10 states may push nullification legislation, how does this relate to the separation of church and state?

  There are now ten states–Idaho, Alabama, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming–which have introduced or plan to introduce nullification legislation in an attempt to take the fight against Obamacare to the next level.

  Nullification simply means that a state can invoke its tenth amendment rights and nullify any federal law that particular state doesn’t agree with. Most people feel that this is an idea that will ultimately fail in the courts and I happen to agree. (Any chance of state nullification died with the Civil War in my opinion.)

  But that does not mean that this should not be tried because we must keep the Obamacare fight in the forefront and be proactive by attacking Obamacare from all angles. But I thought that for this post I would look at this issue from another angle.

  What does the issue of nullification and the “wall of separation” between church and state have in common? The words of Thomas Jefferson.

  Thomas Jefferson–as well as many of the other founders–thought that nullification was a legitimate means to keep on overreaching federal government in check. When John Adams signed the “Aliens and Sedition Acts”  which basically allowed the federal government to arrest Americans citizens simply for speaking out against the federal government–a clear violation of the constitution–Thomas Jefferson wrote that “nullification is the rightful remedy.”

  So here is the question I have: Once these nullification laws make it to the Supreme Court–and they will if even one state passes the law–shouldn’t the Supreme Court look outside the constitution and take a look at the words of Thomas Jefferson?

 Why would a person who considers himself an originalist and a constitutionalist ask the question of whether the Supreme Court should look outside the constitution? Simply to make a point. There is precedent for the Supreme Court looking outside the constitution and reading the words of Thomas Jefferson to interpret the meaning of the constitution.

  The Supreme Court created a “wall of separation between church and state” not by reading the constitution, but rather by reading Thomas Jefferson’s private correspondence.

  I know I have written this several times before, but here we go again:

 The term “separation of church and state” actually appears in a letter that Thomas Jefferson sent to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 in reply to a letter sent to him while he was president. The Baptists were worried that they were not going to be allowed to practice their religion so they sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson which stated their concerns. Thomas Jefferson sent a reply to the Baptist to assuage their fear in which he wrote, “ I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

  It wasn’t until the Reynolds v. United States case in 1878 that a judge ruled Thomas Jefferson’s words in a private conversation captured the essence of the true meaning of the first amendment, thus figuratively writing the “wall of separation between church and state” into the constitution.

  So the Supreme Court looked at documents written by Thomas Jefferson in one of the cases that has had the most profound effects on the moral teachings of our nation simply to interpret the constitution as they saw fit. The Supreme Court simply created the “wall of separation” out of thin air and the ironic thing here is that the Supreme Court has used that “wall” over the years to do exactly the opposite of what Thomas Jefferson had written about–he was defending the Baptists rights to worship. 

  If the Supreme Court can reach that conclusion then certainly they can use the words of Thomas Jefferson to reinstate a doctrine that most of the founders believed in when they wrote the constitution, could liberals actually complain about this after supporting the “wall of separation” argument for all of these years?

  Certainly the founders believed in nullification even though it isn’t specifically mentioned in the constitution–Thomas Jefferson’s words show that he did–much like the “wall of separation” is not specifically mentioned in the constitution, even though Thomas Jefferson’s words have been used to create this concept.

  Would liberals who defend the “wall of separation” even though its basis was found outside the constitution suddenly become constitutionalists if the courts were to look outside the constitution when deciding on nullification? I don’t think so because liberals only care about the constitution when it either benefits themselves or their beliefs.