Posted by Robert Smith on May 23, 19101 at 00:27:08:

In Reply to: Re: Secession posted by Dan Giallombardo on May 04, 19101 at 09:41:57:

: : : Secession was legal, is legal, and as long as we give merit to the Declaration of Independence, it has to be legal.

: : : Art. 10 Sect. 1 prohibits states with in the union from forming alliances and confederations. It says nothing about secession. The southern states didn't form the confederacy until after they left the union and were no longer bound by the Constitution.

: : : Dec. of Ind. "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. "

: : Well, that's a very elegant and sophistic argument. The Declaration of Independence was written under other cirstances to wit: the colonies were establishing their independence from Great Britan and had not soverignity as individual states.
: : Once established as a "nation",they no longer were in possession of such niceities as "states rights",when the greater union was threatened. Hence the expression within the preamble of the Constitution: "Provide for the common defense".....when the states represented by their
: : sundry personages,signed that doent,they pledged themselves to the union in perpetutity. Not until it became inconvienient for them to remain.One of the greatest defects of the Articles of Confederation which preceeded the Constitution was the fact of it's weakness. No one was really satisfied with them,that was one of the things which led Madison,Monroe and their ilk to draft a constitution.And just coincidentially, Jefferson was oppossed to a written Constitution.
: : He felt it would hinder the development of the United States as "a nation of yeoman farmers".------Dan

: Once again underlining the need for proofreading prior to posting,that should read "inelegant" as opposed to "elegant".My apologies.------Dan

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