Nullification & Secession: The Rechabite Principle as a Political Solution

Here is a link to an excellent article on why secession and nullification are indispensable rights and strategies when seeking to correct political injustice. The article includes this crucial declaration: "...the Constitution was ratified...with the understanding that the Court could not strike down State law."

But what recourse do the people have when the US Supreme Court strikes down state and local laws—or when any branch of the federal government creates unconstitutional laws, edicts, regulations, mandates, etc?

Answer: Nullification. And if that doesn't work, secession.

To illustrate the point that the Supreme Court cannot strike down state laws, Earl Starbuck, the author of the article linked above, says, "In other words, you have two options. Either you, the people of Vermont or California or Alabama or Tennessee, or whatever State you live in, write the laws by which you are governed (through your elected legislatures), or the Supreme Court writes your laws for you. Is that self-government? Is that liberty?"

By way of defining nullification, Earl Starbuck writes this:

Nullification. The doctrine of nullification is the idea that when the Federal government exceeds its constitutional authority, the State governments possess both the right and the duty to interpose their power and authority between the people and the tyrannical usurpation of the Federal government. As sovereign and equal members of a compact, nullifying laws, rulings and edicts which exceed the delegated authority of the Federal government is one of those things sovereign States may of right do. Moreover, because all just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, the right of nullification is reserved to the sovereign States by Amendments Nine and Ten.

So where does secession come in? Well, if after a state or states dutifully exercise the people's right to nullify any particular federal law (or edict, regulation, ruling, or mandate, etc.) the federal government still tries in any way to enforce the nullified law(s) then that state (or those states) have the God-given right to secede. 

The American colonies rightfully and successfully seceded from Great Britain in the late 1700s. Former Soviet republics rightfully and successfully seceded from the USSR in the 1990s. Americans recognize the rights of the American colonists and the "captive" Soviet republics to secede. 

The Southern States also had a right to peacefully secede from the United States of America if they found that being part of that union no longer preserved their rights to govern themselves—though they were not allowed to do that. How might America be different today if the Southern States were allowed to leave peacefully? No doubt slavery would have ended in a way that didn't cause the death of nearly 700,000 Americans. For what that war cost in treasure alone, every Southern slave owner could have been amply compensated for the loss of his slaves—as the US Constitution requires. Such was the plan of 1844 presidential candidate, Joseph Smith, Jr.—but he was assassinated before the November 1844 election.

Nullification and secession are inherently part of our natural, God-given rights to govern ourselves according to the dictates of our own consciences. 

Please take the time to read Earl Starbuck's lengthy and enlightening article. It is entitled, "Judicial Review? No. Nullification."

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Orem, Utah—February 25, 2021—©2021 Daniel Kemper Lubben