Sucession is a Legal Right of each State

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I don't think it makes it right either, but White has never been challenged since. If Texas or Vermont does start secession proceedings, we probably will see a vastly different tone as to just how far the USSC can exert its blind power (legitimately).

That said, I still have to turn to the primary purpose of the Constitution itself, which was to create the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I don't think the framers thought that some states would threaten secession simply because they didn't like the political landscape of the day.

“The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several states of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the right but in the heart. If the day should come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bands of political associations will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests or kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited states to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint.” – John Quincy Adams

“The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Mississippi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Mississippi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better.” – Thomas Jefferson

Well...it's hard to know exactly what was on their minds at the time. I still say neither Adams nor Jefferson would enjoy seeing another American Revolution, not against a foreign power, but among its own people.

Perhaps. I think it's clear from those quotes they would have preferred peaceful secession, but remember that Thomas Jefferson was a big supporter of revolutions.

"Every generation needs a new revolution."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

 

[Charles Stucker]

Perhaps. I think it's clear from those quotes they would have preferred peaceful secession, but remember that Thomas Jefferson was a big supporter of revolutions.

"Every generation needs a new revolution."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

I too would prefer to have a peaceful revolution, perhaps with Texas paying the price of seceding to return the balance of power between state and federal government to where it ought to be. Texas is one of the better choices for a state to go its own way; ample natural and human resources, air rail and road infrastructure relatively developed, and both ocean access through the Gulf and a border with the neutral country Mexico.
Secession, even without US opposition is a daunting task, yet without some state standing up to federal abuses the situation cannot change.

 

[BasicGreatGuy]

It doesn't matter. Because of the blanket authority given to the Supreme Court, the Constitution is what the judges say it is. (We've argued this point before.)

"We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final."
~~ Justice Robert H. Jackson

So, it is ok with you if the SCOTUS creates new law out of thin air? We should just shut our face and know our place?

The inherent power of the USSC has been debated for decades, nay, a couple of centuries by lawers and scholars. It would take a Constitutional Amendment to redefine its blanket power. And then, if such an amendment were adopted, it wouldn't be long before someone challenged it and...brought the case before the USSC to decide. Catch-22.

You didn't answer my question.

 

[geauxtohell]

Nonsense. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the states agreed to that as they joined.

Of particular note - except for Texas and the original thirteen colonies, every state was given only two choices - remain a US Territory with all the obligations and none of the rights, or become a state and at least have a few (although regularly diminishing) rights.

Texas lost that right when they were graciously allowed to re-enter the union after entering into treason.

 

[beowolfe]

All secession will get you is civil war. Is that what you pro-sucession people want?

 

[MaggieMae]

“The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several states of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the right but in the heart. If the day should come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bands of political associations will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests or kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited states to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint.” – John Quincy Adams

“The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Mississippi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Mississippi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better.” – Thomas Jefferson

Well...it's hard to know exactly what was on their minds at the time. I still say neither Adams nor Jefferson would enjoy seeing another American Revolution, not against a foreign power, but among its own people.

Perhaps. I think it's clear from those quotes they would have preferred peaceful secession, but remember that Thomas Jefferson was a big supporter of revolutions.

"Every generation needs a new revolution."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

I started to search for historians' take on Jefferson's oft-quoted take on revolutions, and in my travels, I found this, which explains it perfectly. As usual, the right takes words out of context or select quotations to fit their agenda--in this case, trying to prove that if Jefferson approved of new revolutions, then it must be okay for today's Americans to take up arms against the sitting government. Wrong wrong wrong. That was never his intent.


Would the Founding Father recognize – Revolution, Civil disobedience, Battles, Armed and Dangerous – as the political discourse prevalent in our nation 220 years after the Constution was approved ? Hardly.

Thomas Jefferson would not appreciate having his words mangled and taken out of context. Jefferson never said or wrote 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,'; Jefferson did write to Abigail Adams in 1787 (Note : Jefferson was in France during 1787) “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

So a number of thoughts.

First, it was written before the US Constitution was approved, and the Congress or President elected. America was still in its development.

Second, he clearly stated that “resistance” is based on “certain occasions” … in other words, a limited application. A “little rebellion” which is a vast difference from a “revolution” to overthrow the government. Today, peace protest marches have replaced armed rebellions.

Third, Jefferson eventually saw that the elective form of government was working and in 1806 wrote “In a country whose constitution is derived from the will of the people directly expressed by their free suffrages, where the principal executive functionaries and those of the legislature are renewed by them at short periods, where under the character of jurors they exercise in person the greatest portion of the judiciary powers, where the laws are consequently so formed and administered as to bear with equal weight and favor on all, restraining no man in the pursuits of honest industry and securing to every one the property which that acquires, it would not be supposed that any safeguards could be needed against insurrection or enterprise on the public peace or authority.”

In other words, voters should use the ballot box for protest … not insurrection.

Minnesota Central: What would Thomas Jefferson think of Bachmann and Coburn comments ?

 

[MaggieMae]

So, it is ok with you if the SCOTUS creates new law out of thin air? We should just shut our face and know our place?

The inherent power of the USSC has been debated for decades, nay, a couple of centuries by lawers and scholars. It would take a Constitutional Amendment to redefine its blanket power. And then, if such an amendment were adopted, it wouldn't be long before someone challenged it and...brought the case before the USSC to decide. Catch-22.

You didn't answer my question.

No. But it is what it is and therefore, your question is moot.

 

[BasicGreatGuy]

Well...it's hard to know exactly what was on their minds at the time. I still say neither Adams nor Jefferson would enjoy seeing another American Revolution, not against a foreign power, but among its own people.

Perhaps. I think it's clear from those quotes they would have preferred peaceful secession, but remember that Thomas Jefferson was a big supporter of revolutions.

"Every generation needs a new revolution."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

I started to search for historians' take on Jefferson's oft-quoted take on revolutions, and in my travels, I found this, which explains it perfectly. As usual, the right takes words out of context or select quotations to fit their agenda--in this case, trying to prove that if Jefferson approved of new revolutions, then it must be okay for today's Americans to take up arms against the sitting government. Wrong wrong wrong. That was never his intent.


Would the Founding Father recognize – Revolution, Civil disobedience, Battles, Armed and Dangerous – as the political discourse prevalent in our nation 220 years after the Constution was approved ? Hardly.

Thomas Jefferson would not appreciate having his words mangled and taken out of context. Jefferson never said or wrote 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,'; Jefferson did write to Abigail Adams in 1787 (Note : Jefferson was in France during 1787) “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

So a number of thoughts.

First, it was written before the US Constitution was approved, and the Congress or President elected. America was still in its development.

Second, he clearly stated that “resistance” is based on “certain occasions” … in other words, a limited application. A “little rebellion” which is a vast difference from a “revolution” to overthrow the government. Today, peace protest marches have replaced armed rebellions.

Third, Jefferson eventually saw that the elective form of government was working and in 1806 wrote “In a country whose constitution is derived from the will of the people directly expressed by their free suffrages, where the principal executive functionaries and those of the legislature are renewed by them at short periods, where under the character of jurors they exercise in person the greatest portion of the judiciary powers, where the laws are consequently so formed and administered as to bear with equal weight and favor on all, restraining no man in the pursuits of honest industry and securing to every one the property which that acquires, it would not be supposed that any safeguards could be needed against insurrection or enterprise on the public peace or authority.”

In other words, voters should use the ballot box for protest … not insurrection.

Minnesota Central: What would Thomas Jefferson think of Bachmann and Coburn comments ?

Maggie,
If you call what you did research, you need to do much better. Linking to a personal blog about Jefferson and the subject of revolution, is not research.

The blog article you linked to, is incorrect. The writer gave you bad information. If you had taken the time to do your own research, you would have found that out. Instead, you found something that fit your position and posted it.

Thomas Jefferson did make the following quote.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Thomas Jefferson wrote the letter in 1787 to William Stephens.

"I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: and very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a Chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: and what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion.[1] The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusets: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen yard in order. I hope in god this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted." - Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787"

The question I asked is not moot. You brought the issue up. Now you don't want to answer. How convenient for you. Ignore the tough questions that expose the flawed position, while cutting and pasting things you haven't researched, so you can make a partisan jab statement.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Jefferson, in my opinion, would have sided with the South, as would have Madison and several other of the Founding Fathers. Almost every anti-federalist would have had real conniption fits with AL when he called out the state militias to put down the insurrection. However, the South's stupidity in firing on Old Glory at Fort Sumter guaranteed that the northern Democrats when join their political enemies to put down the enemies of unionism. AL murdered the Old South and states' rights, and rightfully so.

 

[goldcatt]

So, it is ok with you if the SCOTUS creates new law out of thin air? We should just shut our face and know our place?

The inherent power of the USSC has been debated for decades, nay, a couple of centuries by lawers and scholars. It would take a Constitutional Amendment to redefine its blanket power. And then, if such an amendment were adopted, it wouldn't be long before someone challenged it and...brought the case before the USSC to decide. Catch-22.

Maggie, you can't challenge a Constitutional amendment as unconstitutional. Once it's adopted, it's as much a part of the Constitution and everything that flows from it as the original Articles. That's why it's called "Amendment", it's just a change that becomes part of the framework.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Yes, and the Constitution does not forbid them from seceding if they believe being in the Union is against their best interests. The federal government has to follow the Constitution too.

A state could not secede without violating Constitutional and federal law which states are prohibited from doing by the Supremacy clause.

The Supremacy Clause does not say that states can't secede. It simply says that the federal government is supreme to the states in certain defined areas, and secession is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.

Secession would be a de facto violation of dozens maybe hundreds of federal laws. The Constitution doesn't have to say you can't secede because it already says the states can't violate or ignore or supersede federal laws.

 

[NYcarbineer]

[Yet the Supreme Court's decision was obviously not based on the Constitution, as I and others have shown in this thread.

When you get on the Supreme Court, then you get to make that opinion relevant.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Yet the Supreme Court's decision was obviously not based on the Constitution, as I and others have shown in this thread.

It doesn't matter. Because of the blanket authority given to the Supreme Court, the Constitution is what the judges say it is. (We've argued this point before.)

"We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final."
~~ Justice Robert H. Jackson

So, it is ok with you if the SCOTUS creates new law out of thin air? We should just shut our face and know our place?

You get to amend the Constitution if there's enough of you, lol.

 

[NYcarbineer]

It doesn't matter. Because of the blanket authority given to the Supreme Court, the Constitution is what the judges say it is. (We've argued this point before.)

So you would not be upset if the Supreme Court ruled that you have no Bill of Rights? That you have no right to property, liberty, or anything else? That you are in fact now a chattel slave to the Federal Government?
Reductio ad Absurdum

No, that is simply a preposterous strawman.

 

[BasicGreatGuy]

It doesn't matter. Because of the blanket authority given to the Supreme Court, the Constitution is what the judges say it is. (We've argued this point before.)

"We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final."
~~ Justice Robert H. Jackson

So, it is ok with you if the SCOTUS creates new law out of thin air? We should just shut our face and know our place?

You get to amend the Constitution if there's enough of you, lol.

I didn't say anything about amending the Constitution. You have any other brilliant posts to make? And like Maggie, you didn't answer the question.

 

[goldcatt]

A state could not secede without violating Constitutional and federal law which states are prohibited from doing by the Supremacy clause.

The Supremacy Clause does not say that states can't secede. It simply says that the federal government is supreme to the states in certain defined areas, and secession is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.

Secession would be a de facto violation of dozens maybe hundreds of federal laws. The Constitution doesn't have to say you can't secede because it already says the states can't violate or ignore or supersede federal laws.

What does that matter, if the State is removing itself from the law and jurisdiction of the Federal system? How can it break US law when it is no longer part of the US?
Yes, I know, might makes right and the breakaway State would be forced back into the fold. But which side would be violating the law?

 

[Freedomlover]

No, Rabbi. That phrase does not cut it. States voted themselves into the Union, their interest in becoming a state was approved by Congress, not so for the original 13. It seems logical that if a state votes itself in it can vote itself out. But don't look to the Constitution for supporting or opposing language. Instead, look to the Declaration of Independence, our original founding document, where it states that the people have the right to "alter or abolish" any governement that becomes tyrannical. The reasons for such a move should be listed in order for all to understand why such a move is being made. The Constitution is not a suicide pact whereby the people give up their unalienable rights in order for a tyrannical government to bring them to bondage. If it comes down to a fifty state Union, or freedom, I would choose freedom every time!

 

[Charles Stucker]

It doesn't matter. Because of the blanket authority given to the Supreme Court, the Constitution is what the judges say it is. (We've argued this point before.)

So you would not be upset if the Supreme Court ruled that you have no Bill of Rights? That you have no right to property, liberty, or anything else? That you are in fact now a chattel slave to the Federal Government?
Reductio ad Absurdum

No, that is simply a preposterous strawman.

It is reductio - MM stated a premise - that the constitution is what the supreme court decides. I merely took that statement to a ridiculous extreme with the SC ruling the said MM was now a chattel slave. That is a classic use of of the technique.
A straw man promotes a deliberately weak argument in favor of a hypothesis in order to "disprove" the hypothesis by disproving the weak argument.

You might find it useful to learn the terms.

 

[NYcarbineer]

So you would not be upset if the Supreme Court ruled that you have no Bill of Rights? That you have no right to property, liberty, or anything else? That you are in fact now a chattel slave to the Federal Government?
Reductio ad Absurdum

No, that is simply a preposterous strawman.

It is reductio - MM stated a premise - that the constitution is what the supreme court decides. I merely took that statement to a ridiculous extreme with the SC ruling the said MM was now a chattel slave. That is a classic use of of the technique.
A straw man promotes a deliberately weak argument in favor of a hypothesis in order to "disprove" the hypothesis by disproving the weak argument.

You might find it useful to learn the terms.

You might find it instructive to learn that whether you call what you did Reductio ad Absurdum or a Strawman, it was a fallacy nonetheless.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The Supremacy Clause does not say that states can't secede. It simply says that the federal government is supreme to the states in certain defined areas, and secession is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution.

Secession would be a de facto violation of dozens maybe hundreds of federal laws. The Constitution doesn't have to say you can't secede because it already says the states can't violate or ignore or supersede federal laws.

What does that matter, if the State is removing itself from the law and jurisdiction of the Federal system? How can it break US law when it is no longer part of the US?
Yes, I know, might makes right and the breakaway State would be forced back into the fold. But which side would be violating the law?

A State cannot arbitrarily and unilaterally exempt itself from Federal law any more than you as an individual can.

Can counties secede from a State? Can townships secede from counties? Can you and your 2 acres of property secede from your township?