Posted on 08/05/2010 6:01:30 AM PDT by Michael Zak
[by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine, CA), re-published with his permission]
For years I have admired Congressman Ron Paul’s principled stance on spending and the Constitution. That said, he really damaged himself when he blamed President Lincoln for the Civil War, saying, “Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war… [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic.”
This is historical revisionism of the worst order, and it must be addressed.
For Congressman Paul’s benefit – and for his supporters who may not know – seven states illegally declared their “independence” from the United States before Lincoln was sworn in as President. After South Carolina fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, four additional states declared independence...
(Excerpt) Read more at grandoldpartisan.typepad.com ...
Conspiracy In phila...
I have an idea, why don't you research your own hypotheses as your supposition is not that interesting?
Actually there is one good paper written on it [secession] by the founders, a federalist paper IIRC, it stated that the compact of the Constitution, having been freely entered into [as a contract would be], was [like a contract] not binding if the other party didn’t “hold up their end of the deal,” and could be voluntarily left.
I’m sorry but it’s a ‘semi-foggy’ recollection and I cannot remember the reference or the author.
After South Carolina fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, four additional states declared independence.
Knights of the golden circle??.
See my post at 60.
>There’s not a word about abolishing the the perpetuity of the Union anywhere in the Constitution.
There’s not a word about *keeping* it either. The “more perfect union” may or may not have been referring to the aforementioned ‘perpetual union’ OR it may have been indicating a *new* union.
This whole arguement reminds me of whether or not any states have the right to refuse Obamacare or the right to protect its own borders.
If you think RP is an idiot just consider who sends him to Congress year after year.
If his medical advice is as good as his political understanding there must be a bunch of dead folks walking around his district.
Yep, that’s Ron.
Per the Constitution, rights are something accorded an individual that comes from God. Powers are something that individuals delegate to governments to perform on their behalf. Secession would not be a right, but a power so how exactly would Jefferson here be talking about secession?
I guess we all have a right to secede at any time by simply moving to another country.
No secession doesn’t fall under ANY amendment and is NOT legal there is no right to secede. Just check what Washington, Madison and Hamilton said about it. Or any of the major founders.
The constitution was written to create a “more perfect Union” and since even the Confederation declared the Confederation to be “perpetual” there is no LEGAL way out but through a constitutional amendment.
Noted Anti-Federalists
* Patrick Henry
* Samuel Adams
* George Mason
* Richard Henry Lee
* Robert Yates (politician)
* James Winthrop
* James Monroe
* Mercy Otis Warren
* George Clinton
http://almostchosenpeople.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/james-madison-on-secession/
Montpellier, Decr 23, 1832.
Dr. Sir I have received yours of the 19th, inclosing some of the South Carolina papers. There are in one of them some interesting views of the doctrine of secession; one that had occurred to me, and which for the first time I have seen in print; namely that if one State can at will withdraw from the others, the others can at will withdraw from her, and turn her, nolentem, volentem, out of the union. Until of late, there is not a State that would have abhorred such a doctrine more than South Carolina, or more dreaded an application of it to herself. The same may be said of the doctrine of nullification, which she now preaches as the only faith by which the Union can be saved.
I partake of the wonder that the men you name should view secession in the light mentioned. The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of –98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. In the Virginia Resolutions and Report the plural number, States, is in every instance used where reference is made to the authority which presided over the Government. As I am now known to have drawn those documents, I may say as I do with a distinct recollection, that the distinction was intentional. It was in fact required by the course of reasoning employed on the occasion. The Kentucky resolutions being less guarded have been more easily perverted. The pretext for the liberty taken with those of Virginia is the word respective, prefixed to the “rights” &c to be secured within the States. Could the abuse of the expression have been foreseen or suspected, the form of it would doubtless have been varied. But what can be more consistent with common sense, than that all having the same rights &c, should unite in contending for the security of them to each.
It is remarkable how closely the nullifiers who make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal for their colossal heresy, shut their eyes and lips, whenever his authority is ever so clearly and emphatically against them. You have noticed what he says in his letters to Monroe & Carrington Pages 43 & 203, vol. 2,1 with respect to the powers of the old Congress to coerce delinquent States, and his reasons for preferring for the purpose a naval to a military force; and moreover that it was not necessary to find a right to coerce in the Federal Articles, that being inherent in the nature of a compact. It is high time that the claim to secede at will should be put down by the public opinion; and I shall be glad to see the task commenced by one who understands the subject.
I know nothing of what is passing at Richmond, more than what is seen in the newspapers. You were right in your foresight of the effect of the passages in the late Proclamation. They have proved a leaven for much fermentation there, and created an alarm against the danger of consolidation, balancing that of disunion. I wish with you the Legislature may not seriously injure itself by assuming the high character of mediator. They will certainly do so if they forget that their real influence will be in the inverse ratio of a boastful interposition of it.
If you can fix, and will name the day of your arrival at Orange Court House, we will have a horse there for you; and if you have more baggage than can be otherwise brought than on wheels, we will send such a vehicle for it. Such is the state of the roads produced by the wagons hurrying flour to market, that it may be impossible to send our carriage which would answer both purposes.
There was hope of a compromise being reached until the Feds called for Virginia to raise three regiments to invade the seceded states. Before this, though his own words and those of his advisers helped lead to the firing on Fort Sumter, there was hope that Virginia and others would not secede. The original group of states would have been isolated by seceding over slavery. I think they would have eventually have been mollified.
Once they pushed Virginia over the edge and out of the fold, the bloody Civil War was truly on.
That is highly dubious reasoning.
The Constitution did not supersede the Articles - it amended them. Yes it completely gutted the political arrangements of the Articles, which were working so poorly. No place does the Constitution say, “The Articles are rescinded.” No place does the Constitution say, “The formerly perpetual union is now temporary and transitory.” The Convention didn't have an objection to continuing the perpetual union thing, so they left it the way it was. Nothing dubious about it at all.
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