There are also no explicit prohibitions against rape, murder or abortion in the Constitution either. You lay out all these detailed arguments that simply will not be compelling to any fair minded person.
On the contrary – you make my point for me. Why does the Constitution contain “no explicit prohibitions against rape, murder or abortion in the Constitution?” Because most points of law were left to the States – in the words of Mr. Madison, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” The States outlawed “rape, murder or abortion.” Until, that is, the your favorite federal court stepped in and announced that abortion must be legal in every State. But let’s refer to the words of one of the (few) conservative justices on that court:
“(W)here the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people [of the States].”
Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Term Limits Inc. v. Thornton, 1995
The Constitution is silent on the issue of secession, my friend. Read the Tenth Amendment – the Constitution nowhere ‘delegates or prohibits’ secession, no matter how hard you try to “to deduce [such a prohibition] by implication:”
Really, all your argument does is give life to the words of George Washington in 1796:
Yes, let’s review a few of Mr. Washington’s comments while we’re at it:
“Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it...It is well worth a fair and full experiment.”
”I can not but hope that the States which may be disposed to make a secession will think often and seriously on the consequence.”
”I should be astonished if [North Carolina] should withdraw from the Union.”
It certainly appears from his comments that Mr. Washington viewed the new union as an “experiment” from which some States might (unwisely, in his opinion, if not illegally) secede.
Even more succintly, you are condemned from the mouth of Thomas Jefferson...
“Condemned?” Really? Let’s review Mr. Jefferson’s words from a few short years later:
“Whether we remain in one confederacy or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederations, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part.”
Hardly looks like a ‘condemnation’ of State secession to me. And shall we review his Kentucky Resolutions - yet again? Hmm?
Your opinion is in error.
Quote a “direct warrant in the Constitution prohibiting secession,” and I will admit to being “in error.” But I am not a believer in ‘unwritten law,’ as so many ‘unionists’ appear to be. Rather, “I say that the Constitution is the whole compact. All the obligations, all the chains that fetter the limbs of my people, are nominated in the bond, and they wisely excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that ‘the powers not granted by the Constitution to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States, belonged to the States respectively or the people’”...
I don't see how anyone can fault Abraham Lincoln and the brave Union soldiers, or the people of the United States, for preserving the government of Washington.
You failed to answer my questions in Post #64. You declared that you “firmly believe that the Government has the right simply to maintain its own existance.” I asked “where, precisely, is that right delegated to the federal government by the Constitution? Or have you decided that the federal government’s own court is 'supreme,' and that the Constitution, the States, and the people ‘can go fish?’” Care to answer now?
I like guns. I like 'em fine.
think they especially come in handy when the government of Washington and Lincoln are threatened.
Did you swear an oath to defend “the government of Washington and Lincoln” – or did you swear the same oath I did?
By all appearances you oath is worth about as much as a pee behind a tree.
I took the oath several times.
As an officer, I took this oath on August 14, 1981:
"I (state your name) swear or affirm that I will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies foreign and domestic, that I will bear truth faith and allegience to the same, and will obey the lawful orders of the officers appointed over me, and that I take this obligation without moral reservation or purpose of evasion. So help me God."
Damn all traitors to hell.
Walt