Fighting Biden's Mandate: Compact Theory and Nullification

Why Compact Theory Matters for Opposing Federal Overreach

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We have, in my opinion, what is one of the more important episodes today on the Conversations That Matter podcast. And it's gonna sound a little bit, when I use the terms I'm about to use, like a dry, boring college lecture.

You're gonna think, oh man, is this really, let me just skip to, let me go listen to another podcast or something. But hang with me, because in my opinion, this is exceptionally important, especially for the moment we're living.

And we need to understand these things. And I think the concepts behind these terms that I'm about to share with you would have been basic common sense, common knowledge. Wouldn't have even really had at least compact theory.

Would not have had, people wouldn't have had to explain it to one another as if it was a foreign concept. They would have understood right away what that was. In fact, I think it should be called compact fact.

The founders would have all pretty much, just about at least at the Constitutional Convention, they knew what they were doing. And it wasn't forming a central authority, totalitarian Leviathan that was going to dictate, as a dictator would to everyone else, the way the Biden administration seems to think things work.

It was a organic, it was an alliance between organic communities for the purpose of protection, for some trade regulation, and with foreign powers, especially immigration. Really some very basic things, limited government.

And now we are in a country where the Constitution is kind of like, the way it's being treated is kind of like the way, it's actually even worse in some ways, but it's like the way that the Queen of England is treated in England.

It's kind of this archaic thing we kind of pay homage to, but it doesn't really mean anything. We have a living constitution now, which is very different than what the founders intended. They wrote down a constitution.

We have a written one. And that's in contrast to what they came from. The British common law system is based on an unwritten constitution. Our founders in the United States have a written constitution.

That's on purpose. There's a reason they wrote it down, so that government could not stray beyond the rules that were set in place. And unfortunately, that happened anyway. And that's the human tendency is to consolidate power.

Well, compact theory and nullification are related terms. Nullification rests on compact theory. And if we are going to be serious about, and I'm talking about the governors out there right now who wanna fight Biden's OSHA regulations, where he's requiring businesses of 100 people or more to require quote unquote vaccines for their workers or invest in tests.

If the governors who are challenging this, with a rhetoric at least, we'll see if it has teeth. If they're serious, they are going to need to consider very strongly. And then really they're gonna have to do this before the Supreme Court weighs in.

They're gonna have to nullify the federal law. I don't really see another way around it. And so this is a tool that is in the arsenal of every constitution loving American. It's also though a tool that Christians, I think need to know about.

It's a tool that, especially if you're in a conservative state, a state that still holds onto not just constitutional liberties, but a sense of Christianity. If such a state is still out there, and with everything that we're seeing within the last year and a half keeps going the way it's going, it's not gonna be good.

It's already isn't good, but it's really not gonna be good for religious liberty. And we need to know about this tool that we have in our arsenal that so often gets neglected. And when I saw on Twitter and Gab, or sorry, Facebook and Gab, I don't have a Twitter anymore.

But when I saw on those two social media websites, the response I got when I was bringing up these concepts, I knew I needed to do an episode on it because, and this isn't to shame anyone. I totally fine.

Most people don't know what compact theory or nullification are, but they ought to be part of any civics class. In my opinion, these are just basic things. Our founders would have understood the concepts behind this, and it would just been obvious to them, at least at the time they were forming the constitution.

So we're gonna get into it. I'm gonna explain what these tools are. And it is also, they're related to, or the nullification is related to the doctrine of the lesser magistrate as well. And for those who don't know what that is, you can check out the episode I did with Matt Truwella, who authored the book, Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate.

And this is like the Hebrew midwives. It's when a lesser magistrates uses their authority to shield or to prevent a sinful action, an abusive action from coming from a greater magistrate. And the states in our country can do that when the federal government or the national government runs amok.

This is a tool that we have. We can exercise the doctrine of the lesser magistrate in our local states against federal tyranny. And we're gonna have to really think about this more and more and more as we move forward.

So let's start, let's use this issue with the OSHA requirements for employers that Biden has his edict. Let's use this as the examples going forward as to how this would work, why we would do this, what nullification is, all of that.

I really wanna just give everyone kind of a crash course in nullification and to a lesser extent, compact theory. So why is the mandate unconstitutional? Well, let's talk about a few things here. There's probably a lot more that can be said here, but I think this is gonna be challenged probably on 14th Amendment in court at least, 14th Amendment grounds, and also the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act.

Due Process, the 10th Amendment, and the Limits of Federal Power

Now, let me explain what that is. The 1946 Administrative Procedure Act governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations. It includes requirements for publishing notices of proposed and final rulemaking in the federal register.

And this is according to the EPA. So OSHA is under this. Here's a section from it. Upon such review, the court shall hold unlawful such act or set aside such application, rule, order, or any administrative finding or conclusion made sanction or requirement imposed or permission or benefit withheld to the extent that it finds them one arbitrary or capricious.

Let me unpack this. The requirement that businesses of 100 people or more need to administer this or make sure this treatment is administered to their employees is an arbitrary regulation. Businesses with 99 people don't have to abide by it.

And so that's probably one of the things that they're gonna challenge. Like, why 100 people? Why is that? That seems like an arbitrary number. How did you arrive at that number, right? Now, this is actually not really directly relating to whether it's constitutional or not.

This is more just, is it in our current, where we are now, is it legal or not? And the answer would be no. But on the 14th Amendment and 10th Amendment grounds, and I don't think they're gonna use 10th Amendment grounds unless states do their nullification thing.

But 14th Amendment says, "'Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, "'liberty, or property without due process of law.'". So there's gonna be a due process challenge to this as well, that this was just an edict that was made by the Biden administration and there was no due process of law in this.

It's not a law. He didn't sign a law. He just, on his own arbitrary whim, decided to, you know, 100 people, that sounds pretty good. We're just gonna require all the businesses in our country to do this.

He can't do this. This is not something that's within his authorization as the President of the United States to execute the law. He doesn't get to create law. He doesn't get to make law. So it'll be challenged based on that ground.

And I mean, we could talk about even, we go to the delegated powers to the President and this isn't in them. But let's talk about the 10th Amendment. That's where I wanna rest a lot of the reasoning that we employ today.

I want it to be based around this one. 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. Now, this is not often taught in civics.

This is not emphasized today. But what it is communicating is that anything not specifically written in that document called the Constitution, if it's not delegated, if it's not specifically, there's not a specific place that you can find where the national government is given or the general government's given a responsibility directly to do something, then it is in the purview of the states and the people.

In other words, it's not in their jurisdiction. It's not up to them. It's illegal if they try to go there. Now, you're probably thinking, well, there's a whole lot of things the government, the national government does that are not outlined in the Constitution, and you'd be right.

We've been living in an abusive, coercive, I don't even wanna say interpretation. It's not an interpretation of the Constitution. It's just ignoring the Constitution. We've been living in just a system that has abused its governing document for over a century.

So it's very difficult when we start applying the 10th Amendment because there's so many examples and so much precedent set down saying that, yeah, you can basically abuse this. And they would never say that, but that's what's happening.

So unless you stop it somewhere, though, it'll just keep going. Someone has to say stop. And some governors are standing up right now with this particular issue and saying stop. And will they actually follow through with teeth?

I don't know. But I do know that this is a very positive thing. This is finally, there's an opportunity at least to use a tool that conservatives, and then just people who love the rule of law. That's really all it is, not even just conservatives.

It's just people who love the rule of law. There's a tool they can use. And so they can say, hey, national government, you're going too far here. This is not in your purview. And even if the Supreme Court says, the Supreme Court is part of the national general government, Supreme Court does not get to just say, well, it's because we said so, now it's legal or not legal.

There are certain things that should not be, certain lines that should not be crossed. And that's the whole idea behind the 10th Amendment. Look, if the United States, the general government does something beyond what they're supposed to do, then that's prohibited, that you can't do it.

That's reserved to the states and the people. So let's talk about nullification. Nullification is this doctrine that the states can nullify. They can do exactly what I'm saying just a minute ago. They can say, they can use that 10th Amendment, the logic employed in that 10th Amendment.

They can use that to say, all right, general government, you've gone too far. You can't go beyond this. And we're not gonna abide by your edict. You might've even passed a law, but the constitution does not give you the authority to pass that law.

So we are going to nullify it. And let me give you some examples from history. The Alien and Sedition Acts were nullified by the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. Thomas Jefferson, instrumental in this, 1798.

I mean, we're just out of the gate, right? Constitution, the ink is still drying and already we're having this problem. And the Alien and Sedition Acts essentially restricted speech and freedom of the press, freedom of speech.

And it was fought on that basis. Restrictions on speech violated the First Amendment. States never delegated the authority to restrict speech to the general government. This is something that is within their purview.

And so the Alien and Sedition Acts were fought on that basis. And I was actually listening to a recording of them earlier this week, and they're very rich. Really, I honestly think we should all read them at least once just to see, I mean, because what's packed into them is basically compact theory and this idea that we're organic communities, we are states, we have our own sovereignty and we've ceded some of that to this general government that is basically kind of an alliance.

And it does not get to dictate to us things that we have not ceded to it. New England and the Embargo Act of 1807 is another example of this. Now, during the Embargo Act, again, this, interestingly enough, this is Thomas Jefferson when he's president.

It restricted trade with places like France and the Northeast was in an uproar. In fact, even Daniel Webster, who was very against nullification later on, some of these people are hypocrites, like Daniel Webster, kind of switches sides a little bit.

James Madison, a lot of people like to quote him and I'll even quote him later, but you can find things in him that are contradictory, especially when they're selling the Constitution to the states. They're very big on what we would consider compact theory.

They're very big on, hey, no, you're still states, you still have the powers, your liberties aren't gonna be taken away. The Federalist Papers are filled with this, but then later on, as the government accrues more power, the central government, some of that rhetoric changes.

But anyway, in 1807, when it was directly affecting New England, when Daniel Webster was a senator from, I believe he was in New Hampshire at that time, or a congressman from New Hampshire, he fought this, Rhode Island fought this, and eventually it ended in 1809, the Embargo Act.

There was never really like a military, nothing had to happen that was a direct conflict, it just ended and the issue went away. But there was, the statements being made by legislatures at that time, in Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, were nullification statements.

1814, the debates over military conscription. So this, there was never a law passed, but there was this, an idea that was being debated in Congress that there should be military conscription, that people should, basically kind of like a draft.

And this was also, again, in the Northeast especially, highly opposed, and there was already a number of statements again made by legislatures, state legislatures, that they would not comply with this if it were to go into law.

They were nullifying it before it even had any force. And then this is the one that gets the press, if you ever talk about nullification. Alien and Sedition Acts too, also do. But the Tariff of Abominations in the Force Bill, and it's called off in the Nullification Crisis, 1832 to 1833.

Tariffs were for raising revenue for government expenses, not for protecting domestic industry. But in this case, you had, and by the logic of South Carolina, tariffs that were being raised to protect Northern manufacturing, Northern shipping.

It was favoring certain regions domestically. And so it wasn't, it wasn't supposed to be for just raising some revenue, not for helping certain industries and hurting others. And then the Constitution called for general welfare, not the particular welfare of one section.

And so South Carolina, this is a very high tariff, by the way. South Carolina basically nullifies this thing, says, we're not gonna do it. Andrew Jackson says, we're gonna force you to do it, and passes the Force Bill.

And this is when basically a compromise was reached, and John C. Calhoun was instrumental in reaching this compromise, a Senator from South Carolina. And so the Force Bill never took effect. They were able to avert the disaster, but just for good measure, South Carolina nullified the Force Bill, and said, we nullify that.

So this was actually a successful instance of nullification being used. And if you see even the examples I've already used, a lot of these, you don't have to go to war. It basically forces the general government to come to the table and compromise.

And there's a tug of war. And that's not an unhealthy thing. And that's one of the things I wanted to relay to everyone, is like, look, just because there's conflict, that doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, our whole system with checks and balances is supposed to promote some conflict so that no one gets all the power.

And so federalism, the idea that there's a federation of states that all are sovereign to themselves, but cede some of their power to the general government, and that there's a delegation of powers to the general government, but then the other powers are reserved for the states, that's federalism.

That's compact theory. Federalism and compact theory go together. Of course, compact theory says, it is a little more deeply philosophical. I'll get into that a little later. But this idea, this idea of federalism is meant to grind some gears.

And that's actually a healthy thing. Because you know what? And this gets back to Christianity, because humans are evil. We believe that. Humans want power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, right? The whole idea behind preserving self-government and trying to keep power out of the hands of the few, so tyranny would be checked, is what our checks and balances are all about.

And to get rid of the balance, and the check between the state and the federal, or the national, is to get rid of one of those safeguards. Another example of this is opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act in Wisconsin, 1859.

And there's actually a fascinating story about this from 1859, which I don't have time to get into. But basically, Wisconsin also said, look, the Fugitive Slave Act says that slaves that escape from states where slavery is permitted, and go to states where slavery is not permitted, Wisconsin said that basically they can come here.

Or at least in the case of one particular slave, he can come here. And we're not going to deport him back. And so this became a huge crisis, and this tool was wielded for opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act as well.

So what you see here, just basic cursory survey, is you see north, you see south, you see different regions of the country, different reasons nullification is used. Whether it's right, whether it's wrong, it's used.

And that's the only point I wanted to make, is this was very commonly used up until a certain war. And when that war happened in 1860s, everything changed. There are some modern examples though, of some attempts at nullification, and some successful attempts, mostly by the left though.

The Real ID Act of 2005, 25 states passed resolutions and binding laws denouncing and refusing to implement the Bush-era law, which many expressed concerns about privacy. Marijuana legislation, 36 and counting, more states legalize marijuana, despite federal prohibition.

Some of you don't even realize that. Now, maybe now. No, I think now there's still marijuana, federal prohibition on marijuana, but states don't seem to care. And the federal government's not enforcing it.

So this is kind of like a nullification, practically speaking. The bring the guard home movement. I don't know if that's as popular now, maybe 10 or 15 years ago it was, which is the National Guard needs to be under the authority of the state, not under the national authority.

And then of course, sanctuary cities. This is a hot button topic. Sanctuary cities, these aren't states, but they're cities that have basically said, we're not going to deport illegal migrants. And so these are all some modern examples of attempts to nullify.

Now, I'm not saying I agree with all of these different movements. I'm not saying that necessarily even sanctuary cities have the authority to do that. There's a breakdown with the state not being able to enforce things on cities.

But the point is though here, this tool has been used. Even in the present, there are some examples of it. Now, I want to go over some objections to this. There's a lot of objections, and you probably already thought of some in your own mind.

Wait a minute, if a state can just say that some kind of federal edict is unconstitutional or we're not going to follow it, then isn't that going to land us in chaos land? Isn't that wrong for them? Shouldn't we have law and order?

Isn't this against law and order, right? You're starting to think of these things. So I want to bring up some of the objections. So the first one is the supremacy clause of the constitution forbids it.

Article six, clause two, this constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof and all the treaties made of which shall be made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

And Senator William Harper in 1830 though said this about the clause I just read to you. The clause declaring that the constitution and the laws made in pursuance of it shall be the supreme law would of itself conclude nothing.

The question would still recur, who shall judge whether the laws are made in pursuance of it? So let's sidestep this because this is one of the things that I'm just gonna say the ideological nationalists would use whether on the left or now even on the right to say, well, look at the supreme law of the land.

So anything that, and they usually the jump that they don't really explain is anything the federal government says, the states can't really, they can't do anything about it, right? Well, this just doesn't, this doesn't make any sense.

This isn't true. And that's why William Harper said what he did. He said, look, this doesn't even answer the question of whether the laws of who's gonna judge whether these laws are constitutional or not.

A supremacy clause doesn't answer that question. So that's the question that we're focused on is whether these laws are actually constitutional or not. If the national government passes a law and it's unconstitutional, who gets to judge whether that is an abuse of power is constitutional?

The national government? Because I'm pretty sure I know what side they're gonna come down on. They're the ones that created it. Or is it going to be the states? Who gets to decide? That's the question.

Is it the Supreme Court? Should probably do a podcast on judicial review sometime because I don't think that's even a constitutional thing, but who is it? Is it the national or is it the states? So the supremacy clause doesn't really have anything to do with that.

Here's the other objection from the constitution. The general welfare clause forbids it. Article one, section eight, clause one, the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.

James Madison in 1792 said this about that clause. If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands.

They may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury. Hint, hint, that's already happening. They may take into their hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the union.

They may assume the provision of the poor. They may undertake the regulation of all roads other than the post roads. In short, everything from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of Congress.

Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for it, it would subvert the very foundations and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.

James Madison, 1792. What's he saying? He's saying there's a blank check. Saying if you interpret this to mean that the government can do anything it wants, the national government for the general welfare, as long as they can make a case that, look, this is for your own good, this is for the general welfare, it's for your own good.

What are we hearing now? It's for your own good. We have to pass these totalitarian edicts on businesses, on churches, on community centers, whatever they are. We have to restrict them because it's for your own good.

James Madison is saying that's ridiculous. If that is the logic you employ to interpret this passage, then there's no sense in having any federalism. National government can do anything it wants. States can't say anything about it.

So this is obviously is a poetic flourish. This is a statement about within the limitations of the Constitution, what the United States, what the purpose of the general government is. It's to promote common defense general welfare.

Within the limitations. It's not a statement about, you know, you can just break all the limitations for the general welfare using that logic. But that's how it's been employed. Here's another one. The states will abuse their power, right?

If they can just nullify things, they'll abuse their power. And this is where Thomas Jefferson's quote in 1791, I think comes in. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. So the question is, who do you think is gonna abuse their power more? The states, all 50 of them, or the general government?

And if you're a Christian, you know the human heart's evil and humans in power somewhere are gonna try to abuse their power. So the very genius of the system we're supposed to be living in is that there's some gear grinding.

That you have 50 states that can do things differently. Can be different in Alabama than it is in California, than it is in Alaska, than it is in New York. Nothing wrong with that. But if it's one size fits all and you have one guy with concentrated power, then he can foist tyranny on everyone overnight, which is better.

Thomas Jefferson, our founders thought federalism was better. The Interstate Commerce Clause forbids it. Here's another objection. Article One, Section Eight, Clause Three. The Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes.

Tom Woods says this, the purpose of the Commerce Clause was to establish a free trade zone throughout the United States. So regulate in the sense of make regular, not in the sense of we have authority.

It's to do whatever we want. So the Interstate Commerce Clause does not give Biden the authority to do what he's doing, mandating the businesses. If that were the case, then the federal government can just mandate whatever they want to any business at any time.

They can just say, you're out of business. Hey, interstate commerce, right? It has nothing to do with affecting what affects trade in certain states. I mean, during FDR's presidency, we really got off course with this because then we started paying farmers to not grow things to affect the markets and it just got ridiculous.

This is not what Article One, Section Eight is about. All right, the Elastic Clause. Here's the last one, forbids it of the Constitution. Article One, Section Eight also says, Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for the carrying and execution of foregoing powers.

All the powers vested by this Constitution and the government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof. So Congress has power, right? The necessary and proper power to carry out what?

The limitations it's under. The laws that it is under within the limitations of the Constitution. But again, this has been turned into, well, you have to have necessary and proper. In order, this was first used, I think, primarily with the National Bank.

That's the most famous example that we need a National Bank. We're gonna pay all these debts and stuff. We need a National Bank. So yeah, that's necessary and proper. And so anything that could be connected with something that was the government responsibility, if you could even just tangentially connect something to it, then it became, oh, it's necessary and proper.

We need this, we need that. So here's what Archibald Maine said. He was an influential supporter of the ratification of the Constitution, right? So he supported the Constitution early on. He said, this clause gives no new power, but declares that those already given are to be executed by proper laws.

That's all it says, guys. That's all it says. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 33. These two clauses have been the source of much virulent, invective, and petulant declamation against the proposed Constitution.

They have been held up to the people in all the exaggerated colors of misrepresentation as pernicious engines by which their local governments were to be destroyed and their liberties exterminated. As the hideous monster whose devouring jaws would spare neither sex, nor age, nor high, nor low, nor sacred, nor profane, and yet strange as it may appear after all this clamor to those who may not have happened to contemplate them in the same light, it may be affirmed with perfect confidence that the constitutional operation of the intended government will be precisely the same if these clauses were entirely obliterated.

What's Alexander Hamilton saying? Look, if you got rid of this clause, nothing would change in the Constitution, really. You could obliterate it and you'd still have the same Constitution. And the people who are raising concerns that this is gonna be a blank check given to the national government, they don't know what they're talking about.

Of course they did, they did, because they saw what would happen later on. Okay, so I think these objections, all these objections have been answered at this point. These aren't real objections to nullification.

And so if states do have the power, they do, and there's a tradition going back. Right to our war for independence that, I mean, look, the Stamp Act was nullified. This is before the Constitution was around.

I mean, this precedes the Constitution by local governments, local governments, state governments, the colonies were nullifying things coming out of the Central Authority of England because they said, look, this goes against the unwritten Constitution of England.

You're treating us like subjects. You're not treating us like citizens that we are. You're not treating us like English citizens. That's really what the war for independence was all about. So nullification goes back a long way.

The Treaty of Paris, Ratification, and the Compact Theory of the Constitution

Now, understanding our system, and I should make one final note. The people who say this is anarchy or say, oh no, that you can't, Romans 13 or something, you're not understanding the system if you're making that claim.

You're not understanding the system we live in. The system that we live in is predicated on the idea that lesser magistrates, in this case the states, can step in. That's their authority. That's their function.

You know, it's kind of like, you know, if a husband's abusing his children, the wife can't step in, the wife can't call the police because, well, you know, you're supposed to submit to your husband, right?

No, that's, it's, within this hierarchy, within the hierarchies, we have, we have these mechanisms to prevent the miscarriage of justice. So historical context. The United States formed a written Constitution after being part of an empire with an unwritten one.

Remember that. James Madison in Federalist 45 said, 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.

Did you hear that? States, numerous and definite. Federal government, few and defined. Thomas Jefferson, in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

If we're not gonna follow the Constitution, if the general government decides, and it's a blank check, it's a dead document, then who's going to enforce it? The federal government's not. They're the ones causing the problem.

It's gonna have to be the state standing up and saying, uh-uh, you broke the rules. We're the ones that ceded the power to you. You don't, you did not create us. We created you. And that gets us to this compact theory.

So I'm gonna spend just a few minutes on this, and there's so much that can be said, and I'll have some recommendations of books when I'm done, but some food for thought here. The Treaty of Paris says this.

His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, and guess what it outlines? New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey. It goes through the list of all the states.

Why does it do that? Why did the British government, when they signed the treaty with us, why didn't they just say, we acknowledge the United States? Why did they go through a list of all of them? Well, because they're signing a treaty with all of them as separate sovereign entities.

That's why. In fact, the term the United States are was used up until the Civil War. Not the United States is, the United States are. They're separate and distinct states. The 10th Amendment says, and I'll read it one more time for you.

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. William Rawl, who wrote a book, and I recommend it, A View of the Constitution, was used as standard curriculum at West Point.

Most of the Civil War generals would have all read this. It was very pro-secession. It was, but very pro -compact theory. This is just, it was the standard curriculum. People learned about their country, but they learned about the way that their country was actually arranged was through these states that ceded their power to the central authority.

Some power, limited power, power they could take up again, and that's where I get to the ratification agreements. New York says this, when they ratified the Constitution, that the powers of the government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness.

In other words, we don't have, we can secede. We don't have to be part of this thing if it's not in our people's best interest. We can just, we can leave. Virginia, on behalf of the people of Virginia, we declare and make known the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be reassumed by them whenever it, whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.

In other words, if there's injury, if there's oppression, we can leave. We're giving these on loan, these powers on loan to the general government for the payment of public debts, for, to help with foreign threats, limited powers that are outlined in the Constitution.

We're gonna give those to the general government, but that's it, no more. And if there's abuse, we can just pull out. We can say, nope. And so, I mean, this is kind of like if situations, other situations of abuse, right?

If you're in a church, you're supposed to submit to your leaders, right? If they're abusing you, you're not free to leave? Well, that's the same logic employed here. Look, we can leave if we need to leave.

And this isn't about secession, but the compact theory or compact fact, really, of the United States, secession, nullification, these kinds of things, they rest on this idea. And if you start, if you understand what the Constitution is that it is a compact between sovereign parties that are equal with each other and have to respect each other and have only delegated certain things to a general government, if you start with that understanding, which is what our country is, that the states created the general government, the general government did not create the states, then you are gonna come down very differently on a lot of the questions of today, very differently.

In fact, this is, I think, one of the things that separates, it's the main thing that separates people on the Civil War, who they think was right, who they think was wrong, legally speaking. It really comes down to whether or not you believe in compact theory.