As I think I've said to you, I don't think we will ever agree on this topic. You believe I'm dead wrong, and I believe you're dead wrong. But hope springs eternal. Here is an interesting discussion of the Tenth and enumerated powers and the consequent ills of our present government since FDR: Link.
And I have argued there is NO WAY the 10th Amendment is a "get out of Union free card," because such a provision is vastly too important to have been passed over without ANY comment at the time.
Secession was not allowed after the states withdrew from the old Union under the Articles? Because you say so in spite of what the people who ratified the Constitution said? If the ratifiers thought secession wasn't allowed or not allowed without approval of the other states, they very probably would not have ratified the Constitution. The Virginia, New York, and Rhode island statements (which you can find on the web) and the 10th Amendment-like statements of four other states attest to that fact. As later Chief Justice Marshall said during ratification, "does not a power remain till it is given away?" It does indeed, or else the Constitution is a living document whose words don't mean what they say. Down the living document road is disaster and the loss of freedom.
You argue, no doubt correctly, that the vote in some state legislatures was very close, and only inclusion of a "signing statement" persuaded a majority to vote in favor of Union.
Since when did the legislatures, or the US Congress for that matter, have any say in what those who ratified the Constitution said the Constitution meant? (I'm sure you must have meant the ratifiers, not the legislatures or the US Congress.) The people of those ratification conventions said what they understood the Constitution to mean, and, in the light of that understanding, then ratified the Constitution. But, you apparently believe you know better than them.
I don't believe for a minute that you are "dead wrong." I think you are mostly correct about the Constitution, and let's face it, by standards of (I shudder to say it) the "mainstream media," we both qualify as "right-wing nut cases." "Nutty" because we think the Constitution actually means what it says, and what the Founders intended by it.
But in the case of secession, I think you are reading words into the Constitution which just are not there.
rustbucket: "Secession was not allowed after the states withdrew from the old Union under the Articles?
Btw, withdrawal from the old Articles of Confederation was done in accordance with lawful procedures spelled out in its Article 13.
"Because you say so in spite of what the people who ratified the Constitution said? If the ratifiers thought secession wasn't allowed or not allowed without approval of the other states, they very probably would not have ratified the Constitution. The Virginia, New York, and Rhode island statements (which you can find on the web) and the 10th Amendment-like statements of four other states attest to that fact."
I notice how you read the words "states unilateral secession" INTO the 10th Ammendment. Is that because you believe the Constitution is a "living document" intended to mean whatever you might wish it had meant? ;-)
And thanks for the advice. Took some doing, but I did find all of those signing statements.
To summarize:
So here we see the actual words of those "signing statements," and note again that NONE include such terms as "states' unilateral secession," or "a states unapproved withdrawal from the Union."
Instead, the political "term of art" is "powers of government may be reassumed by the people." In no place is this term "reassumed" defined as "a state's unilateral secession," or "a state's unapproved withdrawal from the Union."
Again I say, the reason those words are NOT ever used is because that in NO WAY is what the Founders intended them to mean.
Finally, even supposing we grant that an individual state's signing statement including the word "reassumed," (or "resumed") MIGHT be interpreted to mean "unilateral state secession," that could conceivably cover Virginia, if it had suffered some "injury or oppression" -- had it? But how, exactly might that cover the other ten states of the Confederacy? ;-)