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To: Question_Assumptions
Contrary to what some believe, seccession is not Constitutional, at least not without the permission of Congress. Not only did the Articles of Confederation, which created the United States, call it a “perpetual Union between the states but Article 1/Section 10, Article IV/Sections 3 & 4, and Article VI make it clear that states are not permitted run their own foreign policy or create their own confederation, that Congress has final jurisdiction over the territory of the United States, and that the states are bound by the Constitution and all state legislators, executive officers, and judicial officers are required to take an oath to support it. Further, the Habeas Corpus clause of Article 1/Section 9 makes it pretty clear that the Constitution intended the federal government to have the power to put down rebellions, which is what the Civil War was.

You would get an argument from authors of The Federalist Papers, which explained what the Constitution meant. Alexander Hamilton and John Jay voted in the New York ratification document for the following explanation of what the Constitution meant:

WE the Delegates of the People of the State of New York, duly elected and Met in Convention, having maturely considered the Constitution for the United States of America, agreed to on the seventeenth day of September, in the year One thousand Seven hundred and Eighty seven, by the Convention then assembled at Philadelphia in the Common-wealth of Pennsylvania (a Copy whereof precedes these presents) and having also seriously and deliberately considered the present situation of the United States, Do declare and make known.

... That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness; ...

... Under these impressions and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated, and that the Explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution, And in confidence that the Amendments which shall have been proposed to the said Constitution will receive an early and mature Consideration: We the said Delegates, in the Name and in the behalf of the People of the State of New York Do by these presents Assent to and Ratify the said Constitution.

That was not a conditional ratification. It was a statement that explained what the Constitution meant. It is a statement of original intent. The part that had been conditional about the New York ratification (that New York could leave if amendments weren't passed within a certain number of years) had already been taken out of the New York ratification document.

Nowhere in the Constitution was secession prohibited. Nowhere are non-seceding states or the federal government given the power to stop a state from leaving. IMO, if there had been such statements in the Constitution, the Constitution would not have been ratified by all states.

The Constitution did not bind states that have seceded from the Union any more than the United States was bound by English law after the Revolutionary War.

122 posted on 07/30/2013 6:06:55 PM PDT by rustbucket
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To: rustbucket
IMO, if there had been such statements in the Constitution, the Constitution would not have been ratified by all states.

IMO all of them would - and did. They added verbiage to ease concerns of nervous citizens but they agreed to the Perpetual Union and later the More Perfect Union.

They all knew that the alternative was to go it alone - a circumstance that would surely culminate in being subsumed or consumed.

123 posted on 07/30/2013 6:30:49 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: rustbucket

Secession is not prohibited. Secession by the action of a single state is not an authority given to the state. If you disagree with that, then you have a controversy, which is to be resolved per Article III, with the state as a party to that controversy, so the original jurisdiction is the supreme court.


125 posted on 07/30/2013 7:32:54 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: rustbucket

Certainly the militia act of 1795, passed by an early congress that had many of the Framers as members, gave the president authority to determine what was an insurrection, and to call out the militia to suppress combinations too large for normal measures.

The President at that time did make such a determination, and did call out militia to suppress the insurrection.


126 posted on 07/30/2013 7:35:19 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: rustbucket
... That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness; ...

"The People" doesn't mean the people of one state, but rather the people of the entire nation. Just as "the People" in the preamble, and the first, second, fourth and various amendments refers to the people of the entire US.

145 posted on 07/30/2013 10:14:22 PM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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