From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Colonial History
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 10:43:59 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	Ron, Again, negative on this one.  There is no right of unilateral
secession in the Constitution and therefore the Tenth Amendment does not
reserve such a hypothetical right to the states.  The Federal Government is
not and never has been purely an agent of the states, but shares sovereignty
with them.
	I am planning to acquire a copy of Mr. diLorenzo's book to
understand his arguement better but my initial impression is that his thesis
is a tissue of falsehoods and slanders constructed by one sided citation of
unrepresentative opinions.  Rather like the Shaver Mystery and similar
pseudo-science.	B-|
	I remain your friend, Lee

-----Original Message-----
From: ronkean at juno.com [mailto:ronkean at juno.com]
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 12:45 PM
To: WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Colonial History

On Fri, 05 Apr 2002 12:16:59 -0500 "Michael Walsh"
<MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> writes:

> I've searched the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the various
> Amendments and find no reference to a mechanism to leave the Union.
> At best, one could make a case for a State to leave the Union only with

> "the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of
> the Congress."
>

The Constitution does not explicitly say that states may secede
unilaterally, but still many believe states have, or should have, that
right.  Amendment X might support that.

> There is this interesting piece in the earlier Articles of
> Confederation:=

> And the Articles of this Confederation shall be =
> inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be
> perpetual;

That pretty much shows secession was not approved under the Articles, and
the Consitution was supposed to make a stronger union than under the
Articles.

But here is what Walter Williams (libertarian Prof. at GMU) has to say
about secession:

townhall.com

Walter Williams

March 27, 2002

The Real Lincoln

Do states have a right of secession?  That question was settled through
the costly War of 1861.  In his recently published book, "The Real
Lincoln," Thomas DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence that
virtually every political leader of the time and earlier believed that
states had a right of secession.

Let's look at a few quotations.  Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural
Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this
Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as
monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated
where reason is left to combat it." Fifteen years later, after the New
England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, "If any state
in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ...  to a
continuance in the union ...  I have no hesitation in saying, 'Let us
separate.'"

At Virginia's ratification convention, the delegates said, "The powers
granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the
United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be
perverted to their injury or oppression." In Federalist Paper 39, James
Madison, the father of the Constitution, cleared up what "the people"
meant, saying the proposed Constitution would be subject to ratification
by the people, "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as
composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively
belong." In a word, states were sovereign; the federal government was a
creation, an agent, a servant of the states.

On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession
as a right of states.  Maryland Rep.  Jacob M.  Kunkel said, "Any
attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by
force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty." The
northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to
secede in peace.

Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the
South's right to secede.  New York Tribune (Feb.  5, 1860): "If tyranny
and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why
it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from
the Federal Union in 1861." Detroit Free Press (Feb.  19, 1861): "An
attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful could
produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling
in content." The New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is growing
sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
DiLorenzo cites other editorials expressing identical sentiments.

Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L.
Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry not logic; beauty,
not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to
the cause of self-determination -- government of the people, by the
people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says:
"It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue.  The Union soldiers in
the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the
Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."

In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the
proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.
Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and
indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on
that vision.  Today, it's worse.  Turn Madison's vision on its head, and
you have today's America.

DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness and
hypocrisy, and how historians have covered it up.  The Framers had a
deathly fear of federal government abuse.  They saw state sovereignty as
a protection.  That's why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments.
They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington
tyranny.