Posted on 04/03/2002 9:52:50 AM PST by r9etb
Sorry. The Constitution says the Constitution AND the laws made in pursuance are the supreme law of the land.
Walt
Where does the Constitution explicity grant the Federal Governemnt the power to do such a thing?
Where is secession EXPLICITLY guaranteed?
What the CSA apologists do is to apply unreasonable standards. They keep raising the bar and raising the bar. Washington, Madison, Jay, Marshall, Jackson, right up to President Lincoln said the Union was permanent.
The secessionists are not much quoted in these exchanges. They aimed to get their way at the point of a gun.
And ever since they failed, they and their loser apologists have been trying to rationalize their failure with bucket loads of excuses.
Walt
That includes providing for the general welfare and common defense.
"Conscription dramatized a fundamental paradox in the Confederate war effort: the need for Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends. Pure Jeffersonians could not accept this. The most outspoken of them, Joseph Brown of Georgia, denounced the draft as a "dangerous usurpation by Congress of the reserved rights of the states...at war with all the principles for which Georgia entered into the revolution." In reply Jefferson Davis donned the mantle of Hamilton. The Confederate Constitution, he pointed out to Brown, gave Congress the power "to raise and support armies" and to "provide for the common defense." It also contained another clause (likewise copied from the U.S. Constitution) empowering Congress to make all laws "necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers." Brown had denied the constitutionality of conscription because the Constitution did not specifically authorize it. This was good Jeffersonian doctrine, sanctified by generations of southern strict constructionists. But in Hamiltonian language, Davis insisted that the "necessary and proper" clause legitimized conscription. No one could doubt the necessity "when our very existance is threatened by armies vastly superior in numbers." Therefore "the true and only test is to enquire whether the law is intended and calculated to carry out the object...if the answer be in the affirmative, the law is constitutional."
--Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson P.433
Was Davis wrong?
Walt
Still waiting for that explanation of why secession is not insurrection. So far, all we've got is a bunch of you guys saying so based on an a priori assumption that it cannot be labeled as such.
In fact, however, a state's declaration that it is no longer bound by the Constitution is in direct conflict with Articlt VI, to which the states explicitly assented. As such, that state places itself in revolt against the constitutional government they swore to uphold.
One can argue (as per the Declaration) that free men have the right to rebel against the duly-constituted government by force of arms. That is not the same as saying that the Federal Government is not empowered to prevent secession.
Wellll....Yeah. That's one of the major concerns about having another Constitutional Convention, as is sometimes called for. We can't be sure the delegates to such a convention would come out having done what they said they were going to do going in.
They obviously did not feel bound to remain in the perpetual union.
I don't see that as obvious.
If the individual States had the right to withdraw from the first Constitution, why not the second?
They weren't withdrawing from the first Constitution. They threw it out, or the parts of it that did not work. They were changing the form of government for the Union they had formed.
If another Constitutional Convention were held, they could in theory throw out or alter the present Constitution and government, and establish a Constitutional Monarchy. That per se would not affect the existence of the United States, composed of Individual States bound in a Perpetual Union by their own original agreement which predates the present Constitution or any potential new one.
Now, the existence of the United States might be affected if one or more of the States, say South Carolina for example, declined to agree to the new arrangement and the rest of the states refused to come to agreeable terms with South Carolina and instituted the new arrangement anyway. Maybe in that case the Perpetual Union would be broken and South Carolina would have some justification for initiating and waging war against the other forty-nine for the offense of breaking the Perpetual Union until South Carolina had received honorable satisfaction.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. "
is generally quoted as supporting the right of secession. The argument is that since secession is not expressly prohibited in the Constitution, the power to secede is reserved by the States.
"…or to the people."
Just for the sake of discussion, let's all stipulate for the moment that state secession is all right. There has been a significant amount of argument to that effect that is also applicable to "the people". If secession is all right for a state, isn't it all right for individuals, separately or in concert? I don't mean giving up citizenship and becoming an expatriate. I mean seceding in place, keeping all ones property both real and personal, maybe fencing it off, and ignoring the government and the Union (except when you had to go to the store during which time you would respectfully obey the local customs of a land that is not yours.)
Based on the arguments presented in this thread, could an individual or group secede from the United States, while remaining a citizen of the State in which they reside?
Can we get the Aryan Nation or the Black Muslims to try some of this, and see what happens?
PS: I picked the recipients at random (more or less).
And why not just a single family or person?
Although your question seems silly, it is really an excellent vehicle for demonstrating why, as a practical matter, proponents of the right of secession are logically compelled to base their theory upon an absolutist notion of state sovereignty.
Excellent post!
You can do the same thing. Try it.
Walt
You'll notice the Green Goblin parrots the same old secesh crap without addressing what Jefferson Davis said.
There is no right to secession because Congress ALWAYS has the power to decide what the common defense and general welfare entail.
Walt
Using that logic, it could of been illegal for the GOP to put up a candidate up against Clinton. I mean if congress said so and the Senate approved, and if Clinton could of loaded enough of his people into the Supreme Court, it is feasible, no? Then you would have to defend that also.
In other words, the ads and the spin would be:
"My fellow American Americans. As you all know by now, the Republican party is against the common defense and General welfare of the United States. They are the party of rebellion. I am hereby protecting the Constitution of the United States approved by both houses of Congress and with the full consent(actually a 5 to 4 decision, but we know Clinton whoppers) of the Supreme Court.
" "I hereby cancel the forthcoming election and I will stay on as your President until this rebellion is under control. You have my word on that"
What you going to do about it? The Constitution has been followed to the letter of the law, has it not?
A just for fun arguement.
This is the fallacy of assuming the consequent. You assume secession is OK, and thus Article VI has no force for a state that has seceeded. Your position also suggests that one need keep one's word only so long as one wants to do so.
The question is, precisely, whether Article VI (and other portions) can be properly construed to deny the right of secession.
Among other things, Article VI states that the Constitution is superior to any state constitution, and the laws pertaining to them. Thus, a state action nullifying the bonds of the Constitution is invalid on its face.
Moreover, the Constitution requires the states, and the legislators of those states, to swear to uphold that hierarchy.
As with the rest of the Constitution, Article VI is meant to have a lasting effect. States, by ratifying it, are expected to keep their pledge.
Just as clearly, by making the Constitution the "supreme Law of the Land," Article VI expressly precludes the imposition of the "unless I don't want to" clause that you are invoking to justify a right of secession. By going against that pledge, a seceeding state places itself in revolt.
So aside from the previous circular reasoning, can you offer any reason why Article VI (and others) have no force?
Actually, why stop at states? This absolutist notion devolves sucessively to the county, city, block, house, and ultimately to the individual chair at the dinner table. At root, it's the idea that all government rests on the "consent of the governed individuals." It's a recipe for anarchy.
Once you've tried to discuss the concept of "community interest" with some of these folks, you will understand that this progression is not an exaggeration. Kris Kringle's "hypothetical" situation has actual disciples here at FR.
At that point people and states would be morally justified in placing themselves in a state of insurrection against the government.
The government is empowered by the Constitution to try to suppress that insurrection. But it would still be an insurrection.
Like most of us, the latter day Confederates know more about US history than CS history. So they can win support talking about instances of oppression in the North. However, it pays to learn more about the history of the Confederacy as well, so that one can put things in context.
This sounds like a good place to start: "Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism" (more here).
Does Santa Claus post here?
Freegards, KrisKrinkle
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