And how was that compact violated?
I don't disagree with Brown and Davis, but believe that a better case for secession lies with the will of the majority of the people of the States that want to secede or not.
That's Rawle's position and I would agree with him that the will of the people is paramount. So why didn't the people have a chance to decide? Of the original 7 confederate states only Texas put the matter to a popular referendum. We will never know what the popular will of the people was. Had referendums been held and had it been found that the popular will was secession it is possible, maybe even probable, that the support would have been found in the Congress to amend the Constitution and allow them to go in peace. When you figure that secession wasn't stongly opposed by the majority of Northern newspapers and public opionion until after the south fired on Sumter it's not as far fetched as one might think.
Isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the republican form of government? More importantly, isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the people of each state when laws are broken? Rebellion is a violation of the law.
Madison was opposed to arbitrary secession, as he would have been opposed to any state acting arbitrarily against the interests of any other state. He was pretty consistent on that in the letters I've seen.
A Supreme Court decision on a matter of Constitutional law is relevent no matter when the action and no matter when the decision. The Supreme Court ruled that the actions of Texas were not protected under the Constitution. That ruling will stand until overridden by a future court or by an amendment. And yes, should some future court rule that arbitrary secession is legal then I will accept that ruling as law.
The people of each State did get to decide. Each seceding State elected a Convention to consider the issue of secession. The conventions embody the sovereignty of the people. The delegates were empowered specifically to consider this issue in the name of and with the sovereignty of the people. The sending of the decision to the people in a referendum was solely for greater certainty, given how momentous the decision was. A referendum was not mandatory, since the Constitution had been adopted by the mechanism of conventions only. And another point, the Constitution did not need to be amended to allow secession, since, as I have shown in earlier posts, the recalling of delegated State powers was understood across sectional lines (VA, NC, NY, RI) and the understanding that there was no such thing as an unspecified Federal power was universal. The Constitution DID required amending to allow the Federal government to force a State back into the Union against the will of the people of that State, or to overthrow an elected State government once the Army had conquered a State. But Northerners were unwilling to discuss that amendment or simply elevated the idea of Union above that of representative democracy. Southerners elevated the idea of representative democracy above that of Union.
Isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the republican form of government?
For States within the Union, yes. The Founding Fathers (well, most of them) saw monarchy and aristocracy as a societal disease that they could not tolerate within the Union, so they made that stipulation. But isn’t it at least a little ironic that this stipulation would be cited by Radical Republicans as the justification for overthrowing elected State governments in the immediate aftermath of the war? Don’t you find that at least a little bit unrepublican? And if this authority can be drawn from Article IV, Section 4, then what good is it to have written Constitutions?
More importantly, isn't it the duty of the federal government to protect the people of each state when laws are broken? Rebellion is a violation of the law.
No, actually, it is not the Federal government’s duty to do that. It is the Federal government’s duty to execute the powers specifically delegated to it by the people of the several States. The Federal government violating the Constitution is hardly an effective way to protect the people of each State when laws are broken.
I suggest you read two other Madison documents. The Virginia Resolution (http://www.closeup.org/ky-va.htm) and Madison’s Report on the Virginia Resolution (http://www.constitution.org/rf/vr_1799.txt). They make clear that Madison was very concerned about how the Federal government may usurp undelegated powers and what States should do about it.
“That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact; as no farther valid than they are authorised by the grants enumerated in that compact, and that in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.” (http://www.constitution.org/jm/17981221_virres.txt)
My point on the Supreme Court case is that Texas v. White cannot be cited as a pre-war justification for opposing secession. It wasn’t case law yet, although it is now.
Respectfully,
D J White