Posted on 04/03/2004 9:02:32 PM PST by WKB
Don't try to tell me. Tell it to the Constitution -- and then see what it says back to you.
Already have, and those of the founding era recognized secession as legitimate. See Tucker's Commentaries, Rawle's View on the Constitution, and book I of Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Tucker was in the founding generation and was a contributor to several of the major activities in the nation's founding. Tocqueville and Rawle were in the generation immediately after them. All three provided strong legal and philosophical arguments for secession. Also, seeing as your previous posts contain little more than redundant inanities, I find little value that may be derived from either reading over them again or responding to them a second time.
Then, Haley Barbour's language should be about The South, or the Southern Culture, not about an unconstitutional insurrection. That's all.
That's why people have to be very careful in what they choose to believe, and who your "superiors" are, since, as your tag-line points out, made-up truth is toxic to believers.
AFAIC the chain of command is God - People - government - me.
And when we assemble and take on our character as the People, we take a couple of jumps up the chain of command.
Yes it did! Its called the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Bill of Rights! And as far as your first part about good vs bad reasons, our American ideology is written down in the first three paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence - NOT THE CONSTITUTION!
here they are for your further edification-
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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 of 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.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
By the way, the words "just powers" MEANS LIMITED POWERS! Each state was a sovereign entity, and as such had the right to determine their own destiny. That war was about the right of secession, and since the Yankees forcibly repatriated the Southern States, we now see that Yankees did not believe in the freedom of self determination. Yankees believe that only Big Brother has the right to determine a State's future. That is not what the Founders envisioned!
Since, apparently unbeknownst to you, the constitution neither lives nor breaths it cannot recieve anything told to it nor tell anything back. It does however provide that all rights not granted to the feds are reserved to the states. Looking at the state ratification documents which explicitly acknowledged the right to withdraw (in fact Virginia's 1861 secession ordinance did nothing more than invoke that clause of its ratification document), it is evident that among those reserved rights is the right to voluntarily leave what was voluntarily joined.
No it's not, and by suggesting that it is you indicate your unfamiliarity with both. Tocqueville does not write anything new into the constitution. He simply notes that if certain things about the constitution are true, the right to leave it is an inescapable logical consequence. And once again, I find little need to reread inanities that have not improved from their intellectually week and gratuitous status since the first time you posted them.
Now, that's where the Declaration comes in. But that is only where "good reason" comes in. And protection of the Southern slave-based economy is utterly insufficient reason (against the rights provided in nature and by nature's God to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in that order of priority).
There would be much greater grounds to invoke the Declaration to seceed based upon our present violation of the Right to Life, for instance. But not in order to maintain the Right to Own Life.
I'm done on this thread. Thank you.
You are missing the point entirely. I could care not what they are or were (actually I named 3 of them) or what authority they had but rather the logic they employed to explain certain concepts. Among those logical deductions are explanations of the concepts that apply to this situation and they are stated in articulations that far surpass anything this forum permits. Those explanations are not true or great because of who they are but because of the validity that they contain within. As such, you should take a moment to familiarize yourself with them before shooting your mouth off.
Tocqueville's point is particularly valid - if the union is voluntarily created (which it was) and if that union is premised upon consent of those within it (which it was) it is impossible to either (a) deny voluntary exit, which defies the voluntary nature of entrance, or (b) coerce against exit, which defies the consent of those seeking to exit.
And the United States said, "No, your reason isn't good enough." Too bad that Ft. Sumter got in the way.
During the Winter of 1860, South Carolina attempted to acquire Ft. Sumter by purchasing it from the Federal government. After diplomatic efforts failed, the state systematically purchased arms and munitions from throughout the United States to take the fort by force. On April 12th, state troops bombarded Ft. Sumter into surrender.
And there went state's rights, so I guess we have you yankees to thank for our behemoth federal government.
Precisely.
Oh, really? Pray, what else would you catechize Gov. Barbour about, that he might or might not talk about?
And your power to make this determination is provided for in which section of the Constitution?
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