[rockrr]

If Napolitano wrote that then he was wrong.

[iowamark]

It is unfortunate that Andrew Napolitano has veered into this Ron Paul kook fringe nonsense.

[man_in_tx]

Sounds logical to me.

[foundedonpurpose]

I used to think he was nuts. Then I did a lot of research from both sides and independents.

The Judge is spot on! The American people have been lied to.

[tet68]

So as a state you can voluntarily join to form a
government but then you can never leave it?

Sounds like Islam to me.

[Tau Food]

This is an old argument: personal liberty must include the liberty to be a slaveholder. Slavery had a long run, but we're not going back there.

The judge suggests that, until the tyrant Lincoln, everyone just sort of assumed that each state had the right to nullify U.S. laws. He seems to have forgotten that South Carolina backed off its threat to nullify U.S. laws when President Andrew Jackson threatened to personally go to South Carolina and start hanging "nullifiers' from trees.

I've always thought that South Carolina was lucky to have attempted "secession" during the presidency of James Buchanan (referred to as "Miss Nancy" by Jackson) rather than during the presidency of Jackson. Of course, South Carolina would never have dared attempting a "secession" during a Jackson presidency.

The "secessionists" were correct in predicting that Miss Nancy would do nothing in response to a "secession." They underestimated Lincoln.

[celmak]

Napolitano has it wrong about the Civil War in that it was the Democrat slavers who began to fire upon the the Union first, thus go beyond diplomacy first, and going into armed conflict first - a situation it brought unto themselves. Once military force is brought to the table, it cannot be expected that the other side will not reciprocate; whether the other side is right or wrong! And it is obvious the Democrat slavers wanted to expand slavery to the Western territories and would have used any means necessary to do so, as was obvious in Bloody Kansas.

[jmacusa]

What is it with people who ostensibly identify themselves as conservatives venerating a bunch of Dixiecrats?

[0.E.O]

Napolitano has his opinion and Madison, Jackson, Webster, and Buchanan had theirs. I’ll go with Madison, Jackson, et.al.

[x]

Lincoln's "actions were unconstitutional and he knew it," writes Napolitano, for "the rights of the states to secede from the Union . . . [are] clearly implicit in the Constitution, since it was the states that ratified the Constitution . . ."

Beware of what people think is "implicit" in the Constitution, hidden away in all those penumbras and emanations. If you're talking about major changes, it's best to get as many people as possible on board and (changing the metaphor) dot all the i's and cross all the t's and respond to possible objections, rather than simply assume that what one happens to believe justifies and authorizes radical steps.

Lincoln's view "was a far departure from the approach of Thomas Jefferson, who recognized states' rights above those of the Union."

Jefferson like to make provocative claims and didn't always think them through. His ideas were never the last word in constitutional interpretation, and his opinion was only one of many. Or more than one of many, since Jefferson in power and Jefferson out of power didn't always agree.

[xrmusn]

Me, acting in a ‘Devils Advocate’ sort of way,

isn’t ‘US’ still bickering about the Civil War (War Between the States), which ended 150 (give or take) years ago and which no one involved is alive though a lot have ancestors that were, WHAT is the difference in the Blacks still discussing Slavery or thinking they(or WE) were directly involved in it?

Both subjects deserve to be discussed and parsed BUT not in the essence that ANYONE is owed anything.

[Brass Lamp]

Screwy forum...been trying to post for an hour now.