Lincoln, under Article II powers, had every Constitutional right to wage war against the disunionists.
Thank you for further illustrating you have nothing to support your proposition other than your own hyper-partisan bigotry and bias.
A more basic question: If a number of states do not want to remain part of the union, why do you want them to stay?
Ahhhh . . . a declaration of war is the power of Congress, NOT THE PRESIDENT! There is no power of the President of the United states to declare war upon any, foreign nation, State or any other entity of these United States of America
All true. But then, nothing in the constitution prohibits the President from ordering military action against another state.
Good question TOG 6. The POTUS does not have power to force any State or territory within any of the several States, to remain a part of the Union of the United states of America. It may sound noble and honorable to so, to think that he has the power to do so, but he does not. By the way, this is one of the issues discussed and debated during the Constitutional Convention, and it was decided that the POTUS, nor anyone else has the ability, right or authority to force their will upon the people and the states (The particular governments).
TOG 6, it was a given that the POTUS would not have the need to do so. The establishment of the United States was not for the purposes of tyranny, and this idea was comforting to the founders, being that the War for Independence was fought and ended just five years before the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America. Unfortunately, since their passing, the ugly head of tyranny has risen up in this country, and now Oligarchs and other types of Depots, especially in the Democrat party, rule and fester in this nation.
Perhaps - but times have changed, and we have long found ourselves in situations where military action may not require a declaration of war, or does not have time to wait for one. Thus, the power of the President to order military actions absent a DoW.
I support California's secession. We should let them secede and pull all federal resources and bases out of there.
Not for nothing TOG 6, but this is exactly the type of concern of both the Founders and myself, by allowing the executive to overstep and overreach its Constitutional mandate, it is in fact, establishing the Executive department of the Trinity to become a de facto Despot. I do not approve of it, when the Judicial department of the trinity did and does it, I do not approve of the Legislative department of the Trinity to do the same, and I DEFINITELY do no approve of the Executive department of the Trinity to overstep and overreach is Constitutionally mandated duties and authority. As Thomas Jefferson explained, "intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another"
It was not a war by a foreign power, numbnuts. It was a secession by criminals from the South. Lincoln had every right to use his powers to defend the Nation. You lost before you ever started.
Take note that it was Lincoln who provoke the south to take the first military actions by trying to resupply Fort Sumter and not meeting with the committee that the south send north to reach an agreement on such outposts on southern soil. He feel he needed to have the south take the first hostage actions to justify using force to return the south to the union.
Any government response, ipso facto, is statist, which is not a negative term by itself. It is a process. Lincoln, of course, surpressed the Southern criminals. In response to BillRM: Lincoln had no duty to meet further with southern commissioners. All the South had to do was keep slavery within the Old South and out of the territories as well as not interfere with federal property. Lincoln had every legal and moral right and duty to supply Ft Sumter, since it was federal property. When South Carolina and the CSA interfered by firing on Old Glory, they became criminals, and they lost the war because the northern Democrats turned against them.
With any luck that will happen but think it will take a bloody civil war which at the rate this country is going..could be soon. I would like to do the brexit kind of split. Whatever...all I know is if we don't get away from those crazy liberals soon, they're going to take us all down with them like one big sinking ship!
That pledge was created in conjunction with a constitution that laws were enacted for ALL hence the phrase, " Justice for all"....NOT justice for some...only corrupt LIBERAL ELITES!
If, in your ideological fanaticism, you need to rage that the late Antonin Scalia was one of your "corrupt LIBERAL ELITES!" that is what you will do, but you will be happy to know that he has been very conservative of late.
You think I need to argue against 10A to craft an argument against the constitutionality of unilateral secession? Really?? There's also A1S10 to think about; but what mostly bears consideration in this context is US jurisdiction, under which we exist as American citizens residing in the US, and under which every state also exists. Now when you go abroad, unless you're under a constitutional oath, you leave US jurisdiction behind; but of course states don't have that option, so everything they do, they do under US jurisdiction; and that means that even the exercise of unenumerated state powers reserved under 10A happens under US jurisdiction. With that in mind, I invite you to explain how exactly an act that rejects US jurisdiction root and branch can possibly be cognizable as a power reserved to the states under 10A. Furthermore, bearing in mind what I quoted in the post you're responding to, does it not beggar belief that a transition between a perpetual union and one in which any state could leave on a whim would have been left to an inference drawn from one amendment out of ten?
The question here is if they do indeed have that option, and even if they don't why would you not let them leave?
Where did I say you needed to do anything? You claimed you haven't heard an argument that you can't take apart like a clock, I presented one and then mentioned my interest in hearing a better case if you had one. You no more need to make your argument than I need to hear it. This is only a discussion forum and the arguments, in my estimation, are merely academic. Even though the 10A argument is the strongest one I've seen in either direction I'm not a proponent of secession, however I'm genuinely interested in hearing people's arguments because the Constitution is strangely quiet about this matter and it leaves a lot of room for debate. The A1S10 argument is interesting, particularly because I haven't heard it before. I just finished reading an article that you might find interesting yourself, and the author appears to have an answer to your jurisdiction question. If you're interested in responding I'd be interested to hear it: Back to your post... That's a good question, and in the article I cited James Calhoun and Thomas Jefferson have this answer: What mystifies me is the absence of any direct and explicit mention and prohibition of secession in the Constitution, which left those who would advocate it in the future with "an inference drawn from one amendment", as you so nicely put it, as a legal/constitutional opening and/or justification for secession. For all their wisdom and prescience, it appears that the Framers didn't - or couldn't - think of everything. From what I've read, this might be the strongest argument against the legality of secession, and its from a Wiki article titled "Perpetual Union": Along with Hamilton and Jay I agree with Madison on this, but when he mentions compacts he's opening up a massive can of worms there. As anyone familiar with contract law knows, once a party breaks a contract the other parties are no longer bound to it. One would presume that this applies to the Constitution and the states, as well, and operating on that presumption it follows that if the contract is broken it becomes null and void and the parties to that contract are no longer bound to it. So on and so forth. At this point I'll leave the floor, so to speak, to you...