Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin just signed a resolution that passed Alaska’s House and Senate unanimously reasserting its state's rights under the 10th Amendment. The average American might wonder why this is such a big deal, as it is one of many subjects about which American’s are not particularly enlightened.

Those that have been through our public education system that is monopolized by big government teachers' unions may hear "states' rights" and draw the mental connection to slavery. This is unfortunate since it was Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who first asserted states' rights when they penned the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 in opposition to John Adam’s signing into law The Alien and Sedition Acts.

Jefferson opposed The Alien and Sedition Acts largely on the basis of what he viewed as their violation of the 10th Amendment. That Amendment reads:

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.

Essentially what this amendment states is that the federal government has certain powers delegated to it by the Constitution and that all other powers that are not delegated in that compact are left to the states. Remember, we live in a constitutional republic and not a democracy where 51 percent rule over the other 49 percent, weilding untethered control over the minority. With the signing of this resolution Palin is following in the footsteps of the brilliant men that wrote the Deceleration of Independence — Thomas Jefferson — and James Madison, the intellect behind the Constitution itself. These men both found it necessary to utilize the assertion of state’s rights over an overreaching central government in opposition to The Alien and Sedition Acts.

Madison wrote in the Virgina Resolution of 1798:

That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret, that a spirit has in sundry instances, been manifested by the federal government, to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional charter which defines them.

Jefferson penned in The Kentucky Resolution of 1798:

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…

If it is true that the states do not have to abide by federal government's powers if not specifically delegated by the Constitution, then why have the executive and judicial branches joined forces to deny these free states the right to govern themselves? How has it come to pass that the Representatives sent to Congress by the people of the several states, and the Senators from those same states, seem so reluctant to adhere to the path laid out by Madison and Jefferson?

The answser resides in the word "power"—consolidated power as in a Soviet-style of government. Once the power is centralized, rules and regulations can be dictated at a quicker pace giving little time for local and state governments to voice their dissent. By the time views are voiced, it is often too late. The bill is law.  Good luck reversing the government’s newest power grab.

There is no doubt that states, left to their own devices, may utilize the powers they retain in pursuit of bad ends. It has happened before. However, without local protection and proper local representation an unbound central government can swiftly gobble up liberties and rights. One just need look at any communist government on the globe. The states, as Madison and Jefferson knew, were an important part of a federal system, as opposed to a system of central government. In the latter, the single large government of a nation exercises power unopposed by other interests and is conducive to tyranny. In the federal system established by the Founding Fathers, the states retain much of their preexisting sovereign powers, and their several and separate interests act as a check against the ambitions of the national government.

Fortunately, the state sovereignty movement is growing and is not confined to the cold Alaskan wilderness. Thus far seven states – Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Alaska, Tennessee, and Louisiana – have had both houses of their legislatures pass similar resolution. Alaska Gov. Palin and Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen are the only governors to have signed their states’ sovereignty resolutions.

Jefferson, based in part on his opposition to The Alien and Sedition Acts, and based on his defense of states' rights, was able to dethrone a popular president in the form of John Adams and limit him to one term in office. Similarly, there is a good chance that following his lead today and supporting the same ideas that animated both the author of the Declaration of Independence and, separately, the genius behind the Constitution, will prove effective in limiting a currently popular president to one term in office, with the hope that in 2012, for the first time in living memory, a constitutionalist may occupy the White House.

Ian D. Erickson is a political commentator, the author of Broken Volume 1 and resides with his wife and 2 sons in Old Bridge

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MarkGlen

July 23, 2009

74.196.210.71

Votes: +7

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Leftists rats hate Sarah

Gov. Palin must be a good woman because the left-wing hates her. And, they are a little afraid of her. I think she will be our next President.

MarkGlen

July 23, 2009

74.196.210.71

Votes: +5

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Has Obama something to hide?

Why has President Obama spent 1 million dollars in legal fees to keep from having to produce a legal birth cirtificate? I can produce mine in a minute, well,it might take 5 minutes.

Thomas Paine

July 23, 2009

66.61.38.24

Votes: -4

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Palin is a wolf in sheeps clothing

Alaska is the new Texas. The new Oil state. Home of future New World Order elite. Sarah is being set up by the NWO fascist to be the benevolent dictactor. She will havef Rudy Guliani, the NY hit man, as her Vice President.

She is no Ron Paul. He is the real thing.

MarkGlen

July 23, 2009

74.196.210.71

Votes: -1

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Paul and Palin

"She is no Ron Paul." The last time I talked with Ron Paul he was antiIsrael. He didn't seem to think Israel had a right to the land of Canaan. And, his diction has become so poor I cannot understand him. He is a Libertarian and he is wasting his breath trying to become president.

danwhitehead1

July 26, 2009

71.123.240.90

Votes: +1

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I'm sure - - -

- - - that Mr. Paine is 100% correct. Let's just see what happens.

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