[doryfunk]

The people did not reserve the right to maintain the union. They reserved the right to self-determination that our government was founded on. In fighting to preserve the union against the will of the people of the Southern States, the north fought against this principle and violated Southern rights.

Jefferson Davis was wrong in instating conscription. He made a mistake. He was right on many things, but wrong on conscription. Im not a Davis worshipper.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The people did not reserve the right to maintain the union.

That's not true just because you say it is.

The wording of the 10th amendment is plain enough; no wait. It's vague enough.

"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

Thomas Jefferson Letter To Justice William Johnson, Monticello, June 12, 1823

Now let's consider the words of the president of the constitutional convention:

"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily to our view, that which appears to the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each state in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution we present is the result of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible...."

George Washington, President [of the Constitutional Convention] By Unanimous Order of the Convention", September 17, 1787

So if we accept the words of George Washington, we will see that it was the --unanimous-- wish of the delegates to the convention that the union be consolidated.

So are you going to throw Washington and Jefferson onto the ash heap of history along with J. Davis?

Your simple professions of what you would like to be the truth don't look so hot when they are compared to the historical record.

Walt