The argument for secession is spelled out on a monument to the Confederate war dead that stands on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.
In real Texan's minds, it's NOT fiction.
The argument for secession is spelled out on a monument to the Confederate war dead that stands on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.
In real Texan's minds, it's NOT fiction.
From the article,before its absurd conclusion(perhaps 49 states,lets give California to China to eliminate debt).
“But, of course, slavery is no longer the issue of the hour in American politics, and we have the luxury, so to speak, of being able to return to more basic issues of constitutional theory (and potential practice).”
I beg to differ but taxes,not willingly rendered,are most assuredly a form of slavery.
Tell you what, Sanford Levinson, how about we moot most of the argument by doing away, in total, with the federal departments of agriculture, energy and education?
As round one, that is. After we do that, and the world doesn't fall apart (and in fact deficits fall and the economy booms) we can proceed to round two, closing down Health and Human Services, Labor, Commerce and Transportation.
Imagine that, a Liberal law professor quoting Donald Rumsfeld.
Even more surprising is that he seems to suggest that the Constitution is not a “Living document”.
I wouldn’t mind seceding or being kicked out of the US. I would hink that most of those really smart , educated Ivy League types wouldn’t want us dumb old rednecks around anyway. Heck California , new York , and massachusetts are heaven on earth. So why not get rid of Texas. Heck, the libs have turned Austin into a sh@t hole
The Civil War was not just about slavery. The Federal Government had drawn to itself too much power in the views of many and a "revolution" was needed.
If you read Thomas Jefferson's papers you'll find that he recognized that history dictated that there is a generational change every 20 years. New ideas, inventions and religious and cultural events would dictate that our government would be faced with REVOLUTION. He believed that the government he had helped to construct would find that the revolution would be won with Ballots not Bullets!
. Jefferson was a true universal man right up there with Adams, Hamilton, Franklin and Goethe all true lights of the world in the late 18th early 19th Century.
2010 revolution will be fought with Ballots. That's why ACORN and the other Demoscamic Party members will be defused!
Interesting trivia. Both Adams and Jefferson would live to the 50th anniversay of our the revolution.
Adams retired to his farm in Quincy. Here he penned his elaborate letters to Thomas Jefferson. Here on July 4, 1826, he whispered his last words: "Thomas Jefferson survives." But Jefferson had died at Monticello a few hours earlier.
Fun little discussion here...
Told you you should have stopped here in Texas...hehehe
The comments following this column are excellent!
I advise everybody to check them out.
Cacique; mad_as_he$$;
I thought the civil war settled the question once and for all. The federal government rules supreme.
Actually no you can't.
And just what would the federal government do? What, exactly? Cut off "their" federal funds? Invade and occupy Texas?
As of February 28, 2009 1,454,515 people are on active duty in the military with an additional 848,000 people in the seven reserve components.2,302,515
Considering the percentage of support troops to combat troops is roughly 5 - 1 that is 460,503 combat troops. Say the best that could be applied to such a issue as Texas telling the communist regime in dee-cee to get the hell out is about 20% of it’s combat troops, that comes to 92,100 federal troops invading Texas. That is about 2.9 federal troops per square mile of land in Texas.
The population density of Texas is on the average 93 per square mile with roughly one in three being a owner of firearms. That puts the ratio of armed Texans to potential federal troops at about 3-1. That would be the absolute best circumstance for the federals.
Seeing as how at least 60% for the troops would simply do nothing against their fellow countrymen and probably advise the remaining 40% to take heed once deployed into Texas the number of active federal troops attempting to actually do anything at all once in Texas would drop the ratio to the federals being outnumbered 8 - 1.
Now seeing as how the locals do not require long supply chains and can blend into the surroundings thus rendering most of the federals tactics useless, combined with how wildly popular the notion among the rest of the Texans of a communist dee-cee regimes' invasion of Texas would be, it becomes clear that resistance to such an invasion will be unyielding.
An attempt of invading Texas will make dee-cees' amnesty for illegal aliens and commie health care attempts look like ice-cream truck regulations. I find the collective arguments regarding what the supreme court said or what a certain bunch of lawyers said in the light of a very real possibility of a shooting war breaking out as the result of a federal government invasion attempt to be nothing short of totally ignorant of reality.
Or perhaps there is the belief that given the eventuality of a choice between session or full blown communism that 6,000,000 fully armed TEXANS are just going to say "okey-dokey, come on in and disarm me, take all that I own and indoctrinate my kids?"
Oh yea, right, THAT is gonna go over just peachy with a bunch of pissed off Texans. So again, just what would the federal government do? What, exactly? Cut off "federal" highway funds? Guess how dee-cee gets those "federal" highway funds in the first place.
One more thing, Texas would only be the beginning...
So just what IS “official” nullification you might be asking?
Nullification begins with a decision made in your state legislature to resist a federal law deemed to be unconstitutional. It usually involves a bill, which is passed by both houses and is signed by your governor. In some cases, it might be approved by the voters of your state directly, in a referendum. It may change your state’s statutory law or it might even amend your state constitution. It is a refusal on the part of your state government to cooperate with, or enforce any federal law it deems to be unconstitutional.
The only fiction is the notion that the federal government has any legitimacy at this point.
It would be nice someday for some state legislature to write some law about how much federal tax their citizens are required to pay. I would love to see that.
The States did not ratify the Constitution. The legislatures were felt not to have the authority in themselves to delegate authority to a federal government. Special conventions were called in each state, returning to the original sovereignty of the people to authorize a federal Constitution. That compact formed among all the people of the states is why a state cannot secede. (See also Texas v. White http://www.oyez.org/cases/1851-1900/1868/1868_0 The Court held that individual states could not unilaterally secede from the Union and that the acts of the insurgent Texas legislature—even if ratified by a majority of Texans—were “absolutely null.” )
George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to The Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States; and the Commonwealth of Virginia, William Young Birch, and Abraham Small; Philadelphia, c 1803. “View of the Constitution of the United States, Section 1”
“The mild tone of requisition was exchanged for the active operations of power, and the features of a federal council for those of a national sovereignty. These concessions it was seen were, in many instances, beyond the power of the state legislatures, (limited by their respective constitutions) to make, without the express assent of the people. A convention was therefore summoned, in every state by the authority of their respective legislatures, to consider of the propriety of adopting the proposed plan; and their assent made it binding in each state; and the assent of nine states rendered it obligatory upon all the states adopting it. Here then are all the features of an original compact, not only between the body politic of each state, but also between the people of those states in their highest sovereign capacity.”
St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to The Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States; and the Commonwealth of Virginia, William Young Birch, and Abraham Small; Philadelphia, c 1803. “View of the Constitution of the United States, Section 2”
“It is a compact by which the several states and the people thereof, respectively, have bound themselves to each other, and to the federal government.
“Having shewn that the constitution had its commencement with the body politic of the several states; and, that its final adoption and ratification was, by the several legislatures referred to, and completed by conventions, especially called and appointed for that purpose, in each state; the acceptance of the constitution, was not only an act of the body politic of each state, but of the people thereof respectively, in their sovereign character and capacity: the body politic was competent to bind itself so far as the constitution of the state permitted, but not having power to bind the people, in cases beyond their constitutional authority, the assent of the people was indispensably necessary to the validity of the compact, by which the rights of the people might be diminished, or submitted to a new jurisdiction, or in any manner affected. From hence, not only the body politic of the several states, but every citizen thereof, may be considered as parties to the compact, and to have bound themselves reciprocally to each other, for the due observance of it and, also, to have bound themselves to the federal government, whose authority has been thereby created, and established.”
Ever hear of Peter Zenger? How about the concept that a publication that defames someone is not libelous if true?
Both stem from the trial of printer Peter Zenger in 17th century New England. The law at that time said ANY publication discrediting or defaming a person was libel. Peter Zenger had published damning factual information about an influential individual, and was charged with Libel.
The jury acquitted Zenger because the LAW WAS UNJUST; Truth cannot be considered libel! Thus, the beginning of jury nullification in US common Law.
Anyone who ignores the United Nations as a World Government Objective obviously fails to see why independence from such organizations, including the US Government, has to always be a consideration when those organizations or governments over step their boundaries and become tyrannical.
The US Constitutions is the ORIGINAL CONTRACT FOR AMERICA. Had the 10th Amendment not been included, giving states the legal foundation to opt out if federal government became tyrannical, I doubt the individual states would have all ratified the Constitution.
“Secession is serious in a way that nullification is not. That is, no serious lawyer could believe that nullification could possibly be effective as a legal possibility. Anyone who believes otherwise is simply deluded or being misled by an ignorant demagogue. To paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, we conduct our politics under the Constitution we have, not the Constitution some people wish we had. As it happens, I am quite bitterly critical of a number of defects in the Constitution and support a constitutional convention to correct them,”
Anyone who believes our Constitutional is defective and needs to be changed is not a legal purist, nor believes that individual rights are never negotiable. The author is obviously a populist progressive and a danger to freedom and liberty.
Regardless of what anybody thinks or want to thinks...its basically a business relationship. Federal Aid is the top revenue source for the states.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-05-04-fed-states-revenue_N.htm
When interest rates rise...and Feds transfer payments dry up...the states will no longer comply with Federal regulatory requirements...for which the Feds currently reimburse.
At some point only one of two scenarios will play out for California. Either the Feds will move in, take over, and shut down state government and confiscate state revenues for themselves....or some Governor with a brass set, will tell the Feds that this year the Californians will be retaining Federal tax payments within the state to satisfy local obligations. Its a mathematical certainty.
EVERYTHING is a matter of political will.
If enough people want something badly enough, they will make it happen.
btrl
The issue of the Constitution and the creation of the Union being an act of the States was decided early on. The locus of sovereignty clearly rested with the people, not the States. Both the Union and the States are a creation of the Poeple. Ergo, the States have not the organic sovereign power to secede. In Chisholm, Ex’r. v. Georgia, 2 Dall, 419, 1 U.S. (L.ed., 454, 457, 471, 472), 1793, Justice Wilson stated:
“To the Constitution of the United States the term SOVEREIGN is totally unknown. There is but one place where it could have been used with propriety. But, even in that place it would not, perhaps, have comported with the delicacy of those, who ordained and established that Constitution. They might have announced themselves ‘SOVEREIGN’ people of the United States. But serenely conscious of that fact, they avoided the ostentatious declaration.” at 454.
“In another sense, according to some writers, every State which governs itself without any dependence on another power, is a sovereign State. Whether, with regard to her own citizens, this is the case of the State of Georgia; whether those citizens have done, as the individuals of England are said, by their late instructors, to have done, surrendered the Supreme Power to the State or Government, and reserved nothing to themselves; or whether, like the people of other States, and of the United States, the citizens of Georgia have reserved the Supreme Power in their own hands; and on that Supreme Power have made the State dependent, instead of being sovereign...As a citizen, I know the Government of the State to be republican; and my short definition of such a Government is, - one constructed on this principle, that the Supreme Power resides in the body of the people. As a Judge in this court, I know, and can decide upon the knowledge, that the citizens of Georgia, when they acted upon the large scale of the Union, as part of the ‘People of the United States,’ did not surrender the Supreme or sovereign Power to that State; but, as to the purposes of the Union, retained it to themselves. As to the purposes of the Union, therefore, Georgia is not a sovereign State...” at 457.
s stated by Chief Justice Marshall in M’Culloch v. Maryland (1819):
“...In discussing this question, the counsel for the State of Maryland have deemed it of some importance, in the construction of the Constitution, to consider that instrument not as emanating from the people but as the act of sovereign and independent states. The powers of the general government, it has been said, are delegated by the states, who alone are truly sovereign; and must be exercised in subordination to the states, who alone possess supreme dominion.
“It would be difficult to sustain this proposition. ...The Convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected by the state legislatures, but the instrument, when it came from their hands, was a mere proposal, without obligation or pretensions to it. It was reported to the then existing Congress of the United States with a request that it might “be submitted to a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each state by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature, for their assent and ratification.”
“This mode of proceeding was adopted; and by the Convention, by Congress, and by the state legislatures the instrument was submitted to the people. They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, 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; is ordained and established in the name of the people; and is declared to be ordained in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and to their posterity. The assent of the states, in their sovereign capacity, is implied in calling a convention, and thus submitting that instrument to the people.
“But the people were at perfect liberty to accept or reject it; and their act was final. It required not the affirmance, and could not be negatived, by the state governments. The Constitution, when thus adopted, was of complete obligation, and bound the state sovereignties.
“It has been said that the people had already surrendered all their powers to the state sovereignties, and had nothing more to give. But, surely, the question whether they may resume and modify the powers granted to government does not remain to be settled in this country. Much more might the legitimacy of the general government be doubted had it been created by the states
“The powers delegated to the state sovereignties were to be exercised by themselves, not by a distinct and independent sovereignty created by themselves. To the formation of a league, such as was the Confederation, the state sovereignties were certainly competent. But when, in order to form a more perfect union, it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into an effective government, possessing great and sovereign powers, and acting directly on the people, the necessity of referring it to the people, and of deriving its powers directly from them, was felt and acknowledged by all.
“The government of the Union, then (whatever may be the influence of this fact on the case), is emphatically and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them...”
God bless Texas!!
Wrong! - She clearly stated that the authority is the constitution.
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