both Henry and Franklin may have been indulging in rhetorical flourishes to help make their points. I’m not sure that I would accept unctritcially a statement of law made by a politician in fulloratorical flight.
alternatively, they may have been referring to the possibility of treason charges under the laws of Virginia and Pennsylvania, respectively, which as I outlined in my earlier posts, I believe would be possibiilities.
Franklin was incorect in stating that hanging was the punishment for treason. Under English law, the punishment for high treason was hanging, drawing and quartering, a punishment executed on rebels in Canada in 1837. He may have simply abbreviated the punishment, or (more likely) was making a rhetorical flourish (see option 1 above).
Not only that, but didja ever noticed that there’s no language in the original Articles of Confederation allowing for States to back out either? Or allowing the Articles of Confederation to be thrown out and replaced with a Constitution?
The States that ratified the Constitution were all traitors to the Union! I say the States that didn’t ratify the new Constitution shoulda levied a war against those nefarious rebels.
Nice try, tracer, but the point I (and the Court) made above was that secession without the consent of the rest of the union is invalid. By ratifying the current Constitution, the states joined under the old Articles of Confederation gave their consent to any “secession” or “treason” from the Articles.
In fact, you may even wish to take note of Article VII of the current Constitution, which required the approval of a supermajority of nine states before it would have any effect at all.
The act of drafting the Constitution was no more treasonous than a Virginia citizen in 1861 proclaiming “We should secede from the Union if they give their approval of secession!”
Why, North Carolina, of course. Dig this little ditty I found:
North Carolina eventually did ratify, but not until November of 1789 – 5 months after the last of the requisite 9 States ratified it and the new Constitution’s Congress had convened.
Then again, the webpage I found the above-quoted paragraph on also goes on to say:
… which is a tad bit different than the situation in 1861, to be sure.
Well, it certainly would have been a mighty funny-looking country it they’d just stopped after the first nine states to ratify. Of course, the rest of the states could pressure little Rhode Island pretty effectively, and maybe North Carolina as well, but if Virginia (#10) and New York (#11) hadn’t joined up, I suspect they’d have just had to go back to the drawing board.
At any rate, if the North had voted to let the South go (or just shrugged their shoulders and said “Don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out”), no one would be talking about treason. If a civil war had broken out between Unionists and Confederationists, and the Confederationists had won, they might well regard the pro-Constitution side as traitors to the Articles of Confederation. I don’t know if treason to the United States under the A. of C. was ever a defined offense or not. The Articles seem a bit murky on the whole question of secession anyway; on the one hand, the preamble talks about a “perpetual Union”, but on the other hand, Article II said each state retains its “sovereignty, freedom and independence”.
I wonder if any militia loons out there have tried to argue that the Articles of Confederation are still legally in force? (And naturally only in the original 13 colonies, plus I guess Maine, West Virginia, and maybe Kentucky and other assorted western claims of the original 13 states.)
Why do Southerners parade the Batle Flag around? Because they take pride in being on the losing side of a treasonous attempt to destroy the federal goverment?
It’s Ironic that the Great seal of the Confederacy had George Washington on it, when they sought to destroy what he had created.
It’s not an “Act of war” because Quebec is not a state. Canada WOULD, however, be justified in using military force to prevent Quebec from seceding; upholding the rule of law is pretty much the reason a government exists, after all. So you might have a civil war, which the government of Canada would be entirely justified in fighting, but there’s no “Act of war” there because there aren’t two states for an act of war to pass between.
minty, the BBQ Dopefest sounds like a great idea. Especially the all-inclusive part. However, it is we “pork-dorks” who will be making allowances for you poor, misguided “beef-freaks” and not the other way 'round. Harrumph.
True. My point is that as of 1860 it was hardly a clear-cut issue, and there was certainly room for the Southern states to argue that they had a legal right to seceed. Furthermore, I think that from a strictly legalistic perspective, their position had more merit than that of those who argued that the Union was paramount and indissoluble.
Now was that a good thing? No. It would have been better if the Framers could have included some language in the Constitution spelling out that it was “perpetual” or “permanent.” In the Federalist Papers, Madison sagely warned that the greatest danger to any union is the risk that the states would split into warring factions. He was absolutely right.
(Just for the record, lest I be mistaken for an unreconstructed “Fergit, Hell!” rebel, the War was clearly about slavery, and the South was clearly in the wrong morally, if not legally. That war should never have been fought. Furthermore, I agree with Madison that the concept of “states’ rights” is a dangerous one, and that the citizenry is better served with a strong -albeit limited- federal authority. My arguments in this thread are strictly legalistic.)
