Yes, but Jefferson fully advocated the supremacy of states rights! The key here Walt, is a LIMITED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT! If the Federal Government is to control all aspects of our existence, then how are we any different from the former Soviet Union?
No one is suggesting that secession is not a state right.
No one, to my knowledge has ever suggested anything else.
What is complete nonsense is to suggest that it is legal under U.S. law, or that Washington, Madison or Jefferson would have sanctioned such a thing.
The slave power didn't care what the founders thought, and they duped the common people with misinformation from the pen of Calhoun and fears of racial mixing.
Poor whites didn't have much, but at least they could lord it over the slaves the way the plantation owners lorded it over them.
Washington and Madison are both strongly on the record as favoring a perpetual Union. So is Jefferson:
"It is hoped that by a due poise and partition of powers between the General and particular governments, we have found the secret of extending the benign blessings of republicanism over still greater tracts of country than we possess, and that a subdivision may be avoided for ages, if not forever."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1791
"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, our property, our reputation and religious freedom."
--Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801.
"The preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration."
--Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801.
"It is of immense consequence that the States retain as complete authority as possible over their own citizens. The withdrawing themselves under the shelter of a foreign jurisdiction is so subversive of order and so pregnant of abuse, that it may not be amiss to consider how far a law of praemunire [a punishable offense against government] should be revised and modified, against all citizens who attempt to carry their causes before any other than the State courts, in cases where those other courts have no right to their cognizance."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:424
It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our State governments are superior to the Federal or the Federal to the States. The people, to whom all authority belongs, have divided the powers of government into two distinct departments, the leading characters of which are foreign and domestic; and they have appointed for each a distinct set of functionaries. These they have made coordinate, checking and balancing each other like the three cardinal departments in the individual States; each equally supreme as to the powers delegated to itself, and neither authorized ultimately to decide what belongs to itself or to its coparcener in government. As independent, in fact, as different nations."
--Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. ME 15:328
"The spirit of concord [amongst] sister States... alone carried us successfully through the revolutionary war, and finally placed us under that national government, which constitutes the safety of every part, by uniting for its protection the powers of the whole."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Eustis, 1809. ME 12:227
"The interests of the States... ought to be made joint in every possible instance in order to cultivate the idea of our being one nation, and to multiply the instances in which the people shall look up to Congress as their head."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1785. ME 5:14, Papers 8:229
"By [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties."
--Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1060.htm
President Lincoln and the brave Union soldiers put down rebellion and treason and preserved the government cherished by Washington, Madison and Jefferson.
Walt
Yes, but Jefferson fully advocated the supremacy of states rights! The key here Walt, is a LIMITED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT! If the Federal Government is to control all aspects of our existence, then how are we any different from the former Soviet Union?