Now that the national health care reform bill has passed the House, and will go back to the Senate for final debate, there are several states that are lining up to file suit against the Federal government to stop it from becoming law. As a matter of fact Idaho and Virginia have already passed state laws that will, for all intents and purposes, nullify the new health care reform bill by declaring their citizens do *not* have to purchase health insurance.
The Florida, Texas and South Carolina Attorney’s General are already preparing suits against the Federal government stating that this bill is unconstitutional. As Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum said, “The health care reform legislation passed by the U. S. House of Representatives … clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state’s sovereignty,”. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster said, “The health care legislation Congress passed tonight is an assault against the Constitution of the United States. It contains various provisions and federal mandates that are clearly unconstitutional and must not be allowed to stand… A legal challenge by the States appears to be the only hope of protecting the American people from this unprecedented attack on our system of government.” Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said, “To protect all Texans’ constitutional rights, preserve the constitutional framework intended by our nation’s founders, and defend our state from further infringement by the federal government, the State of Texas and other states will legally challenge the federal health care legislation.” (emphasis mine)
Man, I’ve got to tell you, THIS IS SOME EXCITING STUFF! Being a “home made historian”, with a special interest in Southern history, it’s almost like re-reading what was being said just before hostilities broke out in 1860. Now I’m not saying that another Civil War is looming, nor is it what I want. But to see the “invigorating struggle for liberty” again taking up the banner of States Rights gives me goose bumps! For let me tell you, regardless of what you may have read in your history books in school, The South was right and the arguments being made now is vindication of that premise.
Our Founders wanted a system of government where the States retained the lion’s share of the power and authority within the federal system. There is a reason that they ratifiers of the Constitution put the 9th and 10th amendments in the Bill of Rights. These were some of the chains that Thomas Jefferson was alluding to when he said, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Our federal government was NEVER meant to have any other power than was delegated to it by the original Constitution. The “Anti-Federalist” won out during the debates over the Constitution but there was a very strong “Federalist” coalition that went to work as soon as the first president was feted. The federal government starting acquiring more powers from the “get go” and, with just a few brief respites, this continued and culminated in the War for Southern Independence. When The South was forced to capitulate in 1865, it was the crowning glory of Federal power but it was, in all actuality, the death knell of our constitutional republic. As Lord Acton wrote to Robert E. Lee after the war, “I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.” Jefferson Davis said, at the close of the war, “The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.”
Now here we are all these years later and again States Rights are coming to the forefront of politics. Will health care reform be the “stake in the ground” that will motivate our States to protect their citizens from leviathan?
