Is One Legislator from South Carolina Trying to Start Another Civil War?

The Associated Press reports that a South Carolina lawmaker, declaring that illegal immigrants cost the state too much money, has proposed denying them access to some hospital care and shutting them out of public schools. State Rep. Mike Pitts said his proposal, quickly criticized by immigrant advocates and the state’s hospitals, should be passed even if it violates federal laws. Washington, Pitts said, isn’t doing “anything to attempt to solve this problem.” “We have a big problem in this country,” he said. “Illegals are taxing the local tax base and eating up the resources.”   Click here for the story.

No, such a measure would probably not start a civil war.  Protests maybe.  But the proposal sounds somewhat similar to the nullification of federal laws endorsed by some of the states that became the Confederacy.  Recall that, before the Civil War, South Carolina passed legislation legalizing its invalidation of objectionable federal laws.

KJ