Where have you been for the last 47 years?
We should stop debating it and save such talk for church? Are you sure you’re posting on the right website? The SCOTUS says it’s legal and morality doesn’t matter.
Did people stop debating segregation after the Plessy v. Ferguson decision? Did they stop working to end it? Or was Brown v. Board of Ed a figment of my imagination?
Yes, enforcing laws and suppression of rebellion is within the Federal purview, but the question is whether a state can legally secede or not.
A question which was answered by Texas v. White. States can leave the Union with the consent of the other states. I thought you were the history whiz in this discussion and I was the one who hadn't read anything?
If so, then there’s no state of rebellion and the laws no longer apply following a secession.
There was a rebellion. It was in all the history books.
Even in the North, there was no widespread consensus. There was certainly a large portion of the population who favored allowing the South to leave peacefully.
A consensus that changed overnight once the South fired on Sumter.
That’s a funny interpretation of 10A you got there. “Reserved to the states” does not mean a majority vote.
Not quite as funny as yours. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The power to admit a state and approve any change in status once its joined is a power delegated to the United States by the Constitution. By implication that includes the power to approve leaving.
Frankly that’s a ridiculous and dangerous idea. Just about any issue can be construed as effecting all the states.
I think you're exaggerating there.
The Temth Amendment concerns the powers of government that are neither enumerated nor shared. Those powers belong to the state.
No argument.
Essentially it means that the FedGov is NOT an inherently higher authority.
Does it now?
Don’t be misled by the supremacy clause.
Yeah who needs that dumb ol' supremacy clause anyway. </sarcasm>
Obviously, for better or worse, we’ve moved away from this concept of the FedGov.
And all y'all would have us believe it was all Lincoln's fault. I guess there is absolutely nothing that you won't blame on him.
You contradict yourself: we should debate issues like abortion and segregation even though SCOTUS has ruled, but debating the legality of secession is off the table because SCOTUS has ruled? I’m not arguing that based on current law and jurisprudence, that secession is legal. Clearly not. I’m debating two points: 1. The SCOTUS handed down the decision on secession AFTER the war. Before the war, there was no law, court decision, or Constitutional language forbidding secession. Further the states were sovereign entities that voluntarily entered an agreement to delegate some of their sovereign powers to a central government. By what legal rationale can we conclude the the Southern sTate’s lacked the power to leave that compact?
2. I think we can agree that a SCOTUS decision, while carrying the weight of law, can be in error. Dred Scott, Plessy v Ferguson, and Roe v Wade are some examples. Does Texas v White fall into that category?
Don’t try to tell me that SCOTUS has decided secession is illegal. I know that. I also know that there’s no clause in any article or amendment in the Constitution that either allows or prohibits secession. The SCOTUS seems to have created law in this case, as it often does. The default of the Constitution would seem to be given by the Tenth Amendment, which says that when the Constitution is silent on an issue, it’s up to the sovereign states to make a decision on the matter.
And yes, the states are the legally sovereign entities, at least in the original conception of the FedGov. The FedGov derives it’s powers from the voluntary delegation of those powers to it. For example, the state of Virginia, prior to the ratification of the Constitution, had the power to negotiate treaties with foreign governments. The other newly independent states had the same power. These states agreed that it would be beneficial to yield that power to the Feds. The Feds only have said power because the states gave it to them. Thus, the state governments are a higher power than the Fed.
I said “in the original conception” above because I realize that our political system has evolved away from this concept. The real point is that by 1860, this had not yet occurred. In 1860, the states truly were the higher authority. The question of secession truly was open at the time. When I posted earlier of a fundamental transformation of America as a result of the war, that’s what I meant. The war transformed America from a union of multiple independent and sovereign states into a true nation. (And obviously the war also effected another fundamental transformation in the abolition of slavery).