A Private Letter Written By General Jackson, on the 1st of May, 1833 (Supports Trump on Secession)

I have just received your letter of the 6th ultimo, and have only time in reply to say that General Coffee well understood Mr. Shackleford, and urged your nomination in his stead. I had nominated you; but, on the serious importunity of Col King, your Senator, with General Coffee, the change was adopted, and you nominated for the office you now fill.

The Senate cannot remove you, and I am sure your faithfullness and honesty will never permit you to do an act that will give good cause for your removal; and, if Moor and Poindexter discovered that you were related to me, that would be sufficient cause for them to reject you. Therefore it is, that I let well enough alone, although I know it would be a convenience to you to be located where you are; still a rejection by the Senate might prove a greater inconvenience, and, for the reasons assigned, it was not done.

I have had a laborious task here; but nullification is dead, and its actors and courtiers will only be remembered by the people to be execrated for their wicked designs to sever and destroy the only good government on the globe, and that prosperity and happiness we enjoy over every other portion of the world. Haman's gallows ought to be the fate of all such ambitious men, who would involve the country in civil war, and all the evils in its train, that they might reign and ride on its whirlwinds, and direct the storm. The free people of these United States have spoken, and consigned these demagogues to their proper doom. Take care of your nullifiers you have amongst you. Let them meet the indignant frowns of every man who loves his country. The tariff, it is now known, was a mere pretext. Its burthen was on your coarse woolens---by the law of July, 1832, coarse woolen was reduced to five per cent. for the benefit of the South. Mr. Clay's bill takes it up and classes it with woolens at 50 per cent., reduces it gradually down to 20 per cent., and there it is to remain, and Mr. Calhoun and all the nullifiers agree to the principle. The cash duties and home valuation will be equal to 15 per cent. more, and after the year 1842, you pay on coarse woolens 35 per cent.

If this is not protection, I cannot understand. Therefore the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and a Southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery, question.

My health is not good, but is improving a little. Present me kindly to your lady and family, and believe me to be your friend. I will always be happy to hear from you.

I don’t understand why “preserving the union” was anything more than a platitude. Once one accepts this platitude as being the most noble of causes, then it follows logically that secession must be evil, since it is a threat to what is most noble, namely, “preserving the union”.

Yet, arguably preserving the union is not the be-all and end-all of noble causes. The argument would go something like this: after recently declaring and fighting for independence from a central authority, the colonies called themselves states and ratified the constitution as willing participants, with the condition of that the federal government had authority over the states only to the extent of their ongoing consent. This implies that at any time should their consent be undeserved, their willing participation could be severed - i. e., secession.

If a state is not free to quit the union, has it not been lured to join under false pretenses of Liberty? Has it not fallen prey to the tyranny it so recently threw off?

And if secession is not necessarily a bad thing, then “preserving the union” is not necessarily a good thing.

I submit that had states been allowed to secede and rejoin freely without prejudice, the consideration of costs and benefits of being a member of the union would have resulted in better compromises and less state-on-state legislative abuse (which the south was arguably suffering) and the union may have been preserved, but without war.

I don’t want my wife to divorce me, but the fact that we are free to sever the bond makes us each more respectful of the other’s grievances and more mindful of the benefits of marriage. If it was made illegal to divorce, I suspect the rate of spousal abuse and the rate of “spousicide” would increase dramatically.

Is not this the essence of a constitutional republic - that the collective has limited authority to impose central authority over the separate states? If the north had heeded that lesson and resisted the temptation to coerce the southern states into remaining (at gunpoint no less), wouldn’t we now be enjoying the blessings and liberties of a limited federal government, instead of (again) facing extinction at the hands of this tyrannical monstrosity the federal government has become?

Is not this the essence of a constitutional republic - that the collective has limited authority to impose central authority over the separate states?

Exactly!

Almost everyone knows the Founders started with the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, yet later adopted the US Constitution. What people don't seem to give much thought to is how they went about it. It's quite simple. They seceded from it.

From the first legal; treatise written after Constitutional ratification -

Consequently whenever the people of any state, or number of states, discovered the inadequacy of the first form of federal government to promote or preserve their independence, happiness, and union, they only exerted that natural right in rejecting it, and adopting another, which all had unanimously assented to, and of which no force or compact can deprive the people of any state, whenever they see the necessity, and possess the power to do it. And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, [86] since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties. Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess.
Of the Several Forms of Government, George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, Section XIII

Thanks

That is an excellent treatise quotation you found that speaks right to the point - amazing how well people could write back then. It seems most people of today don’t think or write as clearly.

Instead, they repeat empty platitudes like “preserve the union”, “revenue neutrality”, “white privilege” or “social justice”. It seems they are trying to discredit logic and critical thinking by attaching pejorative associations to words.

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