You think the north east has more of a distrust of the federal govt than the south or the west? Maine was a Republican state back when that meant a strong Federal govt vs the Democrats who favored state rights. Nixon’s “southern strategy” changed all that of course.
The rural NE does use Town Meetings rather than city councils and such.
Says whom? Not every bit of law in our country comes from a statute or the constitution; there is a fair sized body of common law that we apply daily. The Articles of Confederation contained absolutely no authority for creating a new constitution and putting it into place, so by your assertion, the Constitution of 1787 is illegal and should be ignored (an argument that was raised against it in 1787, so it is not a trivial concept, but it was overcome by more sensible argument that simply because it doesn’t say you can doesn’t mean you can’t). You may be conflating the concept of limited federal powers with the idea of what a state can or can’t do. When you say “In our system of government” and apply it to the secession question, you are inherently arguing the point from the perspective of the winners.
Point to me the provision of the Constitution of 1787, as amended prior to the Civil War, that provided the federal government with “direct authority over its citizens” in some fashion that created a relationship that was different than the relationship between the states and their citizens? You won’t find one. Indeed, until the existence of the Fourteenth Amendment, the only references to the fact that you can be a citizen of “the United States” come from eligibilty for service in Congress. To assert that because the federal government can legislate with regard to people who live within its borders, those people cannot have their “relationship” with that government severed by the action of the state in which they are citizens is to assert that there exists something not found in the Constitution at the time. As I understand it, you consider that idea anathema.
The fact that the federal government of the United States ceded land to allow the formation of a state, then admitted that state into the union, does not *ipso facto * preclude the notion that the state can secede sua sponte. If, in fact, secession without permission is allowed by the Constitution, then inherent in the creation of the state would be a notion that the state doesn’t have to continue being a member of the compact. In such case, the federal government is free to keep the property in question as a territory, rather than allowing the formation of a state.
Do not mistake me: I am convinced our country is better off for the fact that the secession issue was settled in favor of precluding states from seceding without permission. We are stronger for that fact as a country, and as a union of states. But there simply is nothing inherent in the Constitution that requires this conclusion, and the people who were advocating a right of secession weren’t just ninnies talking out their arses. Their arguments were grounded in solid interpretative guidelines, had considerable backing among various jurists of the time, and came close to being proven valid in the only way they could be, by succeeding through recognition by the country from which they had seceded. To argue that they were a priori wrong requires accepting as true things for which there is no true foundation in the Constitution as it existed.
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It’s “Says who?”. (Subject-verb inversion doesn’t change subject-verb relation.)
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I think that this is a position that’s fatal to any nation that consists of more than Virginia. Suppose Virginians don’t like the way the Confederacy is doing things?
It’s just the impression I got, from my sister and some other things. I certainly could be wrong.
They become West Virginia. 
The common law has to be interpreted and applied by the courts. If everyone can run around willy-nilly applying their own interpretations, then you don’t have a common law system, do you?
Well, the structure of the AofC make them analagous to a common treaty pact, which can be dissolved at the consensus of its members. It would have been better to have an explicit provision for dissolution, but it’s not analagous to the current constitution at all.
I’m applying it from a plain reading of the Constitution combined with the court’s interpretation of it. I’m applying it from the perspective of the US as it was functioning just prior to secession.
If a government can make laws and compel citizens to follow those laws, then it has direct authority over those citizens. Clearly, the federal government has this authority and had it prior to the 14th Amendment.
Again, you are the one reading non-existent provisions into the Constitution. If there is no provision to sever the direct relationship, then you have to make up one in order to do it.
It ipso facto precludes the notion that certain states were reclaiming their sovereignity. It ipso fact precludes any CSA claims to the New Mexico Territories.
Again, barring a court ruling, individuals don’t get to just make up provisions and insert them into the Constitution. If they could, then you’ve essentially rendered the Constitution a meaningless document.
They had their day in court to make the arguments and the lost. If I lose a lawsuit, does that give me a right to secede as well?
Liberal, I was thinking about your natural rights argument, and I can’t quite figure out what natural right you are arguing for. Do you think that people always have a natural right to secede for any reason, or is it that people have a natural right to secede under certain circumstances? If it’s the latter, can you explain what circumstances existed with gave rise to this natural right?
Lee’s older sister, Anne Lee Marshall, who largely raised him (their father fled the country and their mother was an invalid) was a devout Unionist who lived with her husband, a Federal judge, in Baltimore. Her son and sons-in-law were Union officers who literally were on the field against their uncle during some battles. He adored his sister but they never saw each other again, though he did write her during the war expressing his regret and was said to have become very despondent over her death (of natural causes) in the last year of the war.
He had numerous cousins and a couple of half-siblings and their families who were also Union. Regardless of which side he chose, he would be fighting against relatives. I’ve wondered before had he chosen to fight for the Union, would his sons have fought for the Union or would they still (as heirs to a considerable estate from their grandfather) have favored the south.
Trivia about divided siblings: Stonewall Jackson and his sister, Laura, owned property together (inherited from uncles) and even before the war had a strained relationship due to her avid abolitionism and pro Unionism. During the War she defied not only her Confederate icon brother but her husband in siding with the Union and volunteering her house in northern VA as a Union field hospital; during a visit to her brother’s home [which she owned an interest in] she communicated with her brother [home on leave] only through notes carried by her children. After the war she divorced her Confederate husband, which along with her politics made her a scandalous figure for the time and place.
I’d like to hear a Canadian (Quebecois or otherwise) respond to these as a matter of curiosity.
Scott County from Mississippi, Winston County from Alabama, and of course West Virginia from Virginia all sided with the Union during the war, as did large chunks of Tennessee. It’s a tough call as to whether this is treasonous or patriotic. (Scott County was renamed Jeff Davis County after the war as a punitive act and remains so today.)
The issue of whether secession was legally justified is exactly why Jefferson Davis was never tried for treason. He had numerous northern lawyers begging to take his case, and an assortment of characters as odd strange and curious as Pope Pius IX, Horace Greeley and “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt (whose favorite child died in the Union army) were among those who petitioned for his release on the grounds that he acted within his rights. Oscar Wilde (a house guest of Davis for a few days in the 1880s [which would make an interesting play or novella]) regarded him positively as similar to Irish separatists.
Ok, but I was asking about a natural rights argument, which is distinct from a legal argument. I’ve already made my legal arguments in this thread, and if you want to dispute them, you have to respond to them directly. Just because people were willing to make a legal argument, that doesn’t mean that the legal argument is valid. Furthermore, Johnson issued a widespread pardon for the people in rebellion (although I don’t know if it applied to Davis). That’s a political decision which is the President’s right, but that doesn’t mean that the actions people were pardoned for was legal.
I don’t see how people can claim a natural right to deny other people their natural rights, and surely slavery is a denial of natural rights.
A person has a natural right to give or withhold his consent to be governed. It is “natural” because, as a part of nature, he is born with his own unique mind that he, and no one else, owns. Nature (or God, depending on your perspective) gives you a body and a mind. The former entitles you to a natural right to live, and the latter entitles you to a natural right to liberty. Now, there are certain circumstances in which you cede your rights — as when you abridge the rights of others. The short of it is that no one has a right to enslave people, and that applies whether the conscriptor is Massuh Smith or Uncle Sam. Whenever you usurp the consent of a peaceful honest man, you are enslaving him, whether you put him to work in a cotton field or send him to fight in Iraq. Or, for that matter, seize a portion of his wages for the sake of your own perpetuity. Those are my opinions, anyway.
You are seriously claiming that a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, taken AFTER they lost the war, is a meaningful statement of what was legally valid BEFORE they attempted secession? Get real.
Your entire argument boils down to two things:
It didn’t say they can secede, so they couldn’t. I’ve pointed out that this is nonsense, and offered the very valid example of the Articles of Confederation, which were not any more explicit, and which had no mechanism for self-immolation. Your attempt at differentiation is a distinction of no importance. There is nothing inherent about the current constitution that makes it any more imperatively permanent.
Because the Federal Government had power over the people of the United States, the States couldn’t sever the relationship. While it is true that the states cannot sever the relationship between the people who are directly ruled by the federal government outside of the boundaries of any state (think the District of Columbia, or the territories), the people within the states are part of the union solely because the states have agreed to be part of the union. Thus, if the state no longer is part of the union, then the people are no longer citizens of the country. The power comes from the existence of the state in the union, not from the people directly. The people did not create the union, the states did.
As I’ve stated: while you have a valid argument, it is not the only valid argument. It is a legal position that was established as valid only through the result of the Civil War. Had Her Majesty’s government of Great Britain given formal recognition to the CSA, the whole result would have been quite different. To dismiss the concept that secession had ANY possible validity is simply to close your eyes and hold your hands over you ears and say loudly, “I’m not listening to you.” Which, frankly, is much of what you’ve been doing in this thread. 
There’s also the “original intent” argument. James Madison, who wrote the Constitution (and was a Viriginian), explicitly rejected the idea that there was any right to secede implied in the document.
Or the contractual issue which argues that the Constitution is a contract between the national government and the states and neither party can unilaterally withdraw from it. A state cannot secede without the consent of the national government and the national government cannot evict a state without its consent.
I may be misreading here. I think I’ve been respectful of your arguments, and your tone seems to be dismissive of mine. But, I’ll ignore that and assume that you’re seriously attempting to counter my arguments.
So, under our constitution, if people wanted to secede, then the proper course of action would have been to secede and wait for the court battles to resolve themselves. The proper course of action is not to seceded and then start firing on Federal institutions.
Now, you’re not playing fair. I’ve stated why I think there is a distinction–it’s a structural distinction. You are simply dismissing it as of no importance, without explaining why it is a distinction of no importance. As far as I’m aware, the AofC had little-to-no direct authority over people of various states, which is not the case under the current constitution. If tomorrow, everybody decided to dissolve the UN or NATO, that would be a much different proposition then if everyone decided to dissolve the US.
Fine, the states created the union. I think we have a different view of the Constitution, and we may be arguing past each other. I view the Constitution as a document governing the relationship between 3 parties–the Feds, the states, and the people.
By unilaterally seceding, the states deprived the people of their relationshp with the Federal government. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that a group of people can deprive other people of their rights under a governing document? At the very least, the people of the various states had the right to elect representatives to the US Congress, and by seceding, the states were attempting to deprive the people of their right. How can a state unilaterally decide to deprive a citizen of the US of his rights under the US constitution?
As for your argument that a citizen only has his rights because the state decided to join the US, this is true for people who were alive at the time of joining. But for someone born afterwards, they (theoretically) didn’t participate in the decision to join. They were born citizens of two different entities–the state and the US. Why should a state be able to sever his relationship with the US?
This is an extra-constitutional argument, and my position has been that under the US Constitution. secession was illegal. Yes, of course, if you win a war and people recognize you, you can do what you want. But I’m discussing what was valid under the Constitution as it was interpreted at that time.
Whatever. I have listened and responded to every argument. If you’re going to claim that my arguments are “I’m not listening to you” instead of actually responding to my arguments, I see no purpose in discussing this with you.
DSYoungEsq, let’s just simplify this. Do you view the US Constitution prior to the enactment of the 14th Amendment as governing the relationship between 3 parties (the US, the states, and the people), or governing the relationship between two parties (the US and the States). If you view it as the latter, then I think this is an incorrect position from plain reading on the US Constitution combined with court decisions leading up to 1861. If you view it as the former, we can continue this discussion, but if you view it as the latter, I’m not sure what else there is to discuss, since you’ve read the same Constitution as I have, and you’ve read the same court cases that I have, and you’ve come to a different conclusion. Nothing you’ve posted in this thread, though, makes me think that this is a viable conclusion.