BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Idiot!! Don't even bother reading the history. Just quote what your little history handbook, be a good sheeple, and defend the EMPIRE. That's what you get from government education!!
The Confederate uniform represents the Constitution, the last bastion of freedom before the northern Tyrant overran the last vestige of the Federal Republic and instituted his form of socialist national democracy
Actually, the by-laws of the KKK state that the flag of the United States must be flown, no where does it mention the Confederate flag. If you look into it further, Nathan Bedford Forrest actually disbanded the Klan in 1869 because of the increasing violence.
Now Johnny reb is Hitler. The reasoning in this screed is so muddleheaded, I don't know where to begin. Fortunately, the author usually clues us in on the next expression of mental flatulence with a premonitory "thus", "therefore", or orphan sentence. I hope there was no charge for the education which allowed the author to make such a blazing display of her intellectual dysfunction.
So let's not be callin' no kettles "black," suh.
Simply false.
There is no right to unilateral state secession provided for in the Constitution, nor did the framers contemplate it.
George Washington said:
"I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several states. To be fearful of vesting Congress, constituted as that body is, with ample authorities for national purposes, appears to me to be the very climax of popular absurdity and madness."
George Washington to John Jay, 15 August 1786
"What stronger evidence can be given of the want of energy in our government than these disorders? If there exists not a power to check them, what security has a man of life, liberty, or property? To you, I am sure I need not add aught on this subject, the consequences of a lax or inefficient government, are too obvious to be dwelt on. Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin to the whole; whereas a liberal, and energetic Constitution, well guarded and closely watched, to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence, to which we had a fair claim, and the brightest prospect of attaining..."
George Washington to James Madison November 5, 1786
"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds [at the constitutional convention] led each State in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude...the constitution, which we now present, is the result of of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible."
George Washington to the Continental Congress September 17, 1787
"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home [and] your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness....You should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it, accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety, discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.
-- George Washington, Farewell Address
In 1793, Chief Justice John Jay wrote in Chisholm v. Georgia:
"Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country; and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will, that the state governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform."
What you DON'T see are expressions of complete state sovereignty in the wake of Chisholm; certainly what the Chief Justice said would approved by Washington.
In 1821, in the case of Cohens v. Virginia a new Chief Justice wrote the majority opinion, which included:
"The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of of the United States are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empire--for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate."
Well, that all seems fairly consistant. And we don't see, again, any expressions of --complete-- state soevereignty in the wake of the decision in Cohens
In fact, the much invoked 10th amendment is a sure guarantor of the pemanence of the Union. This is because the people retain the right to maintain the Union in perpetuity. The states may not leave the Union because that thwarts the will of the sovereigns of the United States--the people of the United States.
A fair reading of the Constitution will not provide any basis for legal secession under our system.
Consider the words of the Constitution:
Article One, Section Eight, "Powers of Congress". Congress is charged in Para. 1 to provide for the common defense and general welfare, and in Para. 18 given all powers necessary to carrying the foregoing powers into execution. Having 11 states duck out definitely compromises the general welfare of the United States, you'll have to agree.
Don't buy that? Jefferson Davis did. This is exactly the rational he used to impose conscription on the states of the CSA. The national government has the power to coerce the states. Jiminy Cricket, Davis might well have been reading straight from Cohens v. Virginia.
The Constitution also promises that each state shall be guaranteed a republican form of government. Sort of hard to do if a state withdraws, isn't it?
The Constitution also promises in Article Four Section One, Para. 1 that "the Citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." Sort of hard to do if a state may withdraw, isn't it?
No one is suggesting that the states may not break away in the face of intolerable abuse of the powers transferred to the federal government. But I challenge anyone to find that intolerable abuse in the record prior to 1860.
Let's consider the words of James Madison:
"The doctrine laid down by the law of Nations in the case of treaties is that a breach of any one article by any of the parties, frees the other parties from their engagements. In the case of a union of people under one Constitution, the nature of the pact had always been understood to exclude such an interpretation." (Remarks to the Constitutional Convention, July 23, 1787).
In 1830 James Madison wrote:
"What was to be done in the event of controversies, which could not fail to occur, concerning the partition line between the powers belonging to the Federal and to the State governments? That some provision ought to be made, was as obvious, and as essential as the task itself was difficult and delicate...The provision immediately and ordinarily relied on is manifestly the Supreme Court of the United States, clothed as it is with a jurisdiction "in controversies to which the United States shall be a party," the court itself being so constituted as to render it independent and impartial in its decisions;"
James Madison The forging of American Federalism
Edited by Saul Padover
Harper Torchbooks, 1953 Page 196
In fact, Virginia and Virginians were early exponents of a strong Union.
"The [constitutional] convention was slow to tackle the problem of an army, defense, and internal police. The Virginia Plan said nothing about a standing army, but it did say that the national government could 'call forth the force of the union against any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof.'
--"Decision in Philadelphia" by Collier and Collier.
Let's quote Lincoln:
"And this issue embraces more than the fact of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy--a government of the people, by the same people--can or cannot, maintain its territorial integtrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration, accrding to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily, without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness?"
A. Lincoln, 7/4/61 Lincoln was the champion of the Union brought forth by the founding fathers. More Lincoln:
"This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men -- to lift artificial weights from all shoulders -- to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all -- to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life. Yielding to partial, and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existance we contend."
A. Lincoln 7/4/61
There is simply no right of legal secession under US law, and the secessionists well knew it. That is why they didn'ttry to go before the courts and chose violence instead.
Walt