Posted on 07/04/2002 10:11:58 AM PDT by Aurelius
Most Americans assume that the Civil War settled forever the question whether a state may secede from the Union. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that the majority of human beings think a question of principle can be settled by raw force. How often we say of foreigners that “the only thing those people respect is power!” Maybe it’s true of us too.
But it wasn’t true of the men who wrote and adopted the U.S. Constitution. Even The Federalist Papers, written to promote ratification of the Constitution and a stronger Union, foresaw the possibility that the states might have to reclaim their independence — even, if necessary, by making war on the Federal Government.
What makes this remarkable is that the two chief authors of The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, would have preferred an even stronger Union than the Constitution prescribed. They were by no means champions of states’ rights.
Yet in Federalist No. 28, Hamilton wrote that “usurpations of the national rulers” — that is, the Federal Government — might give the people of the separate states no choice but to exercise “that original right of self-defense, which is paramount to all positive forms of government.” How? By taking “arms” and organizing like “independent nations.” Obviously a state that was at war with the Federal Government would have seceded from the Union. Self-defense presupposes secession.
In Federalist No. 29 Hamilton used the phrase “a well regulated militia,” which would be included in the Second Amendment. One purpose of the state militias, and of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” was to enable the states to resist tyranny — Federal tyranny. In other words, the Second Amendment was meant to put teeth in the right of secession!
Hamilton thought the state militias would be more than a match for any Federal forces; he didn’t foresee the modern weapons that would make Federal power as overwhelming as it is today.
But the principle remains, even if it now seems pretty useless: the American people have the right to resist Federal usurpation by any just means, including reclaiming their independence.
Madison offered a similar argument in Federalist No. 46. The states would have the power to meet “ambitious encroachments of the Federal Government” with “resistance” and “a trial of force,” just as they had recently done against Great Britain. Among other things, they had “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation.”
Like Hamilton, Madison contended that the states had the strength to prevail in a war with the Federal Government. In fact both men, eager to secure ratification for the Constitution, ridiculed the notion that the Federal Government could win! How times have changed. How Americans have changed.
In her book American Scripture, Pauline Meier reminds us that several of the American colonies — Virginia, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maryland — issued their own separate declarations of independence, long since forgotten in the shadow of the great Declaration of July 4. But these “other” declarations show that each state regarded itself as a “free and independent” entity, not as a subordinate part of a “union” or “nation.” These words were not yet in use.
All this shows once more that Abraham Lincoln was being both unhistorical and illogical in his claim that “the Union is older than the states.” July 4 announced 13 “free and independent states,” not Lincoln’s monolithic “new nation,” from which, he insisted, no state could ever secede.
Lincoln proved to be exactly the sort of “national ruler” Hamilton and Madison said could never defeat the states. But defeat them he did. He did so in large part by convincing many Northerners that his skewed version of American history and the Constitution was the true one. And those who couldn’t be convinced could always be arrested. Lincoln’s Constitution was what is now called a “living document” — one whose meaning can be changed at the convenience of the rulers.
Clearly Lincoln was out of touch with “the Fathers” he so often invoked. He had never read or digested The Federalist Papers, let alone the other side of the great ratification debate; the terms of that debate were pretty much a foreign language to him. He himself admitted that his knowledge of history was meager. How tragic that most Americans still accept as gospel his deeply defective account of their history.
Temporarily perhaps, but not justly or with proper respect for the right of self-governance.
Oh, Puh-leese! Can we turn the clock ahead, say about 150 years?
History is all very interesting, but your denial of it's effects makes you look stupid.
Just get the h*ll out of the U.S.A. But leave the land, it's ours.
It is freedom-haters and tyrant-lovers like you Illboy who belong in Cuba, with Castro. But your last hero, Fidel, won't last forever.
Lincoln's "meager knowledge of history" notwithstanding, the issue of Union was settled in 1865, wasn't it?
With "might makes right" arguments like that, I always wonder why you people get so worked up about "foreign devils" like Hitler or Stalin. It's not as though you guys have any moral superiority to go criticizing others who also believe that might is right.
So bring those ideas closer to home. If a state, or a region wanted to break away and establish its own government based strictly on what our founding fathers wrote, what complaints could Washington possibly have? The new country would be a group of like minded people seeking to restore the rights and privledges they felt have been lost.
Take for example Alaska and Hawaii, which both have groups advocating withdrawal. Neither share a single common border with the other states, and each could prosper without the heavy hand of DC.
I live in Alaska, and I know that our Senator is one of the kings of pork. He has gotten more federal money per capita than any other official. Yet for each dollar we take in we give up a little more. We can't develop this and we can't mine that according to the fed, but the fed will pay $2 million to upgrade the little cross country sking track just up the street from me.
At some point a group of people are going to say enough is enough and break away. I think the other states should let them go peacfully and with all the help they need. It is after all their right to do so, as written in the Declaration of Independence.
Nope.
It is another to be concerned that our Constitution is being increasingly ignored.
In 1861, the only thing the slaveholders' rebellion had to complain about was that they lost an election through their own stupidity and unwillingness to bend.
Also, they thought that be being "independent" they could go ahead and take over Cuba and northern Mexico as they had been trying to get the U.S. to do for two decades.
Their "cause" was abominable.
Now then, if one day in the near future we found ourselves bound to a social welfare state that has decided to just dispense with the Bill of Rights because it is inconvenient, which taxes us into oblivion and prefers the coddling of groups based on race and sexual orientation as a political patronage--well, then we might have something to say about it.
The slaveholders' rebellion in 1861 was based on nothing but arrogance and pique.
Maybe things will be different in the future. Who knows?
If the United States advocates and helps other countries cecede from governments they don't like, it should be willing to allow it's own people to do the same. Do you think it would?
Taking Alaska again. Would the President, who ever he is at the time, have the right and responsibilty to send troops into downtown Anchorage to stop people from forming a new government. Would that same president send troops to "protect" the pipeline, which carries 10-15% of the oil used in this country. Who would he be protecting it from? It was built as a private concern, it is owned in partnership with the major share holder being a foreign corporation.
And if he did send in troops, do you think the UN would stick up for the new country?
And furthermore, it is you who are the pissant, intellectually for sure, but you are very likely a physical weakling too, people such as you usually are.
Well, we're probably not that far in disagreement.
At this time, we don't have to go there. We have ample opportunity to turn back from this god-foresaken path we're on. We still have the vote. We still have the courts--and SCOTUS has been doing a mighty fine job in the last few years--assisting us.
What we DON'T have is an informed public. We also don't have a control of who votes, as we ought to have--and any suggestion that the voting laws be upheld is met with charges of "racism."
Things seem to be at a crossroads. Let's see how they shape up.
And FWIW, the UN is irrelevant. I don't worry about the Left outside the U.S. They don't have much juice to harm us. It's the Left INSIDE our borders that scare me to death.
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