"...(I)t is misleading to date the tradition of American liberty from the late 1780s, since the Constitution of the United States was in fact only the culmination of generations of practical self-government on the part of Americans. At the time of the framing of the Constitution and the formation of an allegedly "more perfect union," the colonists had precedents for challenging the powers of a confederation, as in the case of the Confederation of New England, for rejecting a confederation, as in the case of the Albany Plan of Union, and for bringing down a confederation by force, as in the case of the Dominion of New England. It can hardly be surprising, therefore, to learn that at the time of the ratification of the Constitution, three states [Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island] in acceding to the new confederation, explicitly reserved the right to withdraw from the Union at such time as it should become oppressive. In so doing they were only exercising the vigilance and libertarian principle that had animated the American experience during the colonial period.

"Thus when a union of polities becomes an end in itself, as it has in the minds of some since the days of Daniel Webster but certainly since Abraham Lincoln's revolution, the repudiation and indeed perversion of the colonial ideal is complete. Yet today, even self-proclaimed conservatives, whom one might expect to be engaged in preserving their country's tradition of liberty, cavalierly decry attachment to the principles embodied in the Confederate flag as "treason," even though the value of self-government vindicated by the South had been insisted upon since colonial times. The real traitors, however, are not the Confederates, but those who betray the real American tradition of independence and self-government in favor of the principle of unlimited submission to central authority. This is what the colonial period has to teach us."

Colonial Origins of American Liberty
By Thomas Woods (2000)
[Delivered at the Mises Institute conference, The History of Liberty, January 2000; Posted on Mises.org, March 3, 2000]

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"...I am [deeply] impressed with a sense of the Importance of Amendments; that the good People may clearly see the distinction, for there is a distinction, between the federal Powers vested in Congress, and the sovereign Authority belonging to the several States, which is the Palladium of the private, and personal rights of the Citizens."

Samuel Adams, 1789

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"If a line can be drawn between the powers granted [to the federal government] and the rights retained [by the people and their States], it would seem to be the same thing whether the latter be secured by declaring that they shall not be abridged, or that the former shall not be extended."

James Madison, 1789

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"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

Thomas Jefferson, 1791

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"...[W]hether the phrases in question be construed to authorize every measure relating to the common defence and general welfare, as contended by some; or every measure only in which there might be an application of money, as suggested by the caution of others; the effect must substantially be the same, in destroying the import and force of the particular enumeration of powers which follow these general phrases in the Constitution. For it is evident that there is not a single power whatever, which may not have some reference to the common defence, or the general welfare; nor a power of any magnitude, which, in its exercise, does not involve or admit an application of money."

James Madison, 1799

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"That man must be a deplorable idiot who does not see that there is no earthly difference between an unlimited grant of power, and a grant limited in its [ends], but accompanied with unlimited means of carrying it into execution."

Spencer Roane, 1819

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"As ends may be made to beget means, so means may be made to beget ends, until the cohabitation shall rear a progeny of unconstitutional bastards, which were not begotten by the people..."

John Taylor, 1820

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"Sometimes I have to break the law in order to meet my management objectives."

Bill Calkins, United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, New Mexico State Director, November 17, 1994 (quote provided by a federal law enforcement officer who was present, and who took notes)

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Heaven help us...

The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England
The Commissioners for Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven (1643)

Plan of Union
William Penn (1697)

The Albany Plan of Union
Benjamin Franklin (1754)

Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms
John Dickinson (1775)

The Virginia Declaration of Rights
George Mason (1776)

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
Thomas Jefferson (1776)

Instructions to the Agent
The United States Congress (1776)

The Articles of Confederation
John Dickinson et. al. (1781)

The Federalist Papers
and other documents

The Antifederalist Papers

The Debates in the Federal Convention
James Madison (1787)

Plan of Government
Alexander Hamilton (1787)

The Constitution of the United States (Original Version)
(1787)

The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution
Jonathan Elliot (1787)

The Constitution of the United States of America
(1788)

Ratification of the Constitution by the State of Virginia
June 26, 1788

Ratification of the Constitution by the State of New York
July 26, 1788

Ratification of the Constitution by the State of North Carolina
November 21, 1789

Ratification of the Constitution by the State of Rhode Island
May 29, 1790

The Bill of Rights
(1791)

On the Constitutionality of a National Bank
Thomas Jefferson (1791)

The Bank Bill
James Madison (1791)

The Kentucky Resolutions
Thomas Jefferson (1798)

The Virginia Resolutions
James Madison (1798)

Kentucky Resolutions in General Assembly
Thomas Jefferson et. al. (1799)

Report on the Virginia Resolutions
James Madison (1799)

Blackstone's Commentaries
St. George Tucker (1803)

Proposed Amendments to the Constitution
The Hartford Convention (1814)

On McCulloch v. Maryland
James Madison (1819)

On the Lack of Federal Power to Interdict Slavery in the Territories
James Madison (1819)

On Northern Ascendancy and the Missouri Question
James Madison (1820)

Construction Construed, and Constitutions Vindicated
John Taylor (1820)

Tyranny Unmasked
John Taylor (1821)

On the Doctrines of the Supreme Court Concerning the Extent of their Own Power
James Madison (1821)

Jonathan Bull and Mary Bull
James Madison (1821)

New Views of the Constitution of the United States
John Taylor (1823)

Declaration and Protest on the Principles of the Constitution of the United States of America,
and on the Violations of Them
Thomas Jefferson (1825)

A View of the Constitution of the United States of America
William Rawle (1825, 1829)

The Dangers of Consolidation
Robert Young Hayne (1830)

Government Without Limitation of Powers
Robert Young Hayne (1830)

South Carolina's Ordinance of Nullification
The People of South Carolina (1832)

Proclamation Regarding Nullification
Andrew Jackson (1832)

Comments Regarding the Force Bill
John Tyler (1832)

A Contest Between Power and Liberty
John C. Calhoun (1832)

Against the Force Bill
John C. Calhoun (1833)

South Carolina’s Nullification of the Force Bill
The People of South Carolina (1833)

The Texas Declaration of Independence
The Delegates of the People of Texas (1836)

Address Delivered at Louisville, Kentucky
Stephen Austin (1836)

A Brief Enquiry into the True Nature and Character of our Federal Government
Abel P. Upshur (1840, 1868)

Inaugural Address
James K. Polk (1845)

Constitution of the State of Texas
T.J. Rusk (1845)

Disquisition on Government
John C. Calhoun (1851)

Compromise Proposals
The Committee of Thirteen (1860)

The Address of the People of South Carolina...
Robert Barnwell Rhett (1860)

You Never Can Subjugate Us
Judah P. Benjamin (1860)

Telegrams
(1860-1861)

Alabama's Letter to the State of North Carolina
I.W. Garrott & Robert H. Smith (1861)

Conditions for Settlement
John Letcher (1861)

The Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America
(1861)

Letter to President Lincoln
Jefferson Davis (1861)

The Northern Pro-slavery Amendment
The United States Congress (1861)

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America
(1861)

Letter to Secretary of State Seward
John Forsyth & Martin Crawford (1861)

Memorandum in Response
William H. Seward (1861)

Ordinances of Secession
(1860-1861)

The Surrender of Fort Sumter
General G.T. Beauregard, CSA (1861)

Message to Congress
Jefferson Davis (1861)

Writings on the U.S. Civil War
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1861)

The Cherokee Nation Declaration of Causes...
Thomas Pegg (1861)

The Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln (1862)

Proposed Constitutional Amendments
Abraham Lincoln (1862)

Peace Resolutions
The People of the State of New Jersey (1863)

The Wade-Davis Manifesto
Benjamin Wade and Henry W. Davis (1864)

A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States
Alexander H. Stephens (1868)

Prisoners of State
John Lossing (1868)

The Contest Is Not Over
Jefferson Davis (1881)

Reminiscences of the Civil War
General John B. Gordon, CSA (1904)

State Documents on Federal Relations
Herman V. Ames (1911)

Nullification in Mississippi
Cleo Hearon (1912)

Webster's Seventh of March Speech and the Secession Movement (of) 1850
Herbert Darling Foster (1922)

The Unconstitutionality of the Fourteenth Amendment
Leander H. Perez (1967)

Dyett v. Turner (Amendment XIV)
The Supreme Court for the State of Utah (1968)

A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the U.S. Constitution
Roger A. Bruns (1986)

A Constitutional View of State Sovereignty and Secession
Rick H. Veal and Samuel McGowan (1994)

An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession
James Ostrowski (1995)

US Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 US 779
Clarence Thomas (1995)

America's Caesar: The Decline and Fall of Republican Government in the United States of America
Greg Loren Durand (2000)

The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment (I): The Lost Original Meaning
Kurt Lash (2004)

Gonzales v. Raich, 03-1454
Clarence Thomas (2005)

Kelo v. New London, 04-108
Clarence Thomas (2005)

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'Duct tape is like The Force - it has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together' - jimmango

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We're off to see the Wizard
The Wonderful Wizard of AZ
We hear he is a Whiz of a Wiz
If ever a Wiz there waz
If ever, oh ever, a Wiz there waz
The Wizard of AZ is one becaz
Becaz, becaz, becaz, becaz, becaz
Becaz of the wonderful things he saz
We're off to see the Wizard
The Wonderful Wizard of AZ...