It’s Constitutional

[Flanders]

The Secession Movement is not getting much coverage in the MSM, but it is alive and well. I’ve read a bunch of articles about secession written by knowledgeable people. Most say there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents secession. In addition to informative background Professor Walter E. Williams sums it up nicely:

What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

Secession: It's constitutional
Walter E. Williams offers evidence from 18th and 19th century U.S. history
Published: 9 hours ago
by WALTER WILLIAMS

Secession: It’s constitutional

Here’s an entertaining, and informative video to top off the topic:

Secession: American as apple pie

 

[PratchettFan]

The Secession Movement is not getting much coverage in the MSM, but it is alive and well. I’ve read a bunch of articles about secession written by knowledgeable people. Most say there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents secession. In addition to informative background Professor Walter E. Williams sums it up nicely:

What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

Secession: It's constitutional
Walter E. Williams offers evidence from 18th and 19th century U.S. history
Published: 9 hours ago
by WALTER WILLIAMS

Secession: It’s constitutional

Here’s an entertaining, and informative video to top off the topic:

Secession: American as apple pie

Secession has been discussed in numerous situations, not just the present. But not a single state is looking at it as even a vague possibility. You talk about hundreds of thousands in a nation of hundreds of millions. Even if that number rises to a million, you are still dealing with 0.33%.

In 1860 there was a distinct difference in the make up of the states. That does not exist now. Georgia, for example, is definitely a red state. But do you think Atlanta, the largest city in the state, is red? How do you seperate Atlanta from Georgia, Des Moine from Iowa, Orange County from California?

The reason no one is paying this "movement" any attention is because it is not even a movement. It is just a bunch of folks on the internet with no cohesion and no concept of any goal.

 

[Flanders]

To PratchettFan: Go to PAGE 13 #496 permalink in this thread

as-secession-petition-on-white-house-website-fast-approaching-25-000-signatures-13.html

Incidentally, that post was originally in the General Discussion forum before someone decided it was a conspiracy theory. If I remember correctly, five or six hundred people viewed my thread titled ——The Start of Something Big —— before it was buried in another thread.

 

[konradv]

If I remember correctly, five or six hundred people viewed my thread titled ——The Start of Something Big —— before it was buried in another thread. [/B]

Lots of people stare at automobile accidents and train wrecks, too.

 

[PratchettFan]

To PratchettFan: Go to PAGE 13 #496 permalink in this thread

as-secession-petition-on-white-house-website-fast-approaching-25-000-signatures-13.html

Incidentally, that post was originally in the General Discussion forum before someone decided it was a conspiracy theory. If I remember correctly, five or six hundred people viewed my thread titled ——The Start of Something Big —— before it was buried in another thread.

I'm familiar with this. It's a WH website where people can post a petition. If enough people do this, the WH will consider responding to it. That is not a movement.

For a state to secede, you require the state government to actually start the process. Not just point to a miniscule percentage of the population who happen to put their name on an on-line petition. When a state, any state, starts doing that maybe you have a point. At this time, all you have is the latest fad for the fringe.

 

[Grandma]

I have to wonder how that fringe will react when they're told "No."

 

[editec]

IN 1861 REAL secessionists proved that they don't CARE what the constitution says about secession.

 

[PratchettFan]

I have to wonder how that fringe will react when they're told "No."

The way they always react.

 

[PratchettFan]

IN 1861 REAL secessionists proved that they don't CARE what the constitution says about secession.

How did that work out for them?

 

[Sallow]

The Secession Movement is not getting much coverage in the MSM, but it is alive and well. I’ve read a bunch of articles about secession written by knowledgeable people. Most say there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents secession. In addition to informative background Professor Walter E. Williams sums it up nicely:

What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

Secession: It's constitutional
Walter E. Williams offers evidence from 18th and 19th century U.S. history
Published: 9 hours ago
by WALTER WILLIAMS

Secession: It’s constitutional

Here’s an entertaining, and informative video to top off the topic:

Secession: American as apple pie

Secession is not Constitutional.

Section 8. - The powers of Congress.

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

Section 9.

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

Section 10.

No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.

No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

Section 3.

New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.

Section 4.

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

There is one..and only one route to secession..and that's by an act that passes through congress and is signed by the President.

 

[Flanders]

I have to wonder how that fringe will react when they're told "No."

To Grandma: Better you should wonder how government butchers will react should a state(s) secede. Here’s an example from the piece by Professor Williams:

The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives. Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech: “It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense.” Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives “to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth.” Mencken says: “It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves.”

IN 1861 REAL secessionists proved that they don't CARE what the constitution says about secession.

To editec: Had you read the article I linked in the OP you would have seen this:

Since Barack Obama’s re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitioners for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it.

XXXXX​

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: “A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”

On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, “No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States.”

Several months earlier, Reps. Daniel E. Sickles of New York, Thomas B. Florence of Pennsylvania and Otis S. Ferry of Connecticut proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. Here’s my no-brainer question: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional?

Perhaps Professor Williams and countless others are mistaken! You can straighten them out by posting that part of the Constitution you are referring to? Don’t bother repeating Sallow’s argument in #10 permalink. The Constitution does not govern FORMER states.

IN 1861 REAL secessionists proved that they don't CARE what the constitution says about secession.

How did that work out for them?

To PratchettFan: It will work out better this time because secessionists will be fighting for individual liberties and against totalitarian government. In short: There are no issues like slavery clouding secession. Should the federal government resort to brute force AGAIN the vast majority will become secessionists.

And in case you have not noticed, the federal government in 1861 at least fought to free a group of people; whereas, today the federal government wants to enslave everyone.

 

[L.K.Eder]

stupid flanders

 

[Mad Scientist]

Secession IS Constitutional because the Gov't is created by the States, not the other way around.

When you enter into a Contract and the the other Party has not honored it's part of the deal, you have every right to Sue to have the agreement enforced or have the deal declared Null and Void.

This Secessionist movement is not to start a new country, it's to re-establish Constitutional Law.

Now I know you Race Baiters out there will say "You just want Black people to be Slaves again". Wrong.

The 13th Amendment is part of the Constitution.

 

[pinqy]

Odd how Williams (and others here) are claiming Secession is Constitutional but completely fail to mention Texas v White (1868) where the Supreme Court ruled it was not, and do not address any of the arguments raised in it.

It is needless to discuss, at length, the question whether the right of a State to withdraw from the Union for any cause, regarded by herself as sufficient, is consistent with the Constitution of the United States.

The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form, and character, and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these the Union was solemnly declared to 'be perpetual.' And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?
...
When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States.

Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union. If this were otherwise, the State must have become foreign, and her citizens foreigners. The war must have ceased to be a war for the suppression of rebellion, and must have become a war for conquest and subjugation.

To recap...the Colonies joined in a PERPETUAL UNION in the Articles of Confederation. While the Laws governing that Union were changed with the Constitution, the Union was NOT dissolved and reformed, it was the same Union. And the Constitution states as its aim to make that Union "MORE PERFECT," and makes no provisions for leaving.

So unless someone can explain how making a perpetual union more perfect means making it no longer perpetual, there's no Constitutional argument for Secession as there is no provision for it.

 

[Flanders]

Mad Scientist;6418697

Secession IS Constitutional because the Gov't is created by the States, not the other way around.

When you enter into a Contract and the the other Party has not honored it's part of the deal, you have every right to Sue to have the agreement enforced or have the deal declared Null and Void.

This Secessionist movement is not to start a new country, it's to re-establish Constitutional Law.

To Mad Scientist: Exactly so.

Mad Scientist;6418697

Now I know you Race Baiters out there will say "You just want Black people to be Slaves again". Wrong.

To Mad Scientist: Biden already said it!

Mad Scientist;6418697

The 13th Amendment is part of the Constitution.

To Mad Scientist: You might enjoy this thread:

http://www.usmessageboard.com/history/263517-lincoln-was-a-woman.html

pinqy;6418774

Odd how Williams (and others here) are claiming Secession is Constitutional but completely fail to mention Texas v White (1868) where the Supreme Court ruled it was not, and do not address any of the arguments raised in it.

To pingy: The Supreme Court is the government. How did you expect it to rule? That is the same Supreme Court that just increased the size of the parasite class by untold millions?

I can’t cite the case, but I’m pretty sure the Supreme Court also ruled against violent revolution in order to protect itself.

pinqy;6418774

. . . there's no Constitutional argument for Secession as there is no provision for it.

To pingy: The Constitution limits the government not the people. In short: There is no provision allowing the government to stop secession. As Professor Williams said in the OP:

What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The Secession Movement is not getting much coverage in the MSM, but it is alive and well. I’ve read a bunch of articles about secession written by knowledgeable people. Most say there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents secession. In addition to informative background Professor Walter E. Williams sums it up nicely:

What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

Secession: It's constitutional
Walter E. Williams offers evidence from 18th and 19th century U.S. history
Published: 9 hours ago
by WALTER WILLIAMS

Secession: It’s constitutional

Here’s an entertaining, and informative video to top off the topic:

Secession: American as apple pie

It is ONLY Constitutional if the Congress allows the State to leave. That was the decision by the Supreme Court.

 

[Flanders]

It is ONLY Constitutional if the Congress allows the State to leave. That was the decision by the Supreme Court.

To RetiredGySgt: Does the phrase “Catch-22" apply here?

Catch-22 also catch-22 (noun)
plural Catch-22's or Catch-22s also catch-22's or catch-22s

1.a. A situation in which a desired outcome or solution is impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules or conditions: “In the Catch-22 of a closed repertoire, only music that is already familiar is thought to deserve familiarity” (Joseph McLennan). b. The rules or conditions that create such a situation.

2. A situation or predicament characterized by absurdity or senselessness.

3. A contradictory or self-defeating course of action: “The Catch-22 of his administration was that every grandiose improvement scheme began with community dismemberment” (Village Voice).

4. A tricky or disadvantageous condition; a catch: “Of course, there is a Catch-22 with Form 4868— you are supposed to include a check if you owe any additional tax, otherwise you face some penalties” (New York).

Happily, there might be a solution here:

Senator Charles Schumer has recently proposed a new law to tax Americans heavily for leaving the United States. It was in reaction to the news that Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, had renounced his American Citizenship and was taking his $2 billion dollars in capital gains with him.

Schumer proposed to tax him 30%. Sadly John Boehner, Republican, Speaker of the House (I still think he’s a disguised Democrat), said he would support the measure.

Schumer must thank Adolph Hitler for this idea. The Fuehrer instituted the Reichsfluchsteuer tax of 25% on Jews leaving the Fatherland in the 1930s. So Herr Schumer has merely taken the basic idea and upped it by 5%.

Those Fleeing Obama’s America: Prepare to be taxed
David Rushton
Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Those Fleeing Obama’s America: Prepare to be taxed

I know for sure there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents an individual from seceding. Nevertheless, the government does not want individuals seceding although it is allowed for a price. States buying out could be the solution. It would be expensive, but not so costly as a second Civil War.

 

[pinqy]

To pingy: The Supreme Court is the government. How did you expect it to rule?

You and mad scientist talk about "the government" as if it were separate from the States and the People. It is not. Congress are representatives of the States, selected by the people of those States. The President is elected by Electors chosen by the People. The Supreme Court is appointed by the President (elected by the People) and confirmed by the Senate (represantatives of the States).

But I do note how you side-stepped actually addressing any of the issues or arguments.

I can’t cite the case, but I’m pretty sure the Supreme Court also ruled against violent revolution in order to protect itself.

I'm sorry, are you claiming that violent revolution should be allowed and those attacked should not defend themselves? And the Constitution explicitly grants Congress the ability to supress insurrection.

pinqy;6418774

. . . there's no Constitutional argument for Secession as there is no provision for it.

To pingy: The Constitution limits the government not the people. In short: There is no provision allowing the government to stop secession. As Professor Williams said in the OP:

What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

[/quote]
The government IS the people....the elected representatives thereof. Or are you unaware of how a Republic works?

Leaving the Union is not mentioned at all in the Constitution. GIVEN that the Union of States was established as PERPETUAL, how on Earth can it be assumed or inferred that it is not actually perpetual and states are free to come and go as they wish? Impliciit in ANY government is the right to defend itself, and as I stated earlier, the Constitution gives Congress the explicit ability to surpress insurrection, specifically forbids States from engaing in War on their own entering into alliances with other states and defines Treason as levvying war against the United States.

 

[Moonglow]

I have to wonder how that fringe will react when they're told "No."

To Grandma: Better you should wonder how government butchers will react should a state(s) secede. Here’s an example from the piece by Professor Williams:

The War of 1861 settled the issue of secession through brute force that cost 600,000 American lives. Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech: “It is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense.” Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives “to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth.” Mencken says: “It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves.”

To editec: Had you read the article I linked in the OP you would have seen this:



Perhaps Professor Williams and countless others are mistaken! You can straighten them out by posting that part of the Constitution you are referring to? Don’t bother repeating Sallow’s argument in #10 permalink. The Constitution does not govern FORMER states.

IN 1861 REAL secessionists proved that they don't CARE what the constitution says about secession.

How did that work out for them?

To PratchettFan: It will work out better this time because secessionists will be fighting for individual liberties and against totalitarian government. In short: There are no issues like slavery clouding secession. Should the federal government resort to brute force AGAIN the vast majority will become secessionists.

And in case you have not noticed, the federal government in 1861 at least fought to free a group of people; whereas, today the federal government wants to enslave everyone.

That brute force you keep interjecting occurred because the Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter, therfore committing an act of war.If you don't want brute force used then don't start a war.

 

[Montrovant]

Secession IS Constitutional because the Gov't is created by the States, not the other way around.

When you enter into a Contract and the the other Party has not honored it's part of the deal, you have every right to Sue to have the agreement enforced or have the deal declared Null and Void.

This Secessionist movement is not to start a new country, it's to re-establish Constitutional Law.

Now I know you Race Baiters out there will say "You just want Black people to be Slaves again". Wrong.

The 13th Amendment is part of the Constitution.

Are you saying that the secessionist movement does not plan or want to succeed, that it is instead just trying to make a point, or to shed light on something?

Or are you saying that a state might somehow separate itself from the US federal government, yet remain a part of the United States?