Attorney General Eric Holder has written to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, informing him that the Obama administration considers state attempts to protect the Second Amendment “unconstitutional” and that federal agents will “continue to execute their duties,” regardless of state statutes to the contrary.The letter, dated April 26, specifically references a Kansas statute recently signed into law by Brownback that criminalizes any attempt by federal officers or agents to infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of citizens of the Sunflower State. Section 7 of the new law declares:
It is unlawful for any official, agent or employee of the government of the United States, or employee of a corporation providing services to the government of the United States to enforce or attempt to enforce any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States regarding a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately and owned in the state of Kansas and that remains within the borders of Kansas. Violation of this section is a severity level 10 nonperson felony.
The right of states to refuse to enforce unconstitutional federal acts is known as nullification... [which is an aspect] of constitutional law recognizing the right of each state to nullify, or invalidate, any federal measure that exceeds the few and defined powers allowed the federal government as enumerated in the Constitution.
...Both Attorney General Holder and President Obama are trained lawyers, so one would expect that they have read the Federalist Papers. In fairness, they probably have, but perhaps they overlooked Federalist, No. 33, where Alexander Hamilton explained the legal validity of federal acts that exceed the powers granted to it by the Constitution. Hamilton wrote:
If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted [sic] to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies and the individuals of whom they are composed.... But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the larger society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.
Holder denies that states have the right to withstand federal tyranny and argues that the Constitution declares federal acts to be the “supreme law of the land.”His comments echo a common misreading and misunderstanding of Article VI of the Constitution, the so-called Supremacy Clause... Article VI does not declare that federal laws are the supreme law of the land without qualification. What it says is that the Constitution "and laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof" are the supreme law of the land.
...If an act of Congress is not permissible under any enumerated power given to it in the Constitution, it was not made in pursuance of the Constitution and therefore not only is not the supreme law of the land, it is not the law at all.
...Alexander Hamilton put an even finer point on the issue when he wrote in Federalist, No. 78, “...No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the constitution, can be valid.”
..."The state legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operation of this government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power than any other power on earth can do; and the greatest opponents to a federal government admit the state legislatures to be sure guardians of the people’s liberty," Madison declared.
...In his letter to Governor Brownback, Attorney General Holder demonstrates that he is as ignorant as his boss as to the proper, constitutional relationship between state governments and the federal government.
We Americans truly appear to be approaching a fork in the road.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
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