If one party to a contract can unilaterally breach it at will without fear of penalty I see no point to even having a contract and I don’t see that the terms of the contract, whatever they may be, matter. I doubt society as we know it can exist if we can’t have contracts or compacts or agreements to which the involved parties can be held, which likely involves some sort of possible penalty for breach.
Reference 2, from my post 194:
My disagreement is with the position that a state or states have the unilateral right to secede from the Union at mere will and that the states remaining in the Union have no right to try and penalize the secession or hold them to the agreement to remain in Union.It may be that actions by the Northern States were sufficient to breach the agreement forming the Union, justifying secession by the Southern States. Or it may not be. As I wrote: “Which side eventually had a legitimate grievance is up for debate.”
If actions by the Northern States were sufficient to breach the agreement forming the Union, thereby justifying secession by the Southern States, the Northern States were in the wrong to wage war.
If actions by the Northern States were not sufficient to breach the agreement forming the Union and secession by the Southern States was unjustified, the Northern States had some right to try and hold the seceding States to the agreement or penalize them.
Reference 3, from my post 203:
The United States predates the Constitution, established it, and could replace it. It’s relevance to the States as a Union is limited.
I was asked for a source on that and I responded in post 220, which is long enough that I’m not going to repeat it here.
Reference 4, from my post 75 in regard to New York, Rhode Island and Virginia reserving in their ratifications to the Constitution, the right to reassume their own governance if necessary for their happiness or if they were oppressed:
They don't say that "they (the STATES) reserved the right to “resume” the powers of government". They say that the people (in one case referring to the people of the United States and in another referring to the people of the several states) may resume or reassume the "powers". They're not saying the States can leave the Union. They're saying the people can replace the Federal (or for that matter the State) government.
I do mean New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
Then I stand by Reference 4 above. In post 75 I quoted what I thought were the relevant words from the documents in question. When you wrote “three states specifically reserved the right to reassume their own governance”, if you mean they reserved it to the people, then I don’t disagree that they did so. That they reserved the right to the individual state in question, as a state, may be implied or inferred but is not stated outright. Or did I quote the wrong parts of the relevant documents?
As to Bledsoe:
In the last paragraph, he does write about the people of Virginia, not the State of Virginia, which kind of supports my position noted above.
He seems to attach too much relevance to the Constitution and the Federal Government in his argument. I stand by Reference 3 above, and believe such relevance is limited.
Bledsoe was a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, but he was also an officer in the Confederate Army and an official in the Confederate Government. In and of itself that does not invalidate any argument he made, but his point of view was not neutral.
In the Preface to "Is Davis a Traitor or Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861?", Bledsoe writes:
“The subjugation of the Southern States, and their acceptance of the terms dictated by the North, may, if the reader please, be considered as having shifted the Federal Government from the basis of compact to that of conquest; and thereby extinguished every claim to the right of secession for the future.”
I fail to see how “every claim to the right of secession for the future” could be extinguished by conquest, which was involuntary, but not be extinguished by agreement to perpetual union which was voluntary.
As to the Virginia Ordinance of Secession, particularly the part you emphasized, but leaving the references to the Constitution and Federal Government aside, I stand by Reference 2 above.
And nowhere in the post do I see a reason to be swayed from the position I took in Reference 1 above.
When the States ratified the Constitution they never intended it to be any sort of national government. It was an agreement between individual sovereign's - united by compact. Most of the great legal minds ( before that ambulance chaser from Illinois changed the nature of government from "consent of the governed" into "consent or be shot" ) agree that the State government is/was government proper.
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The federal government then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations, and with each other. Their submission to it's operation is voluntary: it's councils, it's engagements, it's authority are theirs, modified, and united. It's sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent 52, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of it's functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent.
http://www.constitution.org/tb/t1d03000.htm
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Chief Justice Ellsworth:
"I want domestic happiness as well as general security. A General Government will never grant me this, as it cannot know my wants, nor relieve my distress. My State is only as one out of thirteen. Can they, the General Government, gratify my wishes? My happiness depends as much on the existence of my State Government as a new-born infant depends upon its mother for nourishment."
Fisher Ames:
"A consolidation of the States would subvert the new Constitution, and against which this article is our best security. Too much provision cannot be made against consolidation. The State Governments represent the wishes and feelings, and local interests of the people. They are the safeguard and ornament of the Constitution; they will protract the period of our liberties; they will afford a shelter against the abuse of power, and will be the natural avengers of our violated rights."
Judge Iredell:
"If Congress, previous to the Articles of Confederation, possessed any authority, it was an authority, as I have shown, derived from the people of each province, in the first instance." "The authority was not possessed by Congress, unless given by all the States." "I conclude, therefore, that every particle of authority, which originally resided either in Congress or in any branch of the State governments, was derived from the people who were permanent inhabitants of each province, in the first instance, and afterwards became citizens of each State; that this authority was conveyed by each body separately, and not by all the people in the several provinces or States jointly."
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Of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, in a series of Essays, addressed to Thomas Ritchie, by a distinguished citizen of Virginia, under the signature of "Locke," in February, 1833:
You all say, that it is absurd to pretend that a State can be in the Union and out of the Union at the same time; and that it is monstrous in a State to contend for all the advantages of the Union, as to certain laws, while she refuses to submit to the burthens imposed by other laws. Nothing in nature can be more perfectly self-evident than all this. It is not surprising that a man of General Jackson's measure of intellect and information should be deceived by such a superficial view of the subject: but we had a right to expect better things from a veteran in politics, like yourself. Remember, sir, that a law beyond the Constitution is no law at all, and there is no right any where to enforce it. A State which refuses to submit to such a pretended law, is strictly within the Union — because she is in strict obedience to the Constitution; and it is strange to say that she "refuses to submit to the burthens" imposed by any law which is not law at all. Here, then, you have a picture of Nullification. It secures to the State the right to remain in the Union, and to enjoy all the advantages which the Constitution and laws can afford — submitting, at the same time, to all which that Constitution and laws rightfully enjoin; while it "arrests the progress" of usurped power, by destroying the obligation of every pretended law which the Constitution does not authorise, and which, therefore, is not law. If this is not the meaning of the resolutions of 1798, I have much misunderstood them. It is precisely upon this point that the public mind of Virginia has been most strangely misled by the authority of the President's name, and the speciousness of your paragraphs. — You owe the people a heavy debt of reparation, which I hope you will live to pay.
This leads us to the second object of the resolutions of 1798, which is "to maintain within the limits of the respective States, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them." I have already shown, in my second letter, that these authorities, rights, and liberties are not merely those which belong to every sovereign State, and which may be enjoyed as well in a state of separation as in league with others, but also all the authorities, rights, and liberties which the States are entitled to, under the Constitution, and as members of the Union. No State, therefore, can possibly effect this object of the resolutions of 1798, by any proceeding which either withdraws her from the Union, or weakens her just influence in it.
South Carolina says that an unconstitutional law is void, and so say the Virginia Resolutions — South Carolina says that each State has a right to decide for itself whether a law is constitutional or not, and so say the Virginia Resolutions — South Carolina, in the exercise of this right, has declared that the Tariff Laws are unconstitutional and so say the Virginia Resolutions of 1828 and 1829 (I have forgotten the date) and so, Mr. Ritchie, say you. How, then, can you countenance the President, in subjecting the citizens of South Carolina to the sword, for not submitting to what you yourself believe to be a sheer usurpation on the part of the Federal Government? Do, sir, in pity to our oppressed spirits, answer this question. You will not answer it, sir — because you cannot answer it without convicting yourself of inconsistency. This I will prove — for I do not mean to allow you any refuge from this dilemma. South Carolina is either right in her proceedings, (principles and all,) or else she is wrong. If she is right, then, there can be no pretence whatever for making war upon her: if she is wrong, how does that fact appear? It is admitted that the other States, co-parties with her to the Constitution have not said so. — Congress alone, and the President, or rather the Federal Government, has said it. Do you, sir, acknowledge any such right in the Federal Government? Is it not perfectly clear, that if such right exists the Federal Government is an appellate tribunal, with power to decide, in the last resort, upon the constitutionality of its own acts? Of what avail is the right of a State to pronounce that an unconstitutional act of Congress is really so, if Congress may overrule that decision? Is not this, sir, the very essence of that consolidation against which the Virginia Resolutions, Madison's Report, and your own valuable labours, have so long contended? It is impossible, then, for you to justify Congress and the President, except by asserting, either that Congress may overrule the decision of South Carolina, upon a question touching their own powers, and, by the same rule, may overrule the decision of every other State, and thus become the sole judges of the extent of their own powers; or by asserting that they may constitutionally enforce an unconstitutional law. Can you, sir, escape this difficulty, without abandoning every principle for which you have professed to contend for thirty years? I am exceedingly anxious to know in what manner you will do it. For myself, I can discover but one possible loop-hole of retreat, and even that I will endeavour to close upon you. — I reserve this, however, for a succeeding letter.
Reference 1, from my post 194:
If one party to a contract can unilaterally breach it at will without fear of penalty I see no point to even having a contract and I don’t see that the terms of the contract, whatever they may be, matter. I doubt society as we know it can exist if we can’t have contracts or compacts or agreements to which the involved parties can be held, which likely involves some sort of possible penalty for breach.
Refer to my post 184 for one way that Northern states were violating the contract, a violation of one key part of the contract without which the Constitution would not have been ratified. Note the comments of Daniel Webster of Massachusetts in post 184.
Reference 2, from my post 194: [excerpts from your Reference 2 are listed below.]
If actions by the Northern States were sufficient to breach the agreement forming the Union, thereby justifying secession by the Southern States, the Northern States were in the wrong to wage war.
If actions by the Northern States were not sufficient to breach the agreement forming the Union and secession by the Southern States was unjustified, the Northern States had some right to try and hold the seceding States to the agreement or penalize them.
Who is to decide whether it was justified or not? The oppressors or the oppressed? If you argue that the oppressors should decide whether a state can secede from the "voluntary" union, we disagree and are talking past each other. If you argue that the oppressors should decide, which of the following oppressors might you be favoring?
(1) The states that violated the Constitution by preventing the return of fugitive slaves?
(2) The Northern states who were transferring wealth from the South to Northern industry and Northern workers by means of the tariff on imports?
(3) The states whose representatives were blocking Southern citizens from equal access to the territories that Southern blood and money had gone into winning or purchasing?
Here are my comments on the numbered items above.
(1) See post 184 above. See also the Georgia Platform of 1850, supporting the Missouri Compromise. It says in its last provision [Wikipedia source, so be careful]:
Fifthly, That it is the deliberate opinion of this Convention, that upon the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Bill by the proper authorities depends the preservation of our much loved Union.(2) Through the existing tariff, the self-aggrandizing states were already transferring large amounts of Southern wealth to Northern manufacturers thereby providing jobs to Northern workers. They also had the votes in the incoming Congress to substantially increase that transfer from the South by means of the Morrill Tariff (which actually passed right before Lincoln took office). An editorial by the Daily Chicago Times on December 10, 1860 [as reported in the New Orleans Picayune] says the following. Keep in mind that the Morrill Tariff had not yet passed the Senate at this point.
The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole . . . We have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually.Here’s some information from the 1860 book Southern Wealth and Northern Profits by Thomas Prentice Kettell. Kettell broke down the distribution of imports to regions by consumption. For 1859, he calculates Southern consumption of imports as $106,000,000, Western consumption (mainly the Midwest, I think) as $63,000,000, and Northern consumption (New England and perhaps New York and Pennsylvania and New Jersey, I think) of imports as $149,000,000. Kettell based the split among regions on Treasury figures from 1856.
Kettell also estimated that the North sent $240,000,000 in domestic goods to the South in 1859. Many the Northern goods were protected against lower priced imported goods by the tariff. Thus, the South was effectively paying the tariff on those particular US manufactured goods and were thus supporting Northern manufacturers and Northern jobs. Kettell also said that the South paid to the North some $63,000,000 in interest and brokerage.
(3) Here is what Jefferson Davis said on the floor of the Senate, January 10, 1861:
Is there a Senator on the other side who to-day will agree that we shall have equal enjoyment of the Territories of the United States? Is there one who will deny that we have equally paid in their purchases, and equally bled in their acquisition in war? Then, is this the observance of your compact? Whose fault is it if the Union be dissolved? Do you say there is one of you who controverts either of these positions? Then I ask you, do you give us justice; do we enjoy equality? If we are not equals, this is not the Union to which we were pledged; this is not the Constitution you have sworn to maintain, nor this the Government we are bound to support. (pg 311, Congressional Globe)The February 13, 1861 issue of the Gate City Guardian of Atlanta pointed out the disparity between those volunteering from the North and South for the Mexican War that won the Southwestern territory. The paper presented a state-by-state analysis of the volunteers for that war. Slaveholding states furnished 45,680 volunteers; non-slaveholding states furnished 23,084. Didn't Southerners earn the right to take their property to the Southwestern territory?
Similarly, did Southerners not contribute to the purchase of the Louisiana Territory? The treaty by which we purchased that land had a proviso that inhabitants could take their property (slaves being property at that time) anywhere in the territory. Or were those territories reserved for the constituents of the Northern congressmen so that they would not face competition from slaves or Southern plantation owners?
They don't say that "they (the STATES) reserved the right to "resume" the powers of government". They say that the people (in one case referring to the people of the United States and in another referring to the people of the several states) may resume or reassume the "powers". They're not saying the States can leave the Union. They're saying the people can replace the Federal (or for that matter the State) government.
The resume powers argument of Bledsoe convinced me that the people who delegated powers of government (the people of the individual states acting separately are the people who can legitimately resume powers). This argument and the others of Bledsoe do not appear to sway you.
You are correct that the Virginia ratification document did say the people of the United States, but Bledsoe destroyed that argument in several different ways, IMO. In their secession document, Virginia noted that the Southern states had been damaged. The people in those states are people of the United States. The people of the individual Southern states elected delegates to their states' separate secession conventions and/or submitted the secession question directly to their voters. The sovereign voices of the individual states or their elected delegates decided to secede.
Where does sovereignty ultimately reside – in a government or union or in the people who delegated powers to the government or union?
I absolutely do not buy your argument that the other two ratification documents mean that it is only the people of the several states (i.e., the lumpen mass of the whole people of the United States) who may resume or reassume powers that the lumpen mass of the whole people never had.
I note that the criteria given for the people of New York and Rhode Island to resume their powers is a lower bar than that posed by Virginia's ratification document. The New York or the Rhode Island people could do that whenever it was necessary for their happiness.
Many state constitutions say that the people have the right to alter or abolish their form of government and these constitutions were judged consistent with the US Constitution.
From the 1845 Texas Constitution: "All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit; and they have at all times the unalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish their form of government, in such manner as they may think expedient."
From the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution and still there today: "The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying in safety and tranquility their natural rights, and the blessings of life: and whenever these great objects are not obtained, the people have a right to alter the government, and to take measures necessary for their safety, prosperity and happiness."
I fail to see how “every claim to the right of secession for the future” could be extinguished by conquest, which was involuntary, but not be extinguished by agreement to perpetual union which was voluntary.
The federal conquerors of the Southern states made those Southern states disavow secession in their constitutions as a condition for readmitting them to the United States after the war.
By the way, the "perpetual" union is no more. It became no more when the Constitution was ratified by nine states. As Mr. Lancaster of the North Carolina Ratification Convention said:
We find that the ratification of nine states shall be sufficient for its establishment between the states so ratifying the same. This, as has been already taken notice of, is a violation of the Confederation. We find that, by that system, no alteration was to take place, except it was ratified by every state in the Union. Now, by comparing this last article of the Constitution to that part of the Confederation, we find a most flagrant violation. The Articles of Confederation were sent out with all solemnity on so solemn an occasion, and were to be always binding on the states; but, to our astonishment, we see that nine states may do away the force of the whole.
As George Washington said, North Carolina was not a member of the present union. Members of the North Carolina Ratification Convention said they were out of the Union if they did not ratify the Constitution. But, but, you said the Union was perpetual.