Posted on 02/18/2012 11:09:23 AM PST by HMS Surprise
There is nothing more irritating to a warrior-poet than an unwillingness to debate. If speech is troubling, or blatantly false, or amateurish, then it will fall of its own weight. I don’t need, and I suspect a majority of truthseekers don’t want, an administrator hovering above the public forum deciding which issues are too controversial for polite company.
The Civil War has become untouchable, unless you agree with the standard arguments. 1. Lincoln was a god among men. 2. The South was evil. 3. Union is the ultimate goal of the American experiment. 4. The Federal government’s design trumps the rights of the People, and the States. 5. Political bands are eternal, and must be preserved at all costs. 6. The ends justify the means.
The arguments for the necessity of the War between the States are considered unassailable, and I have noticed lately that the political-correctness has reached such a high level that even purportedly conservative blogs are beginning to remove threads that stray into pro-rebellion territory.
I understand the temptation to ignore this issue for political expediency, but the goal of individual liberty (personal freedom), as well as State sovereignty (political freedom), can never be accomplished unless we acknowledge and understand that the Civil War planted the seeds of the eventual unconstitutional federal takeover of every aspect of American life.
Some basics that are undeniable, albiet censorable, follows.
(Excerpt) Read more at teapartytribune.com ...
Retaining their entire liberty in your quote did not mean retaining their entire liberty. Of course the liberty of the various states was restricted by the Constitution.
One provision of that restriction was the duty to submit certain classes of controversies to, and to submit to the result of decisions by the Supreme Court.
The people of the states retained their ‘right of revolution’ but the Federal government had a ‘duty to suppress insurrection’ that counterbalanced the right of revolution.
And so it proved.
Oh, I agree that the Constitution created a republic, or if you prefer a “res publica” a public creation. Such a republic could no more exist with ‘at pleasure’ secession than a corporation could exist with ‘at pleasure’ dissolution by any of the stock holders.
Since the a supermajority of the states was required to create the republic, simple symmetry would require a similar supermajority of the states to dissolve it. That could be done by constitutional amendment.
Because the constitution has provisions that describe limitations on Treason, then treason must be possible. No defense against treason along the lines of ‘I decided to dissolve the republic, and thus treason does not apply’ is applicable.
If you mean New York, Rhode Island and Virginia, as I wrote in post 75:
They don't say that "they (the STATES) reserved the right to “resume” the powers of government". They say that the people (in one case referring to the people of the United States and in another referring to the people of the several states) may resume or reassume the "powers". They're not saying the States can leave the Union. They're saying the people can replace the Federal (or for that matter the State) government.
I know you responded in post 111, and I didn't respond to that. Perhaps I should have but as you wrote, there is that thing about "time".
Similarly, if a group of states gained power and started oppressing other, weaker states, the weaker states had a way out through withdrawing from the compact.
If a group of states gained sufficient power to oppress other, weaker states and did so, I doubt they would have simply allowed the weaker states to simply withdraw, or that the weaker states would have been able to simply do so in the face of opposition given that they were weaker.
As to the words of Jefferson Davis who brought up the Tenth Amendment argument supporting secession on the floor of the Senate on January 10, 1861, per the quote he said "...the tenth amendment of the Constitution declared that all which had not been delegated was reserved to the States or to the people."
The Tenth Amendment actually states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
As food for further thought:
The powers delegated to the United States by the Constitution are thought of as relatively clear, though disputed by some. In question are the powers "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Part of that question is "What is meant by 'powers'?". To answer that I'll turn to Webster's 1828 dictionary:
POWER, n.11. Command; the right of governing, or actual government; dominion; rule, sway; authority. A large portion of Asia is under the power of the Russian emperor. The power of the British monarch is limited by law. The powers of government are legislative, executive, judicial, and ministerial.
And of course "power" can mean "force" of varying sorts, but I don't think that's what they had in mind. If you disagree with this definition of power it would be helpful for me to know it.
Another part of the question is "What are the powers 'reserved to the States respectively, or to the people'?" The quick answer is "Everything not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States" or as Jefferson Davis put it "all which had not been delegated was reserved to the States or to the people."
But is that answer too quick? For it to be true, all that can be listed under "everything" and everything that can be listed under "all" would have to be a power. How about ejecting a State from the Union? Can a State be ejected from the Union? I say "be ejected" to clarify that this doesn't address whether a State can eject itself by secession. So far as I am aware, there is no power by which a State can be ejected from the Union. So far as I know, such a power has not been established or constituted or anything. So far as I know, such a power was "not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States" in any enumeration of power in the Constitution, as it could not have been if it was not established or constituted. (The only thing that comes remotely close is admitting new states to the Union that are formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State, and that's not very close at all as it requires the "consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress".) So far as I know, given it has not been established or constituted, such a power was not reserved to the people. Ejection of a State from the Union could be in a list of "Everything" or a list of "All", but there is no power to do so that could be "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people", therefore the answer to the question at the beginning of this paragraph is "yes" and Jefferson Davis was wrong in the quote noted above.
Davis continues: "Now, I ask where among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any power to coerce a state where among the provisions of the Constitution do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and if you find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository, the reserved rights of the States? How was it ever taken out of that source of all power to the Federal Government? " It was not delegated to the Federal Government; it was not prohibited to the States; it necessarily remains, then, among the reserved powers of the States."
I don't see the relevance of any of that. The Constitutional Argument supporting secession is not relevant. The Union predates the Constitution and is not dependent upon it for the Union's existence or it's dissolution.
In any case, I don't see how any of this negates my statement which was:
If one party to a contract can unilaterally breach it at will without fear of penalty I see no point to even having a contract and I don’t see that the terms of the contract, whatever they may be, matter. I doubt society as we know it can exist if we can’t have contracts or compacts or agreements to which the involved parties can be held, which likely involves some sort of possible penalty for breach.
Yes.
From the Preamble to the Articles of Confederation:
First sentence, second paragraph: “Whereas the Delegates of the United States of America in Congress assembled did on the fifteenth day of November in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy seven, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America, agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States...”
Later, they expressly changed the agreement on Confederation, I know of nothing (authoritative or otherwise) from the time by the parties involved expressly stating a change to the agreement on perpetual Union.
Let's define "perpetual". For that I'll turn to Webster's 1828 dictionary:
PERPETUAL, a.1. Never ceasing; continuing forever in future time; destined to be eternal; as a perpetual covenant; a perpetual statute.
2. Continuing or continued without intermission; uninterrupted; as a perpetual stream; the perpetual action of the heart and arteries.
3. Permanent; fixed; not temporary; as a perpetual law or edict; perpetual love or amity, perpetual incense. Ex.30.
4. Everlasting; endless.
If you disagree with this definition let me know.
...President George Washington appeared before the First Congress and refused to take action on some matters pertaining to Indians in North Carolina because, as he said, North Carolina was not a member of the Union.
I'd be very interested in a source for that. It raises some questions. Did Congress agree with him? Who else agreed with him? Did North Carolina agree? Was it possibly a ploy to persuade North Carolina to ratify?
I think of other official documents that said something was perpetual that did not turn out to be.
That somebody else does or doesn't do something, or that everybody else does or doesn't do something, does not mean that the something is the thing to do.
From your quote of Hamilton: "This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a Government."
And you wrote: The Constitution did not give the government the power to coerce states.
Okay. If we're discussing secession, I don't think the States secede from the government, they secede from the Union, from the other States.
Food for further thought:
From Webster's 1828 dictionary (emphasis added):
COERCE,1. To restrain by force; to keep from acting, or transgressing, particularly by moral force, as by law or authority; to repress.
2. To compel; to constrain.
From the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, last clause (emphasis added):
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Does a seceding state need the permission of other states in order to secede?
Should the oppressing states get to decide whether the oppressed state gets to secede?
Who gets to decide what is sufficient to justify secession?
Those are the questions, or at least some of them.
Secession is the supra-Constitutional action of a state to protect itself.
Agreed that it is supra-Constitutional Which is why I think the Constitutional arguments, at least the ones I recall, are not relevant.
Regarding the John Taylor quote on the Constitution: Where does it address secession from the Union? I see where it addresses the relation of the States the federal government, and their right to alter it or revoke its commissions. It hints at the States relationship with each other, but I see nothing about secession.
Sorry for going on so long.
After what I've done, you have no reason to be sorry. It is difficult to respond to everything in something long though.
That's a rather ridiculous statement. 'It really didn't mean what it said it did?' LOL!
Tucker was quite clear on his opinion of the sovereign States.
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One provision of that restriction was the duty to submit certain classes of controversies to, and to submit to the result of decisions by the Supreme Court.
this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in relation to the authorities of the other departments of the government; not in relation to the rights of the parties to the constitutional compact,
James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions
[emphasis mine]
The other department of the federal government, NOT the parties to the compact...the States.
The federal government never had the authority to judge whether a State has a right to do anything unless it was specifically forbidden by the Constitution....like coining money.
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but the Federal government had a ‘duty to suppress insurrection’ that counterbalanced the right of revolution.
There was no 'insurrection'. States, in their sovereign capacity, notified the federal government that they were withdrawing from the Constitutional Compact.
They were not attempting to overthrow the lawful authority.... they ARE the lawful authority.
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Oh... and before you start jumping on this:
Article 6, Clause 2
........under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
or Laws of any State to the Contrary
THE TEXAS CONSTITUTION
Article 1 - BILL OF RIGHTS
Section 24 - MILITARY SUBORDINATE TO CIVIL AUTHORITY
The military shall at all times be subordinate to the civil authority
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CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF KANSAS
BILL OF RIGHTS
Sec. 4. The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be tolerated, and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power.
***
CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
PART THE FIRST A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Article XVII. The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.
***
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF NEVADA
ARTICLE. 1. Declaration of Rights
Sec. 11. Right to keep and bear arms; civil power supreme.
2. The military shall be subordinate to the civil power; No standing army shall be maintained by this State in time of peace, and in time of War, no appropriation for a standing army shall be for a longer time than two years.
This is one of the oldest provisions and it appears in every State Constitution. The military is subordinate to the civil power.
Therefore, it is an unconstitutional act for the federal power to use military force and usurp the civil authority of a State by attacking ANY one of the States that created it. Always has been, always will be.
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This has all been quite entertaining, but you obviously have no interest in historical truth or the concept of Original Intent.
That being the case, I have no interest in you.
Don't have enough guts to actually post it? Are you afraid the mods would pull it? Are you SO insecure that you not only refuse to debate, but don't even have the fortitude to insult me to my face?
If you think accurate history, Original Intent and Constitutional Law are 'shit', sir, you're on the wrong forum
Bledsoe made the arguments for the right of secession better than I can, so I'll quote more of his arguments (Link, see pages 158-162; paragraph breaks mine for readability; emphasis mine):
… the evil intended to be remedied shows the true meaning of the words in question. The Virginia people did not fear, that the people of the United States might pervert the powers of the Federal Government for their own oppression. Their fears were for the weak, not for the strong; not for the people of the United States in the aggregate, but for the Southern States in the minority; and especially the State of Virginia.
They feared, as the burning eloquence of Henry, and Mason, and Monroe, and Grayson evinced, that the new Government would "operate as a faction of seven States to oppress six;" that the Northern majority would "operate as a faction of seven States to oppress six;" that the Northern majority would, sooner or later, trample on the Southern minority.
They feared in the language of Grayson, that the new Union would be made "to exchange the poverty of the North for the riches of the South." In the words of Henry, "This Government subjects everything to the Northern majority. Is there not, then, a settled purpose to check the Southern interest? We thus put unbounded power over our property in hands not having a common interest with us. How can the Southern members, prevent the adoption of the most oppressive mode of taxation in the Southern States, as there is a majority in favor of the Northern States? Sir, this is a picture so horrid, so wretched, so dreadful, that I need no longer dwell upon it."*
Did the Convention of Virginia, then, seek to quiet these dreadful apprehensions, by declaring, that the people of the United States "as one great society," might resume the powers of the Federal Government whensoever they should be perverted to their oppression? By declaring, that this one great society, or rather the majority of this society, might resume the powers of the Federal Government whensoever they should be pleased to use them for the oppression of the minority? Could any possible interpretation render any legislation more absolutely ridiculous? It puts the remedy in the hands of those from whom the evil is expected to proceed! It gives the shield of defence to the very power which holds the terrible sword of destruction!
The Convention of Virginia spoke "in behalf of the people of Virginia;" and not in behalf of the overbearing majority, by whom it was feared these people might be crushed. They sought to protect, not the people of America, who needed no protection, but the people of Virginia. Hence, as the people of Virginia had delegated powers to the Federal Government, they reserved "in behalf of the people of Virginia," the right to resume those powers whensoever they should be perverted to their injury or oppression.
* Elliot's Debates, Vol. iii, p. 312.
Now this reservation enures to the benefit of all the parties to the Constitutional compact; for as all such compacts are mutual, so no one party can be under any greater obligation than another. Hence, a condition in favor of one is a condition in favor of all. This well-known principle was asserted by Mr. Calhoun in the great debate of 1833, with the remark that he presumed it would not be denied by Mr. Webster; and it was not denied by him. Hence any State, as well as Virginia, had the express right to resume the powers delegated by her to the Federal Government, in case they should be perverted to her injury or oppression.
But, it may be asked, were the powers of the Federal Government perverted to the injury or oppression of any Southern State? It might be easily shown, that they were indeed perverted to the injury and oppression of more States than one; but this is unnecessary, since the parties to the compact, the sovereign States by whom it was ratified, are the judges of this question.*
* See Virginia Resolutions of *98; Kentucky Resolutions of '98 and ‘99; the Virginia Report of 1800, &c., &c.
Bledsoe was a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois. He met and bested Lincoln in court cases more than Lincoln bested him, although such outcomes are also dependent on the merits of the individual cases, of course. I've read somewhere that some people say that the arguments in Bledsoe's book were the reason why the Federal Government did not pursue a treason trial for Jefferson Davis because the government would have a hard time proving that a right of secession did not exist.
Here's what Virginia said when they seceded. I'll include the entire Virginia Ordinance of Secession (Link; emphasis mine):
AN ORDINANCE
To Repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution:
The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention, on the 25th day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eight-eight, having declared that the powers granted them under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States.
Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain that the Ordinance adopted by the people of this State in Convention, on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong to a free and independent State. And they do further declare that the said Constitution of the United State of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.
This Ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted.
Done in Convention, in the city of Richmond, on the seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the eighty-fifth year of the Commonwealth of Virginia
JNO. L. EUBANK,
Sec'y of Convention.
There is no role under the Constitution for the people of the United States en masse to have a role in government. The people of the United States acting as one unit did not create the Constitution and have no powers under the Constitution. Here are some comments from Supreme Court cases (emphasis mine; originally posted by 4CJ):
They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, effectively and wisely, on such a subject — by assembling in convention. It is true, they assembled in their several States — and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their States. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the State governments.
[Chief Justice John Marshall, McCullough v Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, (1819)]
When the American people created a national legislature, with certain enumerated powers, it was neither necessary nor proper to define the powers retained by the States. These powers proceed, not from the people of America, but from the people of the several States; and remain, after the adoption of the constitution, what they were before, except so far as they may be abridged by that instrument.
[Chief Justice John Marshall, Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122 (1819)]
The ultimate source of the Constitution's authority is the consent of the people of each individual State, not the consent of the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole. The ratification procedure erected by Article VII makes this point clear. The Constitution took effect once it had been ratified by the people gathered in convention in nine different States. But the Constitution went into effect only "between the States so ratifying the same," Art. VII; it did not bind the people of North Carolina until they had accepted it.
[Justice Clarence Thomas, US Term Limits v Thornton, 514 US 779, (1995)]
In addition, it would make no sense to speak of powers as being reserved to the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole, because the Constitution does not contemplate that those people will either exercise power or delegate it. The Constitution simply does not recognize any mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation.
[Justice Clarence Thomas, US Term Limits v Thornton, 514 US 779, (1995)]
More later.
"Respectively" means individually. James Madison commented on the meaning of the term "states" in the Report of 1799 to the Virginia House of Delegates (my emphasis):
The other position involved in this branch of the resolution, namely, "that the states are parties to the Constitution or compact," is, in the judgment of the committee, equally free from objection. It is indeed true, that the term "states," is sometimes used in a vague sense, and sometimes in different senses, according to the subject to which it is applied. Thus, it sometimes means the separate sections of territory occupied by the political societies within each; sometimes the particular governments, established by those societies; sometimes those societies as organized into those particular governments; and, lastly, it means the people composing those political societies, in their highest sovereign capacity. Although it might be wished that the perfection of language admitted less diversity in the signification of the same words, yet little inconveniency is produced by it, where the true sense can be collected with certainty from the different applications. In the present instance, whatever different constructions of the term "states," in the resolution, may have been entertained, all will at least concur in that last mentioned; because, in that sense, the Constitution was submitted to the "states," in that sense the "states" ratified it; and, in that sense of the term "states," they are consequently parties to the compact, from which the powers of the federal government result.
If you disagree with this definition of power it would be helpful for me to know it.
I agree with the part about the right of governing. Virginia ratification delegates were concerned about possible future dominance and oppression by the Northern States, as Bledsoe pointed out. Why would they want the people of the oppressing states, who might be a majority of the people of the United States, to have the right of voting on whether a state or group of states could secede?
You might take a look at de Tocqueville’s statement in my post 230 above. It points out the basic reason why some states might not want other states to secede. If those states or the people in those states form a majority of the Union, there would be no hope for a state that was being oppressed or taken economic advantage of. Given that, why would states join such a Union unless they had an escape clause?
How about ejecting a State from the Union? Can a State be ejected from the Union?
Not without the state's permission, according to the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't say anything outlawing secession. If it had, it wouldn't have been ratified, IMO. The Constitution did not give the power to other states or the central government to block secession.
The Union predates the Constitution and is not dependent upon it for the Union's existence or it's dissolution.
You are channeling Lincoln. He argued that the Union predates the states.
Now perhaps is the time to provide the source you asked about in your next post for George Washington's statement about North Carolina not being in the Union. The source of my George Washington quote was "Gales and Seaton’s History of Debates in Congress" for August 22, 1789. See Link. My emphasis below.
The President of the United States came into the Senate Chamber, attended by General Knox, and laid before the Senate the following state of facts, with the questions thereto annexed, for their advice and consent:
... "As the Cherokees reside principally within the territory claimed by North Carolina, and as that State is not a member of the present Union, it may be doubted whether any efficient measures in favor of the Cherokees could be immediately adopted by the general government ..."
Here Washington referred to "the present Union." He recognized that the present Union was not the same Union that existed under the Articles. How can anyone contend that the present Union extends back to 1774 or that the "perpetual" Union formed under the Articles was the same Union as that formed under the Constitution?
Had North Carolina continued to not ratify the Constitution, I believe it would have peacefully remained outside of the Union formed under the Constitution. Thus, it was possible to leave the "Union" that preceded the states. The other states had withdrewn from the Union under the Articles and formed a new Union under the Constitution.
An association (the Continental Congress) did exist in 1774. It was formed to speak and act to England in a united way, something more powerful than 13 separate entities acting and speaking alone. But it was an association in which the independent and sovereign states did not have to do what the association said. The states were sovereign and independent, so the Continental Congress said.
We joined with Britain, Canada, Australia, etc. to fight World War II. We were the Allies, an association fighting against the Axis powers. Does this association, formed to fight a war, mean that we are bound to them in a future government from which we cannot leave? Does the fact that we are members of the UN and a signatory to the UN charter mean that we can't withdraw from that organization if we so desire? If not, one world government here we come.
If one party to a contract can unilaterally breach it at will without fear of penalty I see no point to even having a contract …
If one group of states can violate a contract with impunity and transfer large sums of wealth from the other states to themselves because they outvoted the other states, then I don't see that as a very desirable contract to have entered without an escape clause. As long as the Union formed by the Constitution provided sufficient benefit to the Southern states for them to remain, they did not take the major step of secession.
The majority of Republican congressmen (68 of them including the 1859 Republican nominee for Speaker of the House, Sherman of Ohio [Union General Sherman's brother]) endorsed statements like the following in Helper's book, thus threatening the foundation of the Southern economy. [See Link to Helper’s book]
... our purpose is as fixed as the eternal pillars of heaven; we have determined to abolish slavery, and -- so help us God -- abolish it we will! [page 187]
We believe it is, as it ought to be, the desire, the determination, and the destiny of this party [Republican] to give the death-blow to slavery; ... [page 234]
We are determined to abolish slavery at all hazards ... [page 149]
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Once a state withdrew from the Union formed by the Constitution, the Constitution no longer applied to it. Otherwise it would possibly be trapped in a Union with other states that might be taking advantage of it in major ways.
The Constitution of the Confederacy was largely based on the 1787 US Constitution. Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States, said the following in an August 29, 1863 letter, addressee unknown.
Constitutional liberty can be achieved and secured only by maintaining and defending written and well defined limitations on the powers of all who are in authority. Such are the limitations in our constitution. That chart of our liberties was made for war as well as peace. Our first, chief and controlling object in every "plan" or act, should be to maintain the constitution. Secession was resorted to as the only means to preserve the principles of the constitution inviolate.
Notwithstanding...
Federal military is subordinate to federal civil authority, with the President as commander in chief. State constitutions, notwithstanding. State militias are subordinate to state civil authority, unless federalized, as the Virginia militia was federalized by George Washington in response to the Whiskey Rebellion.
I know, you choose to cherry-pick (Your phrase) and dishonestly represent the constitution. So sorry you can not find a country where down is up, and where crazy is normal. Good luck with that.
And that is precisely what it was - an opinion, having no force of law. Tucker's opinions were overrun by the occasion of the Civil War and some of them rendered moot.
But the states did not withdraw from the union, which is not to say that they might not have wanted to. They had no legal authority to break the union unilaterally. Rather they sought to break the union by other than legal means, and were defeated.
I submit the argument is with the facts, so rather than admit that the facts are against you, you argue that the problem is with the source.
So after sorting through ten thousand legal documents you find a reference to secession, and pretend that is the one that counts.
If the states had seceded from the Union of the Articles of Confederation to join the ‘new union’ then the acts of the congress of the Union of the Articles of Confederation would have no meaning or effect. Since all parties, to include the states selecting their electors, the outgoing president, and the incoming president acted in exact accordance with the legislation of the congress of the Articles of Confederation, that shows that no secession took place.
Even as Confederates asserted that they had the extra-constitutional power to secede, they also argued that the US government had no power to resist their military threats and movements, calling for the adherence to the constitution as their protection from the government against which they were in insurrection.
Ironic I call that.
Washington could not override the Sovereign authority of the State. In this case is was Governor Mifflin of Pennsylvania.
A proclamation was issued by the President, commanding the insurgents to disperse, while quotas of militia were called for from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey. These Governor Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, who seemed to be in sympathy with the insurgents, hesitated to call out. He was, however, forced either to do so, or to break with the central government, and the militia volunteered in greater numbers than were wanted, even members of the "Society of Friends" joining the force.
The Whisky Rebellion of 1794
Mifflin could have notified President Washington to his face that the State withdrew from the Union...and there is nothing Washington could have done about it.
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Article 4 section 4
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
And on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive means the STATE authority, not the federal one.
At the same time it is properly provided, in order that such interference may not wantonly or arbitrarily take place; that it shall only be on the request of the state authorities:otherwise the self-government of the state might be encroached upon at the pleasure of the Union, and a small state might fear or feel the effects of a combination of larger states against it under colour of constitutional authority;
William Rawle
Except that Washington did do more. The militia of Virginia was called out and led by one General Lee.
Washington actually got a ruling from a supreme court justice to permit his actions.
Washington applied to a justice of the supreme court to get permission to send an army to quell the Whiskey Rebellion, in accordance with the Militia Act of 1792.
So that is the precedent. The 1795 Militia act increased the president’s powers, not requiring application to the court. That was the law under which Lincoln acted.
Source, please.
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So that is the precedent.
ROFLMAO!
Boy, do you have a lot to learn about Law.
precedent
1) n. a prior reported opinion of an appeals court which establishes the legal rule (authority) in the future on the same legal question decided in the prior judgment.
"Precedent" is not just something that happens, it's a documented legal procedure.
The people and their States never relinquished the natural right of self government. If someone delegates authority that doesn't equal any ambandament of their personal sovereignty. To say it another way -- just because your employer let you use the company condo on the beach - that doesn't promote you into condo ownership.
Perhaps Federalist 43 can shed some light:
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? The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.
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.
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Gotta love that Thomas Jefferson!:
"I had written to Mr. Madison, as I had before informed you, and had stated to him some general ideas for consideration and consultation when we should meet. I thought something essentially necessary to be said, in order to avoid the inference of acquiescence; that a resolution or declaration should be passed, 1. answering the reasonings of such of the States as have ventured into the field of reason, and that of the committee of Congress, taking some notice, too, of those States who have either not answered at all, or answered without reasoning. 2. Making firm protestation against the precedent and principle, and reserving the right to make this palpable violation of the federal compact the ground of doing in future whatever we might now rightfully do, should repetitions of these and other violations of the compact render it expedient. 3. Expressing in affectionate and conciliatory language our warm attachment to union with our sister States, and to the instrument and principles by which we are united; that we are willing to sacrifice to this every thing but the rights of self-government in those important points which we have never yielded, and in which alone we see liberty, safety, and happiness; that not at all disposed to make every measure of error or of wrong, a cause of scission, we are willing to look on with indulgence, and to wait with patience, till those passions and delusions shall have passed over, which the federal government have artfully excited to cover its own abuses and conceal its designs, fully confident that the good sense of the American people, and their attachment to those very rights which we are now vindicating, will, before it shall be too late, rally with us round the true principles of our federal compact. This was only meant to give a general idea of the complexion and topics of such an instrument. Mr. M. who came, as had been proposed, does not concur in the reservation proposed above; and from this I recede readily, not only in deference to his judgment, but because, as we should never think of separation but for repeated and enormous violations, so these, when they occur, will be cause enough of themselves."
This letter by Thomas Jefferson would be viewed by many small r's on this forum as treason. Just goes to show ya how successful brainwashing can be:
Dear Sir,—I wrote you a letter yesterday, of which you will be free to make what use you please. This will contain matters not intended for the public eye. I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too evident, that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic
Are we then to stand to our arms, with the hot-headed Georgian? No. That must be the last resource, not to be thought of until much longer and greater sufferings. If every infraction of a compact of so many parties is to be resisted at once, as a dissolution of it, none can ever be formed which would last one year. We must have patience and longer endurance then with our brethren while under delusion; give them time for reflection and experience of consequences; keep ourselves in a situation to profit by the chapter of accidents; and separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers. Between these two evils, when we must make a choice, there can be no hesitation.
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