Posted on 01/10/2013 7:14:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I was recently hired to review the Supreme Court opinion in the case of Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869).
The opinion in that matter was written by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, who had served in Lincoln's cabinet during the Civil War prior to his appointment as chief justice. In the recent talk of secession, this case is often thrown out as having settled the matter legally, just as the Civil War settled the matter militarily.
This memorandum of course does not address the wisdom of secession and does not advocate secession. It is devoted solely to analysis of whether Texas v. White is, as is suggested, binding precedent as to the future legality of a state attempting to secede.
1. Secession was not the ultimate issue in Texas v. White.
Texas v. White is often cited as a case which definitively and directly ruled on Texas' right to secede. That is not the case. Texas v. White was a case about government bonds. It's all a little boring but it's important to understand just how far removed the decision is from what it is often presented to be.
In 1851, the Federal Government issued bonds to the State of Texas as payment for the resolution of a boundary dispute. The bonds were payable to the State of Texas, or bearer, meaning that Texas could redeem them itself, or sell them on the secondary market. The Texas legislature then passed an act which indicated that the bonds could not be sold unless endorsed by the Governor of Texas.
Texas redeemed most of the bonds prior to the Civil War, but it still had a few left when the war broke out. These were not yet signed by the governor.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Great article. Secession is not a “legal” question anyway, it’s a political question. Those who believe the word secession is a scary word do so at their own peril.
Not me, I’m not afraid of it. In fact, this the most powerful and potent tool we have...the unalienable right to free association.
“...this case is often thrown out as having settled the matter legally...”
What a load of hogwash. Liberals get a favorable ruling and drag out this statement.
Does it also apply to the Dred Scott decision?
These idiots love to pontificate that “the Constitution is a living, breathing document” but woe unto anyone who suggests that Roe v. Wade be re-examined.
The Supreme Court is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, though they insist on acting that way.
The decision not to prosecute treason was political but not made by SCOTUS. It was a decison of theexecutive branch. As to the author’s contention that Chase contradicted himself by declaring that the union of states was declared perpetual by the Articles. He asks how can the Articles declaration be used when they were replaced. But the Articles never claimed to be perpetual. It claimed the Union of States was perpetual. That is what Chase referenced. The adoption of the Constitution did nt abrogate laws passed under its auspices. The Northwest Ordinance remained law of the land and the statehoods of the Old NW were governed bythat law. The passing of the Articles had no bearing on the nature of the perpetual Union.
If secession was/is illegal then why does West Virginia exist?
It should still be a part of Virginia as no state shall be formed within the boundaries of an existing state without the consent of the state and the Congress. Last I checked Virginia never consented to the Western counties forming their own state.
The article is thorough and accurate but that is irrelevant in the real world.
Until Versailles on the Potomac is as bankrupt and unsupported as the Politburo and CPUSSR in 1991, any serious effort at secession will result in imprisonment at best, and more likely example murders ala Ruby Ridge or Waco. Anyone who advocates secession and thinks otherwise is a fool.
The right to secede, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and decadence and corruption of central authorities is beside the point. As long as a corrupt authority can fight to preserve itself, it will. If it were not corrupted, no one would be seeking to leave it. Laws and rights be damned, coerced union is about the honor killing and perpetual servitude for one party, and unquestioned domination by the other. It was ever so, in every generation.
By the time a people are ready for secession, things are probably so bad the constitution is just a worthless piece of paper anyway. By that time who cares what the courts of corrupt and abusive govt says. Secession seems to reside outside of the laws.
You might be right, but I think the Beast on the Potomac would cast this as an dangerous armed uprising and bring in UN troops if only as stage props. The globalists within and without this system would see this as the opportunity to be done once and for all with Americans and their anarchic love of personal liberty. Atrocities would be staged and blamed on the “rebels” and likewise run though the mass media.
All persons and all liberties are expendable to the Statist. There is nothing they would not do, and no one they would not kill, in order to perpetuate their false god, be it Eternal Rome, the Thousand Year Reich, or whatever name you wish to apply to the degenerate and oppressive State.
I see the nationalists are out in full bloom!
No State surrendered their sovereignty...please point out where they did? I can point to three ratification documents that make it clear they intended to resume governance to themselves should it become to necessary to their happiness. So either the signers of these documents were frauds and flat out stupid and didn’t read the invisible clause in Article 7 where they surrendered their sovereignty. Or, maybe, just maybe the nationalists have it ALL wrong. Hmmm. I wonder which is correct...historical fact or the perpetual Union philosophy.
Was the first American Revolution “Legal”?
And you found that where in the Constitution?
Great post!
“The “perpetual” Union nonsense was just a figment of a couple of presidents imaginations. A truly silly idea to boot.”
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley
You are going to like this post. Thanks Psalm 144
Sophistry. The facts are these:
1) The Supreme Court will rule in the best interests of the federal government not the states. They are nine paid employees of the federal government. Regardless how Texas v White was decided, today’s Court has no desire to let the Constitution or precedent interfere with their desired outcome.
2) If the State of Texas were to secede, they should not ask for permission from the U.S. Government. They should already be smart enough to figure out what the answer is going to be. How far do you think America’s founders would have gone if they had asked for England’s permission to form a new country? If you believe in secession, just do it.
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