But the power to admit states and to approve changes in their status once they are allowed into the Union is a power delegated to the United States, specifically the Congress. Obviously that includes leaving. Or so Madison thought.
He clearly states in his [private] letters that secession requires the consent of all the parties affected.
I will ask again, what difference does that make? Madison was laying out his considered opinion on the idea of unilateral secession. His opinions were clearly stated. The fact that it was done in a letter rather than some published work is totally irrelevant.
Perhaps if you could show where in his public writings Madison supported the idea of unilateral secession as forcefully as he dismissed the idea of unilateral secession in his private writings you may have a case for your claim that Madison said one thing in one situation and another thing under different circumstances. But you can't do that.
As for "the consent of all the parties affected:" are you suggesting that State sales taxes, or State speed limits, for example, are 'unconstitutional' because they 'affect all of the States as parties to the Constitution?'
No, because your claim is ridiculous. State sales taxes or state speed limits have no impact on other states. What Virginia charges its residence for its purchases has no bearing on North Carolina. What Texas sets as its speed limit doesn't affect drivers in New Mexico. If Mississippi leaves the Union and blocks access to the Gulf of Mexico then that does impact other states. If seven states leave and take all the federal property they can get their hands on, without compensation, then that impacts other states. If they repudiate responsibility for the public debt built up when they were a part then that affects other states. If they walk out on treaties the nation entered into while they were a part then that affects other states.
...but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each [State as a] party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
An equal right. But in the case of the rebelling states, those state took it upon themselves to descide the infraction and the redress. The other states had no say in the matter, all they could do in your scenario was bend over and take it. Madison disagreed with you when he noted, "The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains. An inference from the doctrine that a single state has a right to secede at will from the rest, is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late, have been palatable anywhere, on nowhere less so than where it is not most contended for."
Have at it - my view is completely consistent with Mr. Madison's public writings...
Hardly. No where in his public or private writings did Madison support the concept of unilateral secession.
I've posted them before (and you ignored them, as always). But because I'm feeling generous, here's a sample:
And where in that is the idea of unilateral secession supported? I must have missed it.
So, are you suggesting that the Constitutional requirements for admitting a person to the US Congress also allow the federal government to prohibit a Congressman or Senator from resigning? Hmmm? Obviously so...
I will ask again, what difference does that make? Madison was laying out his considered opinion on the idea of unilateral secession. His opinions were clearly stated. The fact that it was done in a letter rather than some published work is totally irrelevant.
Wrong again, as I have addressed above.
Perhaps if you could show where in his public writings Madison supported the idea of unilateral secession as forcefully as he dismissed the idea of unilateral secession in his private writings you may have a case for your claim that Madison said one thing in one situation and another thing under different circumstances. But you can't do that.
Actually, I can. As Mr. Madison noted:
But it is objected that the [federal] judicial authority is to be regarded as the sole expositor of the Constitution, in the last resort; and it may be asked for what reason, the declaration by the General Assembly, supposing it to be theoretically true, could be required at the present day and in so solemn a manner.
On this objection it might be observed, first, that there may be instances of usurped power, which the forms of the Constitution would never draw within the control of the judicial department;4 secondly, that if the decision of the judiciary be raised above the authority of the sovereign parties to the Constitution, the decisions of the other departments, not carried by the forms of the Constitution before the judiciary, must be equally authoritative and final with the decisions of that department. But the proper answer to the objection is, that the resolution of the General Assembly relates to those great and extraordinary cases, in which all the forms of the Constitution may prove ineffectual against infractions dangerous to the essential rights of the [States as] parties to it. The resolution supposes that dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other departments, but that the [federal] judicial department also may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the [States as] parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated [federal] authority, as well as by another; by the [federal] judiciary, as well as by the [federal] executive, or the [federal] legislature.
All of which is completely consistent with Mr. Jefferson's observation that:
...the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, -- delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
Obviously, "the mode and measure of redress" mentioned by Mr. Jefferson (and necessarily implied by Mr. Madison) did not exclude State secession.
Care to address Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of 1825? Obviously not.
WIJG: As for "the consent of all the parties affected:" are you suggesting that State sales taxes, or State speed limits, for example, are 'unconstitutional' because they 'affect all of the States as parties to the Constitution?'
N-S: No, because your claim is ridiculous. State sales taxes or state speed limits have no impact on other states. What Virginia charges its residence for its purchases has no bearing on North Carolina. What Texas sets as its speed limit doesn't affect drivers in New Mexico.
Absolute bull crap! If one State charges a higher sales tax than neighboring States, the residents of the high tax State may cross its borders to purchase identical products at lower prices next door, depriving their State of tax revenue. And if one State imposes a reduced speed limit within its borders, it delays the delivery of (and increases the prices of) products delivered to other States through its territory. You would suggest, therefore, that the neighboring States would be justified in using military force against the high tax/low speed limit State. Congratulations...
An equal right. But in the case of the rebelling states, those state took it upon themselves to descide the infraction and the redress. The other states had no say in the matter, all they could do in your scenario was bend over and take it.
As Mr. Jefferson noted:
...to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party...
Sorry, compadre, but you would have us believe that a seceding State's "co-States" possessed some kind of superior, or supreme, right, to invade the seceding State's territory and kill the People thereof. That is not at all what Thomas Jefferson suggested. In fact, each State possessed rights equal to the rights of ALL of the other States, combined - and the remaining States therefore possessed no higher right to invade the seceding State's territory, and kill the People thereof...
Madison disagreed with you when he noted...
And he agreed with me on many more occasions.
No where in his public or private writings did Madison support the concept of unilateral secession.
Did he support the adoption of the Tenth Amendment? Or not? The amendment speaks for itself...
But just to pull your chain, I will offer the following:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
James Madison, Federalist No. 45
Tell us - where is your supposed federal power to prevent secession delegated to the federal government - i.e., "defined," among the "few" powers delegated by the signatory States? Hmm? And where is such an obviously "indefinite" power prohibited to the same States, by the same Constitution?
And let us not forget the secession of the ratifying States from the so-called "perpetual" union, formed under the specific written terms of the Articles of Confederation:
"The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States, ratifying the same."
This article speaks for itself [even though the Articles of Confederation required unanimous agreement by all 13 - not 9 - but 13 States who were parties to the Articles, to modify the terms thereof ;>]. The express authority of the people alone could give due validity to the Constitution. To have required the unanimous ratification of the thirteen States [as required by the Articles, to which all 13 States were parties;>], would have subjected the essential interests of the whole to the caprice or corruption of a single member. It would have marked a want of foresight in the convention, which our own experience would have rendered inexcusable.
Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves on this occasion: 1. On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? 2. What relation is to subsist between the nine or more States ratifying the Constitution, and the remaining few who do not become parties to it?
The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed. PERHAPS, also, an answer may be found without searching beyond the principles of the compact itself. It has been heretofore noted among the defects of the Confederation, that in many of the States it had received no higher sanction than a mere legislative ratification. The principle of reciprocality seems to require that its obligation on the other States should be reduced to the same standard. A compact between independent sovereigns, founded on ordinary acts of legislative authority, can pretend to no higher validity than a league or treaty between the parties. It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties, that all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a breach of any one article is a breach of the whole treaty; and that a breach, committed by either of the parties, absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to answer the MULTIPLIED and IMPORTANT infractions with which they may be confronted? The time has been when it was incumbent on us all to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits. The scene is now changed, and with it the part which the same motives dictate.
The second question is not less delicate; and the flattering prospect of its being merely hypothetical forbids an overcurious discussion of it. It is one of those cases which must be left to provide for itself. In general, it may be observed, that although no political relation can subsist between the assenting and dissenting States, yet the moral relations will remain uncancelled. The claims of justice, both on one side and on the other, will be in force, and must be fulfilled; the rights of humanity must in all cases be duly and mutually respected; whilst considerations of a common interest, and, above all, the remembrance of the endearing scenes which are past, and the anticipation of a speedy triumph over the obstacles to reunion, will, it is hoped, not urge in vain MODERATION on one side, and PRUDENCE on the other.
James Madison, Federalist No. 43
So here we have Mr. Madison justifying the secession of any nine States from the union formed under the Articles of Confederation, even though said Articles required the concurrence of all 13 States before any legal change could be made therein.
Looks like Mr. Madison believed the individual States reserved the right of secession, even from a self-proclaimed "perpetual" union. Please note the term "perpetual," which the Constitution (unlike the Articles ;>) nowhere applies to any union formed under its specific written terms...
And where in that is the idea of unilateral secession supported? I must have missed it.
Obviously, you miss the "idea," no matter what historical documentation I post...