I agree with you but the modern meanings are no different than the past. I grew up in Texas, lived in GA as an adult, traveled all the south and if you could find one out of 100 Southerners who tell you anything about the confederate flag I'd be very surprised. Stars & bars battle flag was always the tradition, from the back of pickup trucks to state capitals. The emotions I lived and detected with that flag was a symbol of complete detachment from yankees. You can read anything you want into that, but the basic motivation to fly that flag, be it KKK to almost any white Southern governor, is to be different and seeking recognition for that position. I'm old enough to remember old Southern relatives who firmly believed the South would rise again.

I have no idea but that's not what happened anyway so who cares?


"very weak" is a pretty vague term. It's deliberately stronger than what it replaced.

Not one single word of your argument had any bearing at all on my question. Not one single word addressees the fact that if a constitution allows any state to unilaterally secede at any time they like and for whatever reason they choose, then none of the provisions of the constitution are enforceable. No law is ever enforceable if the subjects of that law are free to form their own country as soon as they run up against a rule they don't like. Please explain how it makes any sense that the constitution allows the specific behavior which makes it null and void.

Why do they not apply? Because you cannot substantiate a meaningful right by quoting from a document which that very right renders meaningless.
Your argument is the equivalent of drawing up an agreement which says "I promise to follow all these rules except when I refuse to follow these rules. I promise to respect the investment my partners make in this venture except when I decide to confiscate that investment. I promise to exist peacefully with my partners except when I decide to kill one of them". Such an agreement is not worth them paper it is written on. That's the constitution with legal secession. Your argument does not reach the threshold of reasonableness and sense which requires any further refutation.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

So first of all, I see you continue to ignore the many quotes I have provied that show that many people at the time believed in a right of secession.

Now, let me try this again. The Constitutin was written to protect the states from the federal government. The Constitution is a device that explains what powers the federal government has been given by the states. The federal government was never designed to rule over the state per se.

Let me use an analogy of a country club. People join clubs expecting certian benefits. They might join a country club because they like golf and lemonade. They will agree to give up certain powers such as $X per month and other things. And, certainly, the club will pass rules and regulations, and certainly some are bound to upset the members from time to time.

Now, under your interpretation of the Constitution, applying that to the Country Club situation, the members would not be allowed to leave the Country Club. Once they have agreed, they are bounded by the contract into which they entered. However, members most certainly can quit the club whenever they like. Espcially if they did not give this power up when they became a member of the country club.

In some sense, the rules of the country club have no effect. After all, the members could leave and the rules whould no longer apply to them. However, the members aren't going to leave unless the club has really done something to piss them off. Why? The benefits of club memberhsip outweigh the light transgressions.

This is the same with the states. The US government, and thus the Constitution, was created for the mutual benefit of the states. I am sure nearly every state fully expected that the congress would do stuff to piss them off. Yet, they knew that the benefits of membership in the club would outweigh these light transgressions so they joined.

Just as country club members can leave, so too can states. However, they are not going to leave every time the Congress makes them a little mad. So, you are correct in saying that the Constition, in some sense, is null and void. That is, it is only binding on a state if the state agrees to it, just as the country club rules are binding on the members only if they agree to it. Further, once the states decide to leave, the US government is no longer under any obligation to give them the benefits of membership in the union, just as the country club does not have to let non-members play golf.

So, you are correct. This, in essence, means that the US government has very little powers. It has ONLY the powers that are given up by the states, and as the many different ratifying documents say, the states can retake those powers whenever they want.

There is no reason to think that ratifying the Constitution is limited to a simple "Yes or No" vote. Because the states that added provisions to their ratifying documents were still allowed to join the union, this implies that the other members of the union had no problem with these states adding these clauses to their agreement to join, and thus it is a part of the contract.

I am sure that country clubs have standard membership contracts. However, one potential member might like every provision except Provision 6. He might make a deal with the club that he will join ONLY IF he does not have to follow Provision 6. If the club allows him to join after making this request, then the club is allowing him to ignore Provision 6. Similarly, the states under question joined the Union ONLY IF they were allowed to withdraw from the union. The fact that they were still allowed to join the union means that the rest of the union agreed to let them have this power.

It is because you do not understand the nature of the union that you have a difficult time to get what I'm saying. The union is voulantary, and the Constitution has no authoruity unless states agree to it. However, and I think this might really answer your question, the other members of the union do not have to treat the seperated state as if it were still in the union. That is, the states may place high tarrifs on exported goods, they may refuse to extradite criminals, they may refuse to protect the state with the collective military.

So, it is the prospect of losing the benefits associated with memberhsip in the union that makes the provisions enforceable.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

No. The constitution with legal secession is not weak. It is invalid on its face. The example of the partnership which I cited is not weak. It is nonsensical.

Unless you can address the issue of the constitution being invalidated and rendered meaningless by the very right you claim it grants, there is no point in any further discussion because no such state ever has or ever can exist.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Wow. Ok, you have no desire to learn history. I have given you numerous quotes from those who wrote the Constitution that completly affirm my point of view. I mean, isn't the fact that those who wrote, debated and signed the Constituion pretty strong evidence for my point of view?

You have refused to expalain exactly what the 10th Amendment means.

You didn't tell me why my country club analogy did not work.

You look more and more silly as this thing goes on as you refuse to respond to anything I say.

I addressed the issue of which you speak. The Constitution is meaningless for those who are not a member of the union. Membership in the union is voulantary as contract law, logic, and history show us.

How do you justify the colonists rebellion against England?

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address

I will try this one more time. Then I will have to conclude that you have no intention of ever addressing the fundamentally untenable nature of the argument you are making.

You are positing that the nature of the constitution is such that none of its provisions are enforceable. In such a way that no law passed under the guidance of that constitution is enforceable. In a way which invalidates the entire document and renders it meaningless in and of itself.

According to you the constitution allows any participant to confiscate the fruits of the common national investment without penalty. According to you it allows any participant to ignore any law or any constitutional protection at any time on the basis of any whim whatever. According to you the constitution allows any participant to attack and kill the agents of the federal government with impunity at the slightest sense of insult or indignity.
And no matter how many times I ask you to, you never explain how such a constitution makes any sense at all. You never explain how any country formed by such a constitution is to survive past the first disagreement or moment of greed or perceived insult to "manhood" or "honor" on the part of any one of its constituent states.

You just continue to repeat "history history history" as if you had a list of historical constitutions and countries which had been constructed this way. You keep quoting people who never seceded from the union. You keep presenting resolutions which you say validate secession but mysteriously never exercise the right you say they prove.

The one consistent thread thoughout all your arguments is that you never ever cite any evidence that the south was attacked or that they had any legal or even commonsensical right to secede. You never address the fundamental and fatal flaw in your claim. That flaw is the fact that your version of the constitution never has and never will exist in a real world of real peoploe, real states, real countries for the simple reason that no country or other contracted organization can grant the unilateral right of its own destruction at the hands of whichever of its constituent parts are the least stable and responsible.

__________________
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Have you read what I have written?

Yes, I have said this.
No, NO and NO! I have NOT said this. I have said the exact opposite. When a state leaves the union, it no longer has a right to recieve that which the Constituion gives to states.

Again, you have it slightly wrong. When states leave the union, they are no longer are entitled to recieve the benefits of the union.

Yes, I have. I have explained that states will not leave the union for small things because they would rather bear the small transgression than give up the benefits of the union. How many times, and in how many ways must I explain that?
I have never mention ANYTHING other than American history. Why in the world would you think I had said anything about other countries. And I keep repeating history because Early American "history history history" is full with people who support my view.
Ohhhh boy. Why must they exercise secession for them to think they have that right. I think I have a right to own a gun, yet I do not own one. Does this mean that I really don't think I have a right to own a gun. If you actually read the resolutions, you would realize how utterly asanine this argument is.

Guess what? The US Constitution is one of a kind.

Again, you have no desire to actually think about this. You have been presented with much evidence that really blows your argument out of the water. Yet, you continue to ask the same question, and I continue to give you answers. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution and the Federal government. Of course, a simple read of the Constitution would show you how wrong you are, but that is something you are not inclined to do. Even though nearly everony that wrote and signed the Constitution shares my point of view, you still claim that no one thought that. In the face of numerous quotes, you still make that absurd claim. In the face of myriad analogies and explanations, you still cannot grasp the the Union is voulantary. In the face of numerous quotes of people who wrote the Constitution who insist that the Union is voulantary, you still make the abusrd claim that the Union has coercive powers. In the face of necesary conditions states demanded be met to join the union (namely that they can leave whenever they want) you continue to make this absurd claim.

I agree with you that my arguments severly weaken the power of the Constitution. And, under your view of the nature of the union, this does make no sense. However, your view of the union is wrong. The Union was made to be a completly voulantary organazation of states. This is something that was agreed to by all at the time of the rafication. If three people enter into a contract, and they all allow the others to leave whenerver they want, then people can leave whenever they want. This is the same with the states. They entered into a contract and made it clear that anyone of them was allowed to leave when they wanted to leave. While they were members of the agreement, they must abide by the laws passed by the members, however, once they leave, they are no longer bound by the rules of the members, but they cannot recieve the benefits of membership.

I really do not know how to say it any more simply than this. Think about what you are suggesting. You think that the states gave up their soverignty to the national government with no hope of ever regaining it. In essence, you have not given the states any recourse, whatever, against actions of the federal government. This would be an insanely stupid position for a state to put itself it. Why in the world would any state enter into that sort of arrangment voulantarily? Would you? And then, when you consider the fact that the Americans had just fought a war against a huge, powerful central government, it is clear that they would not want to give another government the same powers over them as the one they had just fought off. People during this time didn't really think of themselves as Americans. They were Georgians, Virginians, etc. It would really have made little difference to them whether the big central government was in England or in New York. The fact is, the did not want inhabitants from other states telling them how to live their lives because these people were, for all intents and purposes, foreign.

__________________
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
-Thomas Jefferson in his first inauguration address