Posted on 11/28/2012 2:23:59 PM PST by Kaslin
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 petitions 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 States."
Several months earlier, Reps. Daniel E. Sickles of New York, Thomas B. Florence of Pennsylvania and Otis S. Ferry of Connecticut proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. Here's my no-brainer question: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional?
On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty."
The Northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace. Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content." The New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
There's more evidence seen at the time our Constitution was ratified. The ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said that they held the right to resume powers delegated, should the federal government become abusive of those powers. The Constitution would have never been ratified if states thought that they could not maintain their sovereignty.
The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives. Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."
There is a word for having a gun pointed at you and being told you can’t leave. It’s called a hostage situation.
I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. Three-quarters of the states can call for an Article V convention at any time. Are you saying Buckwheat will sic his fat welfare momma brigade on 34 states?
Not likely.
Better to amend the 17Th.
Sorry.
Meant to say “repeal the 17Th.”
“Easier, no bloodshed, no US troops...”
What are you people talking about?
Bloodshed!!?? Give obuma a chance to be a Hitler? US troops??!!
An Article V Convention is authorized by Article V in the US Constitution. When two-thirds of the states submit one application for a convention, Congress must authorize it. No blood. No troops. No extra calories.
I'm all for secession as long as my state can get its share of tungsten from the Federal Reserve.
I've said it before...I'll say it again. The wrong side won.
FMCDH(BITS)
Yes I’m stuck in the middle with you,
And I’m wondering what it is I should do,
It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face,
Losing control, yeah, I’m all over the place,
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
Well you started out with nothing,
And you’re proud that you’re a self made man,
And your friends, they all come crawlin,
Slap you on the back and say,
Please.... Please.....
Why do you find it disturbing?
Your assumption is that obumbler is a nice law abiding gentleman who will honor the Constitution.
No show us where he has in the past.
Obumblercare?
Libya use of troops?
Sending his personal emissary to lie to congress?
The Noreast trash is still the problem it has always been.
The good people all left leaving behind the Loyalist’s who today are Euroists. They cling to the old country in desperation for their inadequacies.
“Well written...and well-taken....”
Especially the article’s most important sentence:
“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.”
Secession is certainly legitimate when “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [a country’s inhabitants] under absolute Despotism”. Indeed, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government”.
The petitions will accomplish nothing, and any direct action would be suicidally catastrophic. The Feds would sooner level a rebellious town in Texas than it would Fallujah. Historians would celebrate the President who ordered it for centuries and cinematographers would produce hagiographical movies about his greatness.
Are we really free if we’re not free to leave?
Folks are free to leave. The real issue is whether they should be allowed to force their friends and neighbors to go with them.
Check out the Confederados.
Also, check out this short video. Those are some very special people and I admire them,
It is cruel to make conservatives and socialist live together, They deserve a country and so do conservatives. A split is coming. This is not disturbing to the informed, anyone can see it coming.
So if we split who gets to keep the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence?
“Folks are free to leave.”
So a whole state is free to pick up and go?
Secession does not solve every problem, it just substitutes a new more manageable set of problems for the insurmountable problems created by an out of control FedGov™.
why should eastern Washington be captive to a small area such as Seattle...and believe me, the election is decided there.....Dino Rossi is still fishing his ballots out of Puget Sound...
or NYS...why should upstate have to be saddled with NYC?.....let upstate have its own identity...it'll do better...
same with farm country in California....and even Illinois would be much better off if Chicago would be split from Mid and Southern Illinois....
President Davis
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