Commentary on Nullification, By Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

I know not how you can be a true TEA Partier in the near future and not have read the book
Nullification: How To Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., a Senior
Fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute at Auburn University. I've never read a novel that held my
interest to each paragraph like this book. The Kentucky Resolution of 1798, the Virginia Resolution of
1798, and other resolutions of the time, all actually written by Thomas Jefferson, provide the fodder
for this book. A central point of this book is that the sovereign states which met in assembly in
Philadelphia in 1787, after the failure of the Congress of the Articles of Confederation, did NOT give
up their sovereignty to the federal government that they created through the Constitution except in
certain enumerated situations, and retained all other powers to themselves, or to the people. This
Constitution was then ratified by the 13 states in conventions held in each of those states (Rhode
Island did not ratify the Constitution until two years after it went into effect in the other 12 states and
did not become a party to it until after its ratification). As part of the agreement for the states to ratify
it, the Federalists (supporters of the Constitution) promised to immediately offer a Bill of Rights as
amendments to the Constitution. Only after this agreement was procured did the states ratify the
Constitution. Twelve Amendments were then offered by the Congress and ten of them were
approved (ratified) by the states and they constitute our Ten Bill of Rights, which at the time only
limited the national or federal government. Let's especially consider the 9th Amendment [The
enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people.] and the 10th Amendment [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.]

Of course, these two amendments have almost been totally ignored by our federal government,
including most presidents, Congress, and the Supreme Court. By 1798 Thomas Jefferson was
painfully aware of this and wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions as a means to do something
about the usurpation of power by the federal government. Jefferson named this process Nullification.
I do not have the space here to adequately educate you about nullification, and since our schools
neglect to teach the importance of the limitations the Constitution placed on the federal government
and ignore the history of the use of nullification during the 19th century, you will indeed need to be
educated about nullification. The best and quickest and delightfully easy way to gain this education is
to read Thomas Woods' book. Please, please do yourself, your family, your state, and our nation a
favor and read this book. Then encourage others to read it, including your elected representatives
and other elected officials.

Consider a gem from this book. On pages 21 and 22 is this comment: "When the Constitution was
ratified, the people were assured that it established a government of limited powers (primarily related
to foreign policy and the regulation of interstate commerce), that the states retained all powers not
delegated to the new government, and that the federal government could exercise no additional
powers without their consent, given in the form of constitutional amendments. This is not a peculiarly
conservative or libertarian reading of the historical record. This is the historical record."

To my surprise, I found that Judge Abel Parker Upshur, the namesake of Upshur County, Texas, was
one of the three great advocates of nullification. This book reprints, for the first time since 1835,
Nullification: Why the Critics Are All Wrong: An Exposition of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, by
Judge Able P. Upshur. This man is easy to understand and his arguments are most convincing. I
want to give you one quotation from Upshur (pg. 247): "It is therefore much more probable that the
Federal Government will abuse its power, than that the States will abuse theirs." And I will add that it
certainly is easier for us to do something about it when the state abuses its power. I also discovered
that Upshur published a book in 1840 that shows us the very nature and foundation of our federal
government. Nullification author Woods is shocked that this book is not widely read in our law
schools and universities. It is called A Brief Enquiry Into the True Nature and Character of our
Federal Government: Being a Review of Judge Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the
United States. After doing a Google search I was able to print this book in its entirety and I am now
reading it. What a jewel it is. So I now know that Upshur, along with Jefferson, is a true hero of our
Constitution!

Woods sums up his arguments thusly (see pages 142-143): "If anything is going to change, we must
employ every mechanism of defense that Thomas Jefferson bequeathed to us, not just the ones that
won't offend Katie Couric or the New york Times. Nullification is about learning to exercise our rights,
whether the courts or the politicians want us to or not. Instead of waiting for our liberties to be
handed back to us, we in our states can follow Jefferson's noble example and take the lead in saying
no to the ambitions of a government that would have horrified the founding generation. For, as Lord
Byron said, 'Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.'"

As I have read the above, I wish I could do a better job of fanning a flame of desire for you to actually
read the book Nullification. Please take my word that if you are concerned about our loss of liberties
to our national government, that you will gain a knowledge base for your beliefs and concerns, and
gain a plan of action from this book. This book should be the bible of the TEA Party movement.

John Melvin Dodd

1158 Boxwood Rd.
Gilmer, TX 75644
16 September, 2010
903-734-5795
melvin.dodd@gmail.com