For God, Family and Republic

Terror, War and Rumors of War
I am sore vexed by all of the terrorism, strife, conflict and evil in this troubled world. I long for the Second Advent of Christ. I long for His Heavenly Kingdom and I am glad I have a Heavenly citizenship and I am just a sojourner passing through this troubled world. Sometimes, I need gentle reminders from Scripture and from others... that God is sovereign in the face of it all.

I do not understand why so many so called American Christians are cold, complacent and indifferent to war, or that war is seen as the answer to everything... Many American evangelicals are reflexively in the amen corner of the war-hawk party. They put little consideration into the nature of war and when it is just to fight. They thump their chest for war, and would much rather scream for war than pray for peace. "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? (James 4:1, NKJV)."

I am distraught at the horrors of the twentieth-century and at the depravity of man. According to R. J. Rummel's Death by Government, over one-hundred-and-fifty-million have been killed by genocide and democide in the last century alone. That does not include the lives lost in war. I found Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw to be the most torturous read for its gritty accounts of the Polish plight. The Poles put up a gallant fight against two overwhelming enemies to no avail. They were brutalized by the Germans and brutalized by their so called liberators, the Soviets. Melancholy and nausea are the only thing this book elicits.

Holocausts and gulags, mass-murder, genocide, and depravity unheralded throughout history: from the urban wastelands of Poland to the barren steppes of Russia to the killing fields of Cambodia. This is the ideological climax of nihilism, Darwinism, and secular humanism in twentieth-century. Quixotic ideologues promise utopia, and a veritable Heaven on earth. Of course, it will only come after a climatic blood purge of revolutionaries and dissidents alike. They promise Heaven on earth, and come close to creating Hell. People wage war against one another in violent, capricious tit-for-tats that go on without end. The Israelis and the Palestinians having been going at it for a half-century. The Irish Republican Army has left a reign of terror in the United Kingdom since the Troubles. Likewise, for centuries the Irish endured hardship and deprivation at the hands of the English, including deliberate starvation in the nineteenth-century. The tit for tat, eye for eye modus operandi never seems to stop.

The viciousness and the scale of the mass-murder was made possible by a swelling crescendo of state power, and authoritarian totalist ideologies. The messianic state and statism are the idol Baals of modernity. One of my compatriots, Jacob Aitken, brilliantly surmised:

Most Christians, perceptive ones anyway, have seen the vicious bloodlust inherent in totalitarian regimes, but have missed the more important issues. It is one thing to point out the obvious and cry over what liberals and wanna-be Marxists are doing to our country in various political policies. It is another thing to attack the worldview upon which it hinges. That worldview is statism. Statism is the attempt of a political party to play god, to be the messiah to the masses, and to bring in a golden age of peace. In other words, it believes in salvation by legislation, and if that were bad enough, it enforces this salvation by military force. It is a bloodthirsty form of universalism.

Domestic Surveillance and the Patriot Act

by Rep. Ron Paul

Recent revelations that the National Security Agency has conducted broad surveillance of American citizens' emails and phone calls raise serious questions about the proper role of government in a free society. This is an important and healthy debate, one that too often goes ignored by Congress.

Public concerns about the misnamed Patriot Act are having an impact, as the Senate last week refused to reauthorize the bill for several years. Instead Congress will be back in Washington next month to consider many of the Act's most harmful provisions.

Of course most governments, including our own, cannot resist the temptation to spy on their citizens when it suits government purposes. But America is supposed to be different. We have a mechanism called the Constitution that is supposed to place limits on the power of the federal government. Why does the Constitution have an enumerated powers clause, if the government can do things wildly beyond those powers – such as establish a domestic spying program? Why have a 4th Amendment, if it does not prohibit government from eavesdropping on phone calls without telling anyone?

We're told that September 11th changed everything, that new government powers like the Patriot Act are necessary to thwart terrorism. But these are not the most dangerous times in American history, despite the self-flattery of our politicians and media. This is a nation that expelled the British, saw the White House burned to the ground in 1814, fought two world wars, and faced down the Soviet Union. September 11th does not justify ignoring the Constitution by creating broad new federal police powers. The rule of law is worthless if we ignore it whenever crises occur.

The administration assures us that domestic surveillance is done to protect us. But the crucial point is this: Government assurances are not good enough in a free society. The overwhelming burden must always be placed on government to justify any new encroachment on our liberty. Now that the emotions of September 11th have cooled, the American people are less willing to blindly accept terrorism as an excuse for expanding federal surveillance powers. Conservatives who support the Bush administration should remember that powers we give government today will not go away when future administrations take office.

Some Senators last week complained that the Patriot Act is misunderstood. But it's not the American public's fault nobody knows exactly what the Patriot Act does. The Act contains over 500 pages of detailed legalese, the full text of which was neither read nor made available to Congress in a reasonable time before it was voted on- which by itself should have convinced members to vote against it. Many of the surveillance powers authorized in the Act are not clearly defined and have not yet been tested. When they are tested, court challenges are sure to follow. It is precisely because we cannot predict how the Patriot Act will be interpreted and used in future decades that we should question it today.

December 27, 2005

Psalm 6 (New King James Version)

1 O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.
2 Have mercy on me, O LORD, for I am weak;
O LORD, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled;
But You, O LORD—how long?

4 Return, O LORD, deliver me!
Oh, save me for Your mercies’ sake!
5 For in death there is no remembrance of You;
In the grave who will give You thanks?

6 I am weary with my groaning;
All night I make my bed swim;
I drench my couch with my tears.
7 My eye wastes away because of grief;
It grows old because of all my enemies.

8 Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity;
For the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping.
9 The LORD has heard my supplication;
The LORD will receive my prayer.
10 Let all my enemies be ashamed and greatly troubled;
Let them turn back and be ashamed suddenly.

The Virginia Military Institute, located in Lexington, Virginia, is the oldest state military college in the United States founded in 1839. General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, commander of Virginia's First Brigade taught calculus and philosophy at the Institute. Known as "the West Point of the South," VMI offers a spartan, physically demanding environment combined with strict military discipline. One of its time-honored traditions (besides not allowing women up until the time of that meddlesome U.S. Supreme Court ruling) are its Pipe Band. This is a distinctively southern martial tradition owing to Virginia's vibrant Scotch-Irish influences.

Visit the VMI web site and check out some of their music selections (*.WMA). My favorites are Scotland the Brave and Stand up for Jesus. Compare the VMI Band to a solo version.

Some might not already know, but I am an avid reader. Likewise I am a Top 500 Amazon Book Reviewer out of over a million plus reviewers some five years and going. My high status owes to the fact that I have written some three-hundred reviews, mostly of books. Some people have written many more, though I have no intent of playing catch up. I also freelance for publishers from time to time.

Overall, Amazon.com is a solid e-commerce provider with good customer service and good prices. In general, the Internet has been a real boon for book readers because it has brought a medium for comparison shopping to the average consumer, and makes a vast inventory of books available at competitive prices.

I have several hundred books in my personal library on various subjects: mostly history, jurisprudence, and theology. (Some can tell me I need to get a life and quit reading all the time. But I enjoy reading, and learning for its own sake. Better to be deemed a bookworm than fritter my life away with reckless recreation and overindulgence in alcohol like the weekend warriors. Besides, if I wanted to live a more pointless existence than I would watch NBC Primetime...) How do you spend your free time? Think about it.

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”
—Erasmus

The 1946 Frank Capra classic It's a Wonderful Life is one of my favorite movies. Odds are you have probably seen it! It is right up their with the The Wizard of Oz as far as American icons of classic film are concerned. (BE FOREWARNED, HERE IS IS THE SPOILER or just a refresher!) The plot is simple enough... George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) reaches the depths of despair and longs to throw in the towel. He had attained some measure of success in banking and married his sweetheart Mary (played by Donna Reed). Nonetheless his whole life seems on the verge of collapse. Faced with financial ruin, George feels the pains of failure. An angel helps this compassionate but despairingly frustrated man by showing him what life would had been like if he never existed. Instead, George fails at his attempt to take his own life, and the angel saves him from the icy waters by casting the burden of compassion upon him to make him save another. As he recoups his bearings, he is thankful for all that he has. Bailey counts his blessings after this supernatural epiphany.

The Angel Clarence: Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?

[George returns to the bridge where his nightmare began, hoping to bring back his old life]
George Bailey: [praying] Clarence! Clarence! Help me, Clarence! Get me back! Get me back, I don't care what happens to me! Get me back to my wife and kids! Help me Clarence, please! Please! I wanna live again. I wanna live again. Please, God, let me live again.

Not an explicitly Christian movie, but the movie climax comes at Christmas. It is most definitely a family classic. Indirectly, it reminds us that the intangibles—that is to say, faith, family, and good friends are what define and give meaning to life.

George being saved came from divine intervention, and he learned to count his many blessings amidst his turmoil. Our troubled world doesn't often know happily-ever after stories. But for those of faith, we have the assurance that whatever perils come our way in this temporal realm, "that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). Our eternal destiny is set, so we should set our sights on the promises of God and His Holiness. It is to easy to forget this reality in the midst of discouragement. The character George Bailey fell down, and God picked him up.

(Psalm 40:1-3, King James Version) I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.

(Psalm 69:1-3, King James Version) Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

O Holy Night! It sounds better when Jessica Simpson sings it. She is a preacher's daughter. Merry Christmas!
<lo-res> <hi-res>

O Holy night, the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt His worth

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
O night divine! O night, O night divine!

Truly he taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us praise His holy name
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!
O night divine! O night, O night divine!

The Hunt for Confederate Gold, by Thomas Moore. (Fusilier Books, 2005. ISBN: 0976998203. $17.50 retail.)

The Hunt for Confederate Gold is an action-packed thriller that puts the heroes on a suspense-filled search for a long lost Confederate treasure. What is particularly remarkable is that the Hunt weaves together two intricate tales in one, as the flashbacks to the late War between the State provide a backdrop to the story as it unfolds in our time. This tale packs quite a few punches. Hounded by corrupt federal agents, the protagonists George T. Bolitho and Parker Hastie treks off on a treasure hunt with his compatriots in an exciting suspense-filled story. Moore builds up your anticipation as you follow them on their trek. As a matter of historical fact, George A. Trenholm, Secretary of the Confederate Treasury had departed Richmond on train with a cache of Confederate gold right before the city fell. No one knows what happened to gold, but there has been no shortage of speculation. This is the backdrop for the story. Rumors have abounded in my hometown, the last Capital of the Confederacy, of a lost Confederate treasure in the surrounding area for years. Though, this is a work of fiction, it is a plausible work nonetheless. Thomas Moore is a master story teller and has weaved together a fascinating story. This is a must read book, and is destined to be a classic. I won't spoil good fiction by writing spoiler summations of it, so I encourage you to read the Hunt for Confederate Gold, and see for yourself.

Clyde Wilson wrote the perrenial book review of the Hunt on LewRockwell.com. The American View radio show interviewed author Thomas Moore about his new book.

These are the words of the Prince of Preachers C.H. Spurgeon, not mine. I admire his tact writing style and knowledge of the Scriptures.

"The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."
Isaiah 40:5

We anticipate the happy day when the whole world shall be converted to Christ; when the gods of the heathen shall be cast to the moles and the bats; when Romanism shall be exploded, and the crescent of Mohammed shall wane, never again to cast its baleful rays upon the nations; when kings shall bow down before the Prince of Peace, and all nations shall call their Redeemer blessed. Some despair of this. They look upon the world as a vessel breaking up and going to pieces, never to float again. We know that the world and all that is therein is one day to be burnt up, and afterwards we look for new heavens and for a new earth; but we cannot read our Bibles without the conviction that-

"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun Does his successive journeys run."

We are not discouraged by the length of his delays; we are not disheartened by the long period which he allots to the church in which to struggle with little success and much defeat. We believe that God will never suffer this world, which has once seen Christ's blood shed upon it, to be always the devil's stronghold. Christ came hither to deliver this world from the detested sway of the powers of darkness. What a shout shall that be when men and angels shall unite to cry "Hallelujah, hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth!" What a satisfaction will it be in that day to have had a share in the fight, to have helped to break the arrows of the bow, and to have aided in winning the victory for our Lord! Happy are they who trust themselves with this conquering Lord, and who fight side by side with him, doing their little in his name and by his strength! How unhappy are those on the side of evil! It is a losing side, and it is a matter wherein to lose is to lose and to be lost for ever. On whose side are you?

Well, I am revisiting an old topic which I wrote about in July. But December 24th, marks 207th anniversary of the Virginia Resolves against the Alien and Sedition Acts. This is a part of the vibrant states' rights tradition, and asserts the right of the delegating authority to judge infractions of the central authority in a federal polity. In age of constitutional usurpation of the Tenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights by such nebulous instruments as the Patriot, the reassertion of the doctrine of interposition is vitally requisite. It is only way of restoring the constitutional republic of our forefathers. "Free government is founded in jealousy," avowed Thomas Jefferson, "and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power..."

As a sidenote, this past December, Palgrave MacMillan's publicist sent me a review copy of William Watkins, Jr. 2004 book Reclaiming the American Revolution, which I highly recommend. I will be reviewing it in the future.

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were an exercise of state interposition in protesting unconstitutional acts of Congress. “The Resolutions articulate the basics of our government in an eloquent, yet logical, manner; they are second only to the Constitution in their import and merit inclusion in the Pantheon of American charters.” The resolves were written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison respectively, though their authorship was not publicized until years later. In passing the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Congress had eggregiously infringed upon the powers of the States and the rights of the People who were the sovereigns. The resolves protested these unconstitutional usurpations, and asserted the right of the States to interpose their authority as the guardians of their reserved rights.

The Sedition Act ostensibly outlawed seditious criticism of the federal government, which came amidst immense tensions with revolutionary France. The actions of person(s) with “intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States” were thus criminalized. Nevertheless, the First Amendment prohibited the Congress from abridging the freedom of press. The Sedition Act essentially represented the heavy hand of Congress in supressing the Republican-dominanted press from criticism of Federalist officials in office. The Sedition Act also provided jail and penalties for anyone that

shall write, print, utter or publish ... false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress... or the President... with intent to defame... or to bring them... into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them... the hatred of the good people of the United States....

One of the men indicted was Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, the melodramatic and lurid editor of the Philadelphia Aurora who was charged with seditious libel against President Adams. While some Republicans contended for an absolute freedom of press, others were adamant that any laws against libel and sedition, and the enforcement of such laws, were entirely the perogative of the states.

The Alien Act authorized the capture, detention and deportation of resident aliens—deemed enemies by the President. Jefferson believed the Alien Act was targeted at Albert Gallatin (who later become his Secetary of Treasury.) Gallatin was a Republican partisan in Pennsylvania and a recent émigré of Geneva. It allowed for no hearing or due process for resident aliens to contest their arrest. It was seen as an eggregious violation of the Bill of Rights and civil liberties, and purely politically-motivated as aliens were often Democrat-Republicans. The Alien Act was deemed an usurpation of state powers and the rights of resident aliens.

The Congress possessed no general legislative power, and was confined to the exercise of enumerated objects of power under the Constitution. The Republicans contended that it lacked authority to enact the Alien and Sedition Acts, which alarmed Jefferson, Madison and many Republicans. In his draft resolutions, after asserting that the Constitution was a compact, Jefferson declared that the national authority was confined to “certain definite powers,” thus concuring with Madison in Federalist #14, who declared, “it is to be remembered that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws. Its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” In Federalist #45, Madison furthur surmised that the federal government's “jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.” Both Acts were viewed by Madison and Jefferson, and others, as a palpable usurpation of the powers of the several States and the rights of the citizens thereof.

There is ample evidence of the the legitimacy of the States guarding their reserved rights, on the basis of the debates in the State ratifying conventions. Likewise, Publius’ special pleading for adoption of the Constitution in the Federalist concedes interposition as well. In Federalist #28, Alexander Hamilton affirmed this “axiom” of the power of States to guard their reserved powers, and the liberties of their people, in declaring:

It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority. Projects of usurpation cannot be masked under pretenses so likely to escape the penetration of select bodies of men, as of the people at large. The legislatures will have better means of information. They can discover the danger at a distance; and possessing all the organs of civil power, and the confidence of the people, they can at once adopt a regular plan of opposition, in which they can combine all the resources of the community. They can readily communicate with each other in the different States, and unite their common forces for the protection of their common liberty.

In Federalist #33, Hamilton advised that acts of the general government “which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will [not] become the supreme law of the Land.” Jefferson agreed. The Kentucky Resolutions declared that the Alien and Sedition Acts were “…altogether void, and of no force…”

Constitutional scholar William J. Watkins, in Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and Their Legacy observes:

At the core, the Resolutions are intrepid statements in favor of self-government and limited central authority. A product of political and constitutional battlegrounds of the 1790s, the Resolutions serve to link the federal union created by the Constitution with aspirations of the patriots of the American Revolution. Indeed, the tocuh of the author of the Declaration of Independence is unmistakable when one reads the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.

The Resolves were not wholesale innovations of Jefferson and Madison, but stood in a broader colonial and revolutionary tradition of interposition. Prior to independence from Great Britain, John Adams had penned a resolution against the Stamp Act passed by the British Parliament. Similarly, some colonial magistrates interposed their authority against the Crown and Parliament on behalf of subjects in the face of usurpations against the Anglo-American constitution.

The resolves marked the first stage of interposition which was simply protest. “The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 were not pronouncements of sovereign power,” observes John Remington Graham, “but the warnings of legislative bodies that, unless the situation were corrected, it might be necessary to summon sovereign to deal with the constitutional crisis within the Union.” The resolves asserted the right of the States to interpose on behalf of its citizens, while judging and arresting infractions against the compact by its agent, the general government. The Virginia Resolutions proclaimed:

…[I]n 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 in 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.

Committees of correspondance were setup to convey the resolves to the other States in the Union and to the federal authorities. It was thought by Madison that a constitutional convention would be convened if the abuses were not abated, and the concurring voice of the States would remedy the usurpation. In his private correspondance, he reminded Jefferson that the state legislature “is [not] the legitimate organ especially as a Convention was the organ by which the compact was made.” Madison tended to speak in generalities in the Virginia Resolutions in order to guard against “the charge of Usurpation in the very act of protesting agst the usurpations of Congress.” Madison's hope was amidst continual state protest, if the usurpations were not arrested by the central authority than a call for a constitutional convention would be summoned.

On November 22, 1799, the Kentucky legislature passed a second set of resolutions which concluded that the States “being sovereign and independent, have an unquestionable right to judge” infractions of the Constitution, and that “a nullification by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.”

The resolves were the definitive statement affirming the compact nature of the Union. In the years ahead, the so called Principles of 1798 embodied in the resolves gave states’ rights republicans a point-of-reference in the pitched battles with the consolidation camp. Senators Robert Hayne and John Calhoun would invoke the Resolves in their debates on the nature of the Union around the time of the nullification crisis emanating from the Tariff of Abominations.

We hear a lot of Iraq War Fallacies!

FALLACY: President Bush is our commander in chief, and it is our patriotic
duty during this time of war to support him.
REBUTTAL: It is unpatriotic not to question the conduct, direction, and objectives of this undeclared war. Even if genuine intelligence had conclusively shown that Iraq was indeed involved in the 9/11 attacks and/or was planning an attack on the U.S., the president is constitutionally required to obtain a declaration of war from Congress before starting hostilities. And Congress is required to go on record with a declaration of war, not simply authorize open-ended military action pursuant to some United Nations resolution. It is not unpatriotic to question the conduct, direction, or objectives of this undeclared war.
—William F. Jasper, Iraq War Fallacies, The New American. January 9, 2006

Plant your tongue-in-your-cheek, and file this under funny...

I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.

Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who's been and who's been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without the thought of quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.

—P.J. O'Rourke, Parliament of s: A Lone Humorist Attempts To Explain The Entire U. S. Government (ISBN: 1135373320)

Proverbs 21:19

"Better to dwell in a corner of a housetop, than in a house shared with a contentious woman."

Enough said!

Republicanism Triumphant! Well, at least in Original Intent.

The coercion of a state is averse to the principles of sovereignty. It was original intent to afford the States the nt role in a federal system. In Federalist #45, James Madison reminds us, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce..." The Tenth Amendment is the keystone of federalism: "The powers not delegated to the United States by this Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Madison furthur explains, "The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State." There you have it folks! The federal government commensurate with original intent was confined to a handful of powers, chiefly foreign affairs, defense, and regulation of interstate commerce. Congress' powers, for example, are all enunciated in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

Here are some excellent quotation compilations from Federalists James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, which are illustrative of the reality that original intent gave no credance to notions that a State could be coerced. These were the understandings, and perhaps pleadings of Federalists in urging for the adoption of the Constitution in 1787.

“But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other. But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.”
–James Madison, The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared, Federalist #46, Jan 29, 1788.

“The use of force against a State would be more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked, as a dissolution of all previous compacts; a union of States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction.”
–James Madison, Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, May 31, 1787.

“Any government formed on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States, would prove as visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress.”
–James Madison, Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, June 8, 1787

“When the sword is once drawn the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation. The suggestions of wounded pride, the instigations of resentment, would be apt to carry the States against which the arms of the Union were exerted, to any extreme to avenge the affront, or to avoid the disgrace of submission. The first war of this kind would probably terminate in a dissolution of the Union.”
–Alexander Hamilton, The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection, Federalist #10, Nov. 23, 1787.

“Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred. The important truth, which it unequivocally pronounces in the present case, is that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities, as contradistinguished from individuals, as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting in place of LAW, or the destructive COERCION of the SWORD in place of the mild and salutary COERCION of the MAGISTRACY.”
–Alexander Hamilton, The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union, Federalist #20, Nov. 23, 1787.

“To coerce a State would be one of the maddest projects ever devised. No State would ever suffer itself to be used as the instrument of coercing another. This being the case, can we suppose it wise to hazard a civil war? Suppose Massachusetts, or any large state, should refuse, and Congress should attempt to compel them, would they not have influence to procure assistance, especially from those states which are in the same situation as themselves? What picture does this idea present to our view? A complying state at war with a non-complying state; Congress marching the troops of one state into the bosom of another; this state collecting auxiliaries, and forming, perhaps, a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself. Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself — a government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a government. “
–Alexander Hamilton, Debate in New York Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788.

“The question fairly stated is, Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the Confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the Federal Government. It is manifest upon an inspection of the Constitution that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not “ necessary and proper for carrying into execution “ any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution. ¶It appears from the proceedings of that body that on the 31st May, 1787, the clause authorizing an exertion of the force of the whole against a delinquent State came up for consideration. Mr. Madison opposed it in a brief but powerful speech, from which I shall extract but a single sentence. He observed: 'The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.' Upon his motion the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on the 8th June, 1787, when incidentally adverting to the subject, he said: ‘Any government for the United States formed on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States would prove as visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress,’ evidently meaning the then existing Congress of the old Confederation. ¶Without descending to particulars, it may be safely asserted that the power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution. Suppose such a war should result in the conquest of a State; how are we to govern it afterwards? ¶Shall we hold it as a province and govern it by despotic power? In the nature of things, we could not by physical force control the will of the people and compel them to elect Senators and Representatives to Congress and to perform all the other duties depending upon their own volition and required from the free citizens of a free State as a constituent member of the Confederacy. But if we possessed this power, would it be wise to exercise it under existing circumstances? The object would doubtless be to preserve the Union. War would not only present the most effectual means of destroying it, but would vanish all hope of its peaceable reconstruction. Besides, in the fraternal conflict a vast amount of blood and treasure would be expended, rendering future reconciliation between the States impossible. In the meantime, who can foretell what would be the sufferings and privations of the people during its existence? The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it can not live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force.”
–James Buchanan, Presidential Address Before Congress, December 1860.

Even if one surmises that Hamilton was being disingenious about his true convictions, nonetheless one must give weight to the preponderance of pleadings made to secure ratification of the Constitution. Hamilton may have pushed for a plan of complete consolidation at Philadelphia, but his motions were tabled, and he conceded the preeminence of the States as he pleaded for adoption of the Constitution in his state's ratifying convention. Hamilton's words in the New York ratifying convention are particularly damning for centralizing nationalists. Madison reminds us, "the legitimate meaning of the Instrument must be derived from the text itself; or if a key is to be sought elsewhere, it must be not in the opinions or intentions of the Body which planned & proposed the Constitution, but in the sense attached to it by the people in their respective State Conventions where it received all the authority which it possesses." All authority which it possesses! The Anti-Federalists are said to be the losers with the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, but they were profoundly influential in shaping the consensus that developed. The nationalists were defeated as well.

For all these reasons, I have no use for centralizing nationalists that would argue to the contrary. It remains the height of folly to claim that state inferiority was original intent... or that the States have no say when the federal government operates outside of the scope of its delegated powers. While the Anti-Federalists may not suceeded in getting a Constitution entirely amenable to them, we must not forget that those who advocated for a national polity lost as well. The consensus at the 1787 Convention, and the subsequent State Ratifying Conventions from 1788-1789 was for a federal polity! "Sovereignty is the highest degree of political power, and the establishment of a form of government, the highest proof which can be given of its existence," observes John Taylor of Caroline. "The states could have not reserved any rights by articles of their union, if they had not been sovereign, because they could have no rights, unless they flowed from that source. In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty... But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed."

In our time, centralizing nationalists can appeal to the opinions and views aired at the Philadelphia Convention by nationalists like James Wilson, but they would be ignoring the reality that the nationalists were summarily defeated. In Federalist #40, Madison rhetorically asks, "What are these principles? Do they require that, in the establishment of the Constitution, the States should be regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns? They are so regarded by the Constitution proposed." To disavow any doubt on the matter regarding state sovereignty, the passage of the Tenth Amendment in 1791 placed the states' rights keystone and the doctrine of enumerated powers clearly within the fabric of the Constitution. Finally, proponents of coercive action against States are neither faithful to the Constitution or true republicans. Consolidators, centralizers and advocates of state inferiority represent the party of constitutional usurpation. True republicans find their vindication in principle and in right not might... Consolidators can boast of their triumph, but they do not have original intent on their side.

I can e-mail a profound compilation of quotations to further substantiate my claims.

Christmas season invokes parochial and familial sentiments...

"A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar and unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy, is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead."
—George Eliot

"The happiness of the domestic fireside is the first boon of Heaven; and it is well it is so, since it is that which is the lot of the mass of mankind."
—Thomas Jefferson

While I am in my parochial mindset, I recommend looking at the political treatise Politica by the German Calvinist Johannes Althusius (1557–1638). Liberty Fund publishes it. Althusius recognized the primacy of the family, the community and the principle of subsidiarity. Politica represents a break from Hobbesian political screeds that exalt centralized power which is the epicenter of life today. Sadly, the Hobbessians have the upper hand in our time, but the alienation wrought out by Leviathan — that is modern mass society with its bureaucratization and centralized power leaves people longing for something better.

“He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Enough said.