Random Thoughts on States' Rights and Other Topics

This past Saturday, I made a hasty post suggesting that if the Texas Legislature were to pass a personhood law effectively banning all abortions in Texas and if the United States Supreme Court were to eventually strike down such a law that Texas should secede from the United States. I call it a hasty post because I was rushing out the door with my wife and kids to go to my mother's house while composing it. We wound up being an hour late to Mom's house...

Since writing that post, I have been reflecting on the Constitution, the idea of States' rights currently being touted by many in the Tea Party movements, and the role of the federal government in general. I do not make any claims to being any kind of a constitutional expert. I am simply someone who loves the Constitution and the principles upon which my country was founded, and it grieves me greatly to see the direction this nation is now taking. Barack Obama, on the other hand, does claim to be an expert on the Constitution, having been a constitutional law professor, and yet, everything he has done in his public life indicates a disdain for that Constitution. He seems to view it as an obstacle to his plans for the country. In fact, it just seems like the entire study of "constitutional law" is a study in diluting, circumventing, and otherwise undermining what the Constitution actually says. Frankly, I would take one person like me who loves and respects the Constitution over a thousand so-called constitutional experts like Barack Obama.

I mentioned in that previous post the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, written by Thomas Jefferson, and found here: http://www.constitution.org/cons/kent1798.htm. This resolution provides a framework of how Jefferson thought the Constitution should be intepreted. It would also seem to be a starting point for the States to nullify both the Roe v. Wade decision and Obamacare. Resolution One of these Kentucky Resolutions provides quite a bit of food for thought...

1. Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

Before reading the Kentucky Resolutions, I had never given that much thought to the idea that the Constitution was a compact between the States. The federal government did not create the Constitution, but rather, the Constitution created the federal government. What a novel concept! Taking that into account, Jefferson is right when he says, "...the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers." Why is it then that the common perception, even among our elected officials, is that the United States Supreme Court is the "final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself?" Why do so many consider Roe v. Wade the "law of the land," and that it can only be superceded by another Supreme Court decision or a Constitutional amendment?

I thought quite a bit this weekend about this idea that the created (the Federal government) can manipulate and dilute the creator (the Constitution). I drew a parallel between that and today's Christian church. For example, many denominations have softened their stance on the issue of homosexuality. Some of them have even begun admitting openly gay individuals into the clergy. Is not the Bible the Word of God? And does not the Word of God say that homosexuality is an abomination, a perversion (Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-32)? Does the Bible not mean what it says right there in black and white? How is it that the created can attempt to change and/or ignore the decrees of the Creator? Perhaps it is this willful nature of the Christian church today that keeps it from fighting against the wholesale slaughter of millions of preborn children. The church needs to be obedient to God and His decrees in all areas. The pastor of my church, Dr. Tommy Teague said something in a sermon several months ago: "God didn't say something because it was true; something is true because God says it." I don't know if that originated with him, but it has always stuck with me, and it is an attitude that all Christian churches need to take.

The United States Supreme Court was created by the Constitution, but it is now widely regarded as the sole and final interpreter of that Constitution. This was not the intention of the Founding Fathers, and it needs to change. Thomas Jefferson said, in those Kentucky Resolutions, that "as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress." The Constitution is a compact among the States (the aforementioned powers) without a common judge (the United States Supreme Court was a creation of the compact, so it cannot be a common judge), so each State has an equal right to question the constitutionality of anything coming from the federal government, including decisions by the Supreme Court.

Perhaps I should use the Kentucky Resolutions as a model and add the following preamble to the sample Texas Personhood bill I wrote...

Resolved, That children still in the womb are under the jurisdiction and protection of the laws of the State wherein they are: that no power over them has been delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the individual States, distinct from their power over citizens. And it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," the acts of the Supreme Court of the United States, decreed on the 22nd day of January, 1973, intituled Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which assume powers over children in the womb, not delegated by the Constitution, is not law, but is altogether void, and of no force.

Except that, if the federal government actually followed the Constitution, this statement wouldn't be necessary. The protection of the right to life of unborn children should not be left up the States. The Preamble to the Constitution says that the Constitution was established to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." What is our "Posterity?" The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines posterity as: "1 : the offspring of one progenitor to the furthest generation" and "2 : all future generations." It is the ultimate denial of the "Blessings of liberty" to allow the murder of our offspring in the womb. The rest of the Constitution, including the amendments (especially the Fifth and Fourteenth), affirms this basic right to life. The government created by this Constitution should be the one to protect that right to life. It truly is up to the United States Congress to supercede the Supreme Court and put it in its place in regards to Roe v. Wade. Article III, Section II of the Constitution says, in part, "In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make." In other words, Congress has been charged by the Constitution with regulating the jurisdiction of the Court. So why has it not taken action to nullify the Court's immoral and unjust acts?

I titled this entry "Random Thoughts..." for a reason. I really don't have a strong thesis other than to demonstrate how broken our government is. And my debates with Texas Alliance for Life demonstrate how broken the prolife movement is. To use the vernacular of the movie "The Godfather," we need to be going to the mattresses for our unborn children. Why are so many prolife organizations so complacent in standing by and allowing a broken government to enable the child murderers working among us? We need good men and women of conscience to have the will to do what is right and oppose both what is evil and that which enables evil.