Posted on 03/07/2018 9:14:46 PM PST by huckfillary
No, Mr. Attorney-General, secession and nullification are not settled law. Laws against nullification and secession are the illegitimate offspring of the War of Independence.
The Founders were secessionists, no, Mr. Sessions? Were you asleep during your 6th grade history class as much you are today? Every government that exceeds its constitutionally mandated powers is illegitimate. As such, the states are free to go. Haven’t you noticed that the federal government has completely trashed the Tenth Amendment guaranteeing the states and the people the power of authority over those powers not granted the federal government under Article 1, Section 8? When you assert that federal law is the supreme law of the land, are you declaring in essence that the Tenth Amendment is null and void? If so, you are a feckless traitor.
I would under ordinary and legitimate circumstances agree with your position on California’s “sanctuary state” laws and its openly impeding the enforcement of federal immigration laws. The Constitution is quite clear that immigration is an authorized power of the federal government under Article 1, Section 8.
But given the fact that the federal government has so exceeded the powers authorized by USC Article 1, Section 8, so egregiously, so flagrantly, and in so many ways over so many years, and all but ignored our sacred Tenth Amendment, it is clear that our government is illigimate, and that under the circumstances, I cannot support your stance.
I suggest you read the attached essay. You might learn something.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-secession-legal/
The 10th amendment gives powers not granted to the federal government to the states OR the people, not the states AND the people as stated in this article. Or implies a definite distinction between powers belonging to the states and powers belonging to the people.
My state doesn’t have the power to tell me I am no longer a US citizen and the Confederate states didn’t have the power to tell loyal Americans in those states that they were stripped of their citizenry. And there were plenty of people in those states that wished to remain in the Union.
The South tried to leave the Union by mob rule.
Liberals forget the winning side modified the Constitutional rules regarding insurrection after the Civil War. It’s in their favorite amendment, the 14th, but in the part they never noticed, Section 3. It has a fair chance of turning into Trump’s version of Reagan firing the Aircraft Controller Union strikers. It’s just a matter of finding the right time and the optimal mass of rats to fire.
You’re either extremely naive or deeply in denial...
You’re either extremely naive or deeply in denial...
Excellent post!
Because war power, invasion, and military might, decades ago, settle all questions of political and natural rights forever?!?!?!
I hate to tell you but Sessions will NEVER read your “open letter”. You may have a better chance if you change the title to something to do with busting 80 year old cancer patients for possession of medical marijuana. Thats pretty much all he is really “serious” about.
For later
The Navy needs San Diego and the SF Bay Area.
Nullification is not constitutional. Article VI, Clause 2 makes that clear. Secession is another matter. There is no reason to believe that secession isn’t possible since there is nothing in the Constitution that forbids it, explicitly or implicitly. The question is how to go about it, and James Madison gave what is likely the best process: “A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact, absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it.”
There shouldn't be any state immigration law. That's a federal matter.
Result: A lefty dictatorship but with no agricultural sector to ruin.
Yes it is. Lincoln settled this in the 1860s.
The question to be asked relates to purging
Can California et al be purged from the Republic
California can purchase them (with the consent of Congress), can provide rights of way for access to Federal property, or can make war on the United States to ratify seizure of our property and take their chances with the outcome.
Powers not delegated to the feds remain with the states. That gives states a lot of autonomy, properly understood. That does not authorize secession. And it does not authorize mutiny.
Further, immigration law is federal. States can not make immigration law. They can however enforce it... the Obama era Supreme Court ruling against Arizona was mistaken. I suppose we have to live with it until the Court corrects itself, but states enforce federal law as a matter of course.
Whether or not they help enforce federal law on this issue, they certainly cannot obstruct its enforcement or forbid its enforcement. While it may be politically problematic to go after elected California officials criminally, legally that is what should happen.
States rights mean there will always be tension between the feds and the states, for good reason. Oppression and abuse of power can come from either side, and “separation of powers” is what gives you recourse; if the feds abuse their power, you turn to the states for protection and redress. If the states abuse their power, you turn to the feds. Right now, on this issue, California is wrong (and under Obama, Arizona was right).
The question should be - why is it NOT when that's exactly how the Founders left the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.
From the first legal treatise written after Constitutional ratification -
But the seceding states were certainly justified upon that principle; and from the duty which every state is acknowledged to owe to itself, and its own citizens by doing whatsoever may best contribute to advance its own happiness and prosperity; and much more, what may be necessary to the preservation of its existence as a state. Nor must we forget that solemn declaration to which every one of the confederate states assented . … that whenever any form of government is destructive of the ends of its institution, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.
Consequently whenever the people of any state, or number of states, discovered the inadequacy of the first form of federal government to promote or preserve their independence, happiness, and union, they only exerted that natural right in rejecting it, and adopting another, which all had unanimously assented to, and of which no force or compact can deprive the people of any state, whenever they see the necessity, and possess the power to do it.
And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties.
Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess.
Of the Several Forms of Government, St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, Section XIII
But they do not want to go..they just want to decide which laws they will obey, while hectoring others that they have to obey the laws they agree with.
SCOTUS decision in 1867 in case of Texas v. White held that the Constitution provides no avenue for unilateral secession by a State once it joins the prison, er...Union. The acts of secession, the Confederacy, all deeds of Confederate State governments, etc. were all null and void. That is the current law of the land on unilateral secession.
But this leaves open the possibility of bilateral or multilateral secession. Congress could pass an act for bilateral secession, plus associated treaties, for the President to sign or veto, making it legal. Were California to offer a reasonable sum for all the federally-funded infrastructure in the state, perpetual leases of naval bases, air and rocket bases, taking responsibility for all social security, medicare, pensions, etc. of US persons living in CA, a state-funded hardened border to protect the US from Californians fleeing the state, paying California’s per capita share of the federal debt, agreeing to a remedy for what happens in the event of default on all those payments, etc., etc., I’d be all for negotiating a departure as soon as possible.
CA sees this, like everything else, as a free lunch opportunity. They would never pay the freight for a real deal. But the absolute guarantee it will not happen is the Democrat Party, which would lose all its national leverage, never win the Presidency, and be a minor minority in the House and Senate. But we can dream.
Legislating from the bench is exactly where the problem started. Any power not Constitutionally enumerated is therefore excluded.
•§ 207. XIII. Another rule of interpretation deserves consideration in regard to the constitution. There are certain maxims, which have found their way, not only into judicial discussions, but into the business of common life, as founded in common sense, and common convenience. Thus, it is often said, that in an instrument a specification of particulars is an exclusion of generals; or the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another.
Justice Joseph Story on Rules of Constitutional Interpretation, 1833
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BTW - 'prison' is exactly what it's become. :-/
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