Granpaw Dan’s Campfire Story:
“When a Law Isn’t a Law”**
Now… you ever watch an apple fall from a tree?
I have.
Sat right there on a fence post as a boy… just watching.
Apple let go… and down it came.
Never once did it float up.
Never once did it hang sideways.
Why?
Because there’s a law at work.
Not the kind written on paper…
Not the kind signed by men in fancy coats…
I’m talking about something deeper.
Gravity don’t ask permission.
It just is.
Now let me ask you something.
What would you think… if one day a group of men rode into town—
set up a table right there in the square—
and nailed a notice to a post that said:
“From this day forward… apples shall fall upward.”
(little pause… fire cracks)
You’d chuckle, wouldn’t you?
Might even tip your hat and say,
“Boys… you can write that down all you like…
but that ain’t how the world works.”
Because you know something in your bones:
Writing a thing down… don’t make it true.
Now that same kind of thinking…
that plain, common-sense knowing…
That’s what a young fellow named
Thomas Jefferson
was wrestling with long before this country was born.
Back in 1774… before the big break…
before the American Revolution even got underway…
He looked at the laws coming over from across the ocean—
rules made by people who had never walked the fields,
never built the homes,
never sat by the fires of the folks they were ruling…
…and he said something mighty simple.
Not loud.
Not angry.
Just clear.
“Those acts? …they are a nullity.”
Now that’s a fancy word.
But it means something plain as day.
It means:
It ain’t a law… because they never had the right to make it.
See… most folks get tangled up right here.
They start arguing about whether a law is good… or bad…
fair… or unfair…
Jefferson stepped around all that.
He said:
“That’s not the real question.”
The real question is:
Who gave you the authority?
Let me bring it back to something closer to home.
Imagine I walked over to your place tomorrow morning…
sat down at your kitchen table…
and told you:
“From now on, I’ll be deciding what you eat, when you sleep, and how you run this house.”
(little grin)
You wouldn’t argue long about whether my rules were reasonable, would you?
You’d look at me and say:
“Dan… who do you think you are?”
And right there—
without a book, without a court, without a speech—
You’ve just understood “nullity.”
Because deep down, every man and woman knows:
Authority must come from somewhere real.
Not distance.
Not force.
Not habit.
But from rightful origin.
Jefferson saw that the people living here—
working the land, raising families, building communities—
They never handed that authority over to a distant parliament.
So when those rules showed up…
He didn’t say,
“We don’t like them.”
He said:
“They don’t count.”
And that, my friend…
is as steady as gravity.
Because just like an apple won’t fall upward…
A law without rightful authority
won’t stand—no matter how many times it’s written down.
Beautifully written!