The Federal government did not create the States, they created it to serve their interests.
It does not own them. The States are sovereign, no matter what BS Lincoln pedaled about the marriage being forever.
The State's started the marriage and they can make the divorce.
Interesting. When it served his purposes Lincoln defended secession. Apparently, as Glenn Beck said yesterday, he “found himself in office.” Regardless of what Lincoln said in 1861, secession is Constitutional. If our founders did not think so we would still be Colonies of Great Britain. It must be noted that during a debate on January 12, 1848, Lincoln, then a young first term representative, argued with skill and power in favor of the right of secession. “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable and most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world!” Lincoln thundered. The action he took in sending 75,000 northern troops to murder Southrons in order to prevent them from seceding is evidence he lied to get elected.
>>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.<<
I am NOT addressing the underlying question — I have learned over the years these Civil War threads get wilder than the Crevo ones!
But I would like to point out this is a bit fallacious in that all laws are, in the final analysis, enforced from the barrel of a government gun.
Other than that, have at it.
You start with a completely inaccurate assertion. The Founding fathers, Andrew Jackson, even Stephen Douglas, all regarded secession as treason. Secessionists, then as now, were regarded as lunatic fringe. That is why the secession crisis of 1860-61 caught most by surprise.
No.
Because like every single other political question in the history of mankind, it must eventually be resettled by new generations with force of arms.
It would seem that under the 10th amendment, states may have a right to secede, because secession isn’t mentioned in the constitution. But a counter-argument could be made that a seceding state gives up its rights under the 10th amendment; there’s nothing in the constitution prohibiting war against a seceded state! Also the Federal Government does have the duty under the constitution to guarantee a republican form of government to states, which could be interpreted to at least limit the right to secede.
What’s certain is when Jefferson Davis ordered the attack on Fort Sumter the legal arguments became moot, and Southern secession became purely a test of military strength. The South picked the wrong man to lead it, and suffered the disastrous consequences.
It falls apart right there because many political leaders from Webster to Clay to Madison to Jackson to Buchanan to Lincoln all disputed the idea that states could secede - either unilaterally or at all.
I would say that: (1) the states have the right to secede as a matter of natural law; see the Declaration of Independence for a thorough discussion. (2) the states have the right to secede as a matter of practical fact in 2010; Obama is a sissy who would be unwilling to initiate a civil war just to retain power over people too stupid to understand how lucky they are to have a benevolent tyrant who makes all their decisions and spends all their money for them, while the United States military would have a whole lot of sympathy for Texas as a free and independent nation, which would interfere with any halfhearted military action against TX.
There were only conflicting readings of the Constitution, which didn't directly address the question.
That is not an uncommon situation in constitutional law. Usually it's the courts that resolve the question.
In this case, matter didn't come up before the courts before the attempted secession and resulting war.
The Supreme Court did hear a case and pass judgement on a closely related matter after the war, ruling that unilateral secession at will was not constitutional.
Unfortunately, because of the sequence of events people say that the question was decided by the war -- in other words, by force of arms. That's only because there was no definitive legal ruling before the war.
Did Texas have a right to secede from Mexico?
Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, "one Nation, indivisible."
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by socialist, statist, Francis Bellamy, who adopted the Story-Webster-Lincoln premise of “ one people, one nation indivisible” and was able to enshrine in the hearts of American school children the unconstitutional principles of a unitary, nationalist, and supreme federal government.
“Did the Civil War truly settle the secession question?”
It absolutely did, whether anyone likes it or not - the Federal Government can and will use any and all power it has to bring a wayward state back into the fold.
Then again, if a state were to secede and successfully thwart the federal forces thrown against it, then the secession question will have been settled again.
In other words, the question is settled until it is not.
The Civil War only proved, once again, that Might Is Right.
Dixie Ping
Any group of people, or individuals for that matter, may choose with whom they affiliate. That is a “natural”- a God granted right. The principle thesis behind the formation of the United States was to help men preserve their God given freedoms.
Ping
Yes, it did.
If your State or group (Federation, Confederacy, whatever) of States doesn’t have the combat power to stand up the Federal government, they can’t secede.
Any questions?
Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address said, “If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it.” Fifteen years later, after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, “If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in the union .... I have no hesitation in saying, ‘Let us separate.’”
Yes, it did. The response to the current Nazi Socialist democrat party should be every possible effort to preserve and defend the union, the Constitution and the Republic which they are attempting to destroy. It was the democrat party that tried secession before and it did not work for them then; it won’t work for anyone this time either.