Nathan Tucker has fired the inevitable shot back in the form of a more or less predictable review of my book Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century. I urge you, dear reader, to download a free chapter of the book at NullificationFreeChapter.com, and see if it intrigues you. Mr. Tucker, I am sorry to report, is not intrigued.
Jefferson’s argument is stated simply enough. If the federal government is allowed to hold a monopoly on determining the extent of its own powers, we have no right to be surprised when it keeps discovering new ones. If the federal government has the exclusive right to judge the extent of its own powers, it will continue to grow – regardless of elections, the separation of powers, and other much-touted limits on government power. In his famous Report of 1800, James Madison reminded Virginians and Americans at large that the judicial branch was not infallible, and that some remedy must be found for those cases in which all three branches of the federal government exceed their constitutional limits.