Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Ditto
It may have been "a tortured interpertation of the Constitution" to use your phrase, but you can't point to anything specific that takes away a state's right to withdraw when union no longer suited it. Or, are you going to argue that the states were being held against their will after voluntarily giving limited powers to the new federal government?
54 posted on 11/19/2001 7:37:00 AM PST by Leesylvanian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies ]


To: Leesylvanian
"...but you can't point to anything specific that takes away a state's right to withdraw when union no longer suited it."

And you can't point to anything from the constitutional convention or the debates of ratification that any of the authors or any of the opponents of the constitution say what was intended was anything other than a perpetual union. The Articles of Confederation were specifically intended and described in that document to be a perpetual union of states, and the Constitution was specifically noted in the preamble to be for the intention of forming a "more perfect union" that was possible under the Articles of Confederation. You would have us believe that while both the Federalists and the anti-Federalists were remarkable in their insights and anticipation of future legal conflicts involving constitutional law, but somehow the idea of secession seemed to escape all of their attention? Not a word of a right to secession was mentioned in any of those debates. That is because they all knew and understood perfectly that it was a perpetual contract. The only conceivable way out was through amendment or a new convention, which the south never even attempted.

75 posted on 11/19/2001 8:21:54 AM PST by Ditto
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson