You, like every other sovereignist, refuse to answer one quesiton I’ve posed every time these discussions arise: if all states have equal rights, do states created by the federal government after the original thirteen colonies have the right to secede from the country that created them? In short is my state of Wisconsin, made a state in 1848, sovereign and does it have the right to secede?
Yes, next question.
Actually, you're wrong. I've never refused to answer that question, whether posed by you or any other historical revisionist.
;>)
...if all states have equal rights, do states created by the federal government after the original thirteen colonies have the right to secede from the country that created them? In short is my state of Wisconsin, made a state in 1848, sovereign and does it have the right to secede?
Let's see what the State of Wisconsin had to say:
Resolved, That the [federal] government, formed by the Constitution of the United States was not the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each [State as a] party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
-Wisconsin State Legislature, March 19, 1859 [General Laws of Wisconsin, 1859, 247, 248.]
Perhaps you recognize the language (or perhaps not). In any case, the State of Wisconsin claimed the right to "judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress" - which quite obviously did not exclude the right of secession. "In short," my answer is yes - in 1859, Wisconsin had the right to secede.
Now, perhaps you would like to provide some historical documentation supporting your "contention" - that the States ratifying the new Constitution intended to prohibit "states leaving the union under any pretext."
Or, perhaps not...
;>)