Posted on 02/17/2010 9:08:09 AM PST by Palter
Is there a right to secede from the Union, or did the Civil War settle that?
Certain Tea Partiers have raised the possibility of getting out while the getting's good, setting off a round of debate on legal blogs. The more cerebral theorists at the smart legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy question whether such a right exists.
Enter a New York personal injury lawyer, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
The lawyer, Eric Turkewitz, says his brother Dan, a screenwriter, put just such a question to all of the Supreme Court justices in 2006 -- he was working on an idea about Maine leaving the U.S.and a big showdown at the Supreme Court -- and Scalia responded. His answer was no:
"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.") Secondly, I find it difficult to envision who the parties to this lawsuit might be. Is the State suing the United States for a declaratory judgment? But the United States cannot be sued without its consent, and it has not consented to this sort of suit.
I am sure that poetic license can overcome all that -- but you do not need legal advice for that. Good luck with your screenplay."
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
Because they're right and you're wrong??? It seems to me you're prime directive is to constantly throw cold water on efforts to send the federales a clear message that conservatives are just about fed up with their trampling of our God given rights. If you're not careful, you'll miss the boat.
LOL! Now THAT is funny.
“And that is ultimately what the civil war was - a revolution that failed. And - as Buckley would have predicted - it left chaos, death, and a worse government in its wake.”
The is the most important concern of a revolution: If you lose, and you are the ones trying to create a government based on liberty and freedom, then you have left those that do not desire liberty and freedom in a stronger position.
My personal belief is that the entire political situation was about to change. Unfortunately, the war broke out first. The South had every right to demand their rights, and I am not talking about slavery. History is always easy to second guess but we only have today to judge ourselves. We can only hope we make the right decisions and history agrees.
But Locke’s right of revolution comes from God and the natural law, not the bbl of a gun. While the visible effect is the same, Mao was purely worldly; Locke and the American revolutionaries were seriously concerned with legitimating and justifying the revolution in light of scriptural commands to obey the authorities because they are annointed by God.
You're such a hypocrite. You try to hijack every thread posted about the WBTS by launching into totally irrelevant topics and personal attacks.
Unless you can point to the clause in the Constitution allowing rebellion.
If you actually read the article, which I doubt, you'll know that it all starts with the question, "Is there a right to secede from the Union, or did the Civil War settle that?"
Pay attention to the word 'right'. I know that you atheist have a hard time with this next part, but our 'rights' are endowed by our Creator, a loving God.
You may also know that the Constitution is a document limiting government and that the 10th Amendment states that: "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."
These are God given rights and they include the right to choose ones own destiny and neither you nor any of the rest of the damnyankee communist coven can take that away.
It makes sense from the perspective that there is a righteous revolution of the masses in which a significant portion of the polity opts into the revolution. Victory is confirmatory of the fact that the revolutionaries were in the right.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,...
Ah yes, precedent, the libtards holy grail. FWIW, and from what little I've read of this decision, "coerced" might not be a bad description.
They can. They just can't go into court when they're arrested and explain that they thought it was legal.
Why? Is it extra-constitutional and out of the purview of the courts?
There's a natural right of rebellion. Overthrow the Constitutional government of the United States and you can make up your own rules. But you can't expect that the government is obliged just roll over and give anyone anything they ask for.
Our present Constitution is adequate for self governance. It's not being followed by the federales who wish to convert its use to toilet paper. We don't need to overthrow anything, we need to get the feral government train back on the tracks -- whether they like it or not.
That’s funny.
Utimately, in the end, the Second ammendment trumps all.
Would these same people ( Turn in their Firearms ) If the Supremos rules against them? James Madison understood all of this - The legislature of the State could ‘impose’ itself.
“But it is objected, that the judicial authority is to be regarded as the sole expositor of the Constitution in the last resort; and it may be asked for what reason the declaration by the General Assembly, supposing it to be theoretically true, could be required at the present day, and in so solemn|a manner.
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; secondly, that, if the decision of the judiciary be raised above the authority of the sovereign parties to the Constitution, the decisions of the other 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 parties to it. The resolution supposes that dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other departments, but that the judicial department, also, may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority as well as by another—by the judiciary as well as by the executive, or the legislature.”
What preamble you reading? Perhaps the Declaration of Independence?
Ok, so I was a little off base, the fact remains that we have the right to secede, our constitution says so and the rights we have as free people says so.
Can you show me one historical example where the assertion of a revolution, without (at least) the threat of force, was successful in securing the political objective?
(Just for a moment, let’s leave out the Exodus from Egypt. Somehow I don’t think God holds the same favor for us that He did for Israel.)
I have wondered what our military commanders (and troops) would do if he ordered them to use force to keep them from seceding. I can’t imagine federal troops firing on their national guard brothers because Obama said so.
It’s not the 1860’s any more.
Please show me where the Constitution says that.
“Well if the next rebellion is depending on the likes of you for its success then I’m certainly not going to be losing any sleep over it.”
I would offer an Honorable solution to( your and our differences ) But you’d call some Federal Agency.
P.S
Wussy
The winners of wars get to dictate history.
As human beings, we have the right to choose our government and when it because a dictatorship we have the right to throw off the shackles and change it. Secession is changing the government.
Don't believe that? Then you don't believe in individual freedom and deserve to be a slave to people like Bozo, the WH clown.
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