebraic-Puritan “isms” and “ologies” from the Left and the Right to which our compatriots up north have proven so susceptible throughout our country’s very young life.

Copyright © 2025 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Calhoun and States’ Rights

Calhoun and States’ Rights

Thomas Allen

In Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government 1776-1865 (McClellanville, South Carolina: Abbeville Institute Press, 2021), Luigi Marco Bassani discusses John C. Calhoun’s concept of States’ rights. The following summarizes that discussion.

Calhoun used “State” to designate the people of a State and not its government, which the people (body politic of that State) created. Each State was a self-governing political community, and the people of each State were the sovereign authority — not their government. Concurrent majority and the concept that the Constitution was an agreement between the States were the core features of Calhoun’s political thoughts. Thus, he objected to the notion that a simple numerical majority should decide all political issues.

According to Calhoun, sovereignty belonged either to the States or to the Union. Because sovereignty was indivisible, it could not belong to both. He argued that sovereignty resided in the people of the individual States and not in the people of the Union as a whole.

Calhoun asserted that the Supremacy Clause invested no power in the federal government. It clearly did not establish the supremacy of the federal government. Further, he maintained that the authority of the federal government set up by the Constitution was limited to the delegated powers and that laws enacted pursuant to these delegated powers were supreme. However, the Supremacy Clause did not extend beyond these delegated powers, i.e., the supremacy of the federal government is not absolute. The States and the people of the States retained all authority not expressly delegated to the federal government.

Conflict, according to Calhoun, did not originate in society. Governmental action caused conflict by creating two opposite social classes: taxpayers and tax consumers. Moreover, suffrage led to conflict between the different interests in a community because each interest strove to obtain the power to protect itself from the others and to advance its own agenda. However, conflicting interests did not lead to a government. Politics was what caused the conflict between various interests.

Calhoun thought equalizing the fiscal appropriations of a government was impossible. Taxation and public expenditures caused two conflicting interests. While those who controlled the government benefitted from the taxes, those who did not control the government paid more in taxes than they received back in disbursements. Consequently, political power, government, is the cause of conflict in society.

For many years, Calhoun sought in the Constitution the defense against the federal government’s intrusions. He based his arguments on the individual States being contracting parties to and, therefore, the real principals of the Constitution.

The Constitution centered around the States. This centralness appeared in how Representatives and Senators were chosen. The people of the several States chose members of the House of Representatives. The legislatures of the States elected senators. (Now, the people of each State elect that State’s Senators via the seventeenth amendment.) Representatives and Senators must be inhabitants of the State from which they are elected. Moreover, Representatives were never considered a delegate of a part of the American people.

Calhoun noted that States were the source of the federal government’s political powers. Political power flowed from the States to the federal government and never vice-versa. The Constitution gave certain powers to the federal government and prohibited others. However, it never gave any powers to the States; it only prohibited certain powers. All powers that the States did not expressly delegate to the federal government, they reserved for themselves, i.e., the States retained all powers not expressly delegated. Thus, the Constitution established a federal government with highly limited powers.

For Calhoun, the States were the sole actors in the Union. Unlike Jefferson, who favored a federal-type relationship between centers of government within a State, Calhoun did not. He favored a simple administrative relationship between the State government and local authorities. However, he believed that the United States were an authentic federation.

Calhoun objected to governmental interference in the economic pursuits of individuals, who understood their own interests better than any government. Accordingly, he supported free trade and, therefore, low tariffs. Fervently, he objected to protective tariffs and the South paying disproportionately a much larger share of federal revenue than the North paid. Consequently, the North was exploiting southern producers and consumers for the benefit of the northern manufacturing industry. This redistribution of wealth was not limited to the South. It also was used against northern workers and would result in a class struggle — all courtesy of the federal government.

Furthermore, Calhoun recognized that the centralization and concentration of power in the federal government were being used for northern interest and were causing corruption that threatened the freedom of the country. Interposition by the States was the solution to this centralization of power. However, States could not interpose their authority to interfere with the powers that the Constitution expressly delegated to the federal government. Likewise, the federal government could not interfere with the powers that the States had retained for themselves.

Moreover, the Constitution was based on distinguishing between government and sovereignty. Governmental powers resided in the institutions either of the States or the federal government. Sovereignty resided in the people of each State respectively. Three-fourths of the States were the final constitutional authority.

Because the Constitution created the departments of the federal government, sovereignty did not and could not reside in any department of the federal government. Their sole purpose was to execute the provisions of the Constitution. Any act of the federal government that altered the nature of the Constitution or changed any condition of the parties to it was usurpation.

Calhoun believed that the Supreme Court might judge acts of a State whether they violated the constitutional prerogatives of the federal government. However, the Supreme Court should not and could not legitimately judge an act of the federal government whether it violated the constitutional prerogatives of a State. For the Supreme Court to do so placed it above the States that created the Constitution and vested in it the power to alter the powers of the federal government and the States. 

Calhoun recognized that the text of the Constitution could not impose practical restraints on the federal government. Reason and justice could never restrain power: Only power could restrain power. Only the States possessed sufficient power to restrain the federal government. Therefore, each State should have and did have the right to judge for itself if the federal government had violated any of its rights.

Calhoun maintained that the Constitution implicitly allowed secession because it was a contract between sovereign parties. The ratification process proved this conclusion. As distinct political entities independent from each other, the States ratified the Constitution. Moreover, no State was part of the Union under the Constitution until it ratified the Constitution. Furthermore, the Union was a union of sovereign States without a direct link between the federal government and citizens.

Secession had nothing to do with the federal government. It was an act of a State withdrawing from a partnership with the other States. Although secession was extreme, it was not foreign to the constitutional system. However, according to Calhoun, secession did not derive from the contractual nature of the Constitution; it derived from its political nature.

Calhoun rejected the notion of the will of the majority being the will of the people. For him, the “will of the majority” meant a particular interest or coalition of interests that prevailed over others. Like most people of his era, he believed that a government based on a numerical majority was tyrannical by nature. To overcome the tyranny of an absolute numerical majority, he advocated a concurrent majority on all important issues.

For Calhoun, the term “United States” was geographical and not political. However, he conceived of the United States as more than a league of States. Yet, the States should never become a centralized democracy where an absolute majority ruled. Such a rule would result in abandoning constitutional guarantees. Consequently, States should and did have the right to judge as the last resort the limits that the Constitution placed on the federal government. This right should be defended at all costs. Otherwise, the United States would become a dictatorship of the executive branch.

Both Jefferson and Calhoun considered a State to be the people of the State and not the governmental power. However, Jefferson believed that the United States were for a special purpose only while Calhoun believed them to be an assemblage of nations.

For Calhoun, nullification was peaceful in nature and did not damage the prerogatives of the federal government. When a conflict between a State and the other States could not be resolved, the State had to choose either secession or submission. As a political sovereign and partner with the other States in establishing the Union, each State acting individually and independently had the right to secede peacefully.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Jefferson and States’ Rights

Jefferson and States’ Rights

Thomas Allen

In Chaining Down Leviathan: The American Dream of Self-Government 1776-1865 (McClellanville, South Carolina: Abbeville Institute Press, 2021), Luigi Marco Bassani discusses Thomas Jefferson’s concept of States’ rights. The following summarizes that discussion.

Jefferson used “State” to designate the people of a State and not its government, which the people (body politic of that State) created. He advocated localism over nationalism; localism is more closely tied to liberty than is nationalism. Therefore, local interest should be superior to the national interest. Further, he supported self-government and elected officials being directly responsible and linked closely to the voters. Thus, he endorsed natural rights, limited government, and popular sovereignty.

Moreover, the government should be restricted to protecting life, liberty, and property and have a laissez-faire approach in economic matters. Consequently, he opposed the concentration and consolidation of power in a single center and, therefore, fervently opposed a strong federal government that decided the limits of its power.

States’ rights were the best and surest way to prevent the consolidation of power in the federal government. After all, the States had created the federal government as their agent to manage their common affairs, such as foreign relations. They did not create it to rule over them and to manage their internal affairs.

For Jefferson, tyranny rose from the concentration of power. States’ rights were the mechanism by which such tyranny could be prevented. Only by strictly construing the Constitution could the States be saved from being subservient to the federal government. Only when a State acting individually and independently could decide if a federal act exceeded the authority delegated to the federal government and could nullify such unconstitutional act within its territorial limits would the liberties and rights of the people be protected.

Jefferson favored a constitution that united the States concerning foreign affairs but kept the States separate and distinct in domestic concerns. Thus, the States were independent in everything within themselves but were united in everything respecting foreign countries. However, he opposed becoming entangled with other countries; therefore, he favored allowing merchants the freedom to manage their trade with foreign countries.

The Kentucky Resolutions, which Jefferson wrote, expressed the core of his concept of federalism, States’ rights, and constitutional doctrine. According to the Kentucky Resolutions, each State had the right to nullify within its own territory any federal act that if found exceeding the powers delegated to the federal government without the need of other States joining it. Thus, the Kentucky Resolutions expounded the political and judicial philosophy of Jefferson’s States’ rights.

Jefferson believed that the States were much better defenders of individual liberties than were federal courts. Consequently, he replaced the doctrine of natural rights as expounded by federal courts with the doctrine of States’ rights, which were more powerful and effective at protecting the liberties of individuals. Therefore, the States should be responsible for guarding the constitutional balance against the consolidation of power in the federal government.

As sovereign powers, the States entered into a compact to create a federal government as their agent, subordinate to the States, to carry out well-defined, limited functions. Since the States were sovereign parties that entered into the constitutional compact, the federal government, their agent, had no authority to expand its power without the agreement of the contracting parties, the States.

Consequently, Jefferson maintained that each State acting individually and independently could decide if an act of the federal government was contrary to the Constitution. If it found such an act unconstitutional, it could nullify that act within its territory.

Although Jefferson adored the Union, he valued the right of local self-government even more. Thus, he insisted that freedom and self-government could not be subordinated to the Union. Like many people before 1861, he contended that the Union was an experiment in liberty and not an end in itself. Moreover, he thought that local self-government and not the Union was the guarantor of the safety and happiness of the people.

Also, Jefferson objected to the notion that the Constitution gave the federal government implied powers as Alexander Hamilton had argued. Furthermore, the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution did not give the federal government absolute supremacy over the States. Not all federal laws are the supreme law of the land. Only those laws enacted pursuant to one of the delegated powers are supreme. Otherwise, State laws are supreme.

To Jefferson, the Union was a true federation with the federal government having a few delegated functions and powers as set out in the Constitution. Only with the consent of the States through the amendment process could it expand its power. He considered federalism as an end in itself with self-governing States being supreme over the federal government. Moreover, he rejected the notion that the Bill of Rights applied to the States and asserted that it only applied to the federal government.

Jefferson also rejected the notion that a federal common law existed. Each State had its own common law system that applied solely within its borders. However, no American common law existed.

He feared that if the federal legal system incorporate common law, Congress could expand its power by revising and integrating the principles of common law. If this were to happen, constitutional limitations on the federal government would vanish. Congress could legislate in all cases whatsoever. If common law were to limit federal legislative activity, then the judiciary would acquire legislative power. If common law became a body of law, the Constitution would cease limiting the powers of the federal government. In any event, the incorporation of American common law into the federal legal system would be disastrous for the liberties of the people and States’ rights. The Constitution and federal common law could not coexist in the American system of government.

Jefferson rejected the notion of the Supreme Court, which was part of the federal government, being the final arbitrator between a State and the federal government. If the Supreme Court were the final arbitrator, then Congress and the President, which were also part of the federal government, were being adjudicated by another part of the federal government, the Supreme Court, and not by the Constitution. If the federal government could force the States to comply with all federal laws whatsoever, whether according to the Constitution or in flagrant violation of it, then federalism would cease to exist except in name only. Consequently, the States were and ought to be the final judges of the constitutionality of federal acts. (Being part of the federal government, federal courts has no incentive to prevent the consolidation of power in the federal government. History has shown that not only do federal courts place little constraint against such consolidation, but they have often led in such consolation.)

Thus, Jefferson maintained that the authority of the Supreme Court to decide in the last resort did not extend to the rights of the States, which were parties to the constitutional compact. The States gave federal judges their delegated trusts. As original parties to the constitutional compact, each individual State was the ultimate judge of whether an act of the federal government was compatible with the Constitution. As a creation of the Constitution, the Supreme Court could not be the ultimate judge.

Since the defeat of the Confederacy, the federal government has been suppressing States’ rights and has almost extinguished them. As a result, liberty has faded and the tyranny that Jefferson feared has happened.

Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Returning Republican Governments to the States

Returning Republican Governments

to the States

Thomas Allen

Article IV, Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Thus, the Constitution guarantees that each State has 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. Consequently, when the federal government usurps any power that the States reserved for themselves, it usurps their sovereignty. Doing so, the federal government becomes a tyrant.

An attribute of a sovereign is that a sovereign is the final judge of whether any agreement that it has freely entered has been violated. The agreement may be called a treaty, compact, constitution, or anything else — the name of the agreement is irrelevant. 

As free and independent sovereigns, each State freely entered into the Constitution. When the sovereign States entered into the Constitution, they did not surrender their sovereignty. They merely delegated some powers to their agent, the federal government.

As a sovereign, who with the other States that created the Constitution, a State has the right to decide independently and for itself whether its agent, the federal government, has exceeded its constitutionally delegated powers. Therefore, a State has the constitutional right to nullify any federal law or act that it finds violating the Constitution. However, its decision does not bind the other States. Consequently, the nullified federal law or act would not apply in the State that has nullified it, but it remains effective in the other States. 

Moreover, since each State is the final judge of the Constitution, a State is the final judge of the constitutionality of any federal court ruling including a ruling by the Supreme Court. Accordingly, a State ought to nullify any federal court decision that goes beyond the court’s constitutional jurisdictional bounds as each State individually determines. Thus, they alone, acting in their individual capacities, should determine the extent of the jurisdiction that they have given the federal courts to bind them in any particular case.

The States did not delegate to the federal government the authority to decide the extent of its power. They retained that authority for themselves acting individually. Furthermore, since the sovereign States created the Constitution and, by that, the federal government, they alone, acting in their individual capacities, determine the nature and extent of the Constitution.

Being an agent of the sovereign States that created it, the federal government cannot legally or lawfully claim anything for itself or on its own account. To do so is tyranny.

However, with his war, Lincoln usurped and stole the sovereignty of the States. The time has come for the States to reclaim their stolen sovereignty and force the federal government back into its constitutional bounds.

(Being part of the federal government, the Supreme Court is not suited to be the final judge in a dispute between the federal government and a State. Naturally, the Supreme Court is biased toward the federal government of which it is part and against its creator the States. [Historically, the Supreme Court has vigorously transferred power from the States to the federal government while feebly protecting the States from federal usurpation.] The more power that the Supreme Court can take from the States, the more powerful it becomes. Therefore, the creators, the States, individually should be and must be the final judge in any disagreement with their creation, the federal government. Only, then will the States be able to regain and retain their sovereignty.)

How can the States and the people thereof, the bodies politic, regain their sovereignty and their liberty? First, the States have to reject all grants from the federal government. This rejection of federal grants must include grants to local governments and State universities. As long as the States remain financially dependent on the federal government, they will never have the courage to seriously object to the unconstitutional activities of the federal government. (Federal grants have been used to bribe the States in supporting all sorts of unconstitutional federal acts.) After rejecting federal grants, the States can refuse to cooperate with the federal government in activities that exceed the delegated powers under the Constitution — as determined by each State individually. Thus, the States would force the federal government to enforce its unconstitutional laws directly instead of through the States. Additionally, the States need to interpose and strongly resist all acts of the federal government that restrain commerce, that impinge on the liberties of their people, that destroy the traditions, culture, and inheritance of their people, and that exceed its constitutional authority.

Only when the States, the bodies politic thereof, take back their stolen sovereignty will the people be truly free. Only then will they be governed by a republican form of government instead of by the tyrannical, despotic federal government that now governs them.

Appendix. State Government

The sovereignty of a republican State lies in the body politic of that State; that is, it lies within that part of the people of that State who wield or possess political power. The body politic grants the government of its State the authority to exercise a part of its sovereignty. Yet, it does not lose any of its sovereignty and can redraw whatever it has granted its government. Whatever power a State government exercises, it is still the power of the body politic that created it.

A major distinction between a State constitution and the US Constitution is that in a State constitution, every power is granted to its government but those powers denied it. In the US Constitution, every power is denied that is not specifically granted.

Reference

Upshur, Abel P. A Brief Enquiry into the True Nature and Character of Our Federal Government; Being a Review of Judge Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. 1840: reprint. Philadelphia: John Campbell, Publisher, 1863.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Neoconservatives

Neoconservatives

Thomas Allen

Neoconservatism grew out of Jewish conservatism but primarily out of Jewish liberalism and anticommunism (mainly Jewish anticommunism). What follows is a description of the typical neoconservative. The typical neoconservative:

– is an egalitarian, a statist, and a rationalist;

– inclines toward pragmatism;

– is forever future-oriented;

– is a social justice conservative and compassionate conservative;

– promotes equality and antiracism;

– is an anticommunist, but does not oppose the Communist organized and controlled civil rights movement;

– despises Russians, who are second only to Southerners as the cause of America’s problems;

– is an ardent Zionist, who promotes an Israel-first foreign policy for the Middle East;

– opposes any country that presents a threat to the American and especially Israeli imperialism — even too wanting to attack militarily such a country — although he cannot conceive of the United States or Israel as imperialistic;

– although he condemns segregation and discrimination, supports Israel’s segregation of and discrimination against Palestinians, who deserve no rights;

— often acts as though most Americans, especially Blacks, who discriminate against Jews are antisemitic;

– is convinced that Jews can do no wrong and do not control anything, especially the presstitute media, Hollywood, medicine, banking, and finances, even though the CEOs and other high ranking corporate officials are often Jews, and vehemently condemns anyone who claims otherwise as an antisemite (if a perpetrator or corporate official is a Jew, his Jewishness is ignored or concealed);

– believes or claims to believe the official governmental conspiracy theory of 9-11;

– most likely, admires, reveres, and supports the American Empire that the Yankees built although he probably rejects the notion that it is an empire;

– favors power politics and prefers war to peace;

– believes that America was built on the proposition that all men are created equal instead of being built on race and consanguinity, and unlike other nations is not a genetic nation;

– believes in political equality (democracy — except Palestinians should not be allowed to vote in Israel) and social equality (integration, amalgamation, miscegenation), but opposes economic equality (socialism);

– adheres to the notion that the United States is (their verb, instead of “are,” the correct verb) a propositional (creedal) country dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal” and it has been foreordained by God to force this concept on the rest of the world, that is, America is an exceptional nation that is divinely destined to impose equality and democracy on the rest of the world (except the Palestinians);

– claims that equality is universal and the premier God-given unalienable right of all humanity;

– asserts that patriotism is an affirmation that the principle of equality is the core of America’s founding and that race and ethnicity, which historically has defined  patriotism, are irrelevant;

– considers traditional patriotism of loyalty to one’s country (territory), race, people (ethnicity), family, and traditions as evil and a vice and not a virtue; thus, defining patriotism as loyalty to the abstract doctrine of American exceptionalism, America’s form of government (liberal democracy), and equality of natural rights;

– places universalism, i.e., giving equal consideration to all people whom an action may affect (although unreconstructed Southerners and Palestinians seem to be exceptions) above patriotism;

– opposes a foreign policy based on isolationism, liberal internationalism (multinationalism), or realism (interest in terms of power);

– seeks to destroy the Soviet Union (now replaced by a desire to destroy Russia);

– believes in the Puritan idea that the United States is the “City upon a Hill” and, therefore, is destined to bring universal peace and harmony to the world by establishing a benevolent global hegemony (all this is accomplished when everyone in the world becomes the image of the Puritan Yankee);

– favors the government intervening to promote unalienable natural rights (described below) domestically and internationally — even using force when necessary to impose them;

– like the Yankee and Progressive, is inclined toward utopian ideals;

– prefers homogeneity to plurality;

– like the liberal, favors a designed order over a spontaneously evolved order;

– prefers the motto of the French Revolution, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” to the motto of the American Revolution, “Life, Liberty, and Property (Pursuit of Happiness)”;

– construes morality as abstract universal principles that are self-evident and existed before and independently of all traditions; thus, believes in universal moral truths that depend on reason and not on tradition;

– favors family values and is disturbed by rising illegitimacy, single parenthood, divorce, and crime and opposes homosexual activity and marriages although beginning to accept the homosexual and queer agenda;

– prefers to discourage abortion rather than its elimination;

– disdains the counterculture, cancel culture, and political correctness;

– believes that the government should encourage religion and opposes a strict separation between church and state;

– adheres to the universal principle of natural rights (describe in next section) and opposes the notions of positive rights (governmentally granted rights) and historical and traditional rights of the nation;

– believes in the natural rights of men, which are unalienable rights endowed by God and are independent of culture and transcend time and place (existed before and independent of any culture or civilization) and are self-evident truths discovered by reflection and reason and can be expressed as principles of abstract ideas (in reality, natural rights are based on personal preferences or sentience of the speaker), and rejects the notion that liberty varies with time and circumstances and that conventions and traditions determine rights;

– despises most customs and traditions and subordinates particulars and traditions to the universality of abstract principles, values, and ideas;

– believes that the Union predated the States and the Union created the States instead of the States creating the Union;

– considers the United States to be one undivided independent country instead of a federation of sovereign States and that it was founded as one undivided independent country instead of a federation of sovereign States;

– ostensibly advocates interpreting the US Constitution the way that the drafters and ratifiers intended it to be understood (original intent) while praising and supporting the Racial Republicans’ radical transformation of it (the living document theory);

– generally, supports a powerful central government (unless it promotes something with which he disagrees) and opposes of States’ rights (unless a State opposes a federal action with which he disagrees), yet is often skeptical of governmental solutions to problems;

– favors Lincoln’s understanding of government (the Hobbesian concept of man as a solitary being) to Jefferson’s understanding of government (the Aristotlean concept of man as a communal being); 

– supports nationalism and opposes sectionalism, federalism, and localism;

– prefers the concentration and centralization of political power to decentralization and dispersal of political power;

– prefers the commercial-financial empire that Lincoln and the Republicans created to the union of sovereign States that the founding fathers created;

– although opposing socialism, seldom objects to the Yankee’s version of fascism, a.k.a. business-government partnership, the military-industrial complex, crony capitalism, corporate welfare, or corporatocracy;

– a proponent of regulated capitalism but not overly regulated;

– condemns Progressivism while advocating most of its social positions and many of its political positions;

– approves of most of the social welfare programs of the welfare state, such as social security, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and family assistance, but wants to reform them to make them more economical and humane (less dehumanization); however, opposes the redistribution of income;

– supports bureaucrats overriding the market (private business decisions) for social purposes, such as the promotion of Black privileges, yet opposes affirmative action and quotas; 

– is racial nihilists and practitioner of the new morality and, therefore, does not oppose the destruction of the races through amalgamation and miscegenation; thus, has little concern about breeding the American Negro out of existence;

– despises racial segregation and separation by any race even if it is voluntary and even if Blacks are advocating racial segregation and separation;

– promotes inclusiveness, especially racial inclusiveness, but his inclusiveness does not include Southerners (especially unreconstructed Southerners), antisemites (anyone who is not a Zionist or believes that Palestinians should have a say in what happens to them), racial supremacists (especially White supremacists), racial preservationists (especially White preservationists), anyone who is labeled “racist,” most Moslems, isolationists, and principled conservatives (or traditional American conservatives, which includes Jeffersonian-Calhounians, paleoconservatives, traditional Southern conservatives, and Old Right);

– panders to Blacks as a racial group, but never openly appeals to Whites;

– claims that Martin Luther King is an archconservative, perhaps the greatest conservative ever, and a racial nihilist although King was a racial supremacist (a Negro supremacists) and a practitioner of the old morality;

– conceives Lincoln to be the greatest or second greatest president and praises him for saving the Union (although he changed the Union from one of consent as established in 1787 to one of coercion and converted that union into an empire) and, more important, freeing the slaves, which he claims was the primary reason for Lincoln’s War;

– although highly praising Jefferson, rejects nearly everything that Jefferson supported and accepts nearly everything that Jefferson opposed;

– is most likely a Republican;

– seeks to salvage and enhance the reputation of the Republican Party by declaring it to be the party of civil rights and racial equality, the leading opponent of (White) racial supremacy, and the force of everything good in America since its founding in 1854:

– sees the Democratic Party as the party of racists, White supremacists, and Black oppressors and everything evil in America at least since the beginning of Andrew Jackson’s administration; 

– is a Confederaphobe and Dixiephobe;

– treats the Southerner, especially the unreconstructed Southerner, as he treats the Palestinian: like a nonperson and subhuman only worthy of genocide although using euphemisms instead of being so blunt;

– believes that everything coming out of the South is bad except one phrase in the Declaration of Independents: “all men are created equal”;

– blames the South for nearly all of America’s problems;

– prefers the Yankee culture to the Southern culture;

– laments that the failure of Radical Republicans, whom he praises, to reconstruct the Southerner into the image of the Yankee;

In short, the key characteristics of a neoconservative are that he is an anticommunist, an anti-Southerner (especially anti-Confederate), a Zionist, a racial nihilist, and a Republican. Moreover, like the progressive, the neoconservative is rationalist and universalist, and he is a proponent of the natural rights of men. Furthermore, he promotes integration, equality, democracy, and foreign intervention. He reveres and sanctifies Lincoln and King, even defying them, especially King. Also, like the liberal, the neoconservative believes that the Constitution should be understood as Lincoln understood it and not as Jefferson understood it. Perhaps most important, he maintains that the United States are an exceptional country and a proportional nation whose purpose is to spread the American ideals of democracy, equality, and natural rights of men across the planet by force if necessary.

Some neoconservatives may deviate from several of the items on this list. However, most neoconservatives adhere to nearly all, if not all, of these items. Moreover, many neoconservatives often show signs of schizophrenia or other mental disorders.

For the most part, establishment conservatives agree with neoconservatives; the two are often indistinguishable. (Establishment conservatives are conservatives who are not neoconservatives, enlightened conservatives, or principled conservatives; they include Hamiltonian-Lincolnians, big-government conservatives, the typical Republican politicians, and Buckleyites. Enlightened conservatives are the New Conservatives of the 1950s represented by Russell Kirk and who subordinate the individual to society, subordinate freedom to virtue [for them, virtue is freedom] and rights to duty, subordinate reason to undifferentiated tradition to the point of rejecting reasoning, scorns reason and principle, reduces virtue to prudence, and depends heavily on Providence.) Moreover, except for some economic issues, neoconservatives generally agree with liberals and progressives. Thus, distinguishing between neoconservatives and liberals and progressives, especially on social issues, is often difficult.

The following are some neoconservatives: Kenneth Abelman, Elliot Abram, Larry Arnn, Steve Balch, Glenn Beck, Adam Bellow, William Bennett, Peter Berger, Alan Bloom, Max Boot, Eric Briendel, David Brooks, Mona Chares, Lynne  Chenney, Eliot Cohen, Matthew  Continetti, Ann Coulter, Dinesh  D'Souza, John Davisdson, Lucy  Dawidowicz, Midge Decter, Rostow Eugene, Douglas Faith, Don Feder, David Frum, David Gelernter, Nathan Glazer, Erwin Glinkes, Jonah Goldberg, Newt Gringerich, Allen Guelzo, Nikki Haley, Sean Hanity, Victor Hanson, Kay Heimowitz, Mark Helprin, Will Herbert, Gertrude Himmelfarb, John Hood, Sidney Hook, David Horowitz, Irving Howe, Brit Hume, Laura Ingraham, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Jeff Jacoby, Harry Jaffa, Michael Joyce, Robert Kagan, Max Kampelman, Leon R.  Kass, Jack Kemp, Charles Kesler, Jeane Kilpatrick, David Klinghoffer, Allan Kors, Bruce Kovner, Neil Kozodoy, Hilton Kramer, Charles  Krauthammer, Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol, David Lapin, Michael  Ledeen, Max Lerner, Mark Levin,  S.M. Lipset, Seth Lipsky, Herbert London, Frank Luntz, Myron Magnet, Joshua Marvchik, Michael Medered, Adam Meyerson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Joshva Muravchik, Rupert Murdoch, Forrest Nabors, Richard Neuhaus, David Novak, Michael Novak, Robert Nozick, Bill O’Reilly, Dinash O’Souza, Rauesh Pennuru, Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, Nathan Perlmutter, Daniel Pipes, John Podhoretz, Norman Podhoretz, David Prager, Ronald Radosh, Karl Rove, Jennifer Rubin, Rick Santorum, Lisa Schiffern, Wendy Shallir, Ben Shapiro, Leo Strauss, Diana Trilling, Lionel Trilling, Ben Wattenberg, George Weigel, Paul Weyrich, George Will, James Wilson, Albert Wohlstetter, Paul Wolfowitz, and Adam Wolfton.

References

Friedman, Murray. The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Gottfried, Paul Edward. Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007.

Kerwick, Jack. Misguided Guardians: The Conservative Case against Neoconservatives. Las Vegas, Nevada: Stairway Press, 2016.

Personal observations and other articles.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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