BroJoeK Sure, but even if you assume such statements are legally valid (I don't), then read them carefully.
None of them refer to secession "at pleasure", but only of of necessity, just as the Declaration of Independence does.
Who gets to decide what is necessary to someone's happiness? Do you get to decide what is necessary for my happiness? If you continually violate local law ordinances about noise at night, and I've been fighting you for 20 years through the courts without success, why is it that you get to decide whether I move away or not?
Maybe if I am disappointed (to use Madison's own words) living next to you, you can block me from moving away?
It is the aggrieved state who gets to decide what is necessary to their happiness or whether they are disappointed enough to leave. Not the state that may be ripping off the aggrieved state that wants to leave.
So, FRiend, once you've grasped that you are not arguing with BroJoeK, you are arguing with Madison, then we can make some progress, even at this late stage in life... ;-)
Sounds to me like I'm arguing with BroJoeK. You don't seem to realize that Madison was not consistent. How do you rationalize the "disappointed" statement he made in response to Patrick Henry. Was Madison promising one thing to mollify an opponent and saying something else later?
Madison even tried to come to grips with "happiness" and how it applied to the Union. From Madison's Federalist Paper No. 45, where he tried to explain the Constitution to the people:
Were the plan of the convention adverse to the public happiness, my voice would be, Reject the plan. Were the Union itself inconsistent with the public happiness, it would be, Abolish the Union.
New York's ratifiers may well have used his happiness statement as a basis for the "necessary to their happiness" statement in their ratification document. Madison said it; they used it in their ratification document; now BroJoeK says "noooo!"
The Southern states certainly viewed that the Union had become inconsistent with their public's happiness, as direct votes on secession certainly established.
Arrgh! “disappointed” should have been “dissatisfied”
Again, that's an argument made by secessionists in years even before 1861.
But here's what we know for certain: in terms of constitutional "happiness", meaning full willing participants in the Federal Union, all Deep South states were perfectly "happy" on November 5, 1860.
But less than a week later they were deeply "unhappy" enough to begin declaring unilateral secessions, so what had changed?
Answer: nothing had changed -- zilch, zero, nada -- after November 5, 1860, no Federal crime was committed, no "usurpation", no "oppression", no "injury", nothing.
Only one thing had actually changed: the entirely constitutional election of the first Republican president, "Ape" Lincoln and his "Black Republican" majority in Congress.
Lincoln had not even taken office, Congress had not yet met, nothing in the slightest had changed from November 5, 1860 and yet Deep South "happiness" had drastically changed.
That by definition means their declarations of secession were not "for cause", but rather "at pleasure" which was not according to Founders' Original Intent.
And the historical fact is that even Virginians recognized the difference between secession "at pleasure" versus "for cause" and so Virginians refused to secede until the Confederacy could engineer a material cause sufficient to justify secession: Fort Sumter.
rustbucket: "You don't seem to realize that Madison was not consistent.
How do you rationalize the "disappointed" statement he made in response to Patrick Henry.
Was Madison promising one thing to mollify an opponent and saying something else later?"
Yes, I know how hard it is to keep all these key words straight, so simply ask you to review your own quote.
Madison's word was not "disappointed", but "dissatisfied" as I discussed in the post above.
Since there are different levels of "dissatisfied", is there any reason to suppose by it Madison seemed to advocate secession "at pleasure"?
I think not.
rustbucket quoting Madison: "Were the plan of the convention adverse to the public happiness, my voice would be, Reject the plan.
Were the Union itself inconsistent with the public happiness, it would be, Abolish the Union."
Again, Madison's words here are entirely consistent with his later thoughts.
In political terms, what does "happiness" mean?
The Founders' own Declaration of Independence provides a long list of abuses which clearly describe a loss of political happiness.
So, how many of those conditions applied in 1860?
None, of course, not one.
And so it can be concluded that Deep South Fire Eaters declared their secession not for political "happiness", but rather "at pleasure".
While political "happiness" was necessary for Union, secession "at pleasure" was not Founders' Original Intent.