Secession: It's constitutional (Walter E. Williams offers evidence from .... U.S. history)

WND ^ | November 27, 2012 | Walter E. Williams

[Perseverando]

For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission, or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

Since Barack Obama’s re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitioners for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: “A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”

On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, “No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United

[central_va]

Sherman Logan is a status quo statist boot licker. The US could elect Hitler Jr. and he would fight anyone wanting to break away. It is his way.

[Sherman Logan]

What exactly happened with the loyalists after the colonies seceded from England?

A great many of them were treated the way the losing side in most civil conflicts were traditionally treated: imprisonment and in some cases executions, confiscation of property, disenfranchisement, etc.

About 2% of the population of the United States fled the country in the Loyalist exodus.

Which is why I find southern claims of their great mistreatment after the War so unhistorical, the fact being that the South was treated less harshly than any similar group in history after a great civil war. Exactly one trial and execution for war crimes. Not one for treason.

[central_va]

No freedom loving person, with an IQ above room temperature, could argue against that it would be easier for a state(like Texas) to start over than try to “reform” FedGov™.

[myself6]

Me too brother... Me too....

However... I pray that secession DOES happen, as Im convinced that there is no rehabilitation of the masses of idiots that willingly subject themselves and us to tyranny.

We either leave them, kill them, or let them kill us. I prefer just leaving peacefully, if it gets ugly after that... Well... thats on them....

[OldPossum]

Bookmark.

[Sherman Logan]

Interesting. I post facts and opinions based on those facts. I do not insult those who disagree.

You post unjustified insults based on nothing at all other than that I disagree with you.

IMO this tells the reader a great deal about us both.

[central_va]

All I know is you are all over this thread. You have made you point. Please start a vanity on “Why Mr. Williams is wrong” I am sure you will get thousands of replies.

[B.O. Plenty]

It's Time to Part Company

[WhiskeyX]

On the contrary, each of the States held its own secession convention to authorize its own singular secession. In many casees the secession convention resulted in voting that denied the State the authority to secede. In a number of States Democrat vote fraud was rampant. Voters and officials were murdered, ballot boxes stolen, and anti-secession votes removed from the ballot counts to secure a fraudulent vote for secession. When a secession conveention failed, another seecession convention was held with changes to voting rules and voting count rules changed to fix a pro-secession result. The nation’s by far bloodiest war ever was the result of very massive vote fraud. In Texas, the secessionist leaders didn’t even wait for the results of the secession convention to be determined before they went ahead and sent deleegates to the Confederate States Congress to join Texas to the Confederacy. Governor Sam Houston and other Texas officers were illegally removed from office by the secessionists while Texas was still a State in the Perpetual Union of the United States of America. This is one of the many reasons why governor Sam Houston refused to recognize the authority of the rebel legislature and rebel govenment.

[Sherman Logan]

silly F’ers always wanna turn this into an argument about the civil war. its emotionally charged and tied with slavery, its how they end discussion of the subject...

Actually, the author of the piece on which we are commenting, Mr. Williams, chose to drag the civil war into it. Basing part of his argument on the highly debatable proposition that southern secession was justified as "self-determination."

Notably he included no explanation of how this applied in MS and SC, in both of which states black people were a majority in 1860.

They weren't allowed self-determination of whether they wished to remain in the Union. In fact, they weren't allowed any self-determination at all, being in the eyes of the law merely chattel.

As I said above, there is a legitimate argument for secession today. But when proponents want to justify secession today by legitimizing the Confederacy and by extension the slavery-based society it fought to defend, they are blowing both feet off with a machine gun.

[central_va]

In a number of States Democrat vote fraud was rampant. Voters and officials were murdered, ballot boxes stolen, and anti-secession votes removed from the ballot counts to secure a fraudulent vote for secession.

Post reference.

[myself6]

So...

Lets treat this like the secession from England then shall we? Or better yet... lets be a little better behaved initially.

Secession does NOT = American Civil War

Secession. In this case. Means we acknowledge the truth that there is no hope of rehabilitating the mass of people who vote for tyranny.

I know some who think its proper to suffer under tyranny if its voted for but thats just F’ing BS. There is no vote that can take place that legitimizes the tyranny we NOW suffer under and the impending escalation of that suffering. We the people DO NOT get to enslave ourselves and others as long as we vote on it. Secession, in this time, means acknowledging that there will be no reconciliation between being free and being livestock.

[WhiskeyX]

The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution clearly evidence that Williams is a liar. The Constitution permits secession only by the consent of the seceding State, Congress, and the ratification by the other States of the Perpetual Union.

[Pollster1]

The "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the States" were in fact a perpetual compact among thirteen states, but that was replaced by the "Constitution of the United States" and never applied to the other 37 (43?) states.

At no point in the text of the Constitution of the United States is the word "perpetual" or any synonym used to describe the union. In the absence of such a mandate, I would argue that the 10th Amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," clearly grants states the legal authority to secede. The practical power - the ability to resist conquest by the United States is a different question, one on which the Confederacy fell short, but states have a constitutional grant of the legal power to secede. Secession is a question of strength and will, not of law - the "supreme Law of the Land" permits that option, as does the long tradition of deciding such questions by force of arms, or by mutual consent. The socialists in our White House and in the Senate have no legal obligation to resist a peaceful secession, and I pray that they will not feel bound (whether for noble reasons or otherwise) to do so if the situation arises.

[bgill]

I think the North East power structure would let Texas and a few other states go without a fight

Any fight from the national government would be more of a whimper. A few conservative states sending a short sweet letter on state letterhead would be all it'd take. Any chest pounding from D.C. could be ignored. Seriously, what could the Hill do? Nothing, zilch, nada, zero. Send in the military? Really? That'd go down like a rock to the world and would be a loud resounding message to the remaining states that states' rights is dead.

[canuck_conservative]

In contrast to 1860, the highest vote totals Romney got were in Utah (72%), Wyoming (69%) and Oklahoma (67%). Most of the old CSA states came in with substantially smaller majorities for Romney.

OK, but if the seceeding states started enforcing real voting requirements - i.e., ID, no illegal non-citizens voting, crackdowns on ballot fraud - then what do the percentages become?

Plus, there will be a lot of productive people fed up with blue-state welfare taxes that will be immigrating, as well as panicked leftist loafers leaving.

[WhiskeyX]

That would require the writing of one or more books, which is far beyond the scope of a comment in a blog thread. Try reading some of the biographies about Sam Houston which do not fawn oveer the Confederacy, the histories which aren’t pro-Confederate which describe the secession conventions of states like Kentucky for one of several possible examples.

Understand, there is so much romance about the Confederacy, it can be somewhat difficult to locate online historical references to the secessionist conventions, but the books at the research libraries from the period describe some of the incidents. Don’t let the historical reevisionism to deceive you.

[myself6]

I agree with this comment.

"As I said above, there is a legitimate argument for secession today. But when proponents want to justify secession today by legitimizing the Confederacy and by extension the slavery-based society it fought to defend, they are blowing both feet off with a machine gun. "

If some feel the need to justify secession with past secessions please use the colonial secession from England.

[freekitty]

I suppose you have not read about the carpet baggers.

[Psalm 144]

I’m pretty sure that I read some Walter Williams articles over twenty years ago in which he said exactly the same thing.

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He has always been consistent on this issue, and dismissive of the “Great Emancipator” posturing.