Posted on 08/25/2008 9:11:18 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
My apologies...
But since you asked, did anybody say, when the 10th Amendment was debated, "Wow, this will secure our right to secede unilaterally!" (or words to that effect in the language of the day)?
The right of secession is obviously included among "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States," which "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people [of the States]." If you disagree, would you care to cite a specific constitutional clause that prohibits State secession?
;>)
That is a little like saying your right to take money out of your bank account allows you to take money from other people's accounts as well.
A state's ability to exercise its reserved powers doesn't mean that it can simply negate the legitimate power of the federal government through a unilateral act of secession.
If you disagree, would you care to cite a specific constitutional clause that prohibits State secession?
As I and others have already said: the supremacy clause.
This is a tactic, right?
You simply ignore everything everyone else says to you and then pretend that you have proven your point.
A state's ability to exercise its reserved powers doesn't mean that it can simply negate the legitimate power of the federal government through a unilateral act of secession.
LOL! You suggest that the States did NOT reserve the right of secession? Please read the ratification documents of New York, Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations, and Virginia, PLUS the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. You claim some "legitimate power of the federal government" to prevent State secession (~1860-61)?
Quote the constitutional clause that prohibited it, sport.
As I and others have already said: the supremacy clause.
Care to be more specific? Of course not.
This is a tactic, right?
You simply ignore everything everyone else says to you and then pretend that you have proven your point.
Actually, I simply read every historical document you refuse to read (you might start with James Madison's 'Report on the Virginia Resolutions,' sport ;>), and then recognize that I am somewhat more well informed than my pig-ignorant brothers...
;>)
To continue my analogy, that is like saying that you made a "reservation" allowing you to take money from other accounts when you opened yours. You can make any kind of "reservation" you like, but if you don't write it into a contract it doesn't matter. And for the record, some of those "reservations" refer to the right of rebellion, which is different from secession on demand.
Care to be more specific? Of course not.
That's the same tactic again. "Wideawake" and others explained this to you already. You act like you didn't read it, and when you've disgusted everyone so much that they give up, you pile on the sarcasm and act like you've won something.
Read Madison's December 23, 1832 letter to Nicholas Trist which denies the existence of a right to unilateral secession and denies that the Virginia Resolutions asserts anything of the kind.
Yes, the "but I had my fingers crossed" excuse doesn't work.
Again: the supremacy clause gives the federal government complete authority to determine the constitutionality of the acts of state legislatures.
Secession - an act which asserts the supremacy of the state over the federal government in constitutional matters - is clearly a legal impossibility under the US Constitution.
Sorry, sport, but the 'reservations of rights' mentioned in the ratification documents are indeed a part of the contract.
WIJG: Care to be more specific? Of course not.
x:: That's the same tactic again. "Wideawake" and others explained this to you already.
Sorry, sport - I was just asking for a more specific reference. To which of the two uses of the word "supreme" in the US Constitution were you referring? One would indicate that you are a liberal; the other that you are a conservative. Based on your response, I assume it's the former. And as I noted earlier (in anticipation of your above response), I would suggest that you read Mr. Madison's 'Report on the Virginia Resolutions'...
You act like you didn't read it, and when you've disgusted everyone so much that they give up, you pile on the sarcasm and act like you've won something.
Sorry, sport, but I'm just tired of referring folks like you to the written, public declarations of the Founders - which you blatantly ignore, in post, after post, after post. The facts are there - but you choose to ignore them. "Sarcasm?" It's just a substitute for the absolute disgust you actually deserve...
Read Madison's December 23, 1832 letter to Nicholas Trist which denies the existence of a right to unilateral secession and denies that the Virginia Resolutions asserts anything of the kind.
Oh, you betcha! Why on earth would I give greater weight to an opinion voiced in a private letter, than I would to an opinion voiced in a document published for public consideration, during a time of political crisis? You sound like a freaking Clinton apologist ('Bill told everyone in America he didn't even know Monica, but that doesn't matter, because he mentioned the affair to his great-aunt Betty in a private letter.') Your opinions make me want to vomit...
Actually, it's not.
A state's ability to exercise its reserved powers doesn't mean that it can simply negate the legitimate power of the federal government through a unilateral act of secession.
Which "legitimate power" are you referring to? Was it "enumerated?" Of course not - and in the opinion of Madison & Jefferson it was therefore not 'legitimate'...
As I and others have already said: the supremacy clause.
Is that the 'supremacy clause' that states that the Constitution is supreme (which is entirely logical) - or the 'supremacy clause' that states that the members of a certain federal court can burp after eating too much cabbage, and folks like you consider the 'output' to be "supreme?"
;>)
This is a tactic, right?
You simply ignore everything everyone else says to you and then pretend that you have proven your point.
Actually, I assume that totalitarians are simply idiots, and hope they will some day 'get a clue'...
Wrong. As Mr. Madison noted over two hundred years ago:
But it is objected that the [federal] judicial authority is to be regarded as the sole expositor of the Constitution, in the last resort...
On this objection it might be observed, first, that there may be instances of usurped power, which the forms of the Constitution would never draw within the control of the judicial department;4 secondly, that if the decision of the [federal] judiciary be raised above the authority of the sovereign [States as] parties to the Constitution, the decisions of the other [federal] departments, not carried by the forms of the Constitution before the judiciary, must be equally authoritative and final with the decisions of that department. But the proper answer to the objection is, that the resolution of the General Assembly relates to those great and extraordinary cases, in which all the forms of the Constitution may prove ineffectual against infractions dangerous to the essential rights of the {States as] parties to it. The resolution supposes that dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other [federal] departments, but that the [federal] judicial department also may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the [States as] parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the [constitutional] compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority, as well as by another; by the [federal] judiciary, as well as by the [federal] executive, or the [federal] legislature.
James Madison, Report of 1799
In other words, bite me...
Secession - an act which asserts the supremacy of the state over the federal government in constitutional matters - is clearly a legal impossibility under the US Constitution.
Only if someone disagrees - as you obviously do - with Thomas Jefferson:
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."
Thomas Jefferson, 1791
The Founders clearly did not believe that the federal government they had established (specifically, the federal judiciary) possessed "a boundless field of power," beyond the enumerated powers detailed in the Constitution. Others here, obviously, would disagree with that statement. They would suggest that, if the "supreme" federal court so ruled, the citizens of the State of New Hampshire (or any other State) could be treated like bed bugs.
Sorry, but that argument 'lacks merit.' And it's better to recognize that simple fact before it happens, rather than after...
...
Your opinions make me want to vomit...
Well, I read what you vomited up, and don't think there's any point in continuing whatever it is we're having.
I'm going to clean myself off, sport.
I doubt it (you're too interested in your own little non-historical point of view). But here's a little help, sport, courtesy of Mr. Thomas Jefferson, if you actually want to attempt it:
The States in North America which confederated to establish their independence of the government of Great Britain, of which Virginia was one, became, on that acquisition, free and independent States, and as such, authorized to constitute governments, each for itself, in such form as it thought best...
To this construction of government and distribution of its powers, the Commonwealth of Virginia does religiously and affectionately adhere...
But the federal branch has assumed in some cases, and claimed in others, a right of enlarging its own powers by constructions, inferences, and indefinite deductions from those directly given, which this assembly does declare to be usurpations of the powers retained to the independent branches, mere interpolations into the compact, and direct infractions of it...
...Whilst the General Assembly [of the State of Virginia} thus declares the rights retained by the States, rights which they have never yielded, and which this State will never voluntarily yield, they do not mean to raise the banner of disaffection, or of separation from their sister States, co-parties with themselves to this compact. They know and value too highly the blessings of their Union as to foreign nations and questions arising among themselves, to consider every infraction as to be met by actual resistance. They respect too affectionately the opinions of those possessing the same rights under the same instrument, to make every difference of construction a ground of immediate rupture. They would, indeed, consider such a rupture as among the greatest calamities which could befall them; but not the greatest. There is yet one greater, submission to a government of unlimited powers...
"Declaration and Protest of the Commonwealth of Virginia, on the Principles of the Constitution of the United States of America, and on the Violations of Them," Thomas Jefferson, 1825
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jeffdec1.htm
That's from Mr. Jefferson's SECOND declaration (which the liberals don't mention in our public schools). "[S]ubmission to a government of unlimited powers" - gosh, that's exactly what you are advocating!
No surprise there!
;>)
The states of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations [why Plantations? ... hmmm ....], Virginia, and New York certainly thought so with their ratifications, which were accepted.
Signed by James Madison, John Jay, John Marshall, Alexander Hamilton et al.
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