Posted on 08/05/2010 6:01:30 AM PDT by Michael Zak
[by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine, CA), re-published with his permission]
For years I have admired Congressman Ron Paul’s principled stance on spending and the Constitution. That said, he really damaged himself when he blamed President Lincoln for the Civil War, saying, “Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war… [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic.”
This is historical revisionism of the worst order, and it must be addressed.
For Congressman Paul’s benefit – and for his supporters who may not know – seven states illegally declared their “independence” from the United States before Lincoln was sworn in as President. After South Carolina fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, four additional states declared independence...
(Excerpt) Read more at grandoldpartisan.typepad.com ...
Air Force, NASA, Food and Drug Administration, air traffic control system, etc., etc.
The Constitution grants Naturalization powers to the feds, but not immigration. Immigration is clearly a power of the states... this power was illegally wrested from the states with the passage of the Immigration Act.
Nonsense. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power to "...make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution..." If the Constitution gives Congress, and not the states, the power to establish rules of naturalization then the ability to control immigration is necessary to carry out that power. Likewise, Article I gives Congress, and not the states, the power to regulate foreign commerce and enter into agreements with foreign powers. Who would be allowed to immigrate would fall under those.
Secession is never illegal.
Secession as practiced by the Southern states is. Or so the Supreme Court found in 1869.
The U.S. seceded from England, Texas seceded from Mexico... these things happen because it is the will of the people.
And both were followed by periods of unplesantness known as the American revolution and the Texas revolution. As was the Southern attempt. The difference was, of course, that the South lost their rebellion while Texas and the colonies did not.
Secession is never illegal.
Secession as practiced by the Southern states is. Or so the Supreme Court found in 1869.
The Constitution gives certain powers to the federal government.
And one of those is the power to admit states to the Union and approve any change in their borders or their status once they are allowed in. Implicit in that is the approval to leave.
How about Arkansas? Why would that state get to secede? The land was purchased from France by the federal government and its borders were established by the federal government, yet according to neo-Confederate doctrine the Arkansas state government had the power to.remove the area from the USA. Ridiculous!
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yawn yourself.... That is confined to the enumerated powers in Article 1 Section 8. Nothing more.
Unless... you believe the General Government can Assume, not granted, undelegated authority. You love hanging that " Supreme " out there, don't you ? So, the People have surrendered the Natural Right of consenting to their Government ? My friend that right forever remains. It cannot be ceded away.
Samuel Adams:
All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.
While we're at it, Mr. usurper. If Secession was thought unlawful and your "Supreme'O' ran the chicken house, the vote on "no State has power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States" indicated rejection from the start? Very interesting, now ain't it !
“Under this Constitution, as originally adopted and as it now exists, no State has power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and this Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance of its delegated powers, are the supreme law of the land, anything contained in any constitution, ordinance, or act of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” 28 nays to 18 yeas
Once Arkansas was admitted as a state it enjoyed the same rights and the same privileges as any other state in the Union. I believe that includes the right to withdraw from the Union under proper circumstances. I believe, as James Madison believed, that a state should be able to leave the Union under the same circumstances that a state is allowed to join the Union - with the approval of a majority of the other states as expressed through a vote in both houses of Congress. That is a far cry from the method used by the Southern states in 1860-61, and which was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Texas v. White decision.
What intolerable oppression led South Carolina to secede in Dec 1860?
Look in the mirror....
Daniel Webster Corrected:
More than half of Hayne’s final argument was devoted to an examination of Webster’s views on Federal powers. His authorities, as before, were Madison and Jefferson. He too, went back to the origin of the government, which he found in the independence of the individual States before the existence of the Constitution.
He quoted Madison’s definition of the nature of the Constitution, --“a compact to which the States are parties.” Hayne argued: “Nothing can be clearer than that under such a system the Federal government, exercising strictly delegated powers, can have no right to act beyond the pale of its authority, and that all such acts are void.
A State, on the contrary, retaining all powers not expressly given away, may lawfully act in all cases where she has not voluntarily imposed restrictions on herself. Here then, is a case of compact between sovereigns, and the question arises, “What is the remedy for a clear violation of its express terms by one of the parties?”
He answers by a quotation from Madison’s Report to the Virginia Legislature, page 20: “That where resort can be had to no common superior, the parties to the compact must themselves be the rightful judge whether the bargain has been pursued or violated.” He challenged Webster to show from the Constitution the grant of claimed power in the Federal government to decide ultimately and conclusively the extent of its own authority.
Hayne declared, “the whole form and structure of the Federal government, the opinions of the framers of the Constitution, and the organization of the State governments, demonstrate that though the States have surrendered certain specific powers they have not surrendered their sovereignty.” The doctrine of the final supremacy of the Federal government, he said, was based on the notion that the States were inferior to the mass of people in all the States. The phrase, “We, the people of the United States,” referred to the people as citizens of the several States and not to the mass. This was thesense of the word as used in different parts of the Constitution, and in the State legislatures and conventions at the time of the adoption.
As to Supreme Court jurisdiction, he held that questions of sovereignty were not proper subjects of judicial investigation. They were much too large and of too delicate a nature to be brought within the jurisdiction of a court of justice. Courts were the mere creatures of the sovereign power, designed to expound and carry into effect its sovereign will. The name Supreme Court, he contended, had relation to its supremacy over the inferior courts provided by the Constitution.
The powers of Congress were restricted by the very terms of the constitution. When, therefore, Congress exceeded these terms, their acts were null and void. Such acts must be so declared by the courts in cases within their jurisdiction, and may be pronounced to be so by the States themselves in cases not within the jurisdiction of the courts or of sufficient importance to justify interference.”
The clause you quoted is generally known as the Supremacy Clause. It says that, if a state makes a law or changes its constitution in a way that conflicts with the Constitution, then the Constitution is binding.
"Shall be bound" is the strongest legal language -- where there are conflicts between the actions of the states and the Constitution, there is no choice: the Constitution is the ruling document. Obviously, a state action that totally denies the Constitution is covered by that clause ... it's simply not allowed under the Constitution.
Not to mention that such actions would be "insurrection," in the suppression of which the Federal Government is explicitly empowered (Article I, Section 8) to employ force.
There is also the final clause of Article VI,
... the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution...
Again, "shall be bound" -- and as applied to officers and legislatures of the states, they are not allowed (and the states ratified this) to go against the Constitution, as secession definitely does.
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Nope, not, never... There was no "insurrection" - There was Secession. Did the State legislatures ask for help ? No, they wanted out, and I don't blame them. The whole " republican" form ceased.. when the "agent" invaded the Sovereigns. So much for that "invasion" part too.
Section 4.
The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
As to Reynolds, Hamilton destroyed himself. He carried on an extramarital affair for three years and bribed the lady's husband to keep it quiet. It's as simple as that, and one cannot legitimately fault his political opponents for making an issue of something that he and he alone had direct and primary responsibility.
He was prosecuted on ZERO evidence if one discounts the perjury of Jefferson’s cronies.
And that's a pretty big IF. Wilkinson wasn't simply a nobody off the street. He was a high ranking general and territorial governor. He was also, it turns out, a scoundrel, but an allegation of the type he made from a person of his rank cannot simply be brushed aside and ignored. Furthermore, while Burr was likely not guilty of the exaggerated charges of "invasion" that Wilkinson levied against him, it is indisputable that he was up to something no good. In short, a trial of some sort was practically inevitable and to fault it for even happening at all, as you seem to do, betrays more of your own personal animosity against Jefferson than anything of that trial's particulars, or Marshall's conduct in it.
The final clause of Article VI is not in perpetuity. That oath only applies if you are still part of the union. If you separate from the union, then you would no longer be held to that oath.
In marriage, you promise to be loyal to your spouse, and even take an oath “until death do us part”. However, if you get a divorce, you would no longer be held to an oath of loyalty, nor would anyone expect you to. To separate, the parties involved negotiate a settlement, which is what would ideally occur after secession. Forcing a state to remain in the union would be like forcing an abused spouse to stay married. The federal government is in clear violation of its “marriage contract”.
However, if you wanted to get technical, Texas secession from the United States was done by delegation, which is how it will likely be done again. People (on a county-by-county basis) will vote to select delegates for a secession convention. These delegates will decide whether to secede. This takes the state legislature out of the picture, if you were so concerned with Article VI.
I always know I've won when people like you pick a fight with the dictionary.
Insurrection: an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.
Secession is insurrection, pretty much by definition.
The whole " republican" form ceased.. when the "agent" invaded the Sovereigns. So much for that "invasion" part too.
ROFL! This is too rich!!!! You're simultaneously pulling out of the Union, and complaining that the Union failed to guarantee you the "republican" form of government you'd already rejected. Can't have your cake and eat it too, boy.
And don't forget that your sainted Southrons were complaining that they were going to lose their slaves -- nothing more or less. Buncha whiny hypocrites....
And while on the subject, I should also note the curious juxtaposition of your purported outrage with Jefferson for pushing unsuccessfully to have Burr convicted to be hanged in a court of law, yet you have nothing but adulation for the one man who actually did physically attempt to kill Aaron Burr: Alexander Hamilton, who historians generally agree fired the first shot and missed.
Circular reasoning.
In practice, if an oath-bound group of men decides to separate from the union, they're guilty of insurrection, suppression of which is explicitly authorized by the Constitution. If a state officer "shall be bound" by his oath to support the Constitution, and as such he agrees to the superiority of the Federal to the state government. That's the whole point of the government defined by the Constitution! And by pulling out of the union... he's breaking his oath.
Jefferson (and almost everyone else) knew that Wilkinson was a crook and he had in a cabinet meeting discussed dismissing him from command a few years before because of his corruption. Wilkinson had been in the pay of the Spanish for years and it was no secret.
Jefferson’s true character was shown by this trial by his acquiescence in Wilkinson’s disregard of and wholesale violation of the law and the fact that it became evident that W. had been a bigger mover in any plot than Burr.
I have no problem with a trial but a BIG problem with total disregard of the law Jefferson condoned as well as his attempt to convict Burr prior to the trial in the press by pronouncements about his certain guilt.
There is ZERO evidence that Burr had any intention of splitting the western states from the Union in this case. All evidence pointed to confirmation of his claim that he was aiming to settle lands in the Bastrop tract (area around present day Monroe, La. and to be prepared for war with Spain wherein he would seize Mexico. At that time war with Spain was widely expected even by Jefferson, the ultra-pacifist.
Rather than foiling any treasonous plot Jefferson’s intent ONLY was to destroy Burr now his greatest enemy after Hamilton’s murder. In his mind only Burr stood between the Virginia dynasty and decades of power. He had to be destroyed by any means fair or foul.
The violence came because the seven states that had seceded thought that if it came to war, some of the slave-owning states that had not seceded might join them.
They had the choice, between peacefully seceding as a Confederacy of seven states, or starting a war and perhaps becoming a Confederacy of eleven or thirteen states.
They chose war.
But that is also beside the point. If anything, the Burr trial proved that the system worked. He was acquitted just as he should have been.
I agree, the North chose war over letting the South go her own way, Yankee bloody fascists.
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