Posted on 02/17/2010 3:43:05 PM PST by Constitutionalist Conservative
Prior to the American Civil War, it was popularly assumed that states which had freely chosen to enter the Union could just as freely withdraw from said union at their own discretion. Indeed, from time to time individual states or groups of states had threatened to do just that, but until 1860 no state had actually followed through on the threat.
Since then, it has been considered axiomatic that the War “settled the question” of whether or not states had the right to secede. The central government, backed by force of arms, says the answer is No. As long as no state or group of states tests the central government’s resolve, we can consider the question to be “settled” from a practical viewpoint.
This assertion has long troubled me from a philosophical and moral viewpoint. We are supposedly a nation of laws, and the central government is supposedly subservient to the laws that established and empower it.
In a nation of laws, when someone asks, “Do states have a right to secede from the Union?”, a proper answer would have one of two forms:
Here, x would be an explanation of the laws that supported the Yes or No answer.
With the secession issue, though, we are given the following as a complete and sufficient answer:
“No, because if any state tries to secede, the central government will use force of arms to keep it from succeeding.”
There is no appeal to law in this answer – just brute force.
Based on this premise, the central government can amass to itself whatever right or power it chooses, simply by asserting it. After all, who has the power to say otherwise?
Come to think of it, that’s exactly how the central government has behaved more often than not since the Civil War.
This issue came to mind today because of an item posted today on a trial lawyer’s blog (found via Politico). The lawyer’s brother had written to each of the Supreme Court justices, asking for their input on a screenplay he was writing. In the screenplay, Maine decides to secede from the US and join Canada. The writer asked for comments regarding how such an issue would play out if it ever reached the Supreme Court.
Justice Antonin Scalia actually replied to the screenwriter’s query. I have a lot of respect for Scalia regarding constitutional issues, but his answer here is beyond absurd.
I am afraid I cannot be of much help with your problem, principally because I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, "one Nation, indivisible.")
He actually said that a constitutional issue was settled by military action. Oh, and by including the word “indivisible” in the Pledge of Allegiance, the issue became even more settled.
What if the president were to send out the troops to prevent the news media from publishing or broadcasting anything critical of his administration? This is clearly an unconstitutional action, but by Scalia’s logic, if the president succeeds, we must then say that the military action “settled the question” of free speech.
If these scenarios are not comparable, I’d like to hear why.
Sorry. His mother and sister are buried on one of our old farms. I’d as soon toss you and your kind into plastic shredders as say one critical word about Abraham Lincoln.
Sorry for YOUR blissful ignorance. Hopefully you have no offspring.
There are certainly enough places in this world for your kind of people to find whatever it is you want. Please go there. Soon.
Wow, that is appropriate for blind allegiance to a man who did throw “our kind” into the shredder. Way to keep the dream alive.
Did Texas have a right to secede from Mexico?
Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, "one Nation, indivisible."
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by socialist, statist, Francis Bellamy, who adopted the Story-Webster-Lincoln premise of “ one people, one nation indivisible” and was able to enshrine in the hearts of American school children the unconstitutional principles of a unitary, nationalist, and supreme federal government.
Conservatives of “our kind” were not thrown in the shredder. Slavers and their enablers were tossed, but they started the conflict. They fired the first shots. TS
“Did the Civil War truly settle the secession question?”
It absolutely did, whether anyone likes it or not - the Federal Government can and will use any and all power it has to bring a wayward state back into the fold.
Then again, if a state were to secede and successfully thwart the federal forces thrown against it, then the secession question will have been settled again.
In other words, the question is settled until it is not.
You like dealing in superlatives, don't you? My assertion is completely inaccurate, and all of the founding fathers regarded secession as treason. Huh.
Were you aware that New England, in particular, was home to secessionist movements from time to time? As I said in my essay, no movement really gained traction until 1860.
And all of the Founders thought secession was treason? Are these the same founders who worked so hard to build a central government that would be unable to tyrannize the states? Are these the same founders whose state constitutional ratification conventions (some of them, anyway, such as Virginia) explicitly reserved the right to withdraw ratification if they so chose? How many of the original colonies do you think would have ratified if they understood they were making an irreversible decision?
It is a good thing those with the kind of view you share are going to be out on your arse this November. Go hang out at the New York Times-! Learn some ‘respect’ there-!
And since you missed it completely, Lincoln was talking about rebellion, not secession. If he was supporting secession then why would he say "having the power" or "rise up"?
But it is not. Lincoln was talking about rebellion, not secession. There is a difference between the two.
You people will never learn. The public has rejected your Obamacare nonsense, and now they are rejecting all the other silly ideas you dredged up from the bottom of Lake Michigan.
Yes, I am well aware of the Hartford Convention during the War of 1812. That is exactly how we know that the Founders regarded secession talk as treasonous. Later, when Vice President John C. Calhoun talked about secession, President Andrew Jackson, himself a Southern slaveowner, threatened to personally hang him.
“shake off the existing government” is secession. It is hard to see it through the historical myths the victorious north put forward as history. Perhaps in his heart he knew no state would have the power to exercise their right to secede since the Federal government would unleash all the power of hell to squash the “rebellion” as you see it.
No, leaving the Union through peaceful and legal means is 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" is rebellion or revolution. Which is what Lincoln was referring to when he termed it "a most valuable - a most sacred right..." It is the right of all people to rebel if and when they believe it justified. But it is not strictly legal.
It is hard to see it through the historical myths the victorious north put forward as history.
It is hard to see it by reading his quote in context, too.
Perhaps in his heart he knew no state would have the power to exercise their right to secede since the Federal government would unleash all the power of hell to squash the “rebellion” as you see it.
Perhaps it was because he was talking about Mexico at the time? Here is the quote in full and in context:
"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,— most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones."
“Perhaps it was because he was talking about Mexico at the time? “
So only Mexicans have the “sacred right”? Do you know what the word “sacred” means?
“No, leaving the Union through peaceful and legal means is secession.”
They did leave through peaceful means. It was the United States that provoked the war. Secession is simply defined as a formal separation, of which the Confederates States did just that. You have never been able to define what you think the Constitution requires as a “legal means” of separation because the Constitution doesn’t. You simply hate southerners and have said so. You think of them as drunken racist rednecks.
The Civil War only proved, once again, that Might Is Right.
I am sorry but I am not following your logic or conclusions. Are you using absurdity to support your name, non-sequitur?
The South did secede peacefully- Lincoln made it hell, which you seem to think is a sacred right.
Jefferson said rebellion from time to time, including blood shed, would be useful and necessary to restrain the power of government. I hope we both pray that our current state of affairs does not come to that. But if you think that is more “sacred” than peaceful secession I could be wrong.
I think we are on the same side but have a different understanding of history. We must understand history accurately for to assume the goodness of men is dangerous- whatever kind of god one has been made into.
Here is an accurate definition of rebellion and my appeal:
This is the meaning of Revolution. It is a coming full circle- a revolution- to reset the Covenant that was made between the people and our government to whom our power is lent. Read carefully this definition of revolution by Russell Kirk in Rights and Duties, Spence Publishing Company, 1997, page 48:
“We need first to examine definitions of that ambiguous word revolution. The signification of the word was altered greatly by the catastrophic event so the French Revolution, commencing only two years after the Constitutional Convention of the United States. Before the French explosion of 1789 and 1790, revolution commonly was employed to describe a round of periodic or recurrent changes or events- that is, the process of coming full cycle, or the act of rolling back or moving back, a return to a point previously occupied.”
I pray this current revolution will not require arms. In order for that to be possible every Patriot across this nation must join in rolling back our government to the limits, laws, and liberties established in the Constitution. It will require not a majority of people, but the whole of Patriots who understand history, the nature of man, and the Power of God.
Can we at least agree on that?
Not to mention, several nothern States have slavery at the time the Civil War Started. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free those slaves but only freed the slaves of the southern regions. It wasn’t about salvery. It was about the North needing the money of the South and taxing them to death. The North had the population and therefore the votes in Congress and made one nasty tax law after another trying to bleed the South of their wealth.
No, all people have that right. Didn't you read the quote? "Any people anywhere..." Right there in the beginning. Lincoln happened to be speaking of Texans and Mexico but it's clear he means anyone.
They did leave through peaceful means. It was the United States that provoked the war.
The discussion was whether Lincoln was supporting secession in his 1848 speech. Obviously he was not.
But I'll also point out that neither Buchanan or Lincoln did anything to oppose secession forcibly until such time as the South chose to go to war over Sumter. All hostile actions had been on the part of the South - firing on ships on at least two occasions, trying to starve the fort into surrender, you name it. You can claim that Lincoln tricked them or Lincln forced them and it's all nonsence. The question of peace or war was in the hands of the Davis regime. They could have allowed the fort to be resupplied and let the status quo continue and for Lincoln to lose support for ending secession, but they chose otherwise. Sumter, to them, was worth starting a war over. That war, and all the death and destruction visited upon them as a result, was the South's choice.
Secession is simply defined as a formal separation, of which the Confederates States did just that.
I think that legal separation is implied, and that's what was missing in the South's actions.
You have never been able to define what you think the Constitution requires as a “legal means” of separation because the Constitution doesn’t.
I have on several occasions, the latest with Bigun over the last two days. Go look it up.
You simply hate southerners and have said so.
And of course you can post a link to where I have said that?
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