The 1783 Treaty of Paris ended the war between the colonies and Great Britain. Its first article declared the 13 colonies "to be free, sovereign and independent states." These 13 sovereign nations came together in 1787 as principals and created the federal government as their agent. Principals have always held the right to fire agents. In other words, states held a right to withdraw from the pact — secede.
During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it, saying, "A union of the states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
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Once again Williams with a brilliant observation.
ReplyDeletevery good read.. as are the comments in the article. Those against the Confederate Flag have no leg to stand on when saying it stands for slavery.
ReplyDeleteHoly hell, the fallacies in this article run rampant, as do your two comments. Jim - you need look no further than any of the seceding states' articles of secession to determine why the Civil War is rightly viewed as a war over slavery, and thus why the pro-slavery Confederates' flag stands for such a proposition.
ReplyDeleteAs to the other points in this article: there was nothing explicitly against secession in the Constitution, but it had been well established in the early 1800s that the federal government was supreme, and that states could not act w/ intent to destroy federal initiatives (think McCulloch v. Maryland). Thus, the principle of federal supremacy (which is rooted in the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution) supports a suppression of a violent, pro-slavery rebellion which had begun the violence by firing upon Fort Sumter. Sure, they may have viewed it as a war for independence, but they still started the war. To bitch and moan about the violent suppression of their war effort is just to be a sore loser.
In McCulloch v. Maryland Chief Justice Marshall contended that it was the people who ratified the Constitution and thus the people are sovereign, not the states. So if the people through their elected state representatives vote to secede from the union then leaving the union was a valid choice. Therefore Lincoln conducted an illegal unconstitutional war.
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