While most of Brion McClanahan‘s new book, The Founding Fathers’ Guide to the Constitution, focuses on events and statements that are more than two centuries old, the author makes one reference that most of this audience ought to remember from North Carolina’s recent past.

The “Supremacy Clause” found in Article VI is one of the most abused, misunderstood, and misquoted clauses in the Constitution. For example, in February 2011, the Attorney General of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, issued s statement attacking North Carolina House Bill No. 2 — a bill that would, if signed into law, ultimately exempt the people of North Carolina from the 2010 federal health-care legislation known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — on the basis that it violated the “Supremacy Clause” of the Constitution. His Solicitor General. Christopher Browning Jr., wrote, “House Bill 2 violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, U.S. Const. art VI, cl. 2 (the ‘Constitution and the laws of the United States … shall be the supreme law of the land … anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding’). At first glance, it might appear Browning and Cooper have a case, but in fact they both are guilty of selective quoting. The ellipsis between “United States” and “shall” conveniently omits the most important part of the clause, namely only laws which are made “in Pursuance” of the Constitution are supreme. According to the powers listed in Article I, Section 8, insurance mandates (not to mention all the other parts of the health care bill) are not to be included in the enumerated powers of Congress. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is actually itself unconstitutional, legally unenforceable (if we stick to the meaning of the Constitution as ratified), and cannot be considered “supreme.”