While we all want a Convention of States, how do we resist tyranny now?
Let’s look at our history:
1. Alexander Hamilton’s landmark jury verdict in Peter Zenger’s Trial
Peter Zenger published a weekly paper that exposed colonial government corruption. The British arrested and charged him in 1733 for defying a law forbidding criticism of government. Alexander Hamilton, his attorney, acknowledged Zenger had violated the law, but persuaded the jury to render a not guilty verdict.
Today, some judges hate jury nullification enough to charge citizens with “jury tampering” for giving prospective jurors literature informing them of this legal power.
2. The ramp-up to the Civil War
South Carolina’s declaration of secession of 1860 accused 13 states of having “…enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them.”
The Maine Legislature and the Massachusetts Legislature refused to comply with the Dred Scott decision of 1857.
3. The 1960s civil rights movement
We've come a long way since segregation. Here in North Carolina I rarely find someone who won’t speak well of Martin Luther King. But how would we ever have heard about him were it not for the multitudes he led in civil disobedience?
Yet how many of his admirers today tell us never to disobey unjust laws?
3. Going forward
What will we do if federal or state bureaucrats reactivate mask and/or “vaccine” mandates? Or order our schools to teach CRT and transgenderism? Or if a blue legislature confiscates firearms?
Shall we obey until we have a Convention of States?
Matt Trewhella’s The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates gives a powerful biblical and historical underpinning for lesser magistrates’ right and duty to defy tyrants. Should we not join other activists and pester county commissioners and school boards to defy such mandates?
We might recruit new COS activists as well!
If only we had pressured our state legislatures to defy the morally and Constitutionally rebellious Roe v. Wade! See my We Should Have Defied Roe v. Wade All Along. Because we didn't, we have 70 million murdered unborn babies on our hands.
And how long after Obergefell v. Hodges will constitutional illiterates whimper “Gay marriage is the law of the land”?!
We COS activists must be snipers, pushing our legislatures and county commissioners to shoot down Constitutionally outrageous injustices, while continuing to prepare the artillery fire of a Convention of States.
What general would refuse to furnish rifles to his army just because he is wedded to artillery?
The prophet Hosea lamented “My people perish for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Let us enforce the entire Constitution and, if you have not yet signed the Convention of States petition, please by all means do so.
