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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (22318)	1/22/2002 10:49:28 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

There is no mechanism for secession provided for in the Constitution. The Constitution itself was in a sense a treaty among sovereign entities. The Articles of Confederation did give us some minor level of central government but the states had the real power. The Constitution itself says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." And it doesn't say that states cannot secede or that the federal government can keep states in the union by force. I'm not actually saying that I think the south had a constitutional right to secede, just that the answer to the question is not simple and clear. The southern states where the only states to actually break away but earlier there was a movement in New England for a break away, apparently not only people in the South thought they had that right. 2. All states subsequent to the original founding were created by the Federal Government. The mechanism of admission was the acceptance of their application, after the meeting of set terms, by the Congress of the United States. Good point. The original states created the federal government but the feds created later states. That makes it a bit more difficult to argue that they had a right to secede but it doesn't totally rule it out. Of course in the real world law that is unclear is decided by several mechanisms a judicial decision, deferring to normal custom, or in this case war. For all practical purposes it has been determined that states do not have a right to secede, and now its unlikely that any of them would seriously entertain the idea of doing so. 3 - The declaration of Independence said "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that..." it wasn't talking about the reasons being important in a legal sense. 4 - Slavery was the practical issue that set off secession. The theoretical issue was states rights. I do agree that without the slavery issue the seccession would not have happened as no other states rights issue created enough emotion to push the southern states to do something so drastic as to secede. 5 - (also a reply to 4 I guess) I was talking more about the right to secede not calling secession a good thing considering the fact that it was largely to support the institution of slavery and the fact that it resulted in a bloody war.I also consider the fact that it contributed to the idea of a more centralized government itself to be a negative. The south in the opinion of many took the issue of states rights to far, and served to discredit it in many circles. Tim