Calhoun and the southern fire-eaters fell into the latter group. The Bible talks about “woe to those who call evil good.” Well, they got their woe, packed down and overflowing, and managed to drag the entire country into it while at it.”
Calhoun was twice the Constitutional scholar compared to Lincoln! First, Lincoln claimed this—
Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union . The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas; and even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a State. The new ones only took the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independence . . . . Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of “State rights,” asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the “sovereignty” of the States, but the word even is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is a “sovereignty” in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it “a political community without a political superior”? Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas , ever was a sovereignty. . . . (Special Session Message to Congress, July 4, 1861)
His whole argument is false!! His war a lie...
“The Thirteen States are Thirteen Sovereign bodies.”
— Oliver Ellsworth
Madison—
Who are the parties to it? The people—not the people as composing one great body, but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties.
The original draft of the Constitution:
WE the People of the States of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain, declare and establish the following Constitution for the Government of Ourselves and our Posterity.
Texas Constitution of 1845:
All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit and they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their form of government, in such manner as they may think expedient; and, therefore, no government or authority can exist or exercise power within the State of Texas, without the consent of the people thereof previously given; nor after that consent be withdrawn.
You really need to work on your debating skills. I hate to break it to you, but your declaring an argument false and a lie is not actually an argument. It's an assertion or contention, and unless supported by something resembling evidence it has no more validity than any other unsupported statement of opinion.
Lincoln's argument sounds pretty good to me. No State declared its separate independence from UK, rather they all declared independence together as a corporate body, the United States. Till that moment they were colonies, each separately subject to the King and Parliament.
No colony had any separate existence as an independent State prior to the Declaration. As Lincoln says, no state except Texas was ever an independent country.
And if you wish to use Texas as an example of a state with a right to secession, you'll need to point to the appropriate clause in the treaty by which it entered the Union specifying its right to secede, not to a Texas Constitution entered into after it had already joined that Union.
“The Thirteen States are Thirteen Sovereign bodies.” — Oliver Ellsworth
Why exactly should I accept Ollie's opinion as dispositive? He was one of the Founders, but only one man. His opinion, as such, is inherently no more valid that yours or mine.
Madison— Who are the parties to it? The people—not the people as composing one great body, but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties.
No one argues that the states are sovereign in that they share sovereignty with the Union. The whole point of the Constitution was that it tried to divide sovereignty between the States and the Union. No conservative, I believe, would disagree that we have drifted much too far away from the split sovereignty.
It's a big step from that to secession and launching war against the Union by the States.
The original draft of the Constitution:
Probably more accurately, one draft of the Constitution. You think it possible they may have had a reason for changing it to the present version? I know when I change a rough draft of an article I'm working on it's because I've come up with something that more accurately makes my point.
Thank you for implicitly accepting my point that secession was not in response to an actual violation of the Constitution, but rather because the southerners had their feeeeelings hurt when northern abolitionists pointed out the immoral nature of their peculiar institution.
(The euphemistic nature of this popular term, BTW, reinforcing the fact that even southerners could not make a moral case for the institution they were defending.)