The Legality of Seccession in Antebellum America

[Montmorency]

Nay.

James Madison:

I partake of the wonder that the men you name should view secession in the light
mentioned. The essential difference between a free Government and Governments
not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and
equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the
bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in
the Virginia resolutions of —98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense
and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in
confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United
States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former
as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an
intolerable abuse of the power created. In the Virginia Resolutions and Report the plural
number, States , is in every instance used where reference is made to the authority which
presided over the Government. As I am now known to have drawn those documents,
I may say as I do with a distinct recollection, that the distinction was intentional. It was
in fact required by the course of reasoning employed on the occasion. The Kentucky
resolutions being less guarded have been more easily perverted. The pretext for the
liberty taken with those of Virginia is the word respective , prefixed to the “rights” &c to
be secured within the States. Could the abuse of the expression have been foreseen
or suspected, the form of it would doubtless have been varied. But what can be more
consistent with common sense, than that all having the same rights &c, should unite in
contending for the security of them to each.
It is remarkable how closely the nullifiers who make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal
for their colossal heresy, shut their eyes and lips, whenever his authority is ever so clearly
and emphatically against them. You have noticed what he says in his letters to Monroe
& Carrington Pages 43 & 203, vol. 2,1 with respect to the powers of the old Congress
to coerce delinquent States, and his reasons for preferring for the purpose a naval to
a military force; and moreover that it was not necessary to find a right to coerce in the
Federal Articles, that being inherent in the nature of a compact. It is high time that the
claim to secede at will should be put down by the public opinion; and I shall be glad to see
the task commenced by one who understands the subject.

[Montmorency]

I find that any argument given for a legality of secession is an argument for the use of main force against secessionists. Secessionists are loath to admit that there is no cake for them.

[total relism]

Nay.

James Madison:

nay

“James Madison spoke against the idea of nullification.”

More sophisticated opponents think they have a trump card in James Madison’s statements in 1830 to the effect that he never intended, in the Virginia Resolutions or at any other time, to suggest that a state could resist the enforcement of an unconstitutional law. Anyone who holds that he did indeed call for such a thing has merely misunderstood him. He was saying only that the states had the right to get together to protest unconstitutional laws.

This claim falls flat. In 1830 Madison did indeed say such a thing, and pretended he had never meant what everyone at the time had taken him to mean. Madison’s claim was greeted with skepticism. People rightly demanded to know: if that was all you meant, why even bother drafting such an inane and feckless resolution in the first place? Why go to the trouble of passing solemn resolutions urging that the states had a right that absolutely no one denied? And for heaven’s sake, when numerous states disputed your position, why in the Report of 1800 did you not only not clarify yourself, but you actually persisted in the very view you now deny and which everyone attributed to you at the time? Madison biographer Kevin Gutzman (see James Madison and the Making of America, St. Martin’s, 2012) dismantled this toothless interpretation of Madison’s Virginia Resolutions in “A Troublesome Legacy: James Madison and ‘The Principles of ’98,’” Journal of the Early Republic 15 (1995): 569-89. Judge Abel Upshur likewise made quick work of this view in An Exposition of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, excerpted in my book.

The elder Madison, in his zeal to separate nullification from Jefferson’s legacy, tried denying that Jefferson had included the dreaded word in his draft of the Kentucky Resolutions. Madison had seen the draft himself, so he either knew this statement was false or was suffering from the effects of advanced age. When a copy of the original Kentucky Resolutions in Jefferson’s own handwriting turned up, complete with the word “nullification,” Madison was forced to retreat.

In summary, then, (1) the other state legislatures understood Madison in 1798 as saying precisely what Madison later tried to deny he had said; (2) Madison did not correct this alleged misunderstanding when he had the chance to in the Report of 1800 or at any other time during those years; and (3) the text of the Virginia Resolutions clearly indicates that each state was “duty bound” to maintain its constitutional liberties within its “respective” territory, and hence Madison did indeed contemplate action by a single state (rather than by all the states jointly), as supporters and opponents alike took him to be saying at the time.
https://www.libertyclassroom.com/objections/

I find that any argument given for a legality of secession is an argument for the use of main force against secessionists. Secessionists are loath to admit that there is no cake for them.

I find that any argument given for the illegality of secession is an argument for the use of main force against secessionists. Conformist anti self governmentist are loath to admit that there is no cake for them.

[total relism]

I think this may help as well, Madison contributes.

The History of American State Sovereignty in Antebellum America
http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/off...bellum-america

[Montmorency]

In summary, then, (1) the other state legislatures understood Madison in 1798 as saying precisely what Madison later tried to deny he had said; (2) Madison did not correct this alleged misunderstanding when he had the chance to in the Report of 1800 or at any other time during those years; and (3) the text of the Virginia Resolutions clearly indicates that each state was “duty bound” to maintain its constitutional liberties within its “respective” territory, and hence Madison did indeed contemplate action by a single state (rather than by all the states jointly), as supporters and opponents alike took him to be saying at the time.

Madison and Jefferson made statements on the subject of state governments judging the constitutionality of federal law and executive application. Later, these were used in the arguments of secessionists, which Madison countered by pointing out that nullification has nothing to do with secession. That whole post of yours was without substance.

I find that any argument given for the illegality of secession is an argument for the use of main force against secessionists.

So you admit that secessionists make themselves as renegades against mankind?

Conformist anti self governmentist are loath to admit that there is no cake for them.

It's dirty work, but the law demands it.

[total relism]

Madison and Jefferson made statements on the subject of state governments judging the constitutionality of federal law and executive application. Later, these were used in the arguments of secessionists, which Madison countered by pointing out that nullification has nothing to do with secession. That whole post of yours was without substance.



So you admit that secessionists make themselves as renegades against mankind?



It's dirty work, but the law demands it.

I dont disagree but both rely on sovereignty witch madison supported. Why did the Virginia [Madison native state] reserve the right to leave the union and NY at the convention?


“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.”
-Abraham Lincoln 1848

“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”
-Declaration of Independence


If believing the above is " renegades against mankind?" count me in. I would say those that hold some "law" [no idea what laws as no laws say you cant secede or self govern in antebellum america] above mankind, is the true renegade to mankind.


“the leading and most influncial papers of the union believe that any state of the union has a right to secede”
-Davenport Iowa Democrat and news 11/17/60

“opposing secession changes the nature of government “from a voluntary one, in which the people are sovereigns, to a despotism were one part of the people are slaves”
- New York Journal of commerce 1/12/61

“The great principles embodied by Jefferson in the declaration is... that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed” Therefore if the southern states wish to secede, “they have a clear right to do so”
-New York tribune 2/5/61

Secession is “the very germ of liberty...the right of secession inheres to the people of every sovereign state”
-Kenosha Wisconsin Democrat 1/11/61

[Montmorency]

Why did the Virginia [Madison native state] reserve the right to leave the union and NY at the convention?

The "right to withdraw" was consistently argued as being against the languages and transfer of sovereignty shown in the Constitution, especially by such figures as James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton - indeed, New York never did reserve in its Constitution a right to withdraw, partly due to their opposition. I don't know where you got that it did. Neither did Rhode Island or Virginia.

The sovereignty of the people is not a sovereignty of a State.

As Marshall pointed out in Maryland vs. McCullough:

It is true, they assembled in their several states–and where else should they have assembled? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the states, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their states. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the state governments.

Furthermore, if we were to imagine that state constitutions had gone so far as to include some words like, "We reserve the right to leave the Union on any conditions and under any circumstances we wish, regardless of any external factor", then we would need to consider why it was these specific states and no others, and whether it speaks to a wider right to withdrawal, is impertinent to any such, or even whether such conditions would simply be void and ignored under the federal Constitution. Going here does not lend your position support.