Victor Davis Hanson: Secessionist Democrats Need a Constitutional Lesson

Nov 7, 2025 Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words
Last month, former Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi suggested that local and state authorities in California, a sanctuary state, could arrest federal agents for enforcing federal immigration law, saying that while “the president may enjoy absolute immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate under his orders do not.”

The former speaker, as well as other mayors and governors who see fit to nullify federal law, should take a moment and reread the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which “details that local state authorities are subject to treaties and the laws that the federal government makes. And, therefore, pursuant to those laws, they are subordinate,” argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”

“We know in 1961-63, we had another attempt to nullify the supremacy clause. Southern governors in Mississippi and Arkansas and Alabama said, 'Federal law does not apply here. The Supreme Court ruling does not apply here. In our opinion, we can run our schools the way local people want. And we're gonna resist you.' The Eisenhower, and then later the Kennedy administration, said, 'No, you're not. We have the federal government's military, and we can federalize and hold you in contempt and arrest you because of the supremacy clause.'"