[lentulusgracchus]

All the people, North and South, the people of the United States. I don't belive that the states are sovereign over the people, I don't believe that the Southern people were more sovereign than those in the North, and I don't believe that only the South had rights that deserved to be protected.

We've been over this, too.

There is no unitary, lumpen People. The individual States made up the Union, ratifying the Constitution each according to its own People's lights.

The People are the States, and vice versa. Don't confuse state governments with the States, in an attempt to blur the issues.

I think you know perfectly well what these terms are and what they mean, and you know I'm using them properly -- the supporting documentary material's been produced and discussed until Hell won't have it. You are clinging to the fiction that Lincoln copped off old Daniel Webster, who cobbled it up to deny -- wrongly -- that a State has the right to leave the Union. It's all lies.

As long as I'm a politician in the majority, nobody can leave the Union because I'm going to fleece everybody in the room, nobody gets to leave, no exceptions.

But that isn't the constitutional and historical experience of the American polity.

[Non-Sequitur]

The individual States made up the Union, ratifying the Constitution each according to its own People's lights.

No, the People of the United States ratified the Constitution, not Virginia or New York, or any other arbitrary political entity. It says so right in the Preamble.

You are clinging to the fiction that Lincoln copped off old Daniel Webster, who cobbled it up to deny -- wrongly -- that a State has the right to leave the Union. It's all lies

And that is complete bullshit. What I am denying is that a state, any state, can leave without the consent of all parties in the bargin. The state laving impacts the wellbeing of the states remaining. I happen to believe that they should have a say in the matter. In your world they have no say, and no protections under the Constitution. Only the leaving states have any rights. The ones remaining have none.

As long as I'm a politician in the majority, nobody can leave the Union because I'm going to fleece everybody in the room, nobody gets to leave, no exceptions

I find that believable given your positions. In your view the states may leave and walk away from any obligations, any responsiblilty, and take any action that they choose regardless of the impact it may have on the remaining states. So long as you're a politician I find it way that you would be willing to screw the states six ways from Sunday, so long as those states are Northern ones.