The Tenther Grapevine
On LewRockwell.com, Brian Stanley wrote an interesting article on Texas v White and the court system’s view of the Constitutionality of secession.
Here’s an excerpt:
In the 1868 case of Texas v. White, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700, a case dealing with the title to some U.S. bonds, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas’, and hence the South’s, attempted secession in 1861 was unconstitutional. But the opinion also contained some wording that might give secessionists a way around White.
So what is the potentially helpful language the Court used? After noting that it was “needless to discuss at length whether the right of a State to withdraw from the Union for any cause, regarded by herself as sufficient, is consistent with the Constitution of the United States[,]” the Court then determined that the Union was intended to be perpetual and then stated that after Texas entered into “an indissoluble relation” with the Union: “There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution or through the consent of the States.” (Emphasis added.)
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE
Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on twitter - @michaelboldin - and visit his personal blog - www.michaelboldin.com
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To be honest when reading the case records of Texas v White, I found the level of one sided arrogances and political posturing amazing, in that they seemed to expect anyone to take this court seriously as a court of law rather then a panel of inquisition.
They were basically word for word quoting the opinion of Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address,(It should be noted that Lincoln had appointed many of the so called "justices") while utterly ignoring the relevant opinions of our founders and wording of our constitution on the case. To top it all off the exceptions they named of revolution was perhaps the most hypocritical of all exceptions, in that what is a revolution if it is not what the 11 southern States did?
How is what the 11 southern states did at all significantly different then what the 13 original colonies did?
Was the "American revolution" not a "revolution" in the courts opinion? Furthermore if the central court legal authority has the power to in any such power to define what is and is not a revolution then how is it that any such revolution could exist as the American revolution supposedly existed?
The British did not consent to us leaving the British empire, in fact they said it was illegal, thats why they waged war upon us!
The Courts ruling was not only a betrayal of the American constitution and American traditions it was in itself in utter self-contradiction.
Either the court was right, or America never had the legitimate authority to form the U.S. Constitution and thus the authority of that court in the first place.
Both cant be true, because they are mutually exclusive, it was either unlawful to leave the British Empire and form any legitimate government out of it, and thus the court had no standing on the matter, or the court itself was wrong.
The only conclusion one can draw from this is might makes right, and that the south should have started the war preemptively. If you want to live in perpetual fear of each-other, then accept that conclusion.
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I would like to point out that this is using precedent or case law as our judicial authoritarian friends like to call it but precedence/case law is not in the constitution and is something we don't have to discuss since it is not written law whatsoever and the constitution gives states almost unlimited powers and one of those power is to tear of the contract so sucession is legal.
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