Well, treating interpretation of the “text” of the Constitution as merely a subjective matter is quite postmodern of you. We write far more complicated contracts than the Constitution every day, and no one pretends that the terms are up for grabs interpretively. The Founding generation subscribed to a hermeneutic that was applicable to both the law and the Bible - the “perspicacity” of the text. In other words, there is no personal interpretation of, for example “Congress shall make no law...” The problem isn’t that the text is difficult to understand as originally understood. The problem is that statists view the “literal” meaning of the text as a barrier to the exercise of powers that they want. That is the source of the increasing corruption of Constitutional law decisions from Marshall to the present judges devoted to a “living Constitution”.
You do realize that your “American citizenship” argument is an exercise in question begging. It assumes that the right of secession is not a power reserved to the states and the Constitution provides that the Union is “Perpetual”, language that appeared in the Articles and that was plainly excluded from the Constitution. All of the seceding states went through their own representative processes to determine whether the states would would secede. What you are really saying is a repudiation of the fundamental principle of the right of secession stated in the Declaration. As I pointed out before, there are studies that indicate that a majority, North, and South, in 1860 clearly believed states had the right to secede - and that after decades of haranguing about “Union Forever!” by the likes of Daniel Webster.
Lincoln didn’t go to war to free the slaves. Surely you know that. If he had, the North would have revolted. The Emancipation proclamation is widely recognized as an artful dodge that essentially freed no one, but that was done for a European audience to prevent European recognition of the Confederacy. Northern armies saw mass desertions as a result of the Proclamation - the very few soldiers were willing to die for abolitionism. That is why the propaganda emphasis was on “Union”, not slavery. The “war to end slavery” meme is a post-war artifact intended to make the Lincoln dictatorship appear noble.
Because you think that associating tyrannical or dictatorial actions with a “noble cause” is sufficient justification for those actions, you really can’t object much to Obama’s shredding of the law. After all, in your world it’s just a question of whose ox is being gored.
The Lincoln myth has indeed pleased many. The real Lincoln has pleased others. As economist and historian, Thomas Di Lorenzo points out:
“On page 566 of the 1999 Mariner/Houghton Mifflin edition of Mein Kampf Hitler repeated Lincoln’s historically false and absurd argument from his first inaugural address that the states were never sovereign. “The individual states of the American union . . . could not have possessed any state sovereignty of their own,” wrote Hitler, paraphrasing Lincoln. He did this to make his own case for the abolition of states’ rights or federalism in Germany and the creation of a centralized, monopolistic state.
The arguments in favor of states’ rights that were being made in Germany, wrote Hitler, were “propagated by the Jews” and should therefore be dismissed. “The mischief of individual federated states . . . must cease,” the dictator bellowed. “A rule basic for us National Socialists,” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “is derived: A powerful national Reich.” The only real difference between this statement and Lincoln’s theory of the American union is that Hitler referred to a “national Reich” whereas Lincoln, ever the master of slick political rhetoric, called the same thing “the mystic chords of union.”
The only thing more pathetic than drawing comparisons between Lincoln and Hitler (I call Godwin’s Law BTW) is stooping to Di Lorenzo to do it.
Well, I count Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton among our Founding generation. Not long after Washington began his first term as President, Hamilton started pushing the idea of chartering a Bank of the United States. Jefferson argued that the plan was unconstitutional. The debate concerned in part the interpretation of the Constitution's "necessary and proper" clause.
Hamilton's argument can be found here.
Jefferson's argument can be found here.
If ever you are able to read and understand those two arguments, you will discover that members of our Founding generation found plenty of room for debate and disagreement about the interpretation to be given to our Constitution. Had you been there at the time, you might have been able to convince President Washington that one or the other of these two Founders was clearly correct and the other clearly incorrect. Maybe the immediacy, the simplicity and the clarity of your interpretation would have thoroughly amazed and impressed all three of them. Maybe Washington might have fired both Jefferson and Hamilton and let you serve as both Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury.
Or, maybe not.
In the end, Washington sided with Hamilton. Was Washington clearly right or clearly wrong?
Extra Credit - Is George Washington to blame for our having a federal Department of Education?
Hint for Extra Credit Question - Washington had slaves at Mt. Vernon and he never took away anybody's slaves.