Townhall...
Should
We
Obey All Laws?
by Walter
E. Williams
May 16,
2012
Let’s think
about whether all acts of Congress deserve our respect and obedience.
Suppose
Congress enacted a law -- and the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional
--
requiring American families to attend church services at least three
times a
month. Should we obey such a law? Suppose Congress, acting under the
Constitution’s commerce clause, enacted a law requiring motorists to
get eight
hours of sleep before driving on interstate highways. Its justification
might
be that drowsy motorists risk highway accidents and accidents affect
interstate
commerce. Suppose you were a jury member during the 1850s and a free
person
were on trial for assisting a runaway slave, in clear violation of the
Fugitive
Slave Act. Would you vote to convict and punish?
A moral
person would find each one of those laws either morally repugnant or to
be a
clear violation of our Constitution. You say, “Williams, you’re wrong
this
time. In 1859, in Ableman v. Booth, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the
Fugitive
Slave Act of 1850 constitutional.” That court decision, as well as some
others
in our past, makes my case. Moral people can’t rely solely on the
courts to
establish what’s right or wrong. Slavery is immoral; therefore, any
laws that
support slavery are also immoral. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “to
consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional
questions
(is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us
under the
despotism of an oligarchy.”
Soon, the
Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of Obamacare,
euphemistically
titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. There is
absolutely no
constitutional authority for Congress to force any American to enter
into a
contract to buy any good or service. But if the court rules that
Obamacare is
constitutional, what should we do?
State
governors and legislators ought to summon up the courage of our
Founding
Fathers in response to the 5th Congress’ Alien and Sedition Acts in
1798. Led
by Jefferson and James Madison, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
of 1798
and 1799 were drafted where legislatures took the position that the
Alien and
Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. They said, “Resolved, That the
several
States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the
principle
of unlimited submission to their general government ... (and)
whensoever the
general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are
unauthoritative,
void, and of no force.” The 10th Amendment to our Constitution supports
that
vision: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to
the people.”
In a word,
if the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is constitutional, citizens
should
press their state governors and legislatures to nullify the law. You
say,
“Williams, the last time states got into this nullification business,
it led to
a war that cost 600,000 lives.” Two things are different this time.
First, most
Americans are against Obamacare, and secondly, I don’t believe that you
could
find a U.S. soldier who would follow a presidential order to descend on
a state
to round up or shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to
follow a
congressional order to buy health insurance.
Congress
has already gone far beyond the powers delegated to it by the
Constitution. In
Federalist No. 45, Madison explained: “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.” That
vision has
been turned on its head; it’s the federal government whose powers are
numerous
and indefinite, and those of the state are now few and defined.
Former
slave Frederick Douglass advised: “Find out just what people will
submit to and
you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will
be
imposed upon them. ... The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the
endurance of
those whom they oppress.”
Read this
and other articles at Townhall
|