Posted on 06/04/2002 9:50:22 AM PDT by aconservaguy
Those conditions are the one you mention, secession if it so chooses, and the right to divide itself into as many as five separate states. No one has seriously suggested that Texas undertake a self-division. However, its Senators would increase from two to ten, were it to make this change. And it could be done by action of the Texas Legislature.
Congressman Billybob
Yeah but that self-determination the South was fighting for didn't include Blacks, and in fact explicitly included the continuation of slavery. Lincon's "by the people" did include Blacks and so his statement is true, not untrue, as the author and Mencken wrongly claim.
Well, no, it would require the consent of Congress as well. "Admission conditions" or no, Texas' entry into the union did not override the Constitution. It had to agree to the Constitution in order for it to have been lawfully admitted in the first place, and its lawmakers and officers all have to take oaths supporting the same.
February 18, 2000
Dear Newswatch Magazine Listeners/Readers:
Senator Bill Bradley, while campaigning in New Hampshire, was asked a few straight-forward questions that should concern every American. Vice President Al Gore was asked the same questions in a separate interview. One question pertained to foreign troops on American soil. Bradley denied knowing anything about foreign troops in America. Al Gore denied it; then added that Americans should not be concerned or worried if Russian troops were here because it will just add to the possibility of attaining "peace." HOW? When Russia and China just signed a military working agreement to help each other against their perceived number one enemy - the United States!
Both Democratic candidates were asked another question of significance. If the Federal Government tried to become a tyranny, could a State or any number of States secede from the Union? Senator Bradley stated without any qualifications to his statement: NO! Vice President Gore answered that we have already fought a war to determine whether secession was legal or not. When BOTH candidates were confronted with the fact that secession was taught in the military academy by federal funds that every State had a "right" to secede, they pleaded ignorance.
William Rawle, first U.S. District Attorney of the U.S., wrote the textbook that taught the legality of secession if the Federal Government stepped "outside" the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. He wrote: "The Union is an ASSOCIATION of the people of Republics [independent nation States]; It depends on the State itself, to retain or ABOLISH the principle of representation; BECAUSE it depends on itself, whether it will continue a member of the Union. To DENY this RIGHT, would be inconsistent with the principles on which ALL our political systems are founded:..." (A View of the Constitution, by William Rawle, p. 9 & 235).
Historian Alexis de Tocqueville addressed the question of secession: "The Union was formed by the VOLUNTARY AGREEMENT of the States; and these, in uniting together, have NOT FORFEITED the Nationality, nor have they been REDUCED to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name FROM THE CONTRACT, it would be DIFFICULT to DISPROVE its RIGHT of doing so..." (Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville, Vol. 1, p. 387).
Abraham Lincoln said secession was a "sacred right" (The Real Lincoln, Charles L. C. Minor, p. 66). Yet he was influenced to violate his own words by those who surrounded him in Washington, D.C. Jefferson Davis, only president of the Confederacy, predicted that the issue of State's Rights over which the Civil War was really fought was NOT resolved by war and would rise again. It has resurfaced again.
For example: Louisiana, by popular vote of the entire State, passed Amendment 11 to their State Constitution that reaffirmed State's Rights. They said the Federal Government could NOT step outside its legal boundaries expressed in the Constitution of the U.S. If the federal government stepped outside of its limited and delegated authority, Louisiana would not obey its regulations.
Arizona just voted out of committee to be voted on by its full House of Representatives HCR-2034 that gives it the RIGHT to secede from the Union if the Federal Government declares Martial Law in a State without the States permission. Arizona could also secede from the Union if the Federal Government tried to disarm the people by calling for gun confiscation.
Why is this important for every freedom loving American and Christian to understand? President Clinton has stated that if Congress did not approve his proposed legislation [Socialistic] that he would by-pass Congress and write Executive Orders. Executive Orders were to be directed to his staff on HOW to carry out the laws passed by Congress - NOT to create law by the Executive Branch of government. Clinton has already written E.O. 12656, which combined with other Executive Orders, can consolidate presidential power into his hands and abolish STATE'S RIGHTS and CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS BY DECREE. It is rumored that Alaska and Alabama are also seeking steps to secede from the Union IF the Federal Government continues its present course of taking us into a One-World-Government under the United Nations.
Senator Jesse Helmes blistered the U.N. Security Council's ears in January 2000 and said: BACK OFF!
Sincerely,
David J. Smith
***************************** The text above gives a bill number and mentions that the proposed legislation was part-way through the process. Perhaps it never was signed into law, I don't know. If it was Urban Legend, a whole lot of people believed it to be true. As I recall, there was a provision that required a certain number of other states to agree to the same action, or something to that effect, before the secession could take place.
You make an interesting observation. I am constantly reminded of the truth of your observation every time the Congress writes law the Constitution did not specifically grant them the power to enact. It is a fact that Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution only empower the legislators to write law regarding the specific powers granted them by the Constitution.
Reference: All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
We have all seen first hand that the legislators write unconstitutional law. They then dare the citizens to challenge the law in the Supreme Court. When the citizens accept the unconstitutional law without a challenge the law stands, and is enforced. So, the real truth of the matter is neither the Constitution nor the law, it is the people. There is an exchange that goes on between the people and those seeking elected office. The exchange is the peoples vote in exchange for favors from the peoples treasury.
This is not a new observation by any means.
Teddy Roosevelt on the Fall of the Republic
"The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the Republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing."
Are you suggesting that the USSR was a superior entity to the individual countries as now constituted?
A few problems. Governments do not have rights, they have powers. State or federal.
States attempted to retain the power to secede. The fact that the states who attempted were defeated in the war which ensued doesn't change the fact that they did indeed have the legitimate claim to do so according to the agreement with the other states.
Best logic I've seen yet...suck on that you Federalist pigs!
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