A Red and Blue Coalition?
On June 20, 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Crawford: “If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation … to a continuance in union, I have no hesitation in saying, ‘Let… »
Nullification and Secession: Solutions or Talking Points?
Many of us in the South have maintained our faith in the Constitutional right of nullification and secession despite the efforts of massed, bloody, Yankee bayonets. But is the talk about nullification and secession an… »
The Only Way to Drain the Swamp
“When you are up to your hindquarters in alligators—it is hard to remember that your intentions were to drain the swamp.” This old country-boy saying seems most appropriate for President Trump as he attempts to… »
Zombies No More: Secession, Nullification, and the Academy
A review of Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought. Sanford Levinson, ed. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2016. The undead walk among us still, or so asserts Sanford Levinson, the editor of an… »
The Fighting Gamecock: Thomas Sumter
Thomas Sumter in his encounters with the Indian nations enters the pages of recorded history. He had probably been present at the fall of Fort Duquesne and in the campaign across the Ohio River and… »
States and Cities Saying “No” to the Feds
What was amazing about watching two dozen states and several hundred cities defy Donald Trump’s decision to take the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement was that so little was made of it. It… »
On Tour at The Hermitage
On Labor Day, I visited The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s Nashville manor. As a Tennessee native, going to The Hermitage was always a goal of mine – even though for various reasons I had never been… »
10 Objections to Nullification–Refuted
Nullification, also known as State interposition, is controversial because it challenges the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation. The argument behind nullification is that the States—as parties to the compact that created the federal government—have… »
Nullification
A review of Nullification: Reclaiming the Consent of the Governed by Clyde Wilson, Shotwell Press, 2016. As a young conservative, I came across ideas like nullification and states’ rights, during my studies. But they were… »
Madisonian Nullification
This article will restore necessary context to the word “nullification” as used by James Madison in an 1834 letter called “Notes on Nullification.” First, we have to put Madison’s role in the formulation of the… »
