[fortheDeclaration]

As Lee stated, if a break up of the Union was to be contemplated, it should have been done with a national convention, representing the People of the United States, not individual state ones. How do you figure that? If you move to California, do you call a convention of your neighbors first, to see if you can sell your house and go? Just because you have deed restrictions?

You have yourself have stated that the people can call a constituional convention to disband the government.

If you are going to break up the Union, that it should have followed constitutional means.

[stand watie]

do you REALLY not know that secession is one of the RIGHTS of the STATES, which was specifically NOT ceded to the central government????

free dixie,sw

[lentulusgracchus]

If you are going to break up the Union, that it should have followed constitutional means.

The departing States didn't liquidate the Union. They merely withdrew themselves. They didn't need the consent of the full Union for that. They would have, if their purpose had been to abolish the Union entirely, but it wasn't. Each State's People spoke for themselves, and left the Union.

Their secession conventions were perfectly legal (Arkansas probably excepted), and their mode of withdrawal fully protected by the Constitution itself (Ninth and Tenth Amendments) -- as if they needed that, to speak and act for themselves, which they didn't, but nevertheless their acts were fully protected.