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To: WhiskeyPapa
There is nothing in the founding of the country or the writing of the Constitution that supports an interpretation of legal unilateral state secession.

To the contrary. It is an inherent consequence of the very foundation upon which the constitution and the nation itself is built. As Alexis de Tocqueville so eloquently put it:

"However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape from the consequences of a principle which it has once admitted as the foundation of its constitution. The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their sovereignty, 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, and the Federal government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right. In order to enable the Federal government easily to conquer the resistance that may be offered to it by any of its subjects, it would be necessary that one or more of them should be specially interested in the existence of the Union, as has frequently been the case in the history of confederations."

And that was 30 years before the war, Walt. Tocqueville was an extremely intelligent individual and I'm willing to bet that he didn't just make that up out of nowhere. To the contrary, he studied the nature of the American government and carried out its consequences to their ends. If a union is voluntarily created, those who created it may similarly leave. And if they express their clear will to do so in an indisputable demonstration of an attempt at self government, who is to stop them from doing so?

As Tocqueville continued, none of the others nor the nation itself had that right. But that does not mean that none would do so. Rather that possibility remained, and was anticipated to occur at the hands of those who had a vested interest in the continuation of the union itself. He also predicted that persons with this vested interest would rarely if ever admit to it publicly, and rather would conduct their campaign of opposition to disunion under the "borrowed name" of the union itself.

Now who does that sound like...

94 posted on 06/26/2002 12:27:09 AM PDT by GOPcapitalist
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To: GOPcapitalist
To the contrary. It is an inherent consequence of the very foundation upon which the constitution and the nation itself is built. As Alexis de Tocqueville so eloquently put it:

Not very compelling when compared to this:

"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily to our view, that which appears to the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each state in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution we present is the result of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible....

George Washington, President [of the Constitutional Convention] By Unanimous Order of the Convention", September 17, 1787

Washington is saying (by unanimous consent, now) that every delegate at the constitutional convention is for the consolidation of the Union.

All you provide is disinformation.

Walt

95 posted on 06/26/2002 3:31:18 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
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