I told you to get used to seeing this:
To: donmeaker
Under the terms of the 10th Amendment, powers not delegated or prohibited by the Constitution are reserved to the States or the people of the States - and the Constitution nowhere delegates or prohibits secession. 'So: there. No legal foundation to oppose secession. End of story.' As Harvard history professor William Gienapp recently noted, "the proponents of secession had a strong constitutional argument, probably a stronger argument than the nationalists advanced"...;>)
57 posted on 12/24/01 2:36 PM Pacific by Who is John Galt?
Okay, that is not what the tenth amendment says.
Now, as to Madison:
In Dec., 1832, he wrote to Nicholas P. Trist as follows
"The essential difference between a free Government and Governments that are not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater right to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of 1898, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice."
(James Madison, Writings; Rakove, Jack N., editor; The Library of America; 1999; p. 862)
In March, 1833, he wrote to William Cabell Rives as follows:
"The nullifiers it appears, endeavor to shelter themselves under a distinction between a delegation and a surrender of powers. But if the powers be attributes of sovereignty & nationality & the grant of them be perpetual, as is necessarily implied, where not otherwise expressed, sovereignty & nationality are effectually transferred by it, and the dispute about the name, is but a battle of words. The practical result is not indeed left to argument or inference. The words of the Constitution are explicit that the Constitution & laws of the U. S. shall be supreme over the Constitution and laws of the several States; supreme in their exposition and execution as well as in their authority.
Without a supremacy in those respects it would be like a scabbard in the hands of a soldier without a sword in it. The imagination itself is startled at the idea of twenty four independent expounders of a rule that cannot exist, but in a meaning and operation, the same for all.
"The conduct of S. Carolina has called forth not only the question of nullification; but the more formidable one of secession. It is asked whether a State by resuming the sovereign form in which it entered the Union, may not of right withdrasw from it at will. As this is a simple question whether a State, more than an individual, has a right to violate its engagements, it would seem that it might be safely left to answer itself. But the countenance given to the claim shows that it cannot be so lightly dismissed. The natural feelings which laudably attach the people composing a state, to its authority and importance, are at present too much excited by the unnatural feelings, with which they have been inspired agst. (sic) their bretheren of other States, not to expose them, to the dangers of being misled into erroneous views of the nature of the Union and the interest they have in it. One thing at least seems to be too clear to be questioned; that whilst a State remains within the Union it cannot withdraw its citizens from the operation of the Constitution & laws of the Union. In the event of an actual secession without the Consent of the Co-States, the course to be pursued by these involves questions painful in the discussion of them. God grant that the menacing appearances, which obtrude it may not be followed by positive occurrences requiring the more painful task of deciding them!"
(ibid; pp. 864, 865)
You can't dragoon Madison into supporting your lies.
Walt
To: donmeaker
Under the terms of the 10th Amendment, powers not delegated or prohibited by the Constitution are reserved to the States or the people of the States - and the Constitution nowhere delegates or prohibits secession. 'So: there. No legal foundation to oppose secession. End of story.' As Harvard history professor William Gienapp recently noted, "the proponents of secession had a strong constitutional argument, probably a stronger argument than the nationalists advanced"...
;>)
57 posted on 12/24/01 2:36 PM Pacific by Who is John Galt?
Okay, that is not what the tenth amendment says.
Now, as to Madison:
Thank you for posting the perfect lead in: “Now, as to Madison:”
"...(T)his assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong...[an] act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation..."
And as you are aware, any ‘reservation’ of rights or powers applies only to the parties to a compact: in this case (as Mr. Madison makes abundantly clear) “the people...composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong” (or as I put it, “the people of the States” ;>). In other words, “you can't dragoon Madison into supporting your lies.”
;>)
As for the rest of your quotes:
1) Not a single one of them supports your “people of the United States as a –whole-“ nonsense;
2) Each and every one was made many decades after ratification, and is therefore less relevant than Mr. Madison’s comments during the ratification debates;
3) The fact that the “Constitution & laws of the U. S. shall be supreme” in no way affects any reservation of rights agreed to under the terms of the same Constitution;
4) The phrase “Neither of them therefore can have a greater right to break off from the bargain” suggests equal rights, not superior rights;
5) And “whilst a State remains within the Union it cannot withdraw its citizens from the operation of the Constitution & laws of the Union. In the event of an actual secession without the Consent of the Co-States, the course to be pursued by these involves questions painful in the discussion of them...” in no way precludes State secession. Quite the opposite, in fact: Mr. Madison used similar language in Federalist No. 43 when he discussed the secession of the ratifying States from the so-called ‘perpetual union’ formed under the Articles of Confederation (a subject you avoid like a vampire avoids holy water):
Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves on this occasion: 1. On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? 2. What relation is to subsist between the nine or more States ratifying the Constitution, and the remaining few who do not become parties to it?
...(A)n answer (to the first question) may be found without searching beyond the principles of the compact itself...A compact between independent sovereigns, founded on ordinary acts of legislative authority, can pretend to no higher validity than a league or treaty between the parties. It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties that all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a breach of any one article is a breach of the whole treaty; and that a breach, committed by either of the parties, absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it difficult to answer the multiplied and important infractions with which they may be confronted? The time has been when it was incumbent on us all to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits. The scene is now changed, and with it the part which the same motives dictate.
The second question is not less delicate...It is one of those cases which must be left to provide for itself. In general, it may be observed that although no political relation can subsist between the assenting and dissenting States, yet the moral relations will remain uncanceled. The claims of justice, both on one side and on the other, will be in force, and must be fulfilled; the rights of humanity must in all cases be duly and mutually respected; whilst considerations of a common interest, and, above all, the remembrance of the endearing scenes which are past, and the anticipation of a speedy triumph over the obstacles to reunion, will, it is hoped, not urge in vain moderation on one side, and prudence on the other.
And, as you are no doubt aware, Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson repeatedly referred to the Constitution as a compact among the States, and to the States as parties to the constitutional compact.
Shall I post quotes?
;>)