Voting Rights Act of 1965

[03_SHOOTER]

Given the recent hearing before the Supreme Court concerning Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and after having reviewed it, if SCOTUS rules that Section 5, and for that matter the entire Act is to be continued in America, irrespective of the fact that it is a BLATANT violation of the 14th Amendment, then I respectfully recommend that ALL 16 of the States involved immediately SECEDE from the United States!

Section 2 of the 14th Amendment makes it perfectly clear that;
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

The ONLY remedy for being denied, or in any way abridged, the vote is that the number of those having been denied is to be reduced from the number counted toward representation in the House of Representatives, period, end of discussion. There is NO OTHER Constitutional remedy should a State deny anyone their 14th, 15th, 19th, or 26th Amendment Right to vote, and as such, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is un-constitutional ON IT'S FACE.

[03_SHOOTER]

OK, this didn't go very far, so let's try another approach;

Do you believe that States have a Right to secede from the Union should they reach the conclusion that the government has "a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states", or do you believe that once a State, always a State, regardless of what the federal government does.

[JohnP]

OK, this didn't go very far, so let's try another approach;

Do you believe that States have a Right to secede from the Union should they reach the conclusion that the government has "a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states", or do you believe that once a State, always a State, regardless of what the federal government does.

Yes….

Let’s take this one step at a time.

1. Do I believe a state has a right to secede form the union? The Tenth Amendment is similar to an earlier provision of the Articles of Confederation: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

This spells it out directly; yes, we have the right to secede for whatever reason. From time to time states and local governments have attempted to assert exemption from various federal regulations using the Tenth Amendment as a basis for their claim. An often-repeated quote, from United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 124 (1941), reads as follows:

The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers.

2. …should they reach the conclusion that the government has a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states… - There is no caveat for why; we have the right.

3. Do you believe that once a State, always a State, regardless of what the federal government does? We are states, but if the question is, should we be the whipping boy for the Federal Government or the lap dog of the same? Neither is acceptable. I would rather be a mongrel, fending for myself in a cold, cruel world, than a pampered show dog that’s trapped in the Master’s cage, fed what the Master wants and unable to make it’s own decision.

[HairyEyeball]

The Union was formed with and by the consent of the joint and several States, agreeing to cede a portion of their powers to such central government. Just as you may revoke any 'permission' given your children should they misbehave and abuse the 'freedoms' you have granted them, the individual sovereign States have not only the 'right', but the moral and legal responsibility, to revoke their consent and permission, indeed their membership, in a 'Union' that has abused its 'charter', violated every stricture imposed on it by the document authorizing its creation, and undermined its credibility beyond repair.

The 'solution', practical only insofar as the governments of the individual States had not become equally corrupt, would be a 'vote of no confidence' in the current central government, the removal of all officials elected and appointed, and the reinstatement of a Constitutional Republic. That being slightly less likely than the current occupant of the Oval Office holding a Rose Garden press conference to produce his foreign birth certificate and voluntarily resigning in custody of the FBI, the 'Tenth Amendment Resolutions' currently either in process or already approved by certain States should be enforced by refusal to forward any monies to the central government, active enforcement of State laws despite the usurpation of 'federal' law over the subject, and any and all such exercise of the powers of the joint and several States not clearly and specifically ceded to the central government.

'Secession' as such, given the alternative of 'withdrawal of support', may not be necessary - and having learned just a little bit from history - would give rise to greater 'problems' than currently obtain.

[03_SHOOTER]

I too believe, as did the FF's, that the States reserve their Right to secede from the Union when the government becomes intolerably oppressive.

If I may be so bold as to present an 1833 letter from James Madison to Daniel Webster concerning his address in Congress about the Nullification Crisis to help differentiate between secession for any reason whatsoever, and secession when the government becomes despotic.

15 Mar. 1833

I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy. Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the countenance recd from certain quarters, is giving it a popular currency here which may influence the approaching elections both for Congress & for the State Legislature. It has gained some advantage also, by mixing itself with the question whether the Constitution of the U.S. was formed by the people or by the States, now under a theoretic discussion by animated partizans.

It is fortunate when disputed theories, can be decided by undisputed facts. And here the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as imbodied into the several states, who were parties to it and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity. They might, by the same authority & by the same process have converted the Confederacy into a mere league or treaty; or continued it with enlarged or abridged powers; or have imbodied the people of their respective States into one people, nation or sovereignty; or as they did by a mixed form make them one people, nation, or sovereignty, for certain purposes, and not so for others.

The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution; it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States; the powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective & responsible Governments, under the controul of its Constituents, the people & legislatures of the States, and subject to the Revolutionary Rights of the people in extreme cases.

It might have been added, that whilst the Constitution, therefore, is admitted to be in force, its operation, in every respect must be precisely the same, whether its authority be derived from that of the people, in the one or the other of the modes, in question; the authority being equally Competent in both; and that, without an annulment of the Constitution itself its supremacy must be submitted to.

The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism.

It is abundantly clear that ALL of the FF's understood not only what the limited role of the government was to be, but that should the government abridge the Rights of the people, usurp their power, and comport themselves ultra vires, then it was without question the Right of the States to secede from the Union since such abrogations on the part of the government amount to nothing less than Breach of Contract.

[JohnP]

If I may be so bold as to present an 1833 letter from James Madison to Daniel Webster concerning his address in Congress about the Nullification Crisis to help differentiate between secession for any reason whatsoever, and secession when the government becomes despotic.

Now my Brothers and Sisters, may I be as bold and present you with Texas v. White:

Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869) was a significant case argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1869. The case involved a claim by the reconstruction government of Texas that United States bonds owned by Texas since 1850 had been illegally sold by the Confederate state legislature during the American Civil War. The state filed suit directly with the United States Supreme Court which under the United States Constitution retained original jurisdiction on cases in which a state was a party.
In accepting jurisdiction, the court ruled that Texas had remained a state ever since it first joined the Union, despite its joining the Confederate States of America and its being under military rule at the time of the decision in the case. In deciding the merits of the bond issue, the court further held that the Constitution did not permit states to secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were "absolutely null".

This short form of this suit was for Texas to redeem bonds that were illegally sold by the Revolutionary Government of Texas during the War of Northern Aggression. A total of twelve attorneys represented Texas and the various defendants in the case. Arguments before the Supreme Court were made over three days on February 5, 8, and 9, 1869.

For the entire reading and result:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0074_0700_ZO.html

The court's opinion was delivered by Chief Justice Salmon Chase on April 12, 1869. Chase wrote that the original Union of the colonies had been made in reaction to some very real problems faced by the colonists. The first result of these circumstances was the creation of the Articles of Confederation which created a perpetual union between these states. The Constitution, when it was implemented, only strengthened and perfected this perpetual relationship.

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?

"…without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States." Not only, therefore, can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy to the States through their union under the Constitution, but it may be not unreasonably said that the preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government. The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.
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.

For these reasons, Texas had never been outside the Union and any state actions taken to declare secession or implement the Ordinance of Secession are null and void.

The states are bound by the decision of the Supreme Court. Even if your States invoke Article 10, the States will never be out of the Union or Confederation of these United States of America!

[03_SHOOTER]

Playing "Devil's Advocate" I see. This should be FUN!!! :D

To address your last first, specifically that "The states are bound by the decision of the Supreme Court. Even if your States invoke Article 10, the States will never be out of the Union or Confederation of these United States of America!", if we are to accept stare decisis as holding precedent over the Constitution, then I respectfully submit that in accordance with Dred Scott v Sandford, Blacks are not people, nor citizens, and are due no protections under the law. If on the other hand we are to hold true to the Constitution over any "opinion" rendered by a Court, then we must hold to the clear meaning of the Constitution, and where questions arise, we must look to the FF's for clarification, and in that respect, the record is clear that the FF's believed that the "union" of the States was a voluntary one, and as such, subject to the concepts of contract law, and therefore free to dissolve their voluntary contract should the government breach that contract.

Furthermore, if we are to accept the ruling of the Court in Texas v White that the States do not have a Right to secede, even when faced with decades of abuses, usurpations, and abrogations, then the very concept of the State itself is null and void, which is a patently unconstitutional interpretation on it's face, since if the States no longer exist as sovereign bodies that form the United States, then the 4th Article of the Constitution no longer applies, certain aspects of the 2nd Amendment no longer apply, the 10th Amendment no longer applies, the 11th Amendment no longer applies, the 14th Amendment no longer applies, and in fact every aspect of States Rights, State independence, and even State Law no longer applies, and there is nothing but US law.

Oh, and it would be remiss of me if I failed to point out the fact that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had served as Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln, and all of those joining the majority opinion had been rabid abolitionists prior to the War, thereby imposing their own political beliefs into what was rightly a legal question, but there's nothing really new about that, now is there?

[Woody]

Considering how well seccesion turned out last time it was tried I doubt anyones got much stomach for it.The republicans failed to retain power or if your a conspricy theory follower let the democrats win as they could see what was coming and rather someone else took the blame :devil:.
Think its a bit soon to plan open revolt if your that upset you could always come back to your rightful rulers we are very forgiving:D.

[Billyd]

Think its a bit soon to plan open revolt if your that upset you could always come back to your rightful rulers we are very forgiving:D.

You tried that by force and got your red-coated hinies handed to you. :D

Some of us don't forget.

[JohnP]

Playing "Devil's Advocate" I see. This should be FUN!!! :D

Let the Devil be damned; let us grapple with these issues at hand! :lookaround:

To address your last first, specifically that "The states are bound by the decision of the Supreme Court. Even if your States invoke Article 10, the States will never be out of the Union or Confederation of these United States of America!", if we are to accept stare decisis as holding precedent over the Constitution, then I respectfully submit that in accordance with Dred Scott v Sandford, Blacks are not people, nor citizens, and are due no protections under the law. If on the other hand we are to hold true to the Constitution over any "opinion" rendered by a Court, then we must hold to the clear meaning of the Constitution, and where questions arise, we must look to the FF's for clarification, and in that respect, the record is clear that the FF's believed that the "union" of the States was a voluntary one, and as such, subject to the concepts of contract law, and therefore free to dissolve their voluntary contract should the government breach that contract.

I reject your reality and substitute my own -

Stare decisis is the policy of the court to stand by precedent; the term is but an abbreviation of stare decisis et quieta non movere — "to stand by and adhere to decisions and not disturb what is settled." The principle of stare decisis can be divided into two components. The first is the rule that a decision made by a higher court is binding precedent (also known as mandatory authority) which a lower court cannot overturn. The second is the principle that a court should not overturn its own precedents unless there is a strong reason to do so and should be guided by principles from lateral and lower courts.

Although Dred Scott was never overruled by the Supreme Court itself, in the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873 the Court stated that it had already been overruled in 1868 by the Fourteenth Amendment:

“The first observation we have to make on this clause is, that it puts at rest both the questions which we stated to have been the subject of differences of opinion. It declares that persons may be citizens of the United States without regard to their citizenship of a particular State, and it overturns the Dred Scott decision by making all persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction citizens of the United States.”

Since Scott v. Sanford is overruled by the 14th Amendment, this argument is void.


Furthermore, if we are to accept the ruling of the Court in Texas v White that the States do not have a Right to secede, even when faced with decades of abuses, usurpations, and abrogation, then the very concept of the State itself is null and void, which is a patently unconstitutional interpretation on it's face, since if the States no longer exist as sovereign bodies that form the United States, then the 4th Article of the Constitution no longer applies, certain aspects of the 2nd Amendment no longer apply, the 10th Amendment no longer applies, the 11th Amendment no longer applies, the 14th Amendment no longer applies, and in fact every aspect of States Rights, State independence, and even State Law no longer applies, and there is nothing but US law.

But My Brother the 14th Amendment Section 3 paragraph 2 states: The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting Territory of other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed to as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

14th Amendment Section 4 states: 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 can’t be convened) against domestic violence.

Have I missed a Supreme Court Ruling citing these freedoms are not in effect? Does the Congress not make Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory of other Property of the United States? Is not every state protected from invasion or domestic violence?

Oh, and it would be remiss of me if I failed to point out the fact that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had served as Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln, and all of those joining the majority opinion had been rabid abolitionists prior to the War, thereby imposing their own political beliefs into what was rightly a legal question, but there's nothing really new about that, now is there?

It is an unfortunate thing that one’s affiliations and beliefs before the fact will always reflect one’s dealings in later life. Is it not said in psychology, that your thought processes and beliefs are set before your teenage years are complete? These experiences will guide you in all your decisions in life unless they are affected by a Significant Emotional Event. The past, current and future Supreme Courts will always be filled by men and women of questionable Liberal and Conservative views; remember that Chase wasn’t the only Supreme Court Judge, he was the one tasked with writing the decision.

[03_SHOOTER]

I reject your reality and substitute my own -
Has Cinco de Mayo been expanded to emulate Mardi Gras, and are you still partying? :D

Stare decisis is the policy of the court to stand by precedent; the term is but an abbreviation of stare decisis et quieta non movere — "to stand by and adhere to decisions and not disturb what is settled." The principle of stare decisis can be divided into two components. The first is the rule that a decision made by a higher court is binding precedent (also known as mandatory authority) which a lower court cannot overturn. The second is the principle that a court should not overturn its own precedents unless there is a strong reason to do so and should be guided by principles from lateral and lower courts.
--------------------------------
Although Dred Scott was never overruled by the Supreme Court itself, in the Slaughter-House Cases of 1873 the Court stated that it had already been overruled in 1868 by the Fourteenth Amendment:
--------------------------------
Since Scott v. Sanford is overruled by the 14th Amendment, this argument is void.

Firstly, I would like to express my appreciation to the gentleman from Texas for his lengthy explanation of Stare Decisis for the members who may not have been familiar with it, and to apologize to him, and to the membership in general for not myself having made it clear. It would be remiss of me if I failed to acknowledge the fact that my esteemed colleague has pointed out that SCOTUS has never reversed their ruling in Dred Scott and as such, they apparently feel that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments somehow lack "the strong reason to do so", which is further evidence that the Court is much more interested in maintaining their own power through the use of Stare Decisis rather than abiding by their oaths to the Constitution.

I would also like to thank my distinguished colleague for agreeing with me that the Constitution, and not the intellectually bankrupt system of Stare Decisis is the law of the land, yet I fear that the distinguished gentleman from Texas has missed a rather important aspect of the Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873) that he cited, as the Court ruled that while Blacks, as US citizens are fully protected by the 14th Amendment, that it does not confer upon them STATE citizenship, and as we have previously agreed that it is the States, and not the Federal government that confer upon it's citizens the privilege of voting, the Federal government cannot interfere in the process through which citizens of a State are, or are not, allowed to vote unless the State is in violation of the 14th, 15th, 19th, or 26th Amendments, and if they are in violation, the 14th Amendment already clearly provides the only punitive actions allowed.

But My Brother the 14th Amendment Section 3 paragraph 2 states: The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting Territory of other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed to as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

I believe you meant Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2, not Amendment 14, but since you mention Article IV, in Section 3 Clause 1 also states that no State may be formed within the jurisdiction of any other State. Now, if we are to believe SCOTUS in their previous ruling in White, that none of the Confederate States ever left the Union, but had retained their Statehood during the War of Northern Aggression, then the admission of West Virginia into the Union in 1863 is a blatant violation of Article IV, and as such cannot be a State, and must revert to it's rightful place as part of Virginia. If on the other hand W. Virginia is to be retained as a State, the the ruling by SCOTUS in White is obviously flawed, since the only way that W. Virginia could have been accepted into the United States as a separate State would be if it were formed from territory that was not a State at the time it was formed.

14th Amendment Section 4 states: 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 can’t be convened) against domestic violence.

I fear you have once again confused Article 4 of the Constitution with the 14th Amendment. I realize that the "4's" are similar, and may be a bit confusing, but please do try harder in the future.

But since you mention it, Article IV of the Constitution does in fact acknowledge that each State is a Republic, which by definition means an independent body ruled by means other than a Monarch, and since the States are independent Republics, the citizens of these Republics are free to exercise their Right of Association, or not, and that includes the freedom to no longer associate with the United States.

Have I missed a Supreme Court Ruling citing these freedoms are not in effect? Does the Congress not make Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory of other Property of the United States? Is not every state protected from invasion or domestic violence?

My friend, the States are not "Territories", nor are they "Property" of the United States, but Republics as you previously pointed out, therefore your attempts at gathering specimens of Prunus avium are futile at best.

It is an unfortunate thing that one’s affiliations and beliefs before the fact will always reflect one’s dealings in later life. Is it not said in psychology, that your thought processes and beliefs are set before your teenage years are complete? These experiences will guide you in all your decisions in life unless they are affected by a Significant Emotional Event. The past, current and future Supreme Courts will always be filled by men and women of questionable Liberal and Conservative views; remember that Chase wasn’t the only Supreme Court Judge, he was the one tasked with writing the decision.

Chase may have been tasked with writing the decision, but it was a majority decision, made in concert with other abolitionist justices who were either incapable of, or simply refused to be intellectually honest enough to put aside their personal prejudices and abide by their Oaths to the Constitution.

[JohnP]

Originally Posted by JohnP
I reject your reality and substitute my own -

Has Cinco de Mayo been expanded to emulate Mardi Gras, and are you still partying?
I party on any day that ends with the letter Y. This would explain my reading the Roman numeral IV and confusing it with the Number 14. I drink there for I am.;)

Now back to the program. I am still attempting to play devils advocate. I have run into a brick wall. It is difficult to find a liberal view point concerning anti-secession. After searching all morning, I present you with this. It is based on an article by a Michael Dorf a professor at Cornell Law.

Talk of secession is not meant to be taken literally. Instead, those who raise the subject wish to underscore the degree to which cultural and political divisions track geographic ones. But the legality of secession nonetheless warrants serious consideration. Understanding why it is not a realistic option will help us understand the sense in which the United States is--for all its divisions--a Union.

It is settled law that the Constitution does not permit unilateral secession: A state or group of states cannot simply leave the Union over the objections of the national government. However, the arguments that led to this settled understanding are hardly unassailable, and the Constitution is probably best read as permitting the mutually agreed upon departure of one or more states.
Almost immediately upon entering the Union, with the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, states began threatening to secede. In 1790, the House of Representatives received a petition from a group of Pennsylvania abolitionists that included Benjamin Franklin. In response, members of the Georgia and South Carolina Congressional delegations intimated that if Congress attempted to manumit slaves, their states would leave the Union. Secessionist sentiment in the early American Republic was not confined to Southern defenders of slavery. In 1804, members of the declining Federalist Party in New England and New York plotted secession from a country ruled by the Republican Thomas Jefferson. And again in 1815, at the Hartford Convention, New England Federalists considered (though they ultimately rejected) secession as a means of promoting the sectional interests that they thought President James Madison's prosecution of the War of 1812 was harming.

The U.S. Constitution does not expressly recognize or deny a right of secession. Accordingly, the argument for a right of unilateral secession begins (and pretty much ends) with a claim about the very nature of the Constitution.
That document, by the terms of its Article VII, only obtained legal force through the ratification by nine states, and then only in the states so ratifying it. Because the Constitution derived its initial force from the voluntary act of consent by the sovereign states, secessionists argued, a state could voluntarily and unilaterally withdraw its consent from the Union.

In this view, the Constitution is a kind of multilateral treaty, which derives its legal effect from the consent of the sovereign parties to it. Just as sovereign nations can withdraw from a treaty, so too can the sovereign states withdraw from the Union.

The Constitution itself was established in blatant violation of the terms of the Articles--which required unanimous consent of the states for any amendment. Moreover, how do we know that the "perfection" of the Union required stronger rather than weaker bonds? To infer this point from the fact that, on the whole, the Constitution created a stronger national government than existed under the Articles is to acknowledge that the real work in this argument is not being done by the language of the Preamble.

In this view, it is significant that Article VII sets out the provision for original ratification, and that Article IV empowers Congress to admit new States, but that no provision of the Constitution authorizes a state to leave the Union. The juxtaposition of what the Constitution says about states entering the Union and what it does not say about them leaving, indicates that the door to the Union swings in but not out.
But this inference is only that, and there was considerable uncertainty about the legality of unilateral secession in the first seven decades following the Constitution's adoption. That uncertainty was put to rest not by the superior strength of the anti-secessionist argument, but by surrender of all Southern forces in 1865.

The military resolution of the secession question was then given legal force by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1868 case of Texas v. White. The Court ruled there that even Texas--an independent republic before it joined the Union in 1845--had no right to secede. "The Constitution," the Court said, "in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States." Texas v. White is settled law. It stands for the proposition that the Constitution prohibits unilateral secession. By implication, Texas v. White also prohibits expulsion of a state that wishes to remain part of the Union. What does Texas v. White have to say about secession by mutual agreement? There is reason to think that the Supreme Court's "indestructible" formulation in Texas v. White was hyperbole. After all, Article IV makes clear that the states are not indestructible. Congress can, with the approval of the state in question, shatter a state into fragments. That is how Massachusetts divided into what we now call Maine and Massachusetts and also how Virginia became present-day Virginia and West Virginia (although in the latter case, the original Virginia did not approve of the division because most of the state was, at the time, part of the Confederacy). And indeed, the Supreme Court in Texas v. White recognized that secession by mutual agreement stands on a different footing from unilateral secession. After finding against a state's right of unilateral secession, the Court acknowledged an exception for secession "through revolution, or through consent of the States."

[03_SHOOTER]

Thanks Bro!

It is a difficult thing to attempt to honestly argue the oppositions side of an issue, and you have done a Yeoman's job of it.

As to the article you cite, and the observations of Mr. (Dr.?) Dorf, the largest flaw with his argument, as well as that of SCOTUS in White, is that he, and they, based their argument on negative inference rather than positive reference to the Constitution. It is their contention that since the States are not specifically authorized by the Constitution to secede that they may not, but as we all (should) know, the Constitution is not now, nor was it ever a limitation on the Rights of the States or We The People, as evinced in the 9th and 10th Amendments, but a limitation of the powers of the federal government, which means that if a power is not specifically granted to the federal government by the States and by We The People, no such right exists. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution specifically enumerates all of the powers that We The People have granted to Congress to exercise over us, or on our behalf, while the only limitations on the States, as agreed upon in the text of the Constitution are contained in Article 1 Sections 9 and 10, Article 4, as well as the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments.

As it relates to the subject of secession, the fact that there is no specific Constitutional provision prohibiting the States from secession, then it is well within the Right of the States to secede is they so choose. In fact, the 10th Amendment make it perfectly clear that unless a power is specifically delegated to the United States in the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, then that Right is retained by the States. Furthermore, if the States had the Right to agree to join the Union in the first place, then they retain the Right to withdraw from it. Further evidence of this Right was specifically addressed by President Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address when he said "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." This sentiment was echoed again in 1816 in response to the New England secession discussion when he said "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in the union .... I have no hesitation in saying, 'Let us separate.'" . In deference to those who may say that "Jefferson wasn't a FF, since he wasn't a party to the Constitutional Convention, regardless of how specious such a claim may be, then let us consider the words of James Madison in his letter to Webster which I posted earlier, in which he made it clear that it was well within the Rights of a State to secede if they chose to do so.

As far as the claims of "settled law" on the subject of secession, this is nothing but legalistic sophistry as there is no such thing as "settled law". If there were, there would be no need for more than 1/10th the number of lawyers that we have, and debates over what the words "shall not be infringed" mean would have never made it past summary, much less to SCOTUS in Heller.

As it relates to Mr. (Dr.?) Dorf and his 'opinion', if, as was addressed in White, the exception for secession is in fact "through revolution, or through consent of the States", is that position not self contradictory? Which States must consent? How many States must consent? Where are the specifications within the Constitution telling us which and/or how many States must consent? Lacking such specification, and playing along with their silly legalistic sophistry for a moment, was it not through the consent of the various Southern States that they did in fact secede from the Union beginning in 1860 rather than opposing such secession as occurred in 1832 during the Nullification Crisis when S. Carolina first threatened to secede? And what of 'revolution' as mentioned in White? Is secession in and of itself not a "revolution"? Whether that revolution be peaceful or violent is of course a matter of choice for the seceding State(s) and the government from which they secede.

Given that we are all at least somewhat familiar with what happens when the latter happens, let us for a moment consider the former as a far better option. What possible disadvantage to the United States would occur should one or more of the States secede other than to be a very public acknowledgment of the failure of the government to abide by it's obligations, and limitations, under the Constitution? What possible public embarrassment can warrant the deaths of over 1 million Americans rather than simply allowing them to happily depart and retain the love and affections of a family that has simply grown too large to live under a single roof? Is it to be feared that by allowing States to secede that they would no longer wish to engage in commerce? That the citizens of the States would no longer wish to visit with their brothers and sisters? Such fears are laughable on their face. Can this 'revolution' of secession not be a tool, used by the States, not to destroy the country, but rather to compel a willful and overarching government to once again comport themselves in accordance with the very clearly enumerated powers assigned to them by the States in the Constitution, and once the government does agree to limit themselves to their limited powers, that the various States might not choose to rejoin the rest?

[JohnP]

Thanks Bro!

It is a difficult thing to attempt to honestly argue the oppositions side of an issue, and you have done a Yeoman's job of it.

1st and foremost, these rebuttal could not have been done without great reference material posted everywhere on the net except Wiki.:D Most importantly, I could not have done it without your guidance. You handed me the argumentative points (Dred Scott, TX v. White and Quo Warrento to name a few.). Your knowledge of these areas question whether or not Esquire should be at the end of your name also. Thanks.:salute:

This is not a rebuttal but additions to your thoughts.

My research shows it to be Mr. Dorf, Esq.

Once we acknowledge the ad hoc character of any mechanism by which Congress would approve secession petitions, we must confront a deeper conceptual problem: Congress only has the powers enumerated in the Constitution. Yet as we saw in our discussion of unilateral secession, despite granting Congress the power to admit new states, the Constitution says nothing about secession. And under the Tenth Amendment, silence in such matters means there is no federal power: Powers not enumerated "are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

How might the states respectively, or the people, act collectively to approve the secession of one or more states? The Constitution sets forth no mechanism to answer this question either, although the process of constitutional amendment would pretty clearly suffice.
Although the Constitution sets forth a number of mechanisms for its own amendment, the same procedure has consistently been used: Proposal of amendments by a two-thirds vote in each house of Congress, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures. This formula seems well designed to ensure that any secession petition has the backing of the nation as a whole.

Recent Canadian experience is instructive on this last point. In 1998, in the Reference re Secession of Quebec, the Supreme Court of Canada held that neither the Constitution of Canada, nor international law, gives Quebec a right to secede unilaterally. Nevertheless, the Court also said that if a secession referendum were to be adopted by the people of Quebec, the national government of Canada would incur a duty to enter into good-faith negotiations toward a secession agreement that would then be adopted by constitutional amendment.

But the notion that secession by mutual agreement in the United States requires a constitutional amendment itself creates conceptual difficulty. A plain reading of the U.S. Constitution makes clear that of course secession can be approved by amendment: The text of Article V purports to make only two provisions of the rest of the Constitution unamendable, and the absence of authority to approve secession is not one of these unamendable features. So if the Supreme Court in Texas v. White thought that secession could only be approved by constitutional amendment, why did the Justices distinguish between unilateral secession and secession by mutual agreement?

In so doing, the Court must have meant to imply that under the existing Constitution, there is some mechanism for secession by mutual agreement. A constitutional amendment, once adopted, could authorize unilateral secession as well secession by mutual agreement. It only made sense for the White Court to distinguish between unilateral secession and secession by mutual agreement on the assumption that the Constitution we have already permits the latter--albeit through a wholly unspecified mechanism.

With respect to the possibility of secession by mutual agreement, we are left in much the same position that Americans in the first seven decades of the Union occupied with respect to unilateral secession: We must struggle to interpret the sounds of the Constitution's silence.

That conclusion in turn suggests that no court will likely answer the question--except perhaps in the way that the Supreme Court in Texas v. White gave its retroactive approval to the verdict of the Civil War battlefield. :flag:

[03_SHOOTER]

Firstly, allow me to humbly thank you for your kind words and I hope you, and the rest of the membership will allow me a bit of literary license.

The thing that our federal government has forgotten over the past 80 years is the fact that it is the creation of the States. It is the States who formed the federal government, and without the States there is no federal government. In essence, the States are the parents of the federal government and it is our child, and our child has become extremely willful, psychotic, and abusive, and it's long past time that we spanked that child and sent it to it's room until such time as it can remember it's place, and comport itself applicable to it's role, or perform a "late term abortion" on it, in it's 880th trimester.

It is obvious that the Justices in White, as well as Mr. Dorf Esq., and many of his ilk have forgotten the fact that on July 4, 1776 we issued our Writ of Secession to King George III in our Declaration of Independence, so any claims that we must have the governments, or anyone else's "permission" to secede are specious and completely intellectually disingenuous! We did not seek his permission to secede from England, we did not seek the permission of any of the other Colonies outside of America. He had consistently refused to acknowledge our petitions for redress of grievance, and we finally decided, on our own, that we had had E-FRICKIN'_NUFF, and we just did it! At that time, we the Colonies were the children of a very abusive parent in Great Britain, and we gave our notice that we intended to "move out". Our parent fought us, but eventually acquiesced to our desire, and with a single exception nearly 200 years ago, when they deemed it time for us to "come home again", we have been on good terms with our "parent", we in our home, they in theirs, and in fact we have on several occasions willfully leapt to assist our "parent" in their hour of need, as any good child would.

When we formed our new home, and realizing how large it really was, we realized that it would be necessary to form a corporation, with a board of directors, to look after some of the essential day to day operations of our estate, so we constituted a very clearly defined set of areas that the corporation would care for, but we would retain ultimate authority over all other areas as owner and CEO of the corporation. Over the history of our corporation, it has grown into the most successful in the history of the world, engaging in trade with other businesses all around the world, to the point where any member of the corporation, from the janitor to the board members essentially had total control over their own emoluments, based on their own "American work ethic". Unfortunately, in the past 220 years, we have been rather remiss in some of our duties as owner and CEO of our corporation in that we were so concerned with doing our own job that we forgot to keep an eye on our board of directors, and we have recently begun to realize that the members of that board, while allegedly acting on our behalf, have conspired to engage in a hostile takeover of the corporation, with the intent of shuffling us off to the side where we will no longer even be a figurehead, but demoted to janitor, sweeping and mopping the floors and taking out the trash in the very corporation that we built, and worse yet, that the board intends to directly set the wages of everyone in the corporation at what they decide you are "worth"!

The board has hired and trained the lawyers who have written the new bylaws of the corporation, regardless of the fact that they directly contradict the original articles of incorporation, mostly in the dead of night and out of sight of our scrutiny, and the board has seen to it that these lawyers have been elected or appointed to the bench in every jurisdiction that could hear the case should we attempt to sue them, so the deck is most assuredly stacked against us, but we have the one thing on our side that they do not, that being the original articles of incorporation, signed by the members of the board, which clearly define what the board may, and may not do, and we must hold them to the letter, and intent of those articles if we are to once again regain control of our own futures.

[03_SHOOTER]

To Dr. John Manners
Monticello, June 12, 1817.

...My opinion of the right of Expatriation has been, so long ago as the year 1776, consigned to record in the act of the Virginia code, drawn by myself, recognizing the right expressly, and prescribing the mode of exercising it. The evidence of this natural right, like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of kings. If he has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, he has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode; and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which Nature has traced, for each individual, the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness. It certainly does not exist in his mind. Where, then, is it? I believe, too, I might safely affirm, that there is not another nation, civilized or savage, which has ever denied this natural right. I doubt if there is another which refuses its exercise. I know it is allowed in some of the most respectable countries of continental Europe, nor have I ever heard of one in which is was not. how it is among our savage neighbors, who have no law but hat of Nature, we all know.

...Thomas Jefferson


Also, who can but notice the utter hypocrisy of A. Lincoln in the final words of his Gettysburg Address when he fallaciously claimed a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", when he himself, by his unconstitutional war against the CSA, was abridging the Southerners rights to have their OWN government, of THEIR people, by THEIR people, and for THEIR people!