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 would rebel against the very document that provides the safety valve of the amendment process”
Safety valve? As often more like the weak point of the castle wall through which the Hun breach. It’s great that we had a safety valve to release the pressure of Prohibition, but wasn’t another amendment responsible? We’ve done fine ignoring the Constitution for 75 years, but don’t forget how easy that was made by previous amendments, especially 16 and 17.
It wad Jefferson, if I recall, who suggested new constitutional conventions every so often. But he was mad for revolution, and blithely assumed they’d all be like 76. I dread a new convention more than 10 Obama administrations.
“point me to the clause that says the union is forever”
For the record, it wouldn’t matter if there was, as the right of secession is as inalienable as the right of revolution. Lincoln, by the way, went to war to preserve a constitutional republic which started as a veritable coup against the legitimate government, albeit it one that was approved by a plebiscite. The former government, in turn, was formed by colonies -n revolt from yet another legitimate government. The mystical ghostly union behind the various formations of states argument has a lot of heavy lifting to do in the face of history.
By the way, what about states that joined after the original 13? Were they always part of the union, and God or Lincoln’s “Necessity” only got around to adding them in reality in His own time? How much you wanna bet had we conquered Canada during the 1812 war Lincoln would’ve said Canada had always been a part of the union? This is like arguing with Hegel.
“By the way, how does Lincoln get away with the union predating thr Constitution/mystical cords argument and the contract argument simultaneously?”
The same way he gets away with ignoring the even older and more primal bonds to the King of Britain.
He gets to make up sophistry to justify that massive honor killing called the Civil War, the results of which are directly responsible for where we are today. Under the thumb of a centralized and remote government.
“I dread a new convention more than 10 Obama administrations.”
As do I.
A convention, or more likely, a new amendment only works if there is some way to keep the leftists from controlling it.
There are a lot of states the leftists don't own -- yet.
But do nothing, or blithely assume that you can get out of the mess the same way you got in and you give the left time to erase those islands of good government too.
For clarity’s sake I could gave replied to morethanright instead of you, which is more conventional. But in either case my comments would be directed at the author of what I quoted, not you or the thread starter. I don’t see much of a difference.
gave =have
Doing nothing is no answer, but my fear is that a new convention will be more perilous than the current downhill trajectory. They can easily turn a constitutional convention into a leftist free-for-all. Of that I have no doubt. I don’t know exactly how but they could bamboozle the states into accepting it. Maybe by shrouding the dangerous and emphasizing small but popular concessions. They could also change the rules, just like the ‘87 Constitution threw out the Articles of Confederation’s amendment process.
That would make you an unapologetic communist.
"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.'"
Firstly, whether the Union precedes the Constitution is hardly a point in any argument either for or against the legal right of secession, because the issue is whether the sovereignty of discrete states precedes unification. But I'm at least thankful you didn't try to make the usual stupid Lincolnian argument that the union of states preexisted the states themselves. That's just sloppy thinking.
Secondly, you attempt to shore up your argument against the abandonment of the current constitutional arrangement with a recitation of previous arrangements we have abandoned in arriving at present. It's a bit like telling a prospective bride that her fiancee is a real solid and stand-up guy and that the long string of broken women he has left in his wake proves it. That's just sloppy arguing.
But, thirdly, at the root of your sloppy thinking and arguing is sloppy language. Your use of the word "Union" has a legal ambiguity which is intolerable in an essentially legal argument. With one hand, you point to sense of a Union beyond its own legal framework (or, as you claim, a succession of frameworks), which carries no weight because there can be no legal argument against secession from a nonlegal union. With the other hand, you indicate particular legal manifestations of the (supposed) same union, which fail to convince because they evident on each occasion the opportunity of members to either participate or NOT, which conflicts with your prior claim that they were already part of some overarching (not particularly constitutional) unification in which the matter of participation was already settled. In the future, please determine for yourself whether you mean to argue for the permanence of a strictly legal construct (the validity of which rests upon the impermanence of all preceding legal constructs) or the vague touchy-feely sense of "Union" expressed in the image of thirteen states sitting around a campfire singing a continental Kumbayah.
Lincoln also made an argument based on contract law.
I wait with baited breath...
"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?"
Wow. I would almost describe this as 'Hobbesian', except that Hobbes actually understood contract law. Not only is this no principle of contract law, it is no principle of law at all. When contracts contain their own provisions and contingencies for the separation and departure of parties, those partitive measures are the terminal operands of the contract. Contracts often have termination clauses and conclusion conditions (usually dates). When contracts do not provide "escape clauses", the natural consequence for separating parties is a breakdown of the mutual obligations described in the contract. If Mr. A has contracted with Mr. B to exchange a ton of apples for each ton of oranges, Mr. A's legal obligation to provide Mr. B with apples ends when Mr. B stops sending oranges. Mr. A does not need Mr. B's permission to escape the terms of the contract because it was Mr. B who broke it. Parties walk away from contracts all the time. Likewise, when Texas is a party in a contract which states that its citizens will be subject to federal taxation and regulation in exchange for protection from foreign invasion, and the feds then proceed to engineer a foreign invasion to deliberately change the demographics of Texas, the return of obligations ceases because Washington broke the contract.
That's how contracts actually work, if you want to use that line of argument. I've long observed that the anti-freedom crowd believes in a strange one-sidedness of contracts. They try to use this sort of argument without realizing that, like all their other arguments, it really works against them. The proof of this is found in the challenge to describe any federal outrage which would justify the departure of a state. They either cannot or will not admit that there is any violation which would permit separation because they can't think of any which have not already occurred.
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.
You should really reread that contract. It did not require all states to ratify and it did not require unanimous consent. While you are at it, reread the previous contract which, unlike the current one, had a perpetuity clause. Ask yourself how much less perpetual should the current contract be if it is predicated upon the non-perpetude of a perpetual one.
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.
(1)The Confederation did not secede from anything. Member States of the Confederacy seceded from the United States and then later formed a new Confederation outside the older union.
(2)They were acting in the spirit of 1776, without which there would be neither United States or Confederation, but some folks are hypocrites.
(3)I challenge you to cite the law. A real law. An enumerated (numbered) 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;
Usually, when a comparative sentence begins with "Unlike", the comparator is expected to be unlike the subject in the factor of comparison. But maybe you think that a petition is a part of the legal procedure and that modern signatories are doing something that their predecessors neglected. Did you mean to admit to the legality of modern secession, as long as a petition is signed? That last clause would suggest not. You seem to fault modern secessionists for doing something that you also fault past secessionists for not having done while reserving fault for them even if they had. If you meant to demonstrate your ability to channel incoherent anger into an incoherent argument, you have succeeded.
secondly, I find them to be the worst specie among cowards.
Were the original rebel secessionists cowards for not wanting to remain in the British empire and work from within?
They would break the law to form ... what exactly? A monarchy? A republic? A collection of city states?
You really don't know, do you? I don't think this was a rhetorical question on your part. I really think you are the kind of person who would go to more trouble to air his opinions than inform them.
I'll get you up to speed. The member States of the United States are all constitutional republics, though some of them are called "commonwealths" (which, when you get into the Latin etymology of "res publicae", can be seen to mean the same thing). Those who would see their member States secede from the Union are advocating that their respective constitutional governments withdraw from the larger organization to protect their own current (republican) forms of government from the very anti-republican trends of the increasing oligarchic federal government. Pro-republicism is pro-secession and anti-republicism is anti-secession. Where were you again?
They would run from our Constitutional system rather than fight to preserve it against the "menaces of destruction to the government."
The reason why the sentence above makes no sense is because it is premised on the false notion that secession is unconstitutional.
They would rebel against the very document that provides the safety valve of the amendment process.
So, how is that Article V working out for you? Is it working? If it's working, then why are we having this debate? Secessionists are no more rebelling against Article V than lifeboat evacuees are rebelling against bilge pumps.
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."
You remind me of those welfare dependents who live in section 8 housing and worry about "white flight". They are afraid that once the productive people leave, they will be left to live in the squalor of their own incompetence and so seek to bind themselves to a people they hate and to enjoy the energies of other people whom they would, at the same time, destroy. You are afraid of what will happen to YOUR America once the freedom-lovers and liberators have slipped the yoke. That's what you are, a mooch, a freedom mooch.
"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.
What if they reestablish Constitutional virtue from without while leaving the freedom mooches behind. Well, the mooches wouldn't like that./i
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