Liberty Defense League

By Timothy Baldwin

Just when a movement of revolution and freedom gets really under way, efforts are made from every direction to dwarf, minimize and eliminate the movement. Unfortunately, such attacks are even promoted by some of the most supposed conservative sources in America. Anyone who is keeping up with current political events in America knows how substantial the State Sovereignty movement is becoming and in fact is. Many of us predicted this movement years ago, recognizing that the tenth amendment was the only real meaningful way to arrest the tyranny from the Federal Government. Seeing this movement from the people, some conservative shows, such as Glenn Beck, have taken hold to this notion and have reported on the many State actions to reclaim powers not granted to the Federal Government. While I commend anyone who sounds the trumpet and voice for State Sovereignty in conformity with the United States Constitution, I also recognize that danger that such an influential person, such as Glenn Beck and Judge Napolitano, can have on the State Sovereignty movement.

This fact reveals itself in a recent show on Fox News in June 5, 2009, with

Judge Napolitano

Judge Napolitano interviewing Western Connecticut State University Professor, Kevin Gutzman, who authored the book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution. In this interview, the topic at hand was the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act. Thankfully, they presented the Tennessee law in a good light. Then, the subject of State Sovereignty Resolutions came up, and Judge Napolitano asked Professor Gutzman the question: “When a state enacts a Resolution proclaiming its sovereignty–as nice as that sounds–does it have the force of law?” With a grin, Professor Gutzman answers: “Unfortunately, no, no it does not have the force of law. Ultimately, the only way to resolve this issue is to change people who make up the federal government.”

Admittedly, changing the representatives of the people in the Federal Government could potentially work, just as Alexander Hamilton suggests in Federalist Paper 21: “The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” However, Representatives in the House and Senate, Presidents and Judges have been changing for years, but tyranny’s hands only grips tighter with more hurtful pressure every passing year. Does it appear that the majority of the populous in America is willing to vote for principles over popularity, money, convenience or fear? The 2008 Presidential election proves that they are not so willing. So where does that leave those minority of peoples in the states who actually care about constitutional government? Are they to simply “vote change” from now until they are old and gray, and their grandchildren are stuck with even worse problems?

Unfortunately, Judge Napolitano did not correct Professor Gutzman’s declarative statement that the “only way” for State Resolutions to have the “force of law” is through the federal government. I shudder to think that our freedom rests in the hands of the federal government. Is this in fact what our founders bequeathed to us? The answer is, with absolute certainty, NO!

The very nature of the Federal Government is limited in scope and power. What protection of freedom would the U.S. Constitution afford the people of the states if the only means of protecting freedom was through the centralized portion of government? This defeats all natural logic and history. The truth is, the ratifiers of the constitution would never have ratified the constitution if even the suggestion were made that states would lose their sovereign power to the most basic right of self-preservation against federal usurpations of power.

Consider the following strategies advocated by the Federalist Paper writers, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison–men who advocated for the ratification of the United States Constitution and saw the need for a stronger federal government than what it currently had. These founders do not reflect the passivity role of the States recommended by the ninety percent of those so-called conservatives in major-media networks. Instead of state impotence, these founders proclaim state power. Instead of state shyness, these founders advance state boldness. Instead of state humility, these founders advocate state pride. Educate yourself with the truth of our republic:

FEDERALIST PAPER 15, Alexander Hamilton:

“But if the execution of the laws of the national government should not require the intervention of the State legislatures, if they were to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens themselves, the particular

Alexander Hamilton

governments could not interrupt their progress without an open and violent exertion of an unconstitutional power…Attempts of this kind would not often be made with levity or rashness…UNLESS IN CASES OF A TYRANNICAL EXERCISE OF THE FEDERAL AUTHORITY.” (Emphasis added).

FEDERALIST PAPER 26, Alexander Hamilton:

“Independent of parties in the national legislature itself, as often as the period of discussion arrived, the State legislatures, who will always be not only vigilant but suspicious and jealous guardians of the rights of the citizens against encroachments from the federal government, will constantly have their attention awake to the conduct of the national rulers, and will be ready enough, if any thing improper appears, to sound the alarm to the people, and not only to be the VOICE, but, if necessary, the ARM of their discontent.”

FEDERALIST PAPER 28, Alexander Hamilton:

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state [i.e. “one nation, indivisible”], if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense…BUT IN A CONFEDERACY THE PEOPLE [i.e. the United STATES of America], without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their own fate. Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these [STATES] WILL HAVE THE SAME DISPOSITION TOWARDS THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized!” (Emphasis added).

FEDERALIST PAPER 28, Alexander Hamilton:

“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.”

FEDERALIST PAPER 31, Alexander Hamilton:

“[A]ll observations founded upon the danger of usurpation ought to be referred to the composition and structure of the government, not to the nature or extent of its powers. The State governments, by their original constitutions, are invested with complete sovereignty.”

FEDERALIST PAPER 40, James Madison:

James Madison

“[The States] are so regarded [as s distinct and independent sovereigns] by the Constitution proposed…[T]hese principles…require that the powers of the general government should be limited, and that, beyond this limit, the States should be left in possession of their sovereignty and independence[.] We have seen that in the new government, as in the old, the general powers are limited; and that the States, in all unenumerated cases, are left in the enjoyment of their sovereign and independent jurisdiction. The truth is, that the great principles of the Constitution proposed by the convention may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the articles of Confederation.”

FEDERALIST PAPER 45, James Madison:

“[T]he States will retain, under the proposed Constitution, a very extensive portion of active sovereignty.”

FEDERALIST PAPER 46, James Madison:

“Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter [STATES] would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments…The opposition of the federal government, or the interposition of federal officers, would but inflame the zeal of all parties on the side of the State, and the evil could not be prevented or repaired, if at all, without the employment of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and difficulty. On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.

“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.”

Any person who suggests that the States may only sit and wait on a replacement of federal officials in the federal government is either a wolf in sheep’s clothing or ignorant of the principles forming our constitution. There is nothing clearer than this: America’s founders not only believed that the States (governments and peoples) could actively resist federal tyranny through their own independent state actions, but moreover EXPECTED it!

If freedom is to be restored in America, it will not be through what many so-called conservatives suggest on major-media networks: that we must wait until Washington D.C. has had a royal flush down the toilet. Washington D.C. has already been flushed down the toilet, and it is trying to drag us with them! It is time that the States step up to their responsibilities under their state constitutions, under the U.S. Constitution, and under the laws of “Nature and Nature’s God.” Until then, Americans will continue to be led down the same road to tyranny and destruction.

Copyright ©Timothy Baldwin 2009