If that were true, the whole people of the US would have ratified the Constitution as a whole, which they did not.
But I forget. You probably subscribe to that nonsense Lincoln put forth about the Union existing first, before the states. My deepest sympathies.
If that were true, the whole people of the US would have ratified the Constitution as a whole, which they did not.
No dreamer would suggest that.
"They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act savely, effectively and wisely, on such a subject, by assembling in convention. It is true, they assembled in their several states--and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the states, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their states. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the state governments."
"From these conventions, the constitution derives its whole authority. The government proceeds directly from the people. . . .
*****The constitution, when thus adopted, was of complete obligation, and bound the state sovereignties.*****" [17 U.S. 316, 402-404]
There it is, plain in black and white. The Constitution was of a complete obligation on the states and it bound them to the Union. A state on its own does not have the authority to release itself from any obligations, much less a "complete obligation."
Marshall further ruled, "The government of the Union, then, is, emphatically and truly, a government of the people. In form, and in substance, it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit." [17 U.S. 316, 404-405]
And, "If any one proposition could command the universal assent of mankind, we might expect it would be this--that the government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action." [17 U.S. 316, 405] The makeup of the Union, without doubt, is within the sphere of action of the Federal Government. We can see this from the fact that Congress admits new states into the Union, and the Federal law admitting those new states is signed by the President.
In Gibbons v. Ogden, the Court ruled, "When these allied sovereigns converted their league into a government, when they converted their Congress of Ambassadors, deputed to deliberate on their common concerns, the whole character in which the States appear, underwent a change." [22 U.S. 1, 187]
And in Cohens v. Virginia the Court ruled, "That the United States form, for many, and for most important purposes, a single nation, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people. In making peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same people. . .. America has chosen to be, in many respects, and to many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete; to all these objects it is competent. The people have declared, that in the exercise of all the powers given for these objects, it is supreme. . . . The constitution and laws of a State, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of the United States, are absolutely void. These States are constituent parts of the United States. They are members of one great empire." [19 U.S. 264, 413-414]
In that same ruling, the Court said that the people who made the Constitution can unmake it, but this particular supreme power "resides only in the whole body of the people; not in any sub-division of them. The attempt of any of the parts to exercise it is usurpation, and ought to be repelled by those to whom the people have delegated their power of repelling it." [19 U.S. 264, 389]
What could be clearer? There it is, a ruling of the Supreme Court and thus the law of the land. Unilateral secession is unconstitutional because "The attempt of any of the parts to exercise it is usurpation." This was settled case law well prior to the secession of 1860 and 1861."
-- From the moderated ACW newsgroup
Walt