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See post #4. Madison speaks of secession due to intolerable conditions as another name for the right of revolution which he says is not in question. He goes to great pains to distinguish between secession at will and secession as a necessity. Conditions are not even close to being intolerable anywhere in these United States such that secession is a necessity. But they very well might be in the future.
The government is despotic towards the common man.
Well for one thing, the Declaration of Independence wasn't written in opposition not to a republican government but to a monarchy. And second, there were a few things fresher in their minds, notably the abject failure of the Articles of Confederation.
That presumes that it is the common man that is being represented. It's not. It's the rich and powerful that get representation. They run the show and make the rules.
One would think that if secession were a viable option one would think that the Framers wouldn't have neglected to put such a provision in the Constitution or at the very least discussed the issue.
What say you, did they just forget or perhaps it just wasn't an option?
I think the notion of "To form a more perfect Union" somehow jives just a bit with the notion of secession.
I submit that in this day and age there is NO established procedure that could be acceptaby effectual for any state, having taken a public referendum ballot and the choice to secede having been affirmed, to actually secede. Secession is demonstrably impractical to isolate one state geographically contiguous to the several states for commerce and national security purposes and a dead-ended, one-way street.
Any state so committed would be the architect of it's own isolation socially, politically and economically resulting in it's eventual dissention into anarchy and demise. The discussion would appear to have little serious merit. Excising a functioning and necessary element of the entire body endangers the continued viablity of said body and dooms the excised element to it's own end. We sink or swim together.
What may have serious merit is to consider a constitutional amendment that would state that the several states each reserve, to their citizenry and on behalf of their citizenry the right to vote to withhold payment of all tax revenues to the national government by combined unanimous vote of both it's governing houses when the national government is determined to have acted in exceeding it's constitutionally authority over the state government. That this right is reserved separate and apart from any legal constitutional recourse for settling said grievance via the USSC as ultimate arbiter. This suggestion is made with the comment that amendments to the Constitution act as standing advices of caution.
Several states could do well on their own. Alaska, for example. Many states along the coasts would do well as well. Landlocked states may have a harder time but not necessarily, if they border Canada and not only the United States.
No confusion, but I was ONLY addressing secession. An oversight by me in forgetting to even reference "nullification". That is, of course, covered by the 10th amendment to our Constitution wherein it is stated that...
"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."
Tenth amendment advocacy is popular now as a result of constitutional challenges to the authority of the national government to institute a mandated health care plan and also assess penalties for non-participation and challenges it usurps the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
The best unifying effort likely resides here: Tenth Amendment
and I support every challenge. What is lost in all this is the issue oft misunderstood of "federalism". It's the founding attitude of unanimous opinion that the government that governs best is the one closest to the people, because...by extension, it is more directly responsible and accountable. It it the root of the Jeffersonian concern about an overreaching national government that would take the power away from the people. It is precisely what we've now come to now, but worse. A national government seeking to usurp the authority of the several states, as the Constitution refers to them, and make them impotent. The resident evil Obama is on the march to a one-party, totalitarian control and MUST BE STOPPED.
That presumes that it is the common man that is being represented. It's not. It's the rich and powerful that get representation. They run the show and make the rules.
I don't think "common men" would have been an apt description of the Framers, many of whom had little regard for the opinion or involvement of common men in the affairs of government. The system was rigged for the rich and powerful from the beginning, only through the efforts of subsequent generations have common folk gained what ever influence they have in how they are to be governed.
Your comments about geographical reference become irrelevant as they cannot be equally applied to all states and there are ancillary problems not anticipated in many fashions that can come up and whichyou aren't allowing for.
Should the national government make law to forbid the several states of the union from engaging in any interstate commerce with a seceding state...THEN WHAT?
It's over for that state, that's what. There are many problem potentials that arise that make secession in the modern age a non-option.
An initial reaction that is predictable would be to discourage further secession. Punitive responses in all forms legally to punish secessionist states.
Your comments about geographical reference become irrelevant as they cannot be equally applied to all states and there are ancillary problems not anticipated in many fashions that can come up and whichyou aren't allowing for.
Should the national government make law to forbid the several states of the union from engaging in any interstate commerce with a seceding state...THEN WHAT?
It's over for that state, that's what. There are many problem potentials that arise that make secession in the modern age a non-option.
An initial reaction that is predictable would be to discourage further secession. Punitive responses in all forms legally to punish secessionist states.
I think the notion of "To form a more perfect Union" somehow jives just a bit with the notion of secession.
Well, that's at least a novel bit of adjudification, if nothing else.
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saganista
