I really think that in writing the constitution, much harm was done in formulating the preamble as a declaration of “we the people” (among other issues). Henry certainly brought this point up and despite Madison’s assurances that it did not refer to ”the people as composing one great body, but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties,” nationalism has prevailed, not only on the battlefields of Virginia, but in the minds of our leaders, academics, and many of the people.  

As painfully obvious as that it, it is regretfully not taken into account by the layman or (should we really be surprised?) always realized by the courts.

“The Constitution of the United States was ordained and established not by the States in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the Constitution declares, by “the people of the United States.”
–Supreme Court of the US, Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee

“Interposition is an amorphous concept based on the proposition that the United States is a compact of states, any one of which may interpose its sovereignty against the enforcement within its borders of any decision of the Supreme Court or act of Congress, irrespective of the fact that the constitutionality of the act has been established by decision of the Supreme Court. Once interposed, the law or decision would then have to await approval by constitutional amendment before enforcement within the interposing state. In essence, the doctrine denies the constitutional obligation of the states to respect those decisions of the Supreme Court with which they do not agree. The doctrine may have had some validity under the Articles of Confederation. On their failure, however, “in Order to form a more perfect Union,” the people, not the states, of this country ordained and established the Constitution. Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 324, 14 U.S. 304, 324, 4 L.Ed. 97. Thus the keystone of the interposition thesis, that the United States is a compact of states, was disavowed in the Preamble to the Constitution.”
–United States District Court E.D. Louisiana, New Orleans Division, Bush v. Orleans Parish Sch. Bd

You used the word “nationalist”. 

The correct term is “statist.”

After reading Nullification, what seems to be most glaring to me is the “final authority” of the Supreme Court vs the states. Regardless of the theory of “establishment”, the states and the people should have every right to interpret for themselves the constitutionality of any federal, and even state, laws. Much as any legal document be subject to varying interpretations of the parties involved.. The Supreme Court owes nothing to the citizens, they are not elected by the people nor represent the people in any fashion. It’s crystal-clear from historical documentation that nullification is intended to be the check on unconstitutional encroachments by the Federal Government. 

Frankly, the USC provides enough evidence in itself as to it being a compact, and that would be even allowing (not that I do) that all the people as one, and not in their separate polities ratified the USC. That evidence is Article 7, the constitution is between the states. How then can it be argued as the people as one nation? Even if they were one people, they decided to make the states the parties to the agreement, so it could be argued using the “one people” argument, that they actually decided to become separate at that time.

The best model of what the US was designed to be can be found in the European Union.  The United States was supposed to be a confederation of member states united in ensuring free and open commerce and security, and that is exactly how you can describe the EU.
The internal mechanics, functions and divisions of branches of government aside, the US constitution and the current state of the EU are almost compatible.
The US should not be considered a single state or “ONE nation under God, indivisible” any more the EU is today. In fact whenever some chest thumping nationalist says that I’m wrong, I issue a challenge for them to PROVE me wrong, and to show me where, in any of the founding documents, this “one nation” business began. I usually give them a head start by stating that they won’t find it in the Declaration of Independence, it only declared the colonies to be “free and independent states”, and in the Articles of Confederation, it describes the nature of the Union as a “league of friendship” between states. Their last chance for “one nation-hood” is somewhere in the Constitution, and good luck to them. Yep, I’m still waiting on that one.

“Compact theory”, I shudder. To me the word “theory” here is used much like claiming it’s a theory that ice is frozen water. As a compact fundamentalist I almost cringe at the rhetoric of nullification, that it is even necessary. I imagine stepping into Jefferson’s shoes in 1798 and feeling a paradoxically tragic sense of loss with the notion that nullification and interposition were concepts in need of development, to be resolved and declared in some way. Who would have thought even five years earlier that George Washington would so flirt with and John Adams would so flip-flop the concept of treason (as so succinctly defined and agreed upon in the Constitution).
The whiskey rebels were every bit as heroic as the revolutionaries of 1776.
As an individual I am sovereign over my property. As an individual I am bound in compact with other individuals to interact in the manner set forth by the Constitution of Minnesota. To the republic of Minnesota I am citizen. I can hardly be a citizen of the United States. I remain citizen of merely one of the united States. My State is one member in a union of States bound in compact with other States to interact in the manner set forth by the Constitution of the united States.
The whiskey rebels saved the union as they collectively defended their individual sovereignty, and if we believe Lincoln that he saved the union, then the compact still stands as such. Unfortunately Lincoln was confused. He destroyed the union and established a nation, which is what Washingtom might have deserved credit for had he been successful in his defeat of the whiskey rebels. We struggle to use the U.S.Constitution as template for a nation, obviously because it was not written as such. Bush was correct: it is a dead letter. Lincoln killed it.
Now the rhetoric of nullification is no longer tragic but necessary as there actually is no law beyond State jurisdiction but, as Jefferson might declare, the advance of tyranny.
Go Tom!
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