Posted on 11/17/2012 10:32:56 AM PST by morethanright
By Mr. Curmudgeon:
A White House website called "We the People" is currently unavailable. All you will see when landing on the splash page is a prompt reading, "404 Page Not Found," along with a notice saying, "We've been upgrading our site."
According to news reports, the White House website has been deluged with petitions requesting that states be allowed to secede from the Union. Secession has become a hot topic of conversation in response to the re-election of President Obama.
According to the Washington Times, "As of 7 a.m. Thursday, there were 789,453 signatures, but since many people had signed more than one petition ... fewer than half, or 281,780, were unique."
I have never been a fan of secession or the Confederacy. I am an unapologetic Abraham Lincoln Unionist. "The Union is much older than the Constitution," said Lincoln in his first inaugural address, "It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was 'to form a more perfect union.'"
Lincoln also made an argument based on contract law. "If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of states in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it - break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?"
Whereas the framework for a national government was established in convention and delivered to the various states for ratification, rescinding the arrangement requires agreement from all parties to the contract. By seceding without consulting the other parties, the Confederates States of America acted in bad faith and in violation of the spirit and letter of the law.
I have two observations concerning modern secessionists: Unlike the lawless southern rebels of the past, modern secessionists petition the White House for permission to leave the Union, something Lincoln would have found curious if not outright laughable; secondly, I find them to be the worst specie among cowards. They would break the law to form ... what exactly? A monarchy? A republic? A collection of city states?
They would run from our Constitutional system rather than fight to preserve it against the "menaces of destruction to the government." They would rebel against the very document that provides the safety valve of the amendment process.
"America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future," said escaped slave and arch abolitionist Frederick Douglass, "Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion [the 4th of July], I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery - the great sin and shame of America!"
Abolitionist publisher William Lloyd Garrison dismissed America's slavery-sanctioning Constitution as a "covenant with death, and an agreement with hell," believing Southern slave states should secede in order to wipe slavery from the remaining Union of states. Douglass disagreed. Dissolving the Union to defeat slavery "is about as wise as it would be to burn up this city, in order to get the thieves out of it. The Union, under the Constitution, requires me to do nothing which is wrong, and gives me many facilities for doing good."
It is imperative that state Tea Party organizations abandon wasteful efforts to expand their presence in Congress and, instead, back candidates for state office that pledge to call for a Constitutional Convention to re-establish our national governments' limited and "enumerated" powers, working to stop the 100-year creep of totalitarian Progressivism in order "to form a more perfect Union."
"Let us go home and cultivate our virtues," said Gen. Robert E. Lee to his men after surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. Modern secessionists should take Lee's advice and fight to reestablish their homeland's Constitutional virtues than make a coward's mad dash for the exits.
Article shared using the Free Republish tool on Tea Party Tribune.
THEY have to go ... OUR Constitution is just fine!
I want to secede, but I don’t want to sign the stupid petition at whitehouse.gov.
“I want to secede, but I don’t want to sign the stupid petition at whitehouse.gov.”
Just be patient. This polity will fall apart in due course, just as the Soviet “Union” did when it was too bankrupt to compel submission.
Your missing the point of the petition. It is exactly the first step to take: To let the powers be know they have a problem.
secondly, I find them to be the worst specie among cowards.
As opposed to those who will refuse to do anything but work within the same failed system that produced the very situation we are in? Failure is often the refuge of cowards as well. You are outnumbered. Wish all you want, but you aren't going to win elections anymore except by appealing to tribalism. The only way to do that is to promise goodies just like the other side. You are well on the way to becoming them already.
They would break the law to form ... what exactly? A monarchy? A republic? A collection of city states?
The red states are quite capable of successfully governing themselves. You should probably worry more about what the federal government is becoming.
They would run from our Constitutional system rather than fight to preserve it against the "menaces of destruction to the government." They would rebel against the very document that provides the safety valve of the amendment process.
Please propose the exact ammendment(s) you propose to pull us out of this mess. And explain how you are going to get the very moochers who voted for Obama to vote for ammendments that must cut off their access to power and end their free stuff.
Wouldn’t it be more sensible to petition Obama to take the urban centers where the vote went over 90% in his favor (100% in some wards in Philadelphia) and establish himself as President-for-Life over a new country and leave the rest of us alone? We could establish a system of plebescites by which other counties contiguous with the “blue cities” could join the newly formed Obamastan if they wanted to, and a system of forced exchange of populations like that in the wake of the Second Greco-Turkish War to sort out folks who’d rather live in the other country (or whose new country doesn’t want them).
Well played. The logic of secession cannot be denied, The statist will have to deal with it.
Do they expect the white house to say yes?
If they are going to do it, then do it. Don’t ask, tell.
“Well played. The logic of secession cannot be denied, The statist will have to deal with it.”
That is true, but every statist - Lincolnite, Stalinist or Roman - are murderers at heart. After all, there is no dissent in Utopia. For the statist the State is supreme over any and all individuals. As a given state fails it’s idolaters will become more abusive, more paranoid and more murderous.
Be circumspect, and note that there is now Austria and Hungary, but no Austro-Hungarian Empire. There is now Russia and the Ukraine, but no Soviet Union. Be circumspect and patient.
Agreed. Ask yourself WHY the White House would even host such a site if not to lure out people for retribution later.
IMO, you don't need permission to leave. You just leave.
I was going to sign the petition, but when I found out that the names are going to the White House I changed my mind. I dont want the White House having my info.I dont trust this Administration and I don’t even want to imagine what they would do with the info
I want to secede, but I don’t want to sign the stupid petition at whitehouse.gov.
whitehouse.gov. this whole partition thing was probably started by someone at the WH ,so they could get a starter list for the Gulags
As I recall the last secession “petition” was delivered on Ft. Sumter via a canon! How far we have fallen.
It is worth noting this: A statist and the idolators are in a co-dependent relationship. The statist desires ever more power, the idolators want financial security.
But neither is capable of producing anything. The statist wants power without responsibility, the idolator wants wealth without responsibility.
Without responsibility, which is the understanding that we are simply stewards for each other and for God, our desires become a great consuming maw that can never be satisfied.
That is what our national debt represents. It is the gap between what we want to have and what we are willing to work for. It is the gap between the power that we have and the power we are worthy of.
The only solution is to stop giving power to those who abuse it and stop giving wealth to those who do not work for it.
Take voting away from those who are not working, who are on the dole, who do not pay taxes. In our system, this will destroy the power of those who are not worthy of it.
Take the dole away from those who are neither elderly widows nor orphans nor disabled.
There are only two ways to achieve this, both will require drastic action and neither is in the character of the majority running the nation.
We either find some way to get the constitution amended to deal with these issues or we divide and deal with them in the states where there is a possibility of a majority of producers and moral statesmen to make it happen.
I live in a red county within a blue state.... imagine my conflict. ;>)
Don't succumb to paranoia. Any person can file any kind of petition they want at that website.
Libs have been petitioning the White House to throw out the red states, and provide free rainbow skittles and unicorns to all Mother Gaia's people.
And you think you're anonymous posting on Free Republic? LOL
Just split country in half.
All 201 petitions are there. Texas was first and has 113,764 signatures.
It shocks me that people still swallow Lincoln’s simpleminded (in a bad sense) rationalizations. They are really too facile to argue against. But lemme have a go at one. If the union was a contract, what part did the secessionists break by leaving? Just point me to the clause that says the union is forever, thanks.
Oh, that was agreed but not written out? What kinda contract was this? A halfway secret one which for the most part you read but whenever something happens you don’t like you search the heart of your inner child tor the mystical cords holding us together? What in damnation does the 10th amendment import if there’s a secret perpetuality clause?
By the way, how does Lincoln get away with the union predating thr Constitution/mystical cords argument and the contract argument simultaneously?
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