[KrisKrinkle]

Articles of Confederation

To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting.

Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

The Stile of this Confederacy shall be "The United States of America".

Agreed to by Congress 15 November 1777 In force after ratification by Maryland, 1 March 1781

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The friends of our country have long seen and desired, that the power of making war, peace, and treaties, that of levying money and regulating commerce, and the correspondent executive and judicial authorities should be fully and effectually vested in the general government of the Union: But the impropriety of delegating such extensive trust to one body of men is evident-Hence results the necessity of a different organization. (Letter of the President of the Federal Convention, Dated September 17, 1787, to the President of Congress, Transmitting the Constitution.)

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Constitution of the United States : Preamble

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

(Emphasis added.)

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Arguably the United States was formed as a perpetual union under the Articles of Confederation, and was reorganized under the Constitution leaving the perpetual union part intact. One time or another, some of the States tried to "bust the deal" and were forced to "face the wheel."

This looks like an argument that Lincoln had some justification in trying to preserve the Union.

I came across this recently at Project Avalon and thought I'd throw it into the mix.

[stainlessbanner]

Bust this deal:
"Those rights not delegated to the federal government by this Constitution, nor denied by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." -is not denied to the states by the Constitution, so it is the ultimate backstop of the Constitution.

[stainlessbanner]

Your boy Lincoln had another view when he was a young politician. It seems our founding fathers, most politicians, and citizens of the United States of America were well award of the right to secede. Lincoln changed that with his war. Often quoted on the subject of secession....

Abraham Lincoln endorsed secession: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable -- a most sacred right -- a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world." (1848)