Rhode Island’s Nullification

Rhode Island’s Nullification

Thomas Allen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Analysis of When State Resistance Meets the Constitution

Analysis of When State Resistance Meets the Constitution

Thomas Allen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Lincoln’s Curses

Lincoln’s Curses

Thomas Allen

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reference

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

Copyright © 2026 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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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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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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More on the US Constitution

 More on the US Constitution

Thomas Allen

Below discussed are two philosophies of government, two concepts of the States, and the three-fifth clause of the Constitution below.

Two Philosophies of Government

In the United States, two philosophies of government are competing: the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and the philosophy of Abraham Lincoln. Until 1860, Jefferson’s philosophy prevailed. Since 1865, Lincoln’s philosophy has dominated.  Between 1861 and 1865, a war (Lincoln’s War) was fought to decide which of these two philosophies would govern the United States. Lincoln won and Jefferson lost. Today, the vast majority of people follow Lincoln’s philosophy.

Jefferson’s philosophy is based on the Aristotelian philosophy: Man is communal and naturally forms groups in which to live. The purpose of the government is to protect life, liberty, and property. Therefore, the government is the minimum necessary to protect life, liberty, and property.

Lincoln’s philosophy is based on the Hobbesian philosophy: Man is a solitary beast living by the “Law of the Jungle” (the survival of the fittest) instead of being communal. Therefore, man has to be forced into relationships with his fellow man. Further, only force can maintain these relationships. Consequently, the purpose of the government is to apply this force. The government is how civilization and society are maintained. To apply this force requires a powerful government.

Under Jefferson’s philosophy, the United States are a voluntary union of independent bodies politic (a voluntary union of independent States). As independent sovereigns, the States entered into a compact, the United States Constitution. Under the Constitution, the States retain all powers that they did not expressly delegate to the government for the United States (commonly called the federal government) or denied themselves in the Constitution.

Under Lincoln’s philosophy, the United States is (according to Lincoln’s philosophy and “are” according to Jefferson’s philosophy) a union where the people are submissive to an all-powerful government (the federal government). Also, the States are not independent sovereign bodies politic; they are merely equivalent to counties of the federal government. Moreover, the States have only those powers that the federal government condescends to grant or allow them. Further, the States are to do whatever the federal government orders them to do.

Jefferson’s philosophy of government is one of liberty. Lincoln’s philosophy of government is one of oppression.

Two Concepts of the States

In Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics, 1898 (pages 320–328), William Dunning, Ph.D., explains two concepts of the States. They are the older concept, the Jeffersonian concept, and the newer concept, the Lincolnian concept. The Jeffersonian concept generally prevailed before 1861, and the Lincolnian concept has prevailed since 1861.

The Lincolnian concept of the States maintains that the States are not equal: Some States are more equal than others. The original States north of the Potomac River along with a few other States are superior to the other States. All the other States including the Southern States are inferior because the act of Congress that admitted them (or readmitted the Southern States) placed conditions on them that are forever binding. Thus, the act of admission is superior to the Constitution.

Adherents of the Lincolnian concept argue that nothing in the Constitution requires that States be equal. Thus, Congress can impose perpetually binding conditions on a State when admitting that State into the Union. Further, courts are bound by these conditions and cannot overturn them on the grounds that all States are equal. The only equality to which all States are entitled is equal representation in the Senate, a proportional number of members in the House of Representatives, and a republican form of government. “But beyond such clearly defined rights, Congress may determine as it pleases the degree of restriction which it deems best for any particular community” (pp. 325-326).

The Jeffersonian concept maintains that all States are equal. The tenth amendment asserts this equality. Even if Congress were to admit with conditions a territory as a State, those conditions become irrelevant once the territory becomes a State. 

Adherents of the Jeffersonian concept contend that the Constitution overrides the act of admission. “If the power in question is not delegated to the United States by the constitution nor prohibited by it to the states, it rightfully belongs to the state, anything in the act of Congress to the contrary notwithstanding” (p. 327).

Moreover, proponents of the Jefferson concept maintain that Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution only authorizes Congress to admit new States; it does not authorize Congress to create new States. “The creation of the state is antecedent to the admission, and springs from the will of the people inhabiting the territory” (p. 327).

Of the two concepts, the Jeffersonian concept is far more compatible with liberty than the Lincolnian concept. Ultimately, the Lincolnian concept leads to tyranny and despotism. Regrettably, many States have been admitted (or readmitted for the Southern States) following the Lincolnian concept. Thus, the Union consists of two types of States: the superior States and the inferior States. While the inferior States entered (or reentered for the Southern States) with perpetually binding conditions imposed on them, the superior States entered the Union without conditions.

Three-fifth Clause

Section 2, Article 1 of the Constitution for the United States reads:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Thus, slaves are only counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of direct taxation and representation.

Many people seem to believe that the slaveholding Southern States argued that Black slaves should not be counted because they were inferior subhumans. On the other hand, the Northern States, especially the New England States (home of the Yankee at that time), argued that Blacks should be counted as whole persons because they are the White man’s equal. On the contrary, the Southern States wanted to count Black slaves as whole persons. The Northern States did not want to count them as persons. The South and North compromised by counting slaves as three-fifths of a person. 

This disagreement had nothing to do with the inferiority of Blacks or the superiority of Whites; after all, free Blacks were counted as whole persons. Instead, how to count Black slaves concerned political power. If Black slaves were counted as whole persons, the South would have more political power. If Black slaves were counted as nonpersons, the North would have more political power. Even the compromise gave the North more political power.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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