You quote Madison when he suits you, and discount him when he does not.
Madison made clear that intolerable abuse -would- be a reason to rend the national compact; all the quotes you provide speak to that situation-- they say and imply nothing about legality. Madison thought that legal, unilateral secession was clearly outside the law, as this letter shows.
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."
"Transferred" is also the word used by Chief Justice Jay in 1793, who wrote:
"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. Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a state to govern themeselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is likewise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner. By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national Government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc."
It wasn;t until the slave holders saw their power to control the national government slipping away that the these positions were challenged.
Anyone who considers the whole record will not accept your skewed, prejudiced and factually incorrect position.
Your attempts to pervert perception of these events always puts me in mind of what Jefferson said:
"We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is free to combat it."
March 4, 1801
An appeal to reason will show your posts for the disinformation campaign that they are.
Walt
Respectfully,
D J White
But the transfer of portions of sovereignty were expressed and limited, not unlimited, nor was it intended to be necessarilly perpetual. Anyone who considers the whole record will not accept your skewed, prejudiced and factually incorrect position.
Your attempts to pervert perception of these events always puts me in mind of what Jefferson said:
"We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is free to combat it." March 4, 1801 An appeal to reason will show your posts for the disinformation campaign that they are.
Let me guess, is John Galt "a hate-filled shill for slavers," too?
Respecfully,
D J White
Actually, I am willing to address ALL of Mr. Madison’s comments. Given your complete and total unwillingness to discuss certain issues with which he was intimately involved (the secession of the ratifying States from the so-called ‘perpetual union’ formed under the Articles, and the Federalists’ palpably unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts), it is perfectly obvious that ‘you quote Madison when he suits you, and completely ignore him when he does not.’
In March, 1833, he wrote to William Cabell Rives as follows...
Wow – another private communication offered four decades after the fact. Just can’t abide what he said in his official government documents, such as the Report on the Virginia Resolutions, can you? You have to go fishing through his personal correspondence. Very well...
“...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...”
And, when last I checked, the Tenth Amendment (and its blanket reservation of “powers not delegated...nor prohibited”) was still a part of “the Constitution...of the U. S.,” and not part of “the Constitution and laws of the several States.” As such, the Tenth Amendment is part of the “supreme” law of the land, and can not be “discounted” no matter how much you may wish to do so. Your arguments suggest that you consider any reservation of powers to be unconstitutional – not surprising, given your past advocacy of “almost unlimited” government power.
”Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country...”
Actually, we see no such thing: Mr. Justice Jay was spouting mystical “crap,” as a review of The Federalist Papers and the Constitution proves beyond any shadow of a doubt. You’ve seen this before:
”...(T)he Constitution is to be founded on the...assent and ratification...given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong... the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation...”
“Get used to seeing it.” ;>)
It wasn;t until the slave holders saw their power to control the national government slipping away that the these positions were challenged.
Really? Is that why the 1803 edition of Blackstones Commentaries, the most respected legal reference in the country at the time, specifically discusses State secession? Is that why William Rawle (a noted abolitionist) discussed legal secession in his 1825 edition of A View of the Constitution? Rawle’s work was such a respected analysis of constitutional law that it was used as a text at West Point! Those slave holders sure must have wanted to get a jump on things! What was it someone said recently?
“You lied.”
“You got caught.”
;>)
Anyone who considers the whole record will not accept your skewed, prejudiced and factually incorrect position.
That obviously excludes you, given your patent unwillingness to ‘consider the whole record.’ Or shall we discuss, here and now, the secession of the ratifying States from the so-called ‘perpetual union’ formed under the Articles, and the ‘federal-judge-approved-but-entirely-unconstitutional’ Alien and Sedition Acts? Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath waiting...
Your attempts to pervert perception of these events always puts me in mind of what Jefferson said...
I am not at all surprised, given your confessed dependence upon judicial ‘opinion,’ that you failed to quote the following:
"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1803
"It is every American’s right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself."
--Thomas Jefferson
"You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy... The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal."
--Thomas Jefferson, 1820
Read ‘em and weep...
An appeal to reason will show your posts for the disinformation campaign that they are.
Does this mean are finally willing to discuss the secession of the ratifying States from the not-so-perpetual union formed under the Articles? Hmm? If not, perhaps we can discuss the de facto federal judicial approval given the outrageously unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts? No? What were you saying about “disinformation?”
;>)