I’m saying that no Constitution is a suicide pact, so that within the confines of the United States Constitution, there is no “right” to secede.
But if you’re going to go outside of the Constitution and revolt, you better have a really good moral cause for your actions, because you’re going to have to justify it to God and the whole world.
If you can’t do that, and premise your rebellion on an unjust cause, you’re probably never going to gain access to the kind of physical means it’s going to take to carry out your revolutionary acts.
The US Constitution does not prohibited secession either. The US Constitution is silent on the issue. You stand corrected.
You do admit that the United States were born out of secession from the United Kingdom?
“But if you’re going to go outside of the Constitution and revolt, you better have a really good moral cause for your actions, because you’re going to have to justify it to God and the whole world.”
I imagine that Barack Obama’s idea of “a really good moral cause” and his conception of “God and the whole world” differ dramatically from mine. That’s always the problem with arguing for subjective judgements of that sort.
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolves of 1798, authored by Jefferson and Madison, show the two to be strong defenders of state’s rights versus the national government, granting states the power to nullify federal law. George Washington didn’t like the resolves, clearly seeing that they could lead to disunion. But it can’t be argued that the Founders were set against secession when two of the more prominent ones authored the Resolves.
“If you can’t do that, and premise your rebellion on an unjust cause, you’re probably never going to gain access to the kind of physical means it’s going to take to carry out your revolutionary acts.”
King George believed that the American Patriot cause was unjust. But since France was happy to poke a stick in the eye of England they were more than happy to provide us with arms, French Marines, and more importantly their navy. The Revolution was won at the Battle of the Capes when Admiral Francois Paul defeated the British fleet sent to reinforce and rescue Cornwallis at Yorktown.