Since you seem incapable of locating a copy of the Tenth Amendment on your own, allow me to quote the language for you:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
What part of “not delegated...nor prohibited...are reserved” do you not understand?
;>)
But it wasn't written to provide for "secession," so your point is both speculative and meaningless.
Actually, you have yet to quote any constitutional ‘delegation or prohibition’ of secession, so it is your posts that are “both speculative and meaningless.”
Motive is only an issue with regard to "secession" because it was the desire to protect slavery that motivated the southern politicians to invent the "secession" argument.
LOL! So “southern politicians” invented “the ‘secession’ argument?” You really have no use for historical fact, do you? Allow me to burst your bubble:
“If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth [‘on the application of the constituted authorities of each state’] to subdue it.
“Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States.
“The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so construed. It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on [the state] itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed...
”The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union, but while they continue, they must retain the character of representative republics...
"The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state... But in any manner by which a secession is to take place, nothing is more certain than that the act should be deliberate, clear, and unequivocal. The perspicuity and solemnity of the original obligation require correspondent qualities in its dissolution. The powers of the general government cannot be defeated or impaired by an ambiguous or implied secession on the part of the state, although a secession may perhaps be conditional. The people of the state may have some reasons to complain in respect to acts of the general government, they may in such cases invest some of their own officers with the power of negotiation, and may declare an absolute secession in case of their failure. Still, however, the secession must in such case be distinctly and peremptorily declared to take place on that event, and in such case — as in the case of an unconditional secession, — the previous ligament with the Union, would be legitimately and fairly destroyed. But in either case the people is the only moving power.”
U.S. Attorney William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America, 1825
Note the date. It is also worth noting that Mr. Rawle was a friend of Washington and Franklin – and an abolitionist. The North American Review (which was published in Boston, Massachusetts, by the way ;>) described Mr. Rawle’s book as “a safe and intelligent guide” to the United States Constitution. Perhaps that is why the United States government used Mr. Rawle's text to instruct the cadets at West Point.
In other words, you couldn't be more wrong if you tried.
The only difference between the declarations of secession and our Declaration of Independence concerned the reasons (motivations) for the declarations. The Declaration of Independence were not legal under British law and the declarations of secession were not legal under American constitutional law.
Since you’ve never stumbled across the Tenth Amendment before, I would not expect you to know that said amendment is found in “American constitutional law,” but not “British law.” There are rather significant differences between the two, whether you choose to acknowledge them or not.
"Secession" has been totally discredited as a fraud.
Some Americans believe the Second Amendment “has been totally discredited as a fraud.” Neither belief has any basis in the specific written words of the Constitution itself – as your posts make abundantly clear.
Slavery has also been discredited.
Those who find themselves unable to prove secession unconstitutional inevitably play the ‘slavery card.’ Congratulations – you are nothing if not predictable...
There's no more than a handful of people out there who support either of these notions anymore. And most of those aren't in the south. They're in bunkers in Idaho now.
Are you suggesting that the meaning of the Constitution is determined by popular opinion? Hmm? Or merely that you don’t care for the people of Idaho? Feel free to substantiate either claim – but pardon me if I don’t hold breath waiting for you to provide a rational, well-documented response...
;>)
When the southern politicians declared their "secessions," they intended to deprive the U.S. government of all powers within the territorial limits of the seceding states, including those powers (e.g., the power to operate a postal service) that are delegated to the United States. And that is why their declarations of secession could find no support in the Tenth Amendment.
As regards your quote from Mr. Rawles (a U.S. Attorney in Pennsylvania) I am not surprised that someone in the 1820's should have such a view. As I mentioned in post 247, the seeds for this notion of a "disunion" or "scission" (later called "secession") were being sowed as early as the 1790's. In that regard, you might look into the Thomas Jefferson (then Vice-President) - John Taylor correspondence in the summer and fall of 1798 regarding what could be done about the excesses of the Federalists then controlling Congress. And look into Jefferson's then secret role in the preparation of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.
But the long and the short of it is that none of these writings or conversations serve as a substitute for the terms of the Constitution itself. My understanding is that there were also numerous Northern newspaper editors who found no constitutional problem with secession. And if you're just looking for people who will say that the constitution does not forbid a state from unilaterally seceding from the Union, you don't have to look any further than some of the posts on this thread. The problem is that none of this is a substitution for the Constitution itself.
And I say that neither slavery nor "secession" has any current following in this country is because it just doesn't. Not in the north, not in the south, not in the east and not in the west.