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The Reason or the Right, which is more important?
by Al Benson Jr.
"Charleston Voice"
When the state of Virginia ratified the Constitution, against the
advice of Christian statesman Patrick Henry, the delegates, at ratification, stated the
following as part of the ratification ordinances: "We the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected...do, in the name and behalf of the
people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the
Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by
them, whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression."
The ratification statement for the state of New York says: "That the
powers of government may be resumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary
to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not, by the said Constitution, delegated to the Congress of the United
States, or the departments thereof, remains to the people of the several states,
or to their respective state governments, to whom they have granted the same."
The fact that these ratification ordinances were accepted, with this
language, shows that those states entering into this constitutional compact reserved
and respected the right of a state to remove itself from this new Union if it so wished. There was never any question as to that right. Had there
been, the New England states might not have considered seceding from the Union three
times before 1860 as they did.
Alexander Stephens of Georgia was not a big fan of secession, yet he
recognized the right of his state to secede, even though he disagreed with the timing.
Likewise, most sensible people would not have considered secession for "light and transient" reasons.
Recently a friend email ed me and made an interesting statement, one I
had not thought about. He said that, with all the reasons given for the War of Northern Aggression, one question is never asked--"What justification
did the Federal Government have for using force to make them (the seceding states) stay?"
That's a good question. What justification indeed? The Constitution did not prohibit secession and some of the states that had joined the Union had
already stated in their ratification papers that if things didn't work out then they had
the right to pull out, and those pronouncements were accepted. So, what right did Lincoln have to do what he did? His old saw about the Union being
older than the states was, to put it bluntly, a pile of fresh cow chips. If the Constitution did not strictly prohibit secession, then Lincoln had no
legal right
to compel them to remain in the Union by force. If there is language in the Constitution that says once a state gets into the Union it must stay
there for eternity, I must have missed it, the same way I have missed all the hogwash
about the "constitutional separation of church and state." I've never been able to
find that in their either, although "great legal minds" inform us that it's in there, or, if not there, it was surely intended to be, and therefore
it's binding upon us even though it was never written down. Maybe it's the same way
with secession--the founders really meant to put something in there to forbid
it--they just never got around to it, and so we are forced to abide by something the founders did not bother to write in. Cows fly, too, so
they tell me.
About now, some whiz kid will tell me, "The South seceded so she could
protect the right to keep her slaves." More hogwash! The South could have kept her
slaves if she stayed in the Union. The slaveholding border states that were coerced into "remaining" in the Union all kept their slaves until the
13th Amendment was passed, so the South didn't secede to protect slavery.
Frank Conner, in The South Under Siege 1830-2000 has written:
"President Abraham Lincoln single-handedly started the War of Northern Aggression;
he retained full control over that war. He waged it to preserve his own political
future, by conquering the Southern states and putting them back under the economic
control of the Northern capitalists. He sold this war to the Northern public as a war to 'preserve the Union' (maintain the North's economic control
over the South). And that's why the North fought the war." Did the South have a
right to be sick of having to pay for the lion's share of the federal
government? You bet she did. Did she have a right to secede, state by state, for
that reason and for theological reasons? She did. Did Lincoln have the right to use
federal force to drag her kicking and screaming back into the Union? He did not,
and therein lies the crux of the matter. Lincoln did what he had no right to do--and the feds have been doing that and getting away with it ever
since--and that's where we are today. Don't like the way the country is going? Blame
"Honest Abe." He set the present trend.
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