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The question you will want to argue is, did the People of New York and Georgia give up their sovereignty, and cease to be a people -- cease to exist except as policy objects -- the minute they ratified the Constitution?

That's not the question I'm arguing. To say that when the individual states gave up their sovereignty that they ceased to be a people is doing it too brown to put it mildly.

You will note that the constitution is mainly a check on the powers of the federal government. The federal government is given certain limited powers, but these limited powers (as defined in the constitution) take precedence over any individual state's in the same area. For example, no state has the power to conclude treaties, to declare war, or to set aside the federal form of government. Yet this is precisely what the southern states did.

While the federal government can't tromp on state's rights, neither can states tromp of federal rights.

And then Abraham Lincoln conquered them, and made himself, as the First Magistrate of the United States Government, their master and Sovereign.

I suppose that one must have one's personal opinion on Mr. Lincoln, but calling him the "First Magistrate" is perhaps a wee bit too much, since he never took it upon himself to become the Chief Judge. But, to be fair, if you want to hit on Lincoln, I suggest that you also slam Adams, Jackson and Buchanon, since they were at least as 'bad'. In fact, Buchanon, in many ways, resembles a southern version of Lincoln. From my readings, it appears that Lincoln was constantly restraining his allies from doing unconstitutional things. If you don't believe this, then consider the horrors unleashed upon the south after the civil war. It was far worse than the war itself in terms of liberties lost. For all practical purposes, the south was enslaved for a good decade, because president Johnson was too weak politically (although he tried) to do anything about it.

No. The word "government" isn't in it. Secession is a people-to-people political act, modeled on the Roman model in which the plebs physically removed themselves from the Roman civitas and passed, as a body, out of the jurisdiction of Roman law. They did so because they had the right to do so, because they weren't bound to the land, to the City, or to service.

What I said was "in this case." The actual definition is:

Secede \Se"cede"\ (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Seceded; p. pr. & vb. n. Seceding.] [L. secedere, secessum; pref se- aside + cedere to go, move. See Cede.]
To withdraw from fellowship, communion, or association; to separate one's self by a solemn act; to draw off; to retire; especially, to withdraw from a political or religious body.

secede v : withdraw from an organization or communion [syn: splinter, break away]

They seceded or "broke away" from the federal government. This is what I'm talking of. And no, they didn't have the sovereignty to do so. I reiterate, that they gave up their powers to conclude treaties, declare war, and change the federal government when they joined the federal government. By doing any one of the three, they were in violation of the Constitution. However, they were guilty, at minimum of violating all three.

They seceded or "broke away" from the federal government. This is what I'm talking of. And no, they didn't have the sovereignty to do so. I reiterate, that they gave up their powers to conclude treaties, declare war, and change the federal government when they joined the federal government.

This is where the rubber meets the road. And as our friends 4CJ and Stainlessbanner have pointed out, this argument is anterior to all the others, and all the others, including the outcomes of the various Supreme Court cases, depend upon it.

1. As our friend has pointed out again, all the States, including Rhode Island, were indeed sovereign before they ratified the Constitution. Rhode Island, he points out, remained sovereign longer than others, while the People deliberated -- and ignored threats of retaliation from Connecticut if they didn't "git thar mahnds raht", in the ineffable line of Strother Martin.

2. Rhode Island explicitly -- and unnecessarily -- reserved the right to resume full sovereignty and secede from the Union, in her articles of ratification.

3. All the States had sovereignty, because every single State was a People, colonized, populated, and revolutionized individually and separately from all the others, and most importantly for our purposes, every State had individually and separately, and by a sovereign act taken as a People, a populus, mastering their own affairs, ratified the Constitution.

4. The People never, ever, EVER give up sovereignty, in the United States.

5. The Southern States therefore had the right, which they did not, anywhere in the Constitution, surrender, to gather together in conventions as populi, as Peoples, to reconsider the Union -- and to withdraw from it, in a series of acts of sovereignty over which the other States and Peoples had no right of supervision, much less approval, any more than they had the right, which Connecticut thought they did, to compel Rhode Island's ratification of the Constitution.

6. Please re-read No. 5 slowly, for comprehension.

7. The argument advanced here, that secession is legal only if it is approved by the other States, confutes itself. Let us consider it.

Suppose Florida, citing language and cultural differences, wanted to secede and join the Antilian Confederation. Suppose Florida took her case to the Union for "approval", as the Unionist apologists, who favor the "Suitors of Penelope" theory of ratification, indicate she should.

To whom does Florida apply? How can Florida apply? Florida has no sovereignty, and is a subordinate political unit of an undivided United States. Does Florida apply to Congress? Does Florida ask the other States to go into Convention to consider her appeal? Does the Florida legislature do this, or the governor? They can't, they're bound by the Supremacy Clause. They can't touch it. So Florida must convene a State convention, and pass a plebiscite for disunion, and submit it.......to whom?

What constitutes a sufficient response by the other States, under the Suitors of Penelope Theory? Suppose 40 States go into convention (remember, their state governments can't touch this either -- they're bound by the Supremacy Clause, too) and approve, five States convene and say no, and the other five don't even bother to hold a convention or reply? What then? And what does the United States Government do? Is the United States Government a party to resolving this question? Careful with your answer -- it'll reflect on Lincoln. Does the President of the United States simply forbid Florida to leave the Union, relying on his Executive powers to see that the laws are executed? That's what Lincoln did. But in that case, the Government is talking down to the People -- and therefore the People are not sovereign, but the Government is sovereign instead.

And that, Sir, is Lincoln's Revolution.

Lincoln may have felt himself justified in making that revolution -- as he himself said about Robert E. Lee, it's always the best men that do the most damage -- and he may have been utterly convinced that he had to square a circle, in order to eliminate slavery, which he saw as a blot on America's escutcheon that undermined our exemplary role in the world. At least that is what Donald Douglas, in Lincoln, says was Lincoln's primary motivation in eliminating slavery -- and I believe him. But by ending slavery the way he did, he also ended the American Experiment in terms congenial to the cynics of the Old World, and gave the lie to the Founders, who said that a People could rule itself, and not be ruled by men of power.

8. Therefore, the Southern States were within their rights to withdraw from the Union when they saw that their differences with the majority in the North were irreconcilable, and that the champion of the anti-Southern faction had emerged triumphant in contol of the apparatus of the United States Government. They were within their rights to secede, and by overthrowing them by armed violence, Lincoln enthroned Government as the Sovereign over the People, and made the People the plaything of politicans and generals. In so doing he laid the groundwork for National Greatness politics, the Gilded Age of access capitalism and government by pocketbook, socialism, and eventually world empire.

To say that when the individual states gave up their sovereignty that they ceased to be a people is doing it too brown to put it mildly.

Well, let's proceed on this line a little further. I've told you what I think........what then, did the States give up at the moment of ratification? Do you subscribe to Lincoln's "Suitors of Penelope" construction: that once they ratified, the doors slammed shut and were bolted behind them, and the Many Unintended Entrained Consequences set in motion? Do you think Rhode Island's reservations were valid, or is there language in Article VI, Article VII, or George Washington's covering letter, that precludes Rhode Island's taking a reservation?

Do you think the States bound themselves thereafter helplessly to the United States Government, regardless of what they had intended, under the theory that They Should Have Known? That the People's assent to government is not "perpetual", i.e. continually given, but that it is a one-time, instant decision on the threshold, that binds them forever and forever to the discretion of United States magistrates and the Chief Executive?

Is the United States Government the Sovereign of the U.S.A., its Lord, Master, and God Emperor? Well?