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To: 4ConservativeJustices
Nothing in there about forcing a state to be represented - in fact it states exactly the opposite. A state, if it so desires, can divest itself of representation. And the obverse is true, a state can't be forced to participate.

"[I]t is especially refreshing after bashing through the crap that appears on these confederate apolgist [sic] threads."

And you're the one spreading the manure.

Perhaps you should heed the words of a very wise man.

"Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments; which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a People.

These will be offered to you with the more freedom as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to biass his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your endulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the Attachment.

The Unity of Government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main Pillar in the Edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home; your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes & from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal & external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly & insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective & individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual & immoveable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our Country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations...."

--George Washington, Farewell Address

Walt

81 posted on 01/31/2002 12:53:21 PM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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To: WhiskeyPapa
Perhaps you should heed the words of a very wise man.

You as well:

"As long, therefore, as the existing republican forms are continued by the States, they are guaranteed by the federal Constitution. Whenever the States may choose to substitute other republican forms, they have a right to do so, and to claim the federal guaranty for the latter. The only restriction imposed on them is, that they shall not exchange republican for antirepublican Constitutions; a restriction which, it is presumed, will hardly be considered as a grievance."
Whoever he was, he certainly argued that states of the new union could change their republican form of government.  That's stated pretty plainly.

Now let's examine the reasoning, legal or otherwise, that allowed the states to secede from the Articles of Confederation:

"The express authority of the people alone could give due validity to the Constitution. To have required the unanimous ratification of the thirteen States, would have subjected the essential interests of the whole to the caprice or corruption of a single member."
Pretty self explanatory as well.  Again, whomever he was, he argued that to prevent a single state from preventing the new Constitution from being formed, the rights of the other states to determine their own form of government supersedes the Articles of Confederation.  Please remember that one state did not send delegates to the Constitutional convention.  Continuing he asks:
"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?"
He's obviously struggling to rationalizing the illegal abolition of the Articles, but how can it be justified? :
"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."
I guess that the "perpetual" union of the Articles, which required unanimous consent to be modified, are not inviolate by any stretch  of the imagination.  He continues again to assuage his rationalization:
"[A] breach, committed by either of the parties, absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to answer the MULTIPLIED and IMPORTANT infractions with which they may be confronted?"
No doubt about it.  At least one person put pen to paper regarding the legality of secession and disunion.  And in no uncertain words, plain enough for even you to understand.  Of course, you probably think that it was Davis, Toombs, Stephens or some other confederate.

Who said it?   James Madison, Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 43, "The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered", 23 Jan 1788.

89 posted on 01/31/2002 9:34:34 PM PST by 4CJ
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