The Dissolution of the USA

Factual Questions
21

i’ve been short on time so here is just a little bit more on the subject.

U.S. Supreme Court. Chisholm, Ex’r. v. Georgia, 2 Dall. 419, 1 L.Ed. 440 (1794).
“A State does not owe its origin to the Government of the United States, in the highest or in any of its branches. It was in existence before it. It derives its authority from the same pure and sacred source as itself: The voluntary and deliberate choice of the people… A State is altogether exempt from the jurisdiction of the Courts of the United States, or from any other exterior authority, unless in the special instances where the general Government has power derived from the Constitution itself.” p. 448.

“A federal government is distinguished from a national government, by its being the government of a community of independent and sovereign states, united by compact.” Piqua Branch Bank v. Knoup, 6 Ohio St. 393."

Even Jefferson thought of the states as nations. When introducing negotiations with indians, he instructed emissaries to describe Jefferson as the Great Chief of the 17 nations.

–
About Rhode Island: admitted late May, 1790, after the Federal government started working and after Washington took office.
It is ludicrous to say that Rhode Island was required to Join the second United states because it had agreed to the first. When the Federal government started to go into effect (when enough states signed on) Rhode island was not and could not have been compelled to join against its will --(not legally anyway). Rhode Island was supposed to attend the congress for the FIRST United states government, so, it would not be odd if rhode island attended congress before it was admitted (afterall, it WAS forever in the “united states”-- a term defined in the Articles). But the Federal govenment did not, for that short amount of time before it joined, have the authority to compel taxes or anything else from Rhode Island that the federal government had the authority to do but the Articles didn’t.
oh yes.
In fact, Rhode island was not apart of the new Federal Government and its citizens were not allowed to vote in the presidential election!
cliffy wrote:
>>“Indeed, your statement about Rhode Islands proves too much – the state[rhode island] was bound by the Constitution when that document went into effect despite the fact that the state had not yet ratified it.”<< oh cliffy… :smiley:
Yes!, the case of Rhode Island does prove too much–it proves that cliffy is everso wrong. :smiley: it was not bound and was not apart of that government.
[[I want to make two points clear: one about what part of the articles are still in force and the other about there being two united states. There are two united states contracts but there is now only One United States Government. For a short Period, there were Two united states governments. I said in my last post that there are two govenments, but i must correct myself to mean contracts. In Fact, it is impossible for any one state to be bound by the concept of two US governments, since if it did not join the Federation but was apart of the Confederation, then it would be involved with only one, while if it agreed to the second, then the rules of the second would overlay the first, and the documents would merge into one effective document, since both were describing what the “United States” does. So for the original 13 states, they are only bound by one government which consists of two sets of rules, all of the most recent ones overshadowing any rules in the first that it contradicts with. So I want to make it clear that the only part about the first document that was not contradicted by new rules of the second was the part about being bound in perpetuity.]]

so here’s the sticky part: the constitution says that any states that have been admitted must be admitted on the same terms as the first states that joined. This could be used by Non-secessionists to claim that all joining states are implicitly agreeing to the perpetuity part of the articles of confederation when they join. that’s an interesting argument. But this part of the consitution was written to mean that when a state joins it is joining as a sovereign, on an equal basis as the original states. Now since it is a sovereign, and agreeing to once contract, how can it be forced to comply with another contract (the Articles) that it didn’t agree to? this is why i think it is clear that this phrase in the constitution can only be applied to status and not implicit agreement to stay bound to the union.
and that’s that.

to cliffy:
>>I’d like to see one cite from a trustworthy source that states the Articles are still in force w/r/t the original 13 states. The Articles were supplanted by the Constitution <<-cliffy
The Supreme court never made a ruling about the Articles or what degree they are still in effect, although they have said that the Articles are Organic to all laws in the united States. They said the same thing about the constitution and the declaration of independence.
Now, where the articles were supplanted by the Constitution, they are no longer in effect; since one provision wasn’t supplanted, there’s no reason to think that it was voided since the Articles were never actually Voided, they were supplanted. It only stands to reason that the one provision would still be in effect since the document is organic to united states law.

also, cliffy makes a mistake in his second paragraph where he says
>> the 50 states are inarguably not sovereign nations (whether they once were or not), and they clearly do not have the power to secede from the Union – unless and until the seceding State has the military or political power to enforce its wishes<<
cliffy is making a power argument whereas we are talking about legality. what is legally possible is not dependent on a state having military might. might /= right.
also, saying something is inarguable in an argument is clearly wrong.
hope that clears things up cliffy.

22

Uh, George? Is that you?

23

Well, someone up there said the most important (and controlling factor).

For a state (or states) to go their seperate ways all that is required is the political will to say ‘we’re independent’ and the military (or political) might to make it stick.

This isn’t really a legal issue because, by definition, when a state (or states) secede they place themselves outside the bounds of US law.

For that same reason the Articles of Confederation are dead and gone. Call it a revolution if you’d like but the backers of the Constitution had the will and the might to make it stick. At that point the AoC are moot and no longer in force.

And this is the way it’s been through all of history. Governments (nation-states) are replaced by Governments (nation-states) will more will and power and the old ones only retain such authority as the new ones allow. Which, with regards to the AoC is…none.

24

That’s a nice theory, Polycarp, but all of the evidence I’ve seen goes against it. There was no smooth transition from one type of union to the other. Rather as each state ratified the new constitution they violated the old. Nor did the governments of the 2 types of union ever coexist. The Confederation Congress illegally dissolved itself in anticipation of the new government. Nor, as I have already stated, did the states that had ratified the Constitution use the old ( nonexistant ) government to bring everyone into the new type of union. Instead, as I have said, they used the trade power of the Constitution to threaten sanctions.

Is there any evidence to claim these are not 2 seperate unions? Hell, killjoy’s position at least has one point in its favor. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were never legally dissolved. Of course, if they are still legally in force then the US is still part of the United Kingdom since we never legally seceeded. And there is no UK because England never legally dissolved the old governments of Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. And there is no England because the House of Wessex never legally united the smaller Saxon kingdoms. And so on.

25

But I do agree that North Carolina was trying to change the Constitution rather than rejecting it outright like Rhode Island. But the amendments they were holding out for shouldn’t be confused with the Bill of Rights. They wanted structural changes to the new government and the bill of rights they were looking for was more comprehensive than the neutered version Madison got passed to deflate opposition. See their ratification document.

26

In 1972 (going from memory here), didn’t a democracy in Ireland vote itself out of existence?

Perhaps that would shine some light on the subject.

27

Irishman here. I was around in 1972. I don’t recall anything of the kind. Does your memory provide any salient details that might cast some light on what you are talking about?

The Parliament of Northern Ireland was prorogued inm 1972, but (a) this was done by British authorities in Westminster, not by the NI parliament itself, (b) it’s questionable how democratic the NI parliament really was, and (c) even if it had been a shining example of a democratic institution, it was just one institution of the government of Northern Ireland; proroguing the parliament is not the same as bringing democracy to an end.

28

Well here are some details that will perhaps help :slight_smile: I was on a bus tour of Dublin recently and we went by the house of one of the Irish ministers (or some such title, he recently got married?) and the bus driver mentioned that thereabouts happened the first democracy to ever vote themselves out of existence. This was on the south side, though I can’t remember the area specifically.

This will teach me to listen to bus drivers.

29

This might be what you’re referring to: the Parliament of Ireland voted itself and the Kingdom of Ireland out of existence by opting to join Britain in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. You often hear it said that it was the only parliament ever to vote itself out of existence. I somehow doubt that that’s true. (In fact, I know it’s not. The Scottish parliament did precisely the same thing.)

The parliamentary building (an extremely handsome building on the south side of Dublin city, apparently the first purpose-built parliament house in the world) still stands, and would certainly be included in any guided tour of the city. So you might have heard it in that context.

This happened in 1800, not 1972.

And the parliament wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a democratic institition, even by the standards of the 18th century. It didn’t pretend to be democratic. It was oligarchic and hopelessly corrupt.

30

Actually, the slavers started the shooting, in an attempt to sieze Federal lands–which you have stated would have still belonged to the Federal government. So, by their actions, the slaver states only compounded their fundamental criminality.

The grounds for attack was criminal assault upon Federal property by the slavers.

31

  1. What is the consensus on the AofC? Have subsequent act of ratifying the Constitution repealed the AoC, or is it still a colorful argument that it was not validly repealed and remains in force?

  2. What is the authority for the proposition that a State can not seceded? The Constitution seems at best silent on the point. I have always thought it odd that the North attacked the Confederacy upon secession. I think the attack on Ft. Sumter was a pretext by the North. I mean, if California decided to secede from teh U.S., or Quebec from Canada, would a war ensue?

32

Given that the Constitution is silent on this point I’d say that there is no existing means for a state to legally separate itself from the United States and become its own country. If you buy the Constitution’s silence on how this could be done as meaning it can be done then how do you do it? Does it take a decree from Whack-a-Mole or something more?

Seems to me a new amendment to the Constitution would need to be ratified spelling out the means for withdrawing from the union were it to happen at all.

And yes, if California tried to secede from the union all by itself it is likely war would ensue. Afterall the precedent for that has already been established. Understand the US Government can make a rightful claim to much of California. HUGE amounts of Federal funds have been used in that state (or any state) to build public works projects, buildings, medical care, disaster relief, etc… I think it fair for the US government to tell any seceding state that at the very least they owe one helluva bill back to the US government in repayment for all that stuff.

Of course in the end might makes right and if California won the war then I guess that’s the end of it and they have their freedom.

Quebec has been agitating for a long time to secede from Canada. I’ve lost track of where all that stands these days. I have no idea if the Canadian government would attack Quebec if Quebec unilaterally declared independance.

33

OK, sure, the Federal Government spent money to build public works projects in California (or any particular state)… but where do you think the Feds got that money from in the first place? A significant fraction of that came from California taxpayers, and I’m pretty sure Californians pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal services (and no, I don’t have a cite, but I’ve seen it somewhere)

Remember, one in eight US taxpayers live in California. Perhaps the US Government could demand that Californians pay for anything within the state that was federally funded. Or perhaps California could demand that the US Government pay them one-eighth the value of all federally funded projects in the US. Or, most logically, let California keep the stuff in California and let the Feds keep everything else.

34

  1. As no historians, or political scientists, or lawyers, or anyone in the executive, legislative, or judicial branches at any level at time in our history treat the AofC as if they are still in effect, I think we have to consign killjoy’s point of view to minority status.

  2. The Civil War settled the question de facto if not de jure. To secede from the Union without the consent of the rest of the states you have to win the ensuing war. Under current circumstances, the states are at the distinct disadvantage of not having an army to fight this war.

Just as a P.S., you have got to read more Civil War history if those are your beliefs.

35

Remember your tax money pays for things that may not directly come back to your home state but still count as value the state enjoys. Military protection, FBI, Federal Courts, cost of running Washington D.C., etc…

In the end it matters little how various public work projects and so on were paid for. A good deal of all that is owned by the US Government…end of story. They WILL want it back (or at least re-imbursement for it). Of course, Californians could tell the Feds to go stuff themselves and there’d probably be a shooting war to settle the matter.

In fact, the feds probably wouldn’t even bother with an ‘excuse’ like, “California has to repay us or we will stop them form leaving with our military.” I expect they’d just roll the tanks in and be done with it.

36

You do it by simply getting consent from Congress and the President just like any other law. You only run into problems when Congress and the President don’t consent.

The Constitution would not need to be amended at all.

37

Unfortunately, federal legislation doesn’t work that way. No federal law can withstand Constitutional scrutiny unless it’s clear that the Constitution gives Congress the power for the law to be created. Anything that doesn’t have a Constitutional basis is a matter of state or common law. So laws about interstate commerce or printing money are fine; laws forbidding the wearing of purple shirts on thursdays are not.

Legislation declaring a state no longer part of the union would be unconstitutional, since the Constitution gives no such power to Congress. As I said earlier (way earlier) the only way to accomplish this legally and constitutionally is with an amendment which provides a procedure for secession and authorizes states, Congress and/or the President to do it.

38

That’s nice, but this has nothing to do with states leaving the union. Congress has the right to admit states to the union, so I see no reason why Congress could not also grant permission for states to leave the union if they so desired.

Yes, you said it, but you provided no proof except your own word.

39

But the two cases are not the same.

Congress is the creation of the Constitution, and has the powers and functions that the Constitution gives it.

It has the power to admit new states because that power is expressly conferred by Article IV section 3 of the Constitution.

But what article of the Constitution gives congress the power to allow states to leave the union? And, if you can point to no article, how do you argue that Congress has that power?

40

I’ll be back later with the answer to this, but, basically, there is a Supreme Court opinion more or less directly on point, establishing that seccession is not legal under the Constitution. And yes, as I recall, it does reference the Articles of Confederation on the topic. I’m just too tired right now to go find it. :slight_smile: