You have on occasion -failed- to post the tenth amendment verbatim.
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?
All your posts don't make a hill of beans.
No reasonable person would adopt your positiion based on the whole record--which you tried to subvert.
Walt
No reasonable person would adopt your positiion based on the whole record--which you tried to subvert.
You are nothing if not entertaining, friend Walt! I quote the ratification debates, the Federalist Papers, the ratification documents of the States, the words of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, the early history of the Republic, the most prominent legal references of the era, the Constitution itself, and judicial opinions consistent with the foregoing - in other words, “the whole record.” You quote your ‘men in black.’ My position is based upon "textual arguments," "history," "original intent," and consistent “precedent.” Yours is based almost solely upon “precedent” (whether it is consistent or not), and almost completely ignores everything else.
(Speaking of which, would you care to discuss the secession of the ratifying States from the so-called ‘perpetual union’ formed under the Articles of Confederation? No? How about the palpably unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts – which were enforced by federal judges? I thought not. What was it, again, that you were saying about "the whole record?" ;>)