The United States (Plural) of America are not a Nation (singular state), but a Confederation, at least as it was originally conceived and was codified in it's founding documents. Unfortunately, however, we have been taught a false history of this founding for more than the last 100 years. Today we are told that the States are subordinate to the Federal Government, when this is the opposite of the U. S. Constitution's intent. It was the States, after all, that formed the central government and gave it a "few and defined" set of powers. The States that created the Federal government, and not the other way around.
The States need to remember their true place in the scheme of our system. They are to be a key check against the power of an over-reaching central government. This was the common understanding among the founding States and was spelled out in 1798 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions:
"[T]his Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the compact, to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States who are parties thereto, have the right, and are duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them." ~ The Virginia Resolution of 1798
“Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non fœderis) to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them.” – The Kentucky Resolution of 1798
And, if you would like to poke some fun at the mainstream mass of uneducated zombies who none-the-less feel empowered to spew the same old talking points on nullification, here is Interview with a Zombie:
Dr. Woods' book, Nulification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century
For more reading on the balance of power proscribed in the Constitution, here is a compilation of previous blog posts on the subject: The Federalism Series - A Primer
