Constitutional Con Men

LewRockwell.com ^ | May 15, 2002 | Thomas DiLorenzo

[WhiskeyPapa]

Are you suggesting that these conditions somehow confer a right to unilateral state secession under U.S. law?

I'm not suggesting it - the founders are the ones who reserved that right.

But you don't bother to name one of them.

I've asked this before.

fifty-fve men were delegates at the constitutional convention.

Name one of them that supported the right to unilateral secession.

Walt

[4CJ]

Once again, no documentation--nothing new whatsoever--to support your arguments. Just more "I think this" and "I think that" verbiage. What a surprise. I am not bothering to read it anymore.

The document in question is the proof. It's not that I think it to be true - it is true. Why not accept the obvious? A rose by any other name is still a rose. To prove you have a job you don't need to provide evidence of an employment contract when you have a paycheck in hand.

[Non-Sequitur]

Billbears, do you know what 'viz' means?

[stand watie]

very true!

the ANSWER is DIXIE LIBERTY!

for the battleflag,sw

[4CJ]

Name one of them that supported the right to unilateral secession.

Unilateral? More word games. They had already given notice that the power to resume self-government was reserved. Among those agreeing to the Virginia ratification was James Madison.

[Huck]

OK, what the hell. I read your verbiage. Some excerpts:

"you think"

Do you think

If they had objection

would you assert that

All subjective. Who cares what I think? The question before you is what did the committee which received and reported on the ratifiction think, what were they empowered to do, did they consider the additional resolutions contained in the ratification documents, if so, under what authority, and what was the outcome. These are all entirely rational questions, the answers to which may be found online somewhere in the historical record. A successful appeal to that record is the way to answer the questions, not asking "Huck" what he thinks. What I think and 70 cents will get you a cup of coffee, which is why I provide documentation to support what I say. You never do. Why not? Lazy? Scared? Why not?

[WhiskeyPapa]

The point of disscussion I addressed is whether or not a state, or sovereign entity for that matter, has a right to and can cede. Many state constitutions contain a clause, such as I gave in 111.

The Constitution is supreme to anything in any state constitution, as it clearly states.

That would include ordinances or declarations of secession.

The neo-rebs don't give the founders much credit.

What could the founders possibly have been thinking when they placed on the Great Seal of the United States in 1782 the words: "E PLURIBUS UNUM"?

Did they abandon the Articles of Confederation in favor of the Constitution and just forget that they were no longer "one"?

Walt

[billbears]

Of course I do, introduction of a list. But United States is only used as an abbrevation throughout the rest of the document, instead of having to write the names of every state every time the group is mentioned. Why else is the word 'their' in place instead of 'it'? Because the British government recogonized their sovereignty

[WhiskeyPapa]

They had already given notice that the power to resume self-government was reserved. Among those agreeing to the Virginia ratification was James Madison.

The Virginia Resolution, even if it had the meaning you suggest, which it doesn't, speaks to natural law, not United States law.

In any case, quote Madison.

I can.

"The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemies to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened; and the disguised one, as the serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into Paradise."

-James Madison, 1834

Walt

[Ohioan]

You take one article from the Treaty of Paris, ignore the context, twist it into a meaning that suits your purpose and I'm the one playing ridiculous word games???

It is not I who ignore the context, as a poster between your comment and this reply has ably demonstrated!

But the ridiculous word game is when you try to turn the deliberate use of a plural term, in every relevant document of the era, into a singular. The term United States in every document of the era was understood to mean, exactly what the Treaty of Paris explained it to mean in its operative clause, the 13 individually sovereign States. Why do you want to distort that reality? It takes nothing away from the powers that are presently in the Federal Constitution. Why do you need to distort the realities of its origins?!

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Ditto]

Who is Abel Upshur?

One of the post Civil War Lost Cause revisionists.

Abel Upshur: Federal Government

A
BRIEF ENQUIRY
INTO THE
TRUE NATURE AND CHARACTER
OF OUR
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:

 

BEING A REVIEW

OF

JUDGE STORY'S COMMENTARIES

ON THE

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES,

 

BY ABEL P. UPSHUR

 

---

WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND COPIOUS CRITICAL AND
EXPLANATORY NOTES.

by

C. CHAUNCEY BURR.

---

 

NEW YORK:

VAN EVRIE, HORTON & CO.,
No. 162 NASSAU STREET.

1868.

 

---

Initially rendered into HTML by Thom Anderson, HTML revised and text version by Jon Roland of the Constitution Society.

---

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868 by

VAN EVRIE, HORTON & Co.,

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for
the Southern District of New York

[4CJ]

LOL. Again, the committee reported in their resolution that the ratifications had been accepted - if they disagreed with the ratification they had to reject them. The document itself is the proof. Do you need to study the debates to prove that the Constitution exists? The document itself is the proof.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The sovereignty of the United States is based upon the people, not the states.

Your own little invention or did you read this in a Civil War comic book?

I'm not surprised you are ignorant of this, but it was first held to be so by the Supreme Court in 1793.

"Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country; and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will, that the state governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform."

--Chief Justice John Jay, writing in Chisholm v. Georgia, 1793

"The constitution of the United States was ordained and established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the constitution declares, by "the people of the United States."

-Justice Story, Martin v, Hunter's Lessee, 1816

"If any one proposition could command the universal assent of mankind, we might expect that it would be this -- that the government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action. This would seem to result, necessarily, from its nature. It is the government of all; its powers are delegated by all; it represents all; and acts for all."

--Chief Justice John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of of the United States are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empire--for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate."

--Chief Justice John Marshall, majority opinion, Cohens v. Virginia 1821

Walt