Posted on 02/17/2010 3:43:05 PM PST by Constitutionalist Conservative
Prior to the American Civil War, it was popularly assumed that states which had freely chosen to enter the Union could just as freely withdraw from said union at their own discretion. Indeed, from time to time individual states or groups of states had threatened to do just that, but until 1860 no state had actually followed through on the threat.
Since then, it has been considered axiomatic that the War “settled the question” of whether or not states had the right to secede. The central government, backed by force of arms, says the answer is No. As long as no state or group of states tests the central government’s resolve, we can consider the question to be “settled” from a practical viewpoint.
This assertion has long troubled me from a philosophical and moral viewpoint. We are supposedly a nation of laws, and the central government is supposedly subservient to the laws that established and empower it.
In a nation of laws, when someone asks, “Do states have a right to secede from the Union?”, a proper answer would have one of two forms:
Here, x would be an explanation of the laws that supported the Yes or No answer.
With the secession issue, though, we are given the following as a complete and sufficient answer:
“No, because if any state tries to secede, the central government will use force of arms to keep it from succeeding.”
There is no appeal to law in this answer – just brute force.
Based on this premise, the central government can amass to itself whatever right or power it chooses, simply by asserting it. After all, who has the power to say otherwise?
Come to think of it, that’s exactly how the central government has behaved more often than not since the Civil War.
This issue came to mind today because of an item posted today on a trial lawyer’s blog (found via Politico). The lawyer’s brother had written to each of the Supreme Court justices, asking for their input on a screenplay he was writing. In the screenplay, Maine decides to secede from the US and join Canada. The writer asked for comments regarding how such an issue would play out if it ever reached the Supreme Court.
Justice Antonin Scalia actually replied to the screenwriter’s query. I have a lot of respect for Scalia regarding constitutional issues, but his answer here is beyond absurd.
I am afraid I cannot be of much help with your problem, principally because I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, "one Nation, indivisible.")
He actually said that a constitutional issue was settled by military action. Oh, and by including the word “indivisible” in the Pledge of Allegiance, the issue became even more settled.
What if the president were to send out the troops to prevent the news media from publishing or broadcasting anything critical of his administration? This is clearly an unconstitutional action, but by Scalia’s logic, if the president succeeds, we must then say that the military action “settled the question” of free speech.
If these scenarios are not comparable, I’d like to hear why.
Rebellion
Noun
Open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resisance to an established government.
I'll defer to Mr. Davis:
I'll defer to Chief Justice Chase:
"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.
Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union. If this were otherwise, the State must have become foreign, and her citizens foreigners. The war must have ceased to be a war for the suppression of rebellion, and must have become a war for conquest and subjugation."
"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State."
Show me where the word "perpetual" appears anywhere in the Constitution and your case is made! Until you do it isn't!
If Chase had said "When Texas became one of the United States she entered into a relationship. All the obligations of union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State." he would have been correct.
Won't work here. Everybody knows that you are a big, central government advocate like your homie, Obama.
If by everybody you mean you and Moe and Curly then I rest my case.
Show me where the Constitution specifically forbids states from expelling other states.
If Chase had said "When Texas became one of the United States she entered into a relationship. All the obligations of union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State." he would have been correct.
Maybe you should break down and read his entire decision? You'll find why he included 'perpetual' in his decision as well.
Big deal. You defer to Ginsburg, too.
an indissoluble relation.
There's absolutely no such thing and anybody that argues otherwise is a complete and total idiot.
Over you? Yes, I'll even defer to Ginsburg's opinions on the Constitution over your's.
There's absolutely no such thing and anybody that argues otherwise is a complete and total idiot.
And Chief Justice Chase admitted as much when he noted that the union could not be broken except through rebellion or the consent of the states.
This, from the man whose life is so totally pathetic that he spends 24/7 on FR cruising for WBTS threads in a vain attempt to bolster his own ego.
Isn't it ironic that you consider the 'people' that you've decided to spend you life with as morons?
Then why do you always argue otherwise, idiot?
I'll defer to Lysander Spooner:
And now these lenders of blood-money demand their pay; and the government, so called, becomes their tool, their servile, slavish, villanous tool, to extort it from the labor of the enslaved people both of the North and South. It is to be extorted by every form of direct, and indirect, and unequal taxation. Not only the nominal debt and interest — enormous as the latter was — are to be paid in full; but these holders of the debt are to be paid still further — and perhaps doubly, triply, or quadruply paid — by such tariffs on imports as will enable our home manufacturers to realize enormous prices for their commodities; also by such monopolies in banking as will enable them to keep control of, and thus enslave and plunder, the industry and trade of the great body of the Northern people themselves. In short, the industrial and commercial slavery of the great body of the people, North and South, black and white, is the price which these lenders of blood money demand, and insist upon, and are determined to secure, in return for the money lent for the war.
This programme having been fully arranged and systematized, they put their sword into the hands of the chief murderer of the war**, and charge him to carry their scheme into effect. And now he, speaking as their organ, says, “LET US HAVE PEACE.”
The meaning of this is: Submit quietly to all the robbery and slavery we have arranged for you, and you can have “peace.” But in case you resist, the same lenders of blood-money, who furnished the means to subdue the South, will furnish the means again to subdue you.
These are the terms on which alone this government, or, with few exceptions, any other, ever gives “peace” to its people.
The whole affair, on the part of those who furnished the money, has been, and now is, a deliberate scheme of robbery and murder; not merely to monopolize the markets of the South, but also to monopolize the currency, and thus control the industry and trade, and thus plunder and enslave the laborers, of both North and South. And Congress and the president are today the merest tools for these purposes. They are obliged to be, for they know that their own power, as rulers, so-called, is at an end, the moment their credit with the blood-money loan-mongers fails. They are like a bankrupt in the hands of an extortioner. They dare not say nay to any demand made upon them. And to hide at once, if possible, both their servility and crimes, they attempt to divert public attention, by crying out that they have “Abolished Slavery!” That they have “Saved the Country!” That they have “Preserved our Glorious Union!” and that, in now paying the “National Debt,” as they call it (as if the people themselves, ALL OF THEM WHO ARE TO BE TAXED FOR ITS PAYMENT, had really and voluntarily joined in contracting it), they are simply “Maintaining the National Honor!”
By “maintaining the national honor,” they mean simply that they themselves, open robbers and murderers, assume to be the nation, and will keep faith with those who lend them the money necessary to enable them to crush the great body of the people under their feet; and will faithfully appropriate, from the proceeds of their future robberies and murders, enough to pay all their loans, principal and interest.
The pretense that the “abolition of slavery” was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of “maintaining the national honor.” Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general — not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only “as a war measure,” and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both black and white. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man — although that was not the motive of the war — as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before. There was no difference of principle — but only of degree — between the slavery they boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.
Non-sense, Listen up
Still another of the frauds of these men is, that they are now establishing, and that the war was designed to establish, “a government of consent.” The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this — that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. This idea was the dominant one on which the war was carried on; and it is the dominant one, now that we have got what is called “peace.”
Their pretenses that they have “Saved the Country,” and “Preserved our Glorious Union,” are frauds like all the rest of their pretenses. By them they mean simply that they have subjugated, and maintained their power over, an unwilling people. This they call “Saving the Country”; as if an enslaved and subjugated people — or as if any people kept in subjection by the sword (as it is intended that all of us shall be hereafter) — could be said to have any country. This, too, they call “Preserving our Glorious Union”; as if there could be said to be any Union, glorious or inglorious, that was not voluntary. Or as if there could be said to be any union between masters and slaves; between those who conquer, and those who are subjugated.
All these cries of having “abolished slavery,” of having “saved the country,” of having “preserved the union,” of establishing “a government of consent,” and of “maintaining the national honor,” are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats — so transparent that they ought to deceive no one — when uttered as justifications for the war, or for the government that has suceeded the war, or for now compelling the people to pay the cost of the war, or for compelling anybody to support a government that he does not want.
I've never argued otherwise, moron. It is you who claim there is a third way, unilateral secession without the consent of anyone.
You most certainly have, toad face.
It is you who claim there is a third way, unilateral secession without the consent of anyone.
Unilateral secession was a viable method on December 20, 1860 when the Great State of South Carolina unilaterally seceded.
Chase's 'opinion' didn't occur until 4 years after the end of the war, 9 years after the Great State of South Carolina unilaterally seceded and, of course, Chase was just a leetle bit biased being one of disHonest Abe's main boot lickers. Kinda like you, turd breath.
You've gone all puzzleheaded on us again, haven't you?
Unilateral secession was a viable method on December 20, 1860 when the Great State of South Carolina unilaterally seceded.
So the South thought. Turns out they were wrong.
Chase's 'opinion' didn't occur until 4 years after the end of the war, 9 years after the Great State of South Carolina unilaterally seceded...
Were you not aware that ALL court decisions take place after the fact?
... and, of course, Chase was just a leetle bit biased being one of disHonest Abe's main boot lickers.
So does that mean you're going to stop leaning on post-rebellion revisionist writings of the rebel leaders? On the grounds that they, too, might be just a leeetle bit biased?
Kinda like you, turd breath.
Acting all adult on us again, I see?
Revisionist history and stacked, politically biased courts do not make a wrong a right. The South Was Right, you boneheaded liar.
Were you not aware that ALL court decisions take place after the fact?
Were you not aware that ex post facto law is generally seen as a violation of the rule of law and, per Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, the federal government is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws?
What this means is that boot licker Chase could make all the opinions that he wanted to 1 day or 10 years after the fact but he, nor you, nor anybody else in the US can make an act retroactively illegal.
You can distort the facts with your revisionism and northron mythology but you'll never change the facts.
Acting all adult on us again, I see?
What ever are you talking about, smegma face?
Do you ever read what you post?
Both documents say that they are there to NEGOTIATE!
“Resolved by the Confederate States of America in Congress Assembled, That it is the sense of this Congress that a commission of three persons be appointed by the President elect, as early as may be convenient after his inauguration, and sent to the government of the United States of America, for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations between that government and the Confederate States of America, and for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two governments upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith.”
Adopted February 15, 1861.
President Davis' letter to the Union government:
For the purpose of establishing friendly relations between the Confederate States and the United States, and reposing special trust, &c., Martin J. Crawford, John Forsyth, and A. B. Roman are appointed special commissioners of the Confederate States to the United States. I have invested them with full and all manner of power and authority for and in the name of the Confederate States to meet and confer with any person or persons duly authorized by the Government of the United States being furnished with like powers and authority, and with them to agree, treat, consult, and negotiate of and concerning all matters and subjects interesting to both nations, and to conclude and sign a treaty or treaties, convention or conventions, touching the premises, transmitting the same to the President of the Confederate States for his final ratification by and with the consent of the Congress of the Confederate States.
In both, their objective was to negotiate......and what was a major issue....EQUITY. See above.
And what would these be....? "A complete cave in to rebel demands."
Nor do Southron myth and rabid rebel tantrums.
The South Was Right, you boneheaded liar.
No, the South was wrong. And all the name calling in the world will not change that. But name calling is the cowboy way.
Were you not aware that ex post facto law is generally seen as a violation of the rule of law and, per Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, the federal government is prohibited from passing ex post facto laws?
Good God, you don't even know the difference between an ex post facto law and a court ruling. You truly are dumb as a post. Let me see if I can get some learning into you. An ex post facto law is a law first and foremost. And laws, as you should have learned from your grade school civics class, only originate in the legislature. It is usually, but not exclusively, a law which makes some formerly legal activity illegal and which tries to retroactively apply penalties to those who committed the action. Can't do that. A court decision is handed down by a court of law. It is always handed down after the fact. And, if the court specifies, can be made retroactive. Furman v Georgia is a good example of that.
See the difference now?
You can distort the facts with your revisionism and northron mythology but you'll never change the facts.
You wouldn't know a fact if it bit you in the butt.
What ever are you talking about, smegma face?
Your rationality is rapidly fading, and it was never all that strong to begin with.
Were they there to negotiate an end to secession?
Idiot “Were they there to negotiate an end to secession?”
Didn't you claim they needed “permission”? How does one gain permission -If party #2 will not NEGOTIATE?
Take your Lincoln, sprinkle some Chase, and shove it!
You keep saying they were there to negotiate. Was Lincoln's position concerning secession on the table for discussion, yes or no?
He has proved you wrong more than the South. You and your Chase claim that “permission” was needed is hypocritical. How would the Southern States obtain this so-called PERMISSION, considering the permission had already been granted by Precedent and God. It is the RIGHT of THE PEOPLE “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.”
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