Author Topic: The battle of Charlottesville: A continuing discussion thread about the War between the States  (Read 70731 times)

0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline Cyber Liberty

  • Coffee! Donuts! Kittens!
  • Administrator
  • ******
  • Posts: 79,784
  • Gender: Male
  • 🌵🌵🌵
IMO, whether the Constitution says anything about secession is not really the point.

If any state wants to try they can.

The whole point of secession is to stop worrying about and obeying the laws of the country you want to leave.

I think one of the primary rules of war applies:  "The enemy gets a vote."
For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. Sloe Joe Biteme 12/16
I will NOT comply.
 
Castillo del Cyber Autonomous Zone ~~~~~>                          :dontfeed:

Online bigheadfred

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,434
  • Gender: Male
  • One day Closer
I think one of the primary rules of war applies:  "The enemy gets a vote."

What I said before. If you have to ask if you can--the "price", you can't afford it.
She asked me name my foe then. I said the need within some men to fight and kill their brothers without thought of Love or God. Ken Hensley

Offline Hoodat

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 35,623
You are the one trying to interpret what the amendment says to your favor drawing a conclusion that is not implied. 

The conclusion is drawn from the wording of Amendment X which explicitly addresses rights not listed or prohibited.


All American laws are purportedly derived from an interpretation of the constitution.

Uh, no.  All American laws are derived from the will of the people expressed through their local, state, and federal legislatures.  The Constitution places limits on what those laws can entail, but they are not derived from it.

(See:  Laws against murder, theft, extortion, etc.)


I've already listed one of the rights as the right to rebel against an unjust government.

But only if you get to be the one to decide what is unjust, eh?

Let's take another look at that Constitution, shall we?


Article IV, Sec 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.


In the decade leading up to the War of Secession, Northern abolitionists were carrying out raids in Southern States, kidnapping slaves and taking them back North.  Ohio was particularly egregious in this endeavor.  According to the Constitution above, the Federal Government had an obligation to protect Virginia and Kentucky against Ohio invaders.  Yet the Federal government did nothing to stop it.  Thus, the Federal government was in default of its contractual obligations under Article IV.


But we are also a nation of laws designed and enforced by men. 
To say because the constitution doesn't specifically forbid state secession, virtually anything not mentioned in the constitution should be allowed?

Conversely, anything not specifically allowed should thus be prohibited?

If you are still confused, then I refer you to Amendment X.  Here it is again:


The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.


Does the Constitution delegate power to the federal government to cause war against any State that secedes?
Does the Constitution delegate power to the federal government to prohibit a State from seceding?
Does the Constitution prohibit a State from seceding?
Does the Constitution prohibit the citizens of a State from choosing a new course for their State - one that is independent of the course the US is going - and to permanently dissolve itself from the current one?


You know there are all types of human behavior that we have passed laws about that are nowhere mentioned in the constitution. I don't believe I have to list some of the vile behaviors of the sexual sort that some people engage in that have been outlawed but not specifically mentioned in the U.S.constitution.

See:  Amendment X.


But wouldn't you think that something that would be as momentous and fraught with ramifications and repercussions like a state being  allowed to legally leave the union would have been enunciated in the constitution?

You would think something that momentous, if the Federal government were allowed to prohibit it, even going to war against any State doing so, that it would have been enunciated in the Constitution?

Oh wait, here is something right here:


The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.


What part of "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states" do you not get?


Again, if states were presumed to be sovereign entities loosely held together by a weak fed. gov.  why did the FFs give the fed. gov. laws dominance over individual state laws.

It doesn't.  States have laws against murder.   The federal government does not.  Which has dominance?

See also Amendment I.  There is no prohibition against a State inhibiting free speech.  So when someone gets arrested for shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater, you can thank the dominance of State law for it.


Why did they make a union rather than keep with a confederation?

Better yet, why did they allow States to secede from that original Confederation?


Because they considered states subordinate entitles to the fed. gov.

Yeah, right.  That's why they allow States to elect the President, and they give States equal representation in Congress.  Not only that, they give States equal footing with the People in that no law can be enacted without a majority of the States going along with it.  Of course Amendment XVII trashed all that, but it was not in effect at the time.


They rejected the idea of a very weak fed. goverment with the understanding that the fed. gov's role was to be as limited as possible.  That doesn't mean in the slightest that they considered states sovereign entities or separate nations.

Again, straw man.  This isn't about Virginia exercising sovereignty over the United States.  This is about Virginia opting out of those United States.


But once again we're ignoring the big question:  why did the states secede?

In Virginia's case, the Ordinance of Secession can be found here:  http://blueandgraytrail.com/event/Virginia_Ordinance_of_Secession


The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitition were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:


They seceded because they feared their institution of slavery was going to be destroyed. 

So what?  Their reason has absolutely positively NOTHING to do with their right to secede.  New England almost seceded because of the War of 1812.  Did their reason matter?
If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.

-Dwight Eisenhower-


"The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals ... it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government ... it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government."

-Ayn Rand-

Offline IsailedawayfromFR

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18,746
You are the one trying to interpret what the amendment says to your favor drawing a conclusion that is not implied. 
All American laws are purportedly derived from an interpretation of the constitution.  That's why we have  a SC that deliberates on laws passed by men. 
Sure, we all have natural rights that cannot be taken away by the government.
I've already listed one of the rights as the right to rebel against an unjust government. But we are also a nation of laws designed and enforced by men. 
To say because the constitution doesn't specifically forbid state secession, virtually anything not mentioned in the constitution should be allowed?
You know there are all types of human behavior that we have passed laws about that are nowhere mentioned in the constitution. I don't believe I have to list some of the vile behaviors of the sexual sort that some people engage in that have been outlawed but not specifically mentioned in the U.S.constitution.
But wouldn't you think that something that would be as momentous and fraught with ramifications and repercussions like a state being  allowed to legally leave the union would have been enunciated in the constitution?
Again, if states were presumed to be sovereign entities loosely held together by a weak fed. gov.  why did the FFs give the fed. gov. laws dominance over individual state laws.
Why did they make a union rather than keep with a confederation? Because they considered states subordinate entitles to the fed. gov.
They rejected the idea of a very weak fed. goverment with the understanding that the fed. gov's role was to be as limited as possible.  That doesn't mean in the slightest that they considered states sovereign entities or separate nations.
But once again we're ignoring the big question:  why did the states secede?
They didn't secede because they thought the fed. gov. was too big or because the North was economically raping the South with tariffs.  They seceded because they feared their institution of slavery was going to be destroyed.  And they were right to think so. Except instead of it happening in 20-40 years, it happened in four years.
I really did not think that a history deficiency could actually worsen.  In your case, it does.

This country is founded not on the idea of a constitution that permits citizens to have rights, but in a constitution that limits the abrogation of rights of citizens by a government.

It is as simple as that.

Any other interpretation is not correct.
No punishment, in my opinion, is too great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin~  George Washington