On Feb 4, 2009, at 7:34 PM, Charles Brown wrote:
>>
>> As odious as the Confederacy was, they had every right to
>> secession...
> Legally speaking , from whence do you derive this "every right" to
> secession
From the plain text of the Tenth Amendment which declares that rights not specifically granted to the federal government or denied to the states are retained by the states or the people. Since the Constitution says nothing about separation of a state from the union, secession is legally a right retained by the states or the people. The proper answer, which Lincoln could not make because he was in no way a revolutionary, is that secession is not the right of a state but of the "people" of that state, including blacks, women, and native Americans. Moreover, US citizenship under the Fifth Amendment cannot be revoked without due process; so the leaders and soldiers of the Confederacy, by making war (Fort Sumter) against the US, were openly committing treason and needed to be arrested and subjected to the punishment (capital) prescribed for treason.
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos