Posted on 08/11/2018 10:56:28 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Who can make any sense out of that?
It is also FALSE that the constitution allowed a Conditional Ratification. It was designed to create a “more perfect union” not one that could be unraveled at the whim of a state.
That’s not quite how the London government saw it. You may not be familiar with King George’s August 1775 “Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition”. Other than the archaic language it sounds very much like Lincoln’s April 15, 1861 proclamation for 75,000 troops to suppress the rebellion.
This came after the 1774 ‘Petition to the King’ and the July 4, 1775 ‘Olive Branch Petition’ in which the Continental Congress stresses their loyalty as British subjects.
“It is also FALSE that the constitution allowed a Conditional Ratification. It was designed to create a “more perfect union” not one that could be unraveled at the whim of a state.”
That’s of course the view that Lincoln held. But as Charles Adams shows in his “Cromwell” essay that isn’t how those who ratified the Constitution saw it.
That is exactly how Madison and Hamilton saw it. It was explicitly addressed in the New York Ratification Convention. Madison nixed the idea in a letter to Hamilton.
These are the greatest experts on the document which would have never been written but for them.
Washington even warned of the dangers of secession in his “Farewell Address.”
Secession from the Union would be like puncturing a balloon without deflating it.
While perhaps interesting those comments ignore the critical difference in the situations.
We never consented to be subjects of the King. That is why we constituted a government to which we were to be citizens and to which we consented.
Similarity between those statements is not even interesting since the King could well have believed his words. And the president is an executive like the King.
“We never consented to be subjects of the King.”
That’s not an argument that the American founders made. It’s an objection invented in recent times that gets repeated as if it were something that they believed.
The founders were born subjects of the Crown. And as they say in their 1774 Petition and the 1775 Olive Branch Proclamation they remained loyal subjects. They simply wanted their rights as British subjects respected by London.
That was the root of their grievance. Russell Kirk wrote about this in his argument that the American Revolution was conservative in nature.
“That is exactly how Madison and Hamilton saw it. “
They probably did. Particularly Hamilton. But that’s the opinion of just two men, albeit very important men as founders go.
To get the full view of what was believed we have to look at the debates among those who voted on ratification. In Virginia you had powerful anti-Federalists who wanted to revise the Articles of Confederation and opposed the Constitution for the very reason that it consolidated too much power in the national government. Two of those were Patrick Henry and George Mason. The pro-Constitution side had to make concessions- one of them was the inclusion of the Virginia Bill of Rights.
Later on Madison seems to have waffled.. he and Jefferson wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolves of 1798 which George Washington disliked because he thought that they could dissolve the union. Patrick Henry switched sides and became pro-Federalist. Up in New England you had the Essex Junto and the Hartford Convention toying with secession first over the Louisiana Purchase and then over the War of 1812. It all serves to illustrate that there was no firm idea about secession one way or the other, with founders switching positions in both directions, the very point that Charles Francis Adams makes in “Cromwell”.
If the Nullification Crisis during Jackson had gone to the Supreme Court then we could have had a legal decision on some of it in 1832. But the Crisis ended ambiguously with both sides claiming victory and nothing was cleared up.
A constitution is not a Constitution with legal secession (outside of an amendment) it is only a list of suggestions.
There could be no continuation of policy when a state can say “I don’t like that, I’m taking my ball and going home.” It would be an absurdity on it’s face.
Ironically, it was Madison who was more dependable in protecting the Union than the man who devoted his entire life to securing and protecting it.
Clinton’s stooges had a two to one majority in the NY Ratification Convention and Hamilton was having such trouble getting ratification thru he became desperate. In a moment of despair he was about ready to throw in the towel and allow Conditional Ratification.
Madison’s letter was in response to this crisis and the answer bucked H up and he resisted the attempt to weaken the proposed government.
Hamilton’s getting the Constitution passed in Albany represents one of the greatest political achievements in history. Only he could have done it.
They were demanding their Rights as Englishmen. You are no longer a subject when they are not protected as the sovereign
is required to do, you are just a slave.
Our Founders were opposed to slavery particularly when they were the slaves.
Dixie Ping
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