The irony here is that the issue of concern to the author is an explicit element of the Constitutional contract, rather than an arbitrary change to it or a dismissal of one of its terms. Had the federal government passed a law asserting that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to Hawaiians, that would have been a violation of the contract; the Hawaiian government would be right to oppose it. But the facts are the other way around. By applying for statehood, Hawaii agreed to abide by the Constitution as it stands; it could not claim afterward that it agreed “except for that inconvenient ‘right to keep and bear arms’ stuff.”
I have no idea what would follow were Hawaii to announce that it is seceding from the Union. In the fantasy case of a successful secession, Hawaii would no longer be bound by the Constitution’s prescriptions and proscriptions. In the real world as it stands today, Hawaii has agreed to the Constitutional contract; therefore, the Second Amendment is binding on Hawaii. Nullification and Interposition are irrelevant to the matter. Charlton Allen should not have mentioned them at all. I cannot imagine why he did so.
Read the whole thing which discusses how the Civil War did not establish nullification.
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