Nullification: So Simple a Three Year Old can do it

TenthAmendmentCenter on Jun 12, 2011
What do we do when the Federal Government steps beyond it's Constitutional bounds? Not only is that the subject of this speech from Nullify Now Los Angeles, it's the question Thomas Jefferson and James Madison sought to address when they drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. The ink was barely dry on the Bill of Rights when John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts in law, and began throwing American citizens into jail for publicly and privately expressing unapproved opinions. In response to these first-amendment shredding, unconstitutional Acts, Jefferson and Madison reasoned that Nullification, or Interposition, was the rightful remedy to federal tyranny.


What is Nullification? It's just a fancy way of saying every three-year olds favorite word: "NO!" It's the idea that the several States and the people retained the same power to shrug off federal tyranny that they used to nullify the authority of Great Britain during the American Revolution. It's based on the principle that federal laws which go beyond the narrow and defined limits prescribed in the Constitution are, in fact, no law at all. Whether it's Obamacare, the TSA, or the War on Drugs, we find ourselves facing the same question today. So what do we do about it? We can pin our hopes on the impartiality of federal judges, or take a page out of Jefferson's playbook: We Nullify!