Replies

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, BloJo - I was out of town.

Where were we?

All of it.

Actually, BloJo, the clause doesn't even meet your own requirements for applicable documentation:

BJ (Post #2233): Sorry pal, but all you're doing here is "firing blanks" or worse, misfiring "spent cartridges," because NONE of these quotes refer to a right of "unilateral secession," or "unapproved withdrawal from the Union." Furthermore, any quotes from the period AFTER ratification in 1788 [including James Madison in 1789, & Thomas Jefferson in 1791, & the entire Bill of Rights] are likely just then-current political statements, and not necessarily the Founders' "original intent."

Of course, there are only two reasons you could have posted this kind of capricious & completely arbitrary crap:

1) You pulled it out of your @ss, because you were trying to establish a ‘double standard’ (apply the above requirements to others, but NOT to yourself). If that’s the case, you’re a liar and a world-class hypocrite (and no better than any D@mocrat politician, as I’ve noted in the past ;>); or

2) Even though you pulled it out of your @ss, you actually believed (for some idiotic reason) that the requirements should apply to everyone here. If that were the case, you would have posted something close to meeting your own requirements. But what did you post, BloJo?

BJ (Post #2241): "[Excerpts from] Abraham Lincoln's First Inagural (sic) Address [1861]"

Apart from the obvious factual errors in the citation - it nowhere refers to the unconstitutionality of "unilateral secession," or "unapproved withdrawal from the Union," nor does it date "from the period [of] ratification in 1788."

In other words, you pulled a 'double standard' out of your @ss, and tried to smear us with it. Feel free to go pound sand.

Your argument is dead, pal. It's been blown to pieces by the US Constitution. And no amount of your mouth-to-mouth "Yeeeee Haaaaaw" resusitation can breathe new life into it.

Actually, "your argument is dead," BloJo. "It's been blown to pieces" by the words of Jefferson, the words of Madison, the ratification documents of States, the preeminent legal references of the day, and by the US Constitution itself (INCLUDING the Bill of Rights you so happily trash). And no number of your hypocritical double standards "can breathe new life into it."

Free your slaves, reb! ;-)

Go pound sand, you lying hypocrite...

;>)

WIJG: "Actually, BloJo"
"...capricious & completely arbitrary crap"
"You pulled it out of your @ss..."
"you’re a liar and a world-class hypocrite "
"and no better than any D@mocrat politician,"
"Even though you pulled it out of your @ss, "
" you pulled a 'double standard' out of your @ss, and tried to smear us with it"
"Go pound sand, you lying hypocrite..."

Real high-class arguments, that's for sure. :-)

For anyone interested in this subject, I highly recommend: Bruce Catton c1961 "The Coming Fury" Volume One of the American Civil War Trilogy.

I'd count "Coming Fury" as "fair and balanced," since some of Catton's arguments I disagree with. From my perspective, he's slightly biased toward the Confederacy. But it is well-written -- history at it's best, imho.

We have seen here, ad infinitum, the arguments FOR secession, i.e.:

that it is allowed by the 10th Amendment
that it was provided for in the Virginia signing statement (also NY and Rhode Island),
that Madison's Federalist 43 uses it as his argument against excessive Federal power
that some Founding Fathers (notably Jefferson) wrote later favoring it.
and besides all that, those D*amn Yankees are just as despicable as WIJG's comments claim.

The legal arguments AGAINST unilateral, unapproved secession are probably best expressed in Lincoln's First Inaugural and his address to Congress on July 4, 1861.

The crux of the question was: is unilateral, unapproved secession "rebellion," "insurrection," "treason" or "domestic violence," as provided for in the Constitution?

Well -- is the Constitution a contract? If it is, then why would the following not apply:

Article 1, section 10: "No state shall...pass any...Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts."

Many in 1860 understood that secession meant breaking the Constitutional contract, for a few examples:

Robert E. Lee, January 1861:

"Secession is nothing but revolution.
"The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will.
"It was intended for perpetual [sic] union, so expressed in the preamble,4& for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution.
"In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jeffersons Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?"

Future Confederate VP, Alexander Stephens, addressing the Georgia legislature, January 1861:

quoting Catton (p113): "The election of Lincoln [Stephens] liked no better than the next man but it was not by itself sufficient reason for fracturing the Constitution.
"Do not let us break it because, forsooth, he may. If he does, then is the time to strike." "

In short, the future Confederate VP understood that secession constituted breaking the Constitution's contract.

So did the Maryland legislature, on April 26, 1861 (p353):

"After some debate the legislature agreed with the governor. It passed a resolution asserting that it lacked the constitutional power to adopt an ordinance of secession..."

Among Democrats, Lincoln's chief rival and southern sympathizer, Stephen Douglas said (p197):

"...he could never agree "that any State can secede and separate from us without our consent..."

Of course, my personal favorite, as a Pennsylvanian is the Pennsylvania legislature's resolution (p202):

"the right of the people of a single state to absolve themselves at will, and without the consent of other states, from their most solemn obligations, and hazard the liberties and happiness of the millions composing this union, cannot be acknowledged."

Even Jefferson Davis himself understood from Day One that secession could require the Confederacy:

"to appeal to arms and invoke the blessing of Providence on our just cause."

And so the South made its "appeal to arms," and invoked "the blessing of Providence."

But the South's "appeals" and "invocations" were all rejected.