Posted on 06/28/2017 11:20:43 AM PDT by Sopater
“War may settle power, not necessarily moral right.”
It will probably take another nationally severely traumatic event to stem the rising tide of Federal Power. That is one thing that is still not settled since the Civil War - how big, how pervasive can the Federal entity grow at the expense of States Rights? Will the 10th Amendment ever be restored completely to it’s Constitutional intent?
Maybe not to you, and after researching, not to me, but obviously to a lot of people. Just read the comments from so many FReepers. The moral right for the South to seceded is an open issue to many.
Today, the legal and moral right and justification to seceded is also an open issue. It is certainly not a settled issue except to certain Leftist tyrants. Unconstitutional federal acts, which by definition are acts of tyranny, are the building blocks of justifiable secession
It was determined that it was not an option.
By whom? If you say the war, then we're in a circular argument that goes nowhere. The war decided power, not moral right.
There will be no seceding from the Union.
You deny the natural law principles stated plainly in the D of I that "it is the right of the people to abolish or alter [its destructive government]." The right to secede is a God-given natural-law truth that will never change. The issue is proper and valid application of the right to secede. That is a relevant issue today.
The Tenth Amendment and the whole Constitution is as alive and well as the American People want it to be. It is legally the supreme law of the land as written and originally understood and intended.
The Lying Leftist fascists have spent 117 years trying to rip this protector of our freedoms away from us.
It’s time for us to say, “ENOUGH” and take back that which is ours. With God’s help, we will. I believe it has started.
“The right to secede is a God-given natural-law truth that will never change. The issue is proper and valid application of the right to secede. That is a relevant issue today.”
I don’t disagree. The larger point is that if states truly have to secede based on natural law it will be because the Union is already dead.
“That is an eloquent statement of natural law which I did not include because although important, it is general background of natural law principles.”
When reference to “Consent of the Governed”, “as to them shall seem most likely” and “Safety and Happiness” is relegated to boiler plate or general background, it becomes easy for other people’s preferences to preclude secession entirely.
It’s not boilerplate. It’s the natural law of the right to secede. Why talk about the details of secession if you first don’t establish the right to secede? This statement of the natural law right to secede establishes what follows - the specific application of the valid and justifiable secession of the colonies.
The statement that establishes the right to secede and the specific application are not in conflict. They fit together very well.
You need both the rationale of the right to secede and the application for justifiable cession to make a case. The D of I does just that, probably better than any document every created.
Today’s issue with the states is not secession, but rejecting and nullifying unconstitutional federal acts of tyranny. The states haven’t done anything to justify secession.
“The statement that establishes the right to secede and the specific application are not in conflict.”
The DOI does not “establish” the right to secede. It recognizes the right to secede.
And the government does not give us our rights. When operating properly the government protects our rights.
Hopefully, we agree on those points.
I disagree with you on at least one point in post 365: “I believe the North had a constitutional right to fight them and get them back into the Union.”
The North fought a war of aggression over money and empire. That war stood the DOI and the U.S. constitution on their heads and killed over 600,000 people to boot.
But it did give us the government we have today, if that is a good thing.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
I think it is reasonable to say that Jefferson's purpose here was to establish the right to session based on natural law principles.
That war stood the DOI and the U.S. constitution on their heads
How was the South justified to secede according to the D of I and the Constitution?
The North fought a war of aggression over money and empire.
The D of I states that aside from a "long train of abuses", "Governments long established should not be changed". The D of I supports the North 's resistance of the South's unjustified secession which failed to identify any unconstitutional acts of the North against the South much less "facts submitted to a candid world" of a long train of abuses suffered at the hands of the North. Also, not that it is really germane to the moral and legal rights being discussed here, the South actually was the aggressor, firing the first shot at Fort Sumter.
it did give us the government we have today
No it didn't. It restored America's true free constitutional republic for the rest of the 1800's. Beginning in the 1900's The Fabian Socialist Left began the steady undermining of constitutional limitations with giant leaps of unconstitutional federal power by FDR, LBJ, and Obama.
“I think it is reasonable to say that Jefferson’s purpose here was to establish the right to session based on natural law principles.”
Jefferson contention was: “. . . the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them . . .”
And “ . . . they are endowed by their Creator . . .”
Jefferson didn’t claim he was establishing some new right in the DOI, or even advocating something new. Rights, Jefferson argued - even the right of secession comes from God - not from the government or the DOI.
“The D of I supports the North ‘s resistance of the South’s unjustified secession which failed to identify any unconstitutional acts of the North against the South much less “facts submitted to a candid world” of a long train of abuses suffered at the hands of the North.”
It is not much taught in government schools today but John Brown’s murder raid at Harper’s Ferry was financed by wealthy northerners. After the raid, the conspirators were identified and Virginia requested extradition for trial. The terrorists were given sanctuary by northern authorities. That broke the covenants of the constitution.
Start with that.
Who said anything about a “new” right or the right of secession coming anywhere but from God? You’re reading stuff into what I’m saying that I’m not saying. I’ve repeatedly said “God-given” and NEVER said government-given or the right emerging from the D of I. Jefferson used the D of I to establish the God-given natural right of secession, among other things.
What exactly in the Constitution was violated and how?
They were patriots. They fought for what America stood for. Anything else is revisionist history.
Bullshit.
Neither did the constitution of the USA.
I don't know how open you are to reading contrary views. I wish you would consider what author Garry Wills wrote:
Lincoln at Gettysburg “performed one of the most daring acts of open-air sleight-of-hand ever witnessed by the unsuspecting. Everyone in that vast throng of thousands was having his or her intellectual pocket picked. The crowd departed with a new thing in its ideological luggage, that new constitution Lincoln had substituted for the one they brought there with them. They walked off, from those curving graves on the hillside, under a changed sky, into a different America. Lincoln had revolutionized the Revolution, giving people a new past to live with that would change their future indefinitely.”
Understand, Wills was a fan of Lincoln.
“What exactly in the Constitution was violated and how?”
In the case of John Brown’s murder raid, Article IV, Section 2.
Maybe its just semantics, but semantics can be important.
Again, Jefferson didn't “establish” the right of secession, or the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
And the Constitution didn't “establish” the right to worship freely.
The documents simply recognized these God-given rights. Even if the King of England issued a decree, he could not abolish the human right to keep and bear arms. The King can only kill you.
There’s three clauses in Article IV, Section 2.
1) Which exact clause was violated and
2) HOW was it violated by applying the facts of the situation you’re citing?
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