No state majority is nullifying a federal act. There is NO federal act (law) prohibiting secession. If there was such a law it must be pursuant to a delegated power to prohibit secession, no such constitutional clause exists. For secession to be unconstitutional there must exist a clause holding secession to be illegal, there is no such clause. Dr. Jaffa is another believer in a living Constitution, because he can't point to any clause prohibiting secession.
Specifically the Constitution mandates that members of the federal union possess governments that are 'republican' [representatives of the people of THAT state] in nature. In representative governments, the people do not vote democratically - the majority does not rule. The people elect representatives to vote in their stead. These representatives for their state government in various bodies, usually denominated as a legislature, governor and court system. But the people of that state are still sovereign, and can alter their form of government at will via amendment or by constitutional convention ['[a constitution] is paramount to the power of the Legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it', US Supreme Court Justice William Patterson, Vanhorne's Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 US 304,308 (1795)]
The federal Constitution does not prohibit states from altering their constitutions, nor abolishing their current form of government, it simply requires that members of the union have republican governments. And if a state has a republican form of government, it may convene, and exercise it's God-given right to choose the best system of government for it's citizenry, whether that is in the union or out of it.
Secession had previously been practiced by the states, members withdrew from the New England Confederacy, from the Articles of Association, from Britain, from the Articles of Confederation. It was not a new concept.
Secession constitutes a repudiation of republican government as understood by the Founders.
Au contraire, secession is the embodiment of republican government as understood by the founders. Notably, '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.' The republican ideal was that government was not a right of kings [Britain, France et al or deities [Egypt], but for the common man, to aggregate and form bonds based on mutual interests at will, '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.'
Jaffa, and every anti-secessionist, is anti-republican and against the ideals of the Declaration of Independence
Could popular government in America maintain itself against a "formidable internal attempt to overthrow it."
BWahahahahaha! No one was attempting to overthrow the federal government, several states were exercising to remove themselves from such. What fool would think that the same founders that had thrown off the shackles of a despotic government would turn around and bind themselves forever to another?
What a laugh coming from a supporter of Calhoun's idea that people were NOT created equal, and that rights belonged to society, not individuals.
THANK you!
:-)