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Thanks for this informative post. Of course, I’ve never held that the opinion of one man...even the guy who wrote most of the constitution...decades after ratification meant anything.

What matters is what the states agreed to at the time that they ratified the constitution. It is clear from what Madison and Hamilton were arguing in the federalist papers and from the express provisos passed by 3 states specifically reserving the right to unilateral secession, that the states were not agreeing to bind themselves forever and surrender their ultimate sovereignty to the newly created federal government.

I’ve never held that the opinion of one man...even the guy who wrote most of the constitution...decades after ratification meant anything.

As a general principle, I would agree with that sentiment. SCOTUS does look at the writings of the Framers and state ratifying debates when trying to determine original intent.

That said, it's ironic that people, over time, have come to accept the writings of "one man" when the opinion satisfies them, and reject the opinions that don't. I'm speaking of the letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in 1802. This is the letter where Jefferson first coined the phrase "building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Jefferson was president at the time, but it was a private letter expressing his personal opinion about the 1st amendment. Jefferson wasn't even a member of the Constitutional Convention, as he was in France with Benjamin Franklin at the time. However, "separation of church and state" has become so ingrained in peoples' minds that they believe it actually is in the Constitution.

I contrast that with the writings of Thomas Paine in The Rights of Man where Paine writes about natural born citizens being the children of citizens (what Paine calls "full natural or political connection with the country." Paine defines NBC in contrast to England, where people are "ften a foreigner; always half a foreigner, and always married to a foreigner." He goes on to say "The presidency in America (or, as it is sometimes called, the executive) is the only office from which a foreigner is excluded." He's clearly defining NBC by contrasting it to the European approach of marriages between foreign monarchies.

Paine's writing is also one man's opinion even though it's a contemporaneous discussion of NBC (1791), and yet it is rejected, too.

So, the historical score is Jefferson yes, Madison no, Paine no, when it comes to taking their opinions as definitive.

-PJ

that the states were not agreeing to bind themselves forever and surrender their ultimate sovereignty to the newly created federal government.

Exactly! If their intention was to have a single, central government with ultimate authority, why painstakingly outline it's powers?

They would just have said 'We hereby create the United States' and gone home. 😏

FLT-bird: "Of course, I’ve never held that the opinion of one man...even the guy who wrote most of the constitution...decades after ratification meant anything."

MamaTexan: "Exactly! If their intention was to have a single, central government with ultimate authority, why painstakingly outline it's powers?"

Political Junkie Too: "So, the historical score is Jefferson yes, Madison no, Paine no, when it comes to taking their opinions as definitive."

You all have two problems when it comes to Madison's opinions on secession, as expressed in his 1830 letter to Trist.

The first is that you've never correctly stated his views, because you refuse to grasp the key point he made.
The second is that these were not only Madison's views, but the views of every Founder -- you will not find any to directly contradict him.

Madison's view is that there is, we would say, a "right of secession" under two, but only two conditions:

From necessity, as our Founders experienced in 1776, when they had no other choice, "...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..."
By mutual consent, as our Founders accomplished in 1788, in "seceding" from the old Articles of Confederation, in favor of their new Constitution.

These conditions for "secession" were agreed to by 100% of our Founders, and by nearly everyone since.

What no Founder ever agreed to was unilateral declaration of secession "at pleasure", meaning, without just cause.
This is the point Madison made to Trist, and every other Founder made in other words or actions.

These words are also found in the 1788 Constitution ratifying statements by Virginia and New York.
So let's look at them:

"WE the Delegates of the people of Virginia... DO... declare... that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression..."

"We, the delegates of the people of the state of New York, duly elected and met in Convention...declare... That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness... "

Clearly, Virginia's words correspond exactly to those of Madison in his 1830 letter to Trist:

"It is the nature & essence of a compact that it is equally obligatory on the parties to it, and of course that no one of them can be liberated therefrom without the consent of the others, or such a violation or abuse of it by the others, as will amount to a dissolution of the compact."

Virginia in 1788 and Madison in 1830 said effectively the same thing.

In the case of New York, their 1788 language, while not as explicit as Virginia, still includes the key word "necessary", as was used in the Declaration of Independence:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands "
"Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. "
"We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends."

Necessity drove the Declaration of Independence, which defined and spelled out what that word "necessary" meant to our Founders.
It means the same thing in the New York ratification statement.

Again, what no Founder ever suggested or agreed to was an unlimited, unilateral "right of secession", "at pleasure", meaning for any reason whatever, or for no reason at all.
Secession "at pleasure" could only be done by mutual consent as they did in their 1788 "secession" from the old Articles of Confederation to their new Constitution.

Any time our Founders were confronted with threats of rebellion or unilateral secession, they always acted with enough military force to stop it:

In 1794, Pres. Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion by raising a 13,000 man army (huge in those days) and putting Light Horse Harry Lee in charge of defeating the rebels.
In 1798, Pres. Adams addressed threats of alien sedition and insurrection during the Quazi-War with France by passing laws to suppress them.
In 1807 Pres. Jefferson sent the US Army to arrest his own former VP, Aaron Burr, and tried him for treason after Burr planned to declare the secession of Louisiana.
In 1814, Pres. Madison moved US Army troops off the frontier with Canada to Albany, NY, in case the Hartford Convention's threats of secession became actual rebellion.

Yes, the question of Thomas Jefferson's relationship to secession -- his word for it was "scission" -- is, ah... "complicated".
But the bottom line is that Jefferson could agree to "scission" under some dire circumstances, but never for no good reason, "at pleasure", and absolutely not when threatened by his own former VP, Aaron Burr.

And yet, in 1860, the Deep South declared secessions "at pleasure", and that is why even the most sympathetic of Northern Doughfaces -- such as Democrats, Pres. Buchanan and former Pres. Van Buren -- opposed secession on principle and supported civil war when push came to shove at Fort Sumter.