Every so often an issue comes along that continues to nag at me until it precipitates some sort of action. The “State Sovereignty Movement” has done that.
As I have observed over the past weeks and months the “State Sovereignty Movement” continues to sweep the nation with very nearly half the fifty states taking action through their respective state legislatures, I have become uneasy that I have not seen, nor heard, of any action emanating from the NC General Assembly.
I did a little research, on the web, and learned that the silence I sensed from Raleigh was just that… silence. So far, North Carolina has not taken up the matter, at least in public.
So, being a good citizen, I decided that I ought to draw the attention of my State Representative and my State Senator to the “State Sovereignty Movement” and, while I was at it, the Governor of the Great State of North Carolina, as well. I patched together a letter and sent it by e-mail to all three. You may read he text of the e-mailed letter HERE.
So far, as of this writing, I have had an acknowledgement of receipt of the e-mailed letter only by the Governor’s office. It is entirely possible, and indeed, probable, that I will only hear about this from my Representative and my Senator the next time we meet. As we all three live in the same very small county it happens.
I mentioned in the letter that nearly half the states had taken, or were expecting to take, some sort of action soon on State Sovereignty. Later, I stumbled across a site that said some 31 states are committed to, or claiming to be, involved (to some degree) in the State Sovereignty Movement. If true, that is heartening.
There is no doubt the states have been relegated to second-class citizenship in the US. That is just WRONG!
I took a look in my crystal ball and, for the life of me, I could see no indication of the effect the sovereignty movement will have on future relations between the states and their “agent”… the federal government. Only time will tell.
However, I must tell you, it does this old southern boy’s heart good to see “State’s Rights” again brought to the fore in the United States.
As with all Americans we “Southerners” get a lot of things wrong. But we have been right on the issue of “State’s Rights” all along. See, southerners had a bit more than just a signature invested in the creation of the Constitution, itself. There was never any doubt, in our minds, about who “the greater” and who “the lesser” was/is in this association of states and federal government. I must tell you, I am more than a little pleased to find the names of several northern and western states, and even northeastern states, included in the list of the names of the states involved in the State Sovereignty Movement.
Washington would do well to take notice, serious notice, of this movement. The Congress and the President may have forgotten, but it is “the boss” filing this complaint. It is very easy to sit in Washington and spend North Carolina’s money, or the money of the folks from Texas or Oklahoma. But, believe me when I tell you that we have been paying attention and we do not like having our state’s treasuries looted by a heavy-handed federal government.
The current Congress would also do well to read up on the “Ordinance of Nullification” passed by my home state of South Carolina in 1828. You can read it for yourself HERE. Suffice it to say State Sovereignty is NOT a NEW issue in this country. It appears we will have to visit it yet again.
The problem with the state “sovereignty” movement, is that it is anything but: i.e. they are not for actual “sovereignty,” but simply *exclusive privilege* in governance, wheresover it should please the ruling elites in Washington– either in the Congress, the President, or the rubber-stamp Supreme Court– to observe the Tenth Amendment.
“Sovereignty,” in contrast, literally and legally means “recognizing no superior,” i.e. it means that the People of the state are that state’s supreme rulers– NOT the federal government, or its electorate. Note that the key term in “federal government,” is “FEDERAL–” i.e. NOT national; however this has been conflated with “national” government, in order to give it supreme authority over the states, where none exists by law.
I’ve examined all the arguments which claim that the states surrendered their sovereignty via the Constitution, and found them to be 100% faulty, if not outright deceptions; Yale Law Prof. Akhil Reed Amar, is one of the foremost proponents, employing circular arguments and unfounded assumptions in order to make this claim. Likewise, the federal government claims that no sovereign nations were conquered by the Civil War, therefore the states must be as sovereign today, as they were before it.
In short, the People (individual citizens) of each state were its original ruling sovereigns; and they never surrendered this sovereignty in any way, shape or form. Therefore this sovereignty is preserved under international law, and the states continue to be individual sovereignties under the rule of their collective Peoples.
The “American People” are not, and never were, sovereign in any way, other than their power to vote in their respective federal elections– which are made BY state, not by individual numbers; this is not sovereignty, since they recognize the superiority of the federal government– i.e. the majority of states, particularly a 3/4 supermajority which can amendment Constitution any way it pleases.
Therefore if the sovereign power is not the Peoples of the individual states, then it must be the ruling elites in government, whether elected or appointed.