[Bubba Ho-Tep]

So what’s your opinion of the clause of the Constitution that allows insurrections to be suppressed?

[central_va]

I don’t view secession as an insurrection. A group of states doesn’t create their own Federal Government and Capitol declare independence to then turn around and invade the Country they just left. That wouldn’t make sense. Secession is the opposite of an insurrection.

[Rustabout]

**So what’s your opinion of the clause of the Constitution that allows insurrections to be suppressed?**

The unalienable rights; LIFE LIBERTY HAPPINESS “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed,…” “— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,…” “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,” “…and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Deo Vindice!

[Rustabout]

**So what’s your opinion of the clause of the Constitution that allows insurrections to be suppressed?**

One should bear in mind the prime directive to government from the Tenth Article of the Bill of Rights:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the great declaration: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpation's, 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, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

As Patrick Henry argued at the Virginia convention which ultimately resulted in the ratification of the Bill of Rights: “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.”