Well, the point is that it would be a constitutional duty to act to prevent a state from leaving the Union, as the Constitution is currently defined. Even if congress as a whole didn’t want to stick their neck out that much, all it takes is one person to point out that it’s a constitutional duty, and all of a sudden they have their excuse. Besides, I think congress is stronger than you give them credit for.
Did I really say “the state legislature knows are…?” Whoops. That was a horrible typo. I was probably combining two different phrasings there to give the idea that they’re smarter then that. I wasn’t necessarily speaking of IQ, though. Even if the Louisiana legislature (no insult intended to Louisianans, but I have a great deal of contempt for their legislature… passing a state law defining the value of pi is rediculous) wanted to leave, the legislature would just have to remember they’d be drawn and quartered by the citizenry once the rebellion was subdued. That alone would keep them from thinking about it.
I’m uncertain how the math works for states to get more money back than they give. Some states may get more, but then others must get less. I do agree, however, that it would take an unusual set of circumstances for a state to think it was better off on it’s own. And certainly no interior state, such as Kansas, could make it work.
I think the bigger and more relavent issue is how to split up states (eg, California) or merge them (do we really need 2 Dakotas?), or have a part of one state join another.
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1: …no new State 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 first Republican president abolished States’ rights.
Ironic, ain’t it?
Well, not entirely.
The Democratic (party) Congress put nails into the coffin by making the Federal Government the tax collector for the States and then blackmailing them into passing laws to get a piece of the revenue pie e.g. highway funds and the 55mph and motorcycle helmet laws.
I don’t think they could beat the shit out of us. I brought some of this up on the CA succession thread, and it boils down to this. If the governor and the will of the people in Texas truly wanted to do it, I think they could. A likely scenario would be an economic war. The federal government would cut out federal dollars going into the state. Which would be fine for Texas, they were in turn going to stop paying hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal government each year, anyway. So what next? Military action? What would the military do to citizens that refused to pay federal taxes to the government? The president wouldn’t be stupid enough (G.W. aside) to threaten nuclear weapons against Texas because Texas has those weapons too. Texas could seize it’s own bases which also gave it control of its share of nuclear weapons. So how would they beat the shit out of us? After a few years of Texas not paying federal taxes, maybe the union would again manipulate the law to where the Supreme Court said:"lookee here, the Constitution does allow for succession after all. "
Since the Constitution does not explicitly provide for the United States government to designate an official root vegetable, Article of Amendment X governs, and enables the state governments to make such designation for their respective states.
(A variation on what I said in Persephone’s thread: In Great Debates, we can make anything a Constitutional issue! )
John, you’re missing a couple of points. One: whether or not the President is from Texas (as is the current case), his constitutional duty, which would be enforced in Congress by a majority of the other 49 states, is to put down a rebellion against the United States. Second, the military bases in Texas, including those nuclear weapons, are well staffed by persons in the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force, each of whom has taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against enemies foreign and domestic. In a few cases, they might lose battles against a determined state militia – but they won’t just roll over and let Texas take over what they’ve been ordered to defend. (Ever hear of Fort Sumter? Take a good look at why the Civil War broke out at that particular place and time in the first place.)
Well, in all honesty, I was being somewhat loose with my wording when I said the states recieved more money than they were granted. What I meant is that the state government recieves far more money from the federal government than the state governent gives. People are citizens of the United States and pay federal income tax directly to the federal government, so I count that money as never being part of the state’s money. Therefore, as the federal government doles out money for various services, it’s giving money to the states. However, if you were to take the amount of money paid out by the state governments and the people OF a state, then it would indeed be a (near) zero-sum game.
On the other hand, this really is a case were the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Instead of each coastal and border state having to do it’s own customs inspections, the federal government has a larger system that certainly costs less than several customs agencies of several states (no efficiency jokes, please). The same way, with the states bordered together, our military only protects the outermost borders of the states from external threats. Again, far more cost efficient than each state manning its own defenses. A state that wanted to leave the union would have to form its own militia, its own customs agencies, its own highway maintaining system (Assuming they annexed the federal highways)… and then put together a whole new economic infrastructure. It just couldn’t work.
My own opinion on “States Rights.” In this day and age, states don’t matter as much. The federal government runs everything. I veiw a state as an administrative district which is far easier to run than the whole country all at once. Who here has never moved out of their state (or perhaps geographic region)? Even if you haven’t, do you feel some overwhelming loyalty towards your state instead of the United States government? Why? I happen to view myself as a citizen of the United States and my only concern between whether to live in Boston or live in Atlanta would be over the weather (I’d prefer Boston weather) and the regional culture (again, I’d prefer Boston). How “loyal” I was to Georgia or Mass. wouldn’t be an issue.
Polycarp, I put G.W. aside in parenthesis as a joke, not to make it a point that he was from Texas. I was questioning his competence with when to decide to use nuclear weapons. Yeah, and I know what GW and Congress would like to do, and it’s his god given constitutional right and all of that other stuff about how those they join the military take a oath to defend the constitution against its enemies including domestic. Easier said than done when its your own people you‘ll be fighting. Or used to be your own people if they succeeded. Maybe Texas has another legal interpretation with whom their land belongs to and what they can do. I’m not too concerned with how each party manipulates the law to their benefit right now. For now, suppose Texas hasn’t seized any bases, but they have made their intent known that they would like to succeed. The governor and its people agreed to not pay their federal taxes. To give the Union a run for their money, they secretively over the years have developed their own military complete with an arsenal of nuclear weapons they financed through their state dollars. Now just how bad does the union still want Texas to not succeed?
I do see your point – and you hit on the moral question that Robert E. Lee had to solve back in 1861. He was an officer, a high ranking one, in the U.S. Army. He’d sworn an oath to stand by the Union. But he was also a Virginian, and his state had seceded. And his final decision was that being a Virginian outweighed being an American, that his loyalty was to his state. I think even the most rabid Unionists respected his integrity in making that decision, and I think his moral probity is universally recognized today.
But I also think that, even in places with a lot of regional loyalty, the focus for most people, the point where they place their loyalty and patriotism, is in the U.S.A. People around here fly the state flag a lot; we’re proud to be Tarheels. But never without the U.S. flag alongside, and “God Bless the U.S.A.” and similar songs are heard far more often than “The Old North State” (in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody sing the latter!).
You also have to remember that the political and social environment does change over decades. During the Civil War, the US was still expanding on the continent and the north and south were arguing over any number of things. Regional divides were a lot sharper. Then came the turn of the century and whom I think was one of the best Presidents in US History… Teddy Roosevelt. He started projecting US influence globally (expansion ito the pacific, the Great White Fleet), and all of a sudden Americans were a global power. Part of the reason the Russo-Japanese war ended was because TR stepped in and said “Hi. See those battleships? Yeah, those brand new modern battleships that put both your navies to shame? They’re mine. By the way, your little fight is irritating me. Get the picture?” In other words, the US started having more to do outside of its borders.
World War I and World War II knocked the last isolationist policies out of the government and put us firmly on a global setting. When you’re fighting the Nazis (WWII), all of a sudden the North and South don’t matter quite so much anymore. Same thing with the “godless commies.” Today’s generations have been raised under the shadow of World War II and the cold war. There are far more people that have an attitude of “The US vs. Others” rather than “The north vs. the south” or “east vs. west,” or anything along those lines.
In other words, to sum up a slightly long-winded dissertation, people today don’t have the same mentality as Lee did. I doubt you’d find a single high ranking officer that would have greater loyalty to his (or her) state than the federal government. That’s just the attitude nowadays – and a far better one, I think. That said, I personally think Lee was a traitor and should have been executed. I can sympathize with him, really I can… and I understand why he made his choice. But one has to live with the consequences of choice.
When a state joins the Union it enters a bilateral contract with the Union and the contract cannot be broken unilaterally by the State. As simple as that. I guess, if both sides wanted, they could institute a “trial” statehood where both sides could have the option of terminating the agreement unilaterally after a certain period of time.
It is unfortunately that so many people now view the Federal Gov’t the way you do-- states don’t matter, we’re all under the jursidiction of the Feds. Most issues that people deal with in their everyday lives are best solved on the local level. I like the idea that different states can experiment with different solutions. We have forgotten that this country is called the United States of America (emphasis on STATES).
Like it or not, though, we’re operating in a global environment. Globally, the United States is the entitiy which other nations deal with. France doesn’t come to a treaty with Virginia and China doesn’t make a private deal with Texas. They negotiate with the United States federal government. If I travel in Europe, I identify myself as a citizen of the United States. I don’t mention that I live in Virginia unless someone asks me. To me, Virginia isn’t as important as the nation I’m from.
This isn’t to say I’m against states existing. I do not advocate the redistricting of the country into federal districts or combining or seperating states. I’m in favor of local government and state judiciary systems and state police forces and state parks. I do wish there was a national drivers license, but that’s another issue.
Within the country itself, I also play up differences between the states for fun. I’ll cheerfully accuse West Virginians of being backwood hicks and insulting Louisianans. Texans are especially bad <grin>. But that’s all good natured and within the US itself – outside the US, I’ll defend another citizen vehemently. My point is that the US has to be united to the rest of the world, and that means we don’t have serious - state - conflicts within our own borders. Internal conflict is why many a country has fallen.
I think that part of the strength of the United States is having state governments that tangle with each other and try different systems. As you say, it is the United States of America. I disagree with where the emphasis goes, however. I think it falls on “United” and “States” equally. I know that I said I didn’t think states mattered as much, but I didn’t mean that they didn’t matter in general – only that they didn’t matter in terms of loyalties and obligations.
Really, in all honesty, can you say there’s a single state in the US that would be better off independent? In the 48 lower continental, I don’t think a single state would be better off on its own. Alaska – there’s hardly any population for the territory. It couldn’t suppot itself as an independent country – only a wilderness. Hawaii is really the only one you can make a case for. But why would it be better off as not a state? It would turn into a backwater used for shipping and aircraft stopover, and vacationing. There are plenty of backwaters like that already (backwater not used as a derogative term).
I brought some of this up on the CA succession thread, and it boils down to this. If the governor and the will of the people in Texas truly wanted to do it, I think they could. A likely scenario would be an economic war. The federal government would cut out federal dollars going into the state. Which would be fine for Texas, they were in turn going to stop paying hundreds of billions of dollars to the federal government each year, anyway. So what next? Military action? What would the military do to citizens that refused to pay federal taxes to the government? The president wouldn’t be stupid enough (G.W. aside) to threaten nuclear weapons against Texas because Texas has those weapons too. Texas could seize it’s own bases which also gave it control of its share of nuclear weapons. So how would they beat the shit out of us? After a few years of Texas not paying federal taxes, maybe the union would again manipulate the law to where the Supreme Court said:"lookee here, the Constitution does allow for succession after all. "