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Secession: It's constitutional (Walter E. Williams offers evidence from .... U.S. history)
WND ^ | November 27, 2012 | Walter E. Williams

Posted on 11/28/2012 9:42:40 AM PST by Perseverando

For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission, or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

Since Barack Obama’s re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitioners for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: “A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”

On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, “No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United

(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 10thamendment; constitution; cw2; kkk; klan; secession; statesrights
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To: donmeaker
Actually, no, I never read that series. I read one counter-factual ‘guns of the south’ which postulated time traveling South African racists with AK-47s. I didn’t care for it.

I've read that too. I liked how General Lee called a PC, a "qwerty." I admit you had the handwavium of time travel, but it wasn't a bad book, it was an entertaining read.

S.M. Stirling wrote a book series called "The Dominion" where after the South lost the Civil War, many Confederates fled to the Draka in South Africa. Very dark series.
201 posted on 11/29/2012 10:02:25 AM PST by Nowhere Man (Whitey, I miss you so much. Take care, pretty girl. (4-15-2001 - 10-12-2012))
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To: Sherman Logan

Josiah Gorgas, got to look him up, makes me feel kind of proud he is from PA.


202 posted on 11/29/2012 10:04:22 AM PST by Nowhere Man (Whitey, I miss you so much. Take care, pretty girl. (4-15-2001 - 10-12-2012))
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To: x

I’m just saying that in my eyes, Lincoln was so bad, he makes Jimmy Carter look good. Way I see it, Lincoln is just a whiny power grabber like Woodrow Wilson was and Obama is today. Jimmy Carter is a fool, I’d even take a fool over a power grabber, that’s my point. A nation can survive it’s fools. That’s said, I’d even vote for Yogi Bear, Biggie Rat or Popeye over Lincoln.


203 posted on 11/29/2012 10:09:52 AM PST by Nowhere Man (Whitey, I miss you so much. Take care, pretty girl. (4-15-2001 - 10-12-2012))
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To: lone star annie
Beware folks the communists destroyed us with demographics.

That is exactly what happened. In fact there was one of the Iraq War Documents that we found, before they made them classified again, where a Russian diplomat told Saddam that California was already lost to the US. Basically stated that it was being invaded from Mexico. Those meeting minutes were dated from the 1990's. Anyone who defends the current open border policy of the US, is an enemy of these united States.

204 posted on 11/29/2012 10:50:02 AM PST by justa-hairyape
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To: Nowhere Man

His son William was quite a guy too. The single most important individual in the building of the Panama Canal.


205 posted on 11/29/2012 10:58:03 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Nowhere Man

His son William was quite a guy too. The single most important person in the building of the Panama Canal.


206 posted on 11/29/2012 10:58:43 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: justa-hairyape

All I know is that I don’t want to live in a country that my forefathers fought and died for where I feel like an alien. All of us who have played by the rules, paid our taxes raised our children responsibly have targets on our backs.

I grew up in freedom and I want the same for my daughter. The opportunities in this country are now what the government allows you to do. To hell with with that!!!

God Bless Texas and may we show the rest of the country the way.


207 posted on 11/29/2012 12:05:03 PM PST by lone star annie
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To: central_va
That would be, rather, the War of Northern Aggression or perhaps the War Between the States to which you refer, I assume. -)

And yes, Kool-aid. Lots of it, apparently.

208 posted on 11/29/2012 12:51:57 PM PST by MrChips (MrChips)
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To: MrChips

Antietam, Gettysburg were the end of two invasions of northern states by the pretended army of northern virginia. Vermont, and Arizona Territory were also invaded. Throw in the frequent invasions of Missouri and Kansas and you have well over 50 invasions of northern states.

The war started with threats by the insurrection against US forts all across the US, to include Texas. The soldiers in all but Ft Sumter and Ft Pickens handed their forts over. Major Anderson had previously abandoned Ft. Moultrie to avoid bloodshed. Ft. Pickens was held by the US throughout the war.

Aside from that, there was no southern soil. It was all the United States. It is still all the United States. The insurrection was illegal, and immoral (but not fattening).


209 posted on 11/29/2012 1:32:51 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: central_va

Rather, Don Meaker has read real history, not the fantasies of neo-reb nutballs.


210 posted on 11/29/2012 1:34:13 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: MrChips

Rather “The War of the Great Rebellion”

http://books.google.com/books/about/Experience_in_the_war_of_the_great_rebel.html?id=6FQfAQAAMAAJ

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/history-of-the-90th-ohio-volunteer-infantry-in-the-war-of-the-great-rebellion-in-the-united-states-1861-to-1865

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Great_Rebellion.html?id=aQPNrUGcPQIC


211 posted on 11/29/2012 1:38:26 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: Nowhere Man
If you look at Lincoln's earlier record he was for what in retrospect is a modest expansion of government -- a protective tariff, aid for railroad, road, and canal construction, national banks -- but not for restrictions on individual liberties or for a powerful presidency.

He did what any other head of state would do when faced with the situation of 1861. He did what Jefferson Davis did in the Confederacy. Davis and his crew wanted as much of the US as they could tear away. To be sure they didn't want free states and territories, but they favored doing any damage to the US that they could in hopes that it would further their cause.

So Lincoln supported some temporary wartime restrictions on liberty -- just as Davis did. Just as other war time presidents did. And many of those who were affected were themselves militant supporters of the other side who would do any damage they could to get what they wanted.

212 posted on 11/29/2012 1:39:47 PM PST by x
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To: MrChips

They also have the right to lose their rebellion when it is started for immoral, illegal, and otherwise bad causes.

As it happens, they did.


213 posted on 11/29/2012 1:40:57 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: MrChips

I would also, for your edification suggest you read Daniel Webster’s replies to Haynes.

That destroyed for a generation, the pretense of South Carolina to secession or nullification. I laugh to think of how Calhoun, as President of the Senate had to sit and listen to his protege Haynes, be taken down by Webster’s tight prose.


214 posted on 11/29/2012 1:44:13 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: hopespringseternal

Self determination must also consider the rights of those who do not want to secede, as well as those who want to secede.

Self determination permits people to leave the country if the laws and customs do not suit, and they have no majority to bend the laws and customs using legal means. It does not permit a minority to destroy the Union.

Unless you think, like Calhoun, that your minority is more important than my majority. In which case, your minority will tend to be perpetually unhappy. Better to leave the country, and seek one where you will find people more accepting of your mental illness.


215 posted on 11/29/2012 1:49:33 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: x

One may also note that during the War of the Great Rebellion, that the US Supreme Court held sessions.

Jeff Davis never got around to appointing any justices to the pretended supreme court of the pretended confederacy. He didn’t care much for law, actually. I guess there was a reason why U.S. Grant called one of his horses “Jeff Davis”.


216 posted on 11/29/2012 1:52:17 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: hopespringseternal

Interesting approach. The government party could then mail a penny to each citizen of the opposing party to disenfranchise them. After they voted, that penny could be used to incarcerate them.

No, better for each interest to keep others in check. I would like to see the Senate rule on ending debate be made constitutional. That powerful check on the majority should have a more firm foundation than a mere rule established by majority vote.

In the long run, we are limited by math and physics, but still more by psychology. Other countries won’t loan us money if we can’t possibly repay it. At that point the promises made by the socialists will not be kept. Something that can’t go on forever won’t.

England has seen 2/3rds of its millionaires leave since they raised their taxes to 50% level. France will see the same thing as they move their tax level to 75%. Atlas will shrug. Pain will happen.

The burned hand teaches best.


217 posted on 11/29/2012 2:00:41 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: donmeaker

Nemine contradicente, quo est demonstratum.


218 posted on 11/29/2012 5:02:36 PM PST by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: donmeaker
Self determination must also consider the rights of those who do not want to secede, as well as those who want to secede.

Sophistry.

It does not permit a minority to destroy the Union.

So any time a majority has the votes, it is moral to enslave the minority? You are on the wrong site. DU would better fit your political ideology.

219 posted on 11/29/2012 5:13:30 PM PST by hopespringseternal
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To: hopespringseternal
So any time a majority has the votes, it is moral to enslave the minority?

Given that the actual secessionists of 1861 were all for enslaving a minority, that's a touchy point.

220 posted on 11/29/2012 5:18:00 PM PST by x
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