I Pledge allegiance to the Confederate Flag

I Pledge allegiance to the Confederate Flag, and to the Southern People and the Culture for which it stands

The Confederate flag is again under attack, as it has always been, and as it always will be. It is under attack because of what it symbolizes. The problem is that to many Southerners have forgotten just what it does symbolize.

The Confederate Nation of 1860 - 1865 was the intellectual, as well as the spiritual, continuation of the United States of America as founded, planned, and formed by Southerners. It was the stated, and often repeated, position of almost all Southerners in the 1860’s that they, and the South, were the heirs of the original political theory embodied in the U. S. Constitution of 1789. In 1860 their attempted to separate from the rest of the states and form their own nation since that was the only way the South could preserve the philosophy and the virtues that had made the United States the magnificent nation it had become.

In both of these contentions, that is, the South was the true repository of the original political theory that made the United States great, and the South was the true home of the people who took the necessary actions to found, make, and preserve the original United States, Southerners have been proven by the passage of time to be correct.

The Southern colonies of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Maryland were where the majority of the original American population resided until the 1700’s despite the fact Massachusetts was settled only 13 years after Virginia and New York was settled 18 years before South Carolina. As the population of the colonies grew, the New England States and the middle Atlantic states, gained population so that by the time of the American Revolutionary War the two general areas of the north and the South were generally equal in size with a small population advantage being shown by Virginia. This slight difference in population by a southern state was to have a profound effect on the development of the United States.

First of all, the New England states managed to start a war with England, which they verbalized as "taxation without representation." In truth the problem from their point of view was the taxes on their trade. Having started the war they then promptly managed to lose it. The British, after conquering the entire north from Maine (then part of Massachusetts) to Boston, to Providence, to New York, to the new nation’s capital, Philadelphia, shifted their military forces to move against the Southern colonies. They secured their foothold in the South by capturing Savannah and Charleston and then proceeded to move inland to subdue the Southern population. They planed to catch the Virginia forces under General Washington in a coordinated attack moving down from the north, which they held, and up from the South that they thought they would also conquer.

The British army that had mastered the north found they could not defeat the Southern people. Once in the backwoods of the South they found themselves to be the beaten Army. The British defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens were absolute. Their Pyrrhic victories at Camden and Guilford Courthouse were tantamount to defeat. In both North Carolina and South Carolina they were so weakened they had to retreat from the area of their few "victories" within days. Their defeats at those well-known sites among others, along with their defeat at Yorktown in Virginia, led directly to their surrender.

Having secured the political freedom from England for all the colonists, Southerners then mistakenly sat back and took a smaller role in forming the new American government that operated under an "Articles of Confederation." That first attempt at forming a government fell to the firebrands of New England who has started the war and who still asserted their moral position of leadership despite their poor showing on the field of battle. These Articles of Confederation, the product of the Yankee political mind, gave too much economic self determination to the separate colonies (as the Northern colonies had demanded in an attempt to protect their shipping, trade and manufacturing) and too little power of enforcement to a central government.

After a period of six difficult years, when the Articles of Confederation failed as a form of government, another convention was called and a new form of government was drawn up. This time the convention was under the leadership of Southerners and they brought forth the document we all refer to as the U.S. Constitution. Even northern historians do not try to pretend the Constitution and the ideas embodied therein are anything other than a product of the Southern political mind. (Yankee historians cannot deny it, but they do choose to ignore it so their students grow up ignorant of the fact that the Constitution is Southern.) So, as it turns out, when the new nation found itself in political trouble it was the South which, once again, came to the rescue just as it had when the nation found itself previously in military trouble.

With the slight population advantage it enjoyed over other states, Virginia was able to give to the new nation politicians who are nothing short of demigods. Their names are revered in all areas of the civilized world wherever political theorists converge. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, Henry, Taylor and Monroe are just a few, there are many more. These men along with the leading political minds of South Carolina, Rutledge, Heyward, and, most importantly, Pinckney, saw their new nation through its birth and establishment.

The military leadership, as well as the political leadership, of the South saw the nation through its expansion. Under Southern leadership the British were defeated a second time in 1814. Under Southerners, most obviously John Tyler and Andrew Jackson, Florida was added as a state. The defeat of Mexico in 1846, under the Southern leadership of James Polk and numerous Southern military officers, established of the United States as a force to be feared. That was an astonishing accomplishment for so small and so young a nation

Thomas Jefferson, who added the Louisiana Purchase, barely escaped impeachment for his efforts. The north argued continuously against the war with Mexico that added the area from Texas to California just as they had argued against the Louisiana Purchase. One Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, was particularly vehement against Texas being made a state. Northerners, having seen Mexico defeated and the United States enlarged all the way to the Pacific Ocean, then objected to the methods and motives of the acquisition of the Washington and Oregon territories in the northwest. Polk, who had added that vast area from Louisiana to California to Colorado to the pacific northwest, served only one term as President due to the constant attacks he sufferer in the Northern press. Left to the people of the north, the French would still control from Minnesota to Louisiana and Mexico would control from Texas to the Pacific while Canada would still include Washington, Oregon Idaho and Montana.

Every square inch of soil that now comprises the continental United States was added under a Southern president, and they did it over the strenuous political objections of the north. The provincial and mercenary Yankee people fought every effort to expand the United States. The expansion of the United States became a regional political disagreement that spread ill feeling north and South. Its accomplishment by Southerners was no small feat. It was accomplished under Southern military leadership and with much Southern blood. (Which is why Tennessee is called "The Volunteer State" and the names of Southerners are almost exclusively the only ones found on memorial tablets and monuments from Texas to California.). The expansion of the original colonies into the continental power it became was completely the results of the Southern mind and Southern leadership.

Having secured the freedom of the United States from England and then having formed and led the successful government into a new political age under a written constitution that is still the envy of the whole world, the South gave the entire military and political leadership that formed the United States into the boundaries it now enjoys. But these magnificent accomplishments were soon to be overshadowed by population shifts and the ensuing results that brings in a representative government. By the early 1820s the north had finally secured just enough additional population that it had achieved enough political clout to start protecting its first love, its money. The unfair and punitive tariffs that were passed in 1828 led to the South’s first half-hearted attempt to form its own separate government with the Nullification movement of 1832. The threat of war that South Carolina held out in 1832 then caused a negotiated modification of those laws to where the South could live with them. For the time being, the political question was settled by compromise.

While those changes pacified the political leaders of the South for the time being, some statesmen could see, even then, that if the North ever became totally dominant politically, the South would be destroyed, not just economically, but philosophically and spiritually as well. Those statesmen, with Calhoun in the lead, then started planting the intellectual seeds that led to the South’s second attempt at political freedom in 1860.

Unfortunately, in the 1840’s Yankee abolitionist introduced the new poison of the "voluntary end" of slavery as a political issue. There were attempts by many Southerners to defuse this situation by offering an economic solution. That is, Southerners offered to end slavery in the South just as England had ended it in the West Indies, by having the slave-holders paid for their losses when the slaves were freed. The abolitionist Yankees would have none of that. Their position was simple, the South could give up it slaves for free and each farmer could absorb the loss personally. There was to be no payment. To the Yankee abolitionists it was either their way or war.

The fact that the abolitionist movement became a dominant presence in the northern part of the United States from the 1840’s on is primarily because a liberal can politicize any subject and enrage any body of people regardless of the level of preexisting good will. (As current liberals have turned the simple good sense argument that one should not litter one’s own environment into the political upheaval of "the ecology movement." The effectiveness of liberal methods can currently be seen in the simple instance that most people believe such nonsense as the chemical cause of "ozone depletion" and "the greenhouse effect" despite any evidence of either. Liberals are absolutely capable, by their strident, activist natures of raising any question to harmful emotional heights.)

Unfortunately, the loss of the War for Southern Independence in 1865 caused the very thing that Southern statesmen had foreseen in the 1830’s; that is, the north became dominant and the cultural, spiritual, and economic base of the South was decimated. The loss of the war was most severely felt in the South, of course, but it has also had political repercussions in the north as well.

Without the South in a position of dominance, the leadership of the United States has gone from Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Tyler and Polk to the inept, or leftist, Grant, Harding, Arthur, Harrison and Roosevelt, among others. Plus, the ascendancy of the leftist north to national prominence has also caused the rise of leaders in the South who had to be acceptable to the north. Such spectacularly immoral or totally incompetent Southern politicians as Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are examples of the quality of the men that the South must now produce to garner northern votes. When these modern day jackals are contrasted with the demigods the South produced when unfettered by the northern voter, that in itself should be enough to make all people reject northern philosophy and northern politics and embrace all things Southern.

As the forces of the left have gained ascendancy in the United States, the pressure intensifies to completely obliterate anything that remains between them and complete leftist victory. That means that the traditional enemy of leftists, the South, must be erased in its every form. That is why leftists always demand that even symbols of the South be eradicated.

We, therefore, now have a coalition of people who want the Southern flag taken down and hidden from public view. This coalition is composed of three main groups. First of all are African-Americans, whose emotional position is totally unmitigated by any knowledge of history. Secondly, there are Yankees who have moved to the South and who, despite their remarkable political failures in their own states, have learned nothing and continue to vote leftist here too. Or either these northern imports have been transferred here to run the newspapers that are owned by the people who live outside the South. And, thirdly, there are leftist Southerners, or Southerners of "politically correct" leaning, who have apparently learned their history from the television and movies and who feel the South is a bad place because it is not egalitarian enough.

But the demands of this coalition of political thinkers need to be put in proper perspective. Before anyone starts to tell someone else how to act and how to think, it is incumbent on him to demonstrate the success of his own ideas and actions. So far the introduction and enforcement of leftist ideas in our world has led to nothing but sorrow and degeneration. The force necessary to make people live under a leftist government has been the direct cause of the murder of over one hundred million people in this century alone. Leftist political theory has enslaved and impoverished billions of people worldwide. Its introduction has weakened even such great nations as England and France and reduced them to the status of third rate nations. Socialism in Scandinavia has reduced it to an economic level even less than that of England. In the United States leftist ideas have turned our country into the increasingly sick society it has become.

So until this coalition of leftist can point to a single successful instance of where their leftist philosophy has improved a country, or a people, rather than to the spectacular political failures the left has precipitated in any place into which its poisonous philosophy has been introduced, they have no right to demand anything of anybody. Leftist, the most spectacular political failures in all of history, have no standing to demand that Southerners accept anything that flows from their false philosophy. And of all people, leftist have the least demand on Southerners, the people who formed, guided, expanded and gave them a great country.

The Confederate flag is a symbol. It stands for the people who had the spirit, the courage, and the intelligence to give the world its greatest governmental entity. As long as the Confederate flag flies there is hope that the terrible scourge leftists have placed on the world will pass. It represents the culture that produced the most wished for, the most just, and the finest political system on earth. And as long as the Confederate flies there is hope that the greatness that was once ours may someday be reestablished.

I'm going on what y'all turn out. So tell me where there are any Lees, Forrests(?) or Jacksons anywhere in the south today.

Nathan Bedford Forrest can be found in Memphis, Tennessee, ironicly enough near that city's *Union Street, where the general's memorial is located.

Descendents of that great man's stature might be expected to offer some of the leadership, following in his footsteps, and so one did, but he was the only son of the only son of of the only son (grand grandson) of that Confederate Lieutenant General, and his sister had two daughters. Therefore the line came to an end with his death in combat in an Air Corps bomber in the skies over Germany, during the Second World War. I do not think his ancestor would be any less proud of him for having faithfully served the flag of the Union, since he served the people of the south just as well, and like his great grandfather, set quite an example for us all to follow.

Nathan Bedford Forrest

Brigadier General, United States Army Air Force

Born at Memphis, Tennessee, April 7, 1905, the son of Nathan Bedford and Mattie Patterson (Patton) Forrest. He was a student at Georgia Tech, 1923-24 and graduated from West Point in 1928. He married Fraces Brassler, November 22, 1930.

He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, 1928, and advanced through the ranks to Brigadier General in November 1942. He was serving as Chief of Staff of the Second Air Force when reported missing-in-action on a bombing mission over Kiel, Germany, on June 13 , 1943. He had lived at 115 West 9th Street, Spokane, Washington. He is buried in Section 3 of Arlington National Cemetery.

If we think of the Constitution as any other legal partnership then that cannot be disolved with the approval of the majority or all of the people involved.

Actually, Kent Masterson Brown (article in North and South magazine last year) and Jefferson Davis (his book Rise and Fall) make a lot of the nature of the Constitution as a compact. This nature stipulates that, barring some provision on dissolution of the compact, the willful violation of a material provision of the compact by one party relieves other party from the requirement to abide by the compact. Even Daniel Webster agreed with this (speech at Capon Bridge, Virginia). I don't disagree with Brown and Davis, but believe that a better case for secession lies with the will of the majority of the people of the States that want to secede or not. The best basis of legitimacy of secession is found in the popular will of the people of the States that voted to secede (or not). Anti-secessionism was anti-democratic, in that it overthrew properly elected State governments once those States elected to secede. Of course, the unconditional Unionists had to do this. It is illogical to fight a war to force States to remain in the Union against the will of the people of those States, then leave the same secessionist State governments in place, to allow them to try it again, and again until they succeed. Likewise, it is ludicrous to overthrown an elected States government, then allow the people to elect the same secessionists to States office so they can try again, so the Federal government had to declare these men to be ineligible for re-election. Again, it is ludicrous to allow the people to elect others to State offices who will act exactly as the overthrown State officials, so the Federal government had to declare anyone who did not openly oppose secession to be ineligible to vote. Of course, the Federal government has no constitutional authority to dictate to the States who is and is not eligible to vote, but these ridiculous and scandalous acts were carried out because they had to be for the unconditional Unionists to enforce their views on the nature of the Union. These policies were the fruit of the poison tree of a coercive Union. The Federal government lacks a constitutional enforcement mechanism against secession. Jefferson Davis, citing the proceedings of the Federal Convention in 1787, demonstrated that this omission was intentional. There are no provisions in the Constitution allowing the overthrow of a republican State government, nor even allowing the Federal government's forces to enter a State to protect them from invasion without the request from the State legislature or the State governor. President Buchanan also saw no constitutional enforcement mechanism even though he did not recognize a right of secession. Secession is messy. A coercive Union is messier.

Why should the Constitution be any different. Why would the founding fathers have gone to great lengths to ensure that the people in each state be represented and guaranteed a republican government and protected from government excess only to make it that simple for a state to leave the Union and the people be at the mercy of whoever took them out?

As was borne out in the events during and following the war, a much greater threat to liberties comes from a State government or from a Federal Government that refuses to respect the established limits on its authority. It is logically ludicrous for the Federal government to overthrow an elected State government in executing its constitutional obligation to guarantee each State of the Union a republican form of government. Plus, secession is less risky from a civil liberty perspective because the people of Illinois can never be "at the mercy" of the government excesses of the people of Florida, for example, except through the intervention of the Federal government.

Madison ... the latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy."

What is the difference between revolutionary secession and constitutional? How does one invoke this revolutionary right? Simply by declaring the act secession to be a revolution? And then is the Federal government bound to respect it because "there is no theoretical controversy" about it? The Southern peoples' beef was with the Federal and northern State governments, not their own State governments. They wanted to keep their State governments as they were.

During the Constitutional Convention, Madison addressed New York's desire to ratify in part: "My opinion ... a rejection."

Actually, this was the private letter to Hamilton I was writing about in my last post. It was written after Virginia's Convention ratified the Constitution, with the proviso that the powers delegated could be resumed if perverted to their (the people's) oppression.

There are other quotes from Madison but I don't have them handy right now. But they all make clear his belief that the arbitrary secession was wrong.

Madison is a double-edged sword in this regard. He wrote on both ends of this argument. For example, he was the author of the letter described, and of the Virginia Resolution of 1798/9. Also, don't confuse wrong with unconstitutional. Many unconditional Unionists cite quotes from the Founding Fathers disapproving of secession or glorifying the Union and say, "Voila! Secession is unconstitutional." Many of these quotes merely show that the author saw that the Union was good and secession was inadvisable as a policy, not unconstitutional.

My point on the Supreme Court case was that a post-war decision could not have relevance to a pre-war constitutional debate. If does, then let me cite the future US Supreme Court decision of the year a.d. 2023 which will declare that secession is completely legal whenever a State decides it wants out of the Union. Just kidding, but you see my point, I hope.

Respectfully,

D J White

This nature stipulates that, barring some provision on dissolution of the compact, the willful violation of a material provision of the compact by one party relieves other party from the requirement to abide by the compact.

And how was that compact violated?

I don't disagree with Brown and Davis, but believe that a better case for secession lies with the will of the majority of the people of the States that want to secede or not.

That's Rawle's position and I would agree with him that the will of the people is paramount. So why didn't the people have a chance to decide? Of the original 7 confederate states only Texas put the matter to a popular referendum. We will never know what the popular will of the people was. Had referendums been held and had it been found that the popular will was secession it is possible, maybe even probable, that the support would have been found in the Congress to amend the Constitution and allow them to go in peace. When you figure that secession wasn't stongly opposed by the majority of Northern newspapers and public opionion until after the south fired on Sumter it's not as far fetched as one might think.

Isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the republican form of government? More importantly, isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the people of each state when laws are broken? Rebellion is a violation of the law.

Madison was opposed to arbitrary secession, as he would have been opposed to any state acting arbitrarily against the interests of any other state. He was pretty consistent on that in the letters I've seen.

A Supreme Court decision on a matter of Constitutional law is relevent no matter when the action and no matter when the decision. The Supreme Court ruled that the actions of Texas were not protected under the Constitution. That ruling will stand until overridden by a future court or by an amendment. And yes, should some future court rule that arbitrary secession is legal then I will accept that ruling as law.

The people of each State did get to decide. Each seceding State elected a Convention to consider the issue of secession. The conventions embody the sovereignty of the people. The delegates were empowered specifically to consider this issue in the name of and with the sovereignty of the people. The sending of the decision to the people in a referendum was solely for greater certainty, given how momentous the decision was. A referendum was not mandatory, since the Constitution had been adopted by the mechanism of conventions only. And another point, the Constitution did not need to be amended to allow secession, since, as I have shown in earlier posts, the recalling of delegated State powers was understood across sectional lines (VA, NC, NY, RI) and the understanding that there was no such thing as an unspecified Federal power was universal. The Constitution DID required amending to allow the Federal government to force a State back into the Union against the will of the people of that State, or to overthrow an elected State government once the Army had conquered a State. But Northerners were unwilling to discuss that amendment or simply elevated the idea of Union above that of representative democracy. Southerners elevated the idea of representative democracy above that of Union.

Isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the republican form of government?

For States within the Union, yes. The Founding Fathers (well, most of them) saw monarchy and aristocracy as a societal disease that they could not tolerate within the Union, so they made that stipulation. But isn’t it at least a little ironic that this stipulation would be cited by Radical Republicans as the justification for overthrowing elected State governments in the immediate aftermath of the war? Don’t you find that at least a little bit unrepublican? And if this authority can be drawn from Article IV, Section 4, then what good is it to have written Constitutions?

More importantly, isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the people of each state when laws are broken? Rebellion is a violation of the law.

No, actually, it is not the Federal government’s duty to do that. It is the Federal government’s duty to execute the powers specifically delegated to it by the people of the several States. The Federal government violating the Constitution is hardly an effective way to protect the people of each State when laws are broken.

I suggest you read two other Madison documents. The Virginia Resolution (http://www.closeup.org/ky-va.htm) and Madison’s Report on the Virginia Resolution (http://www.constitution.org/rf/vr_1799.txt). They make clear that Madison was very concerned about how the Federal government may usurp undelegated powers and what States should do about it.

“That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact; as no farther valid than they are authorised by the grants enumerated in that compact, and that in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.” (http://www.constitution.org/jm/17981221_virres.txt)

My point on the Supreme Court case is that Texas v. White cannot be cited as a pre-war justification for opposing secession. It wasn’t case law yet, although it is now.

Respectfully,

D J White

Actually each state did not elect delegates to a convention. I would refer you to "The Men of Secession and Civil War 1859-1861" by James L. Abrahamson. South Carolina's secession convention delegates were selected by the legislature. Georgia held an election to select delegates but there is considerable evidence to suggest that the results were fixed. In Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama the delegates available were almost exclusively from the plantation owners. Hardly represetnational. Even then the issue was far from unanimous.

Part of the governments duties is to guarantee each state a republican form of government. Preventing rebellion certainly would be part of that.

While Texas v. White was a post war decision, it decided the legality of the southern actions in 1860-61. The southern belief that they had the right to arbitrary secession was incorrect. I'm not using it as justification for opposing secession in 1860-61, I don't need to. Lincoln's opinion was that southern secession was illegal and he took actions consistent with that position. All Texas v. White did was confirm that his actions were the correct ones and the southern actions were illgal.

Let me offer two quotes from Madison as well:

"One thing at least seems to be too clear to be questioned; that whilst a State remains within the Union it cannot withdraw its citizens from the operation of the Constitution laws of the Union. In the event of an actual secession without the Consent of the Co-States, the course to be pursued by these involves questions painful in the discussion of them. God grant that the menacing appearances, which obtruded it may not be followed by positive occurrences requiring the more painful task of deciding them!

Madison was pointing out the dangers of arbitrary secession. It's obvious that he knew that such arbitrary actions must be opposed by the federal government.

"An inference from the doctrine that a single State has the right to secede at will from the rest is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late been palatable anywhere, and nowhere less so than where it is now most contended for..."

Would you agree with this? Do the other states have the right to expel a single state regardless of that state's wishes?

I have Mr. Abrahamson’s book, and don’t see that the South Carolina Convention was appointed by the State legislature. Not saying you’re wrong, I just don’t see it. As for the others, the validity of any election was the State‘s to determine and if the people elected plantation owners, then they were legitimate as delegates because of that election, regardless of their occupation.

Part of the governments duties is to guarantee each state a republican form of government. Preventing rebellion certainly would be part of that.

And preventing the elected State legislature to meet would undoubtedly violate that trust. See Canby’s order to Warren et al. on May 20th, 1865. O.R. Vol. 48, part 2, page 520-1. And instructions from the Secretary of War to Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Banks Sept. 11th, 1861, O.R. vol. 5, pg. 193.

While Madison is obviously troubled by the possibility of secession, the declaration of the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in Convention assembled, do not share his trouble. “The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will: that therefore no right of any denomination can be cancelled abridged restrained or modified by the Congress by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any Capacity by the President or any Department or Officer of the United States except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes.”

Then in 1861, the same people of Virginia, in Convention assembled, declared, “The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whenever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the South or slaveholding-States, Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, That the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in convention, on the twenty-fifth of June, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the general assembly of this State ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignity which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.”

As great a mind as Madison’s was, in those areas in which it opposes the declared will of the people of Virginia as to the rights of those people, Madison was wrong.

Respectfully,

D J White

Would you agree with this? Do the other states have the right to expel a single state regardless of that state's wishes?

Well, in fairness, that’s not what Madison was saying. If all the States but one seceded, then reformed a Union called the Alternative States of America, or some such, they would first have to pass through a national 'state of nature,' if you will. They would have to be completely independent before they reformed a new Union. As far as leaving the one State of the old Union with all of the debts of the Union, I guess that the Federal government (and eventually the sole left-out State) would have to negotiate with the departers to take with them their fair share of the public debt, especially if they were taking their fair share of the public non-moveable assets (something the Confederate States attempted to do, but were never received by Mr. Lincoln). Failing a resolution through negotiation, the left-over State would only have a recourse to the final arbiter between sovereign States when no superior judge exists to determine wrongs and measures of redress: war.

More to the point, if the departers left in peace and settled accounts with remaining State[s], and then changed the name, but kept the republican ideals of the old Union, wouldn’t this be preferable to keeping the old name, but rejecting the original ideals of the old Union, namely that governments "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new government, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness?" Just a thought. I don’t think that the American people ever thought of secession for flippant and transient reasons. It’s only been tried once, with disastrous consequences for those who attempted it. The greater threat to liberty comes from a Federal government which refuses to acknowledge any limits on its power, and is willing to engage in the most violent and anti-republican acts to ensure subordination of its subjects.

Respectfully,

D. J. White

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.