Posted on 11/28/2012 2:23:59 PM PST by Kaslin
For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.
Since Barack Obama's re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitions for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there's absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let's look at the secession issue.
At the 1787 constitutional convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, "No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States."
Several months earlier, Reps. Daniel E. Sickles of New York, Thomas B. Florence of Pennsylvania and Otis S. Ferry of Connecticut proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. Here's my no-brainer question: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional?
On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty."
The Northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace. Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content." The New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
There's more evidence seen at the time our Constitution was ratified. The ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said that they held the right to resume powers delegated, should the federal government become abusive of those powers. The Constitution would have never been ratified if states thought that they could not maintain their sovereignty.
The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives. Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."
Well, if everyone in a state wanted to go to Brazil, Brazil might have a problem with it. But, trust me, that’s not a realistic concern. Folks who are tired of the USA should check out that video, though.
The state is the political unit defined in our republic, entire states are small counties. If after secession a part of a state wanted to form their own state then that might be a possibility. See the history of WV.
You aren’t answering the question. If a state (the people of that state) isn’t free to go, are they free?
The confeds fought so that their aristocrats could own other humans. Hardly a lofty sense of self-determination.
The right side won. Thank God.
If by "go" you mean stay and secede from the USA, then my prediction is that the rest of the USA will prevent it, by force if necessary.
The USA purchased Louisiana from France. Does that mean that the USA can now sell Louisiana to another country?
These things aren't going to happen. Too many people are too patriotic. Like it or not, we're bound together, at least in our lifetimes. Some will leave, but most will stay and try to turn things around.
“Your assumption is that obumbler is a nice law abiding gentleman who will honor the Constitution.
No show us where he has in the past.”
Okay, fine. Since Buckwheat won’t honor a lawful Article 5 request, that means we fight it out in the streets and countryside. Happy now?
Jezuz kripes, I’m just pointing out that an Article 5 movement is one option to avoid secession or a bloody civil war. But since everyone knows better and thinks that it’s a bullshit idea without even trying it, let’s start killing each other yesterday.
Screw this. Goodbye.
Dan Sickles took his leg with him to Washington when he was evacuated after the battle of Gettysburg, and gave it to a group of Army docs who were studying battle wounds. The leg was preserved, and for years after the war he visited his own leg in a museum in DC, and the leg still exists.
In spite of his battlefield screw-up, he wound up bewitching Congress into giving him a medal, and in the 1880s, he established the commission that turned Gettysburg into a national park.
Other little known fact—in 1890, he was elected Sheriff of NYC.
One of the most colorful characters in American history. If he was alive, he would agree.
Outstanding article.
The older I become, the less I can find justification for the slaughter of over 600,000 men, and the widows and orphans that produced, in order to keep a “Union” of people who no longer wished to be associated with each other. The economic and social ruin to the South took over a century to repair.
It seems like the case presented by Jefferson in the opening of the Declaration of Independence certainly applied to the South in 1861.
This absurdity of constantly refighting the civil war is pointless and only contributes to the waky notion of FR. The fact of life is we now live in a nation where states are irrelivant. Ideals matter.
The war of culture was/is not fought on borders it is fought on the airwaves. Want to win the culture war? crush one, and just one, outlet as an example. MSNBC is a good one. Make any advertising on that channel toxic to the point of GE selling them off. (probably to Hp, they have a history of stupid deals)
Years after the battle he was instrumental in his efforts to preserve the battlefield at Gettysburg.
Repealing the 17Th Amendment will over time solve the problems.
I suspect, although I just thought of it and have not gone beyond that, that repealing the 17Th might end the idea that states will be bailed out by the feds.
I can’t see a senator appointed by a fiscally sound state voting to bail out California.
I agree with your assessment and I’m here to fight the good fight. I just believe it’s foolish to think we can call ourselves free when we’re not free enough to break away if we want to. We’re free to do anything we want except leave. That’s not real freedom.
As if those blue state libs could even stop us if we decided to leave.
Get a grip. This is the 21st century, not the 19th. There will be no shooting war if one or several states decide to secede.
Despite how much you may fear Obama, he does not have the stomach to launch a conflagration in this country. Neither does anyone else.
Sorry, but secession by one of more states will be quite a bit less dramatic than what you're imagining. The will to make bloody war against other Americans, to force them to remain in the current union, simply does not exist.
Sure, you might hear all sorts of bluster out of Washington DC if any state legislature actually passes an Act of Secession, but that's as far as it will go. The potential cost in lives and treasure alone would mitigate against such an outcome.
I don’t agree. To begin with, it wouldn’t take much force for the US to subdue a state’s governmental machinery The action would be accompanied by the usual propaganda. The US would not be taking action to protect its own interests, but instead to enforce the rights of American citizens [within the seceding state] to remain Americans. The state politicians responsible for passing an Act of Secession would be cast as traitors, a usurping minority who misused the state government to deprive the state’s citizens of the rights guaranteed them by the US Constitution. Retaking the state’s governmental machinery would be quick, clean and very popular.
“What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.”
Seems to me that the Federal Government is not so mighty without the backing or at least the acquiescence of the States. Lincoln couldn’t have done much without the Northern States.
“The potential cost in lives and treasure alone would mitigate against such an outcome.”
The Union side might think the secessionist side believes that, and that the mere threat or bluff of force would make them fall back in line.
They might be right.
Or they might not be right and things could get out of hand with neither side being willing to back down.
When the War Between the States began, neither side thought it would turn out to be as long and hard as it did turn out to be.
Wow..! This is a truly great column.
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