History is rhyming again, to borrow a phrase of Mark Twain’s. Poland is coming under increasing pressure by the European Union to conform to the superstate’s will; this is exactly the situation the South found herself in vis-à-vis the federal government in Washington City in the 18th and 19th centuries. The central question in both cases is this: Who has primacy in a federation of nation-states? The superstate created by those nations to coordinate various policies amongst them, or the nations themselves?
We will return to this question shortly, but first let us see what is afoot in Europe. Dr Srdja Trifkovic summarizes the Polish situation for us:
‘On Oct. 7 Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that EU law does not have primacy over national legislation. The case was brought before the Tribunal last March by Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that Morawiecki’s new system of appointing judges, established in 2018, violated EU law. The Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw specifically ruled that the legitimacy of judges already appointed under the new rules could not be challenged using EU law.
‘The decision of Poland’s highest court is a major and unprecedented challenge to the EU’s acquis communautaire. This French term refers to the cumulative body of European Community laws and forms the foundation of the EU legal order. All official EU sources assert that member states and their citizens must obey the acquis.
‘“EU law has primacy over national law, including constitutional provisions,” the European Commission insisted in response. “All rulings by the European Court of Justice are binding on all member states’ authorities, including national courts,” the statement continued, warning that the Commission would “not hesitate to make use of its powers under the Treaties to safeguard the uniform application and integrity of Union law.”
‘ . . .
‘Poland will likely stand firm on this issue because it directly concerns its national sovereignty. It is considered as important as the rejection of mandatory migrant relocation quotas by the Visegrad Four nations (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) in 2018.
‘Warsaw does not dispute that EU laws take precedence in some specific areas covered by individual treaties signed and ratified by all EU member states. They dispute, however, the ECJ’s assertion that EU laws trump national constitutions, pointing out that this principle is not contained in any treaties.’
The Southern view in matters like this is very much aligned with the Polish position: The nation is supreme over the superstate.
Not long into the era of government under the Philadelphia charter which began in 1788, the South began to confront actions of the federal government that the new constitution did not allow. Her response was that those laws, having no basis in the provisions of the constitution, were null and void and should not be obeyed. Furthermore, since the States created the federal government, each State, and not the latter, was the final arbiter of what is constitutional and what is not.
Their principles were clearly set forth in 1798, first in the Kentucky General Assembly:
‘Resolved, that the several states composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain definite powers, reserving each state to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self Government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: That to this compact each state acceded as a state, and is an integral party, its co-states forming as to itself, the other party: That the Government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the constitution, the measure of its powers; but that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common Judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.’
The General Assembly of Virginia shortly thereafter concurred, writing,
. . .
The rest is at https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/poland-must-maintain-her-sovereignty.
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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