Tomorrow a primary election will be held in Indiana. Several conservative candidates have revived the old idea of nullification--asserting a state's right to ignore a federal law with which it disagrees. Nullification begs the question: What holds a free
society together?
What holds a free society together? A vibrant, democratic government. At its inception, our
nation was very weak. It almost fell apart many times as individual states
tried to assert their rights. Alexander Hamilton saw a need to make the
separate states more unified. He did this through the assumption of state debt.
The idea of a strong central government was again tested in the Civil War.
Lincoln recognized that allowing states to secede would mean the experiment in
government by the people had failed. The central government’s ability to govern
the states did not only mean the survival of the nation, but of democracy. When
the Union won the Civil War, it established the power of the nation over the
state. The experiment in government by the people continues to grow and change
as humans grow and change. Currently, people around the world are casting off
older forms of government and struggling towards democracy. We must be doing
something right.
