Lincoln claimed in his First Inaugural Address “No
state upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union.”
Closely examining the Articles
of Confederation, Article II states,
“Each state retains
its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and
right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to
the United States, in Congress assembled.”
By the standard definition in any randomly chosen
dictionary, delegated means to pass down a chain-of-command to a subordinate
agent by a superior authority – in this case, the individual state is passing
authority to the Federal government. To reinforce this argument, The Declaration
of Independence, in part, states quite clearly,
“That these United
Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States…
and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to
levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all
other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”
“Power to levy War?” “Contract
Alliances? These words sound very much
like the authority any nation would grant itself.
Remember that the framers of the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution very specifically designed the
new government on the basis of a union of strong and independent states with a
minimal Federal government solely responsible for defense and the judiciary, to
avoid the pitfalls of powerful central governments such as England. In fact,
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution specifically states
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,
Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and
Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
Common defence and general Welfare meant that their
intention was simply to maintain a Federal army and the development of a
nationwide judicial system. That was the main purpose of the Federal government
– and not the mutation we have today. According to various legal
interpretations, Lincoln had no more claim to bind Georgia or Alabama than it
had in binding China or France to the Union. The key here is that somehow
Lincoln and his supporters chose to believe that the states had magically
surrendered their status as sovereign nations as justification to
wage war against the south. Lincoln’s actions clearly violated the tenth
amendment to the Constitution that states,
“The powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Legal experts, ad nauseum, can debate
this argument but one seemingly indisputable fact stands out like a Times
Square billboard. By almost all legal interpretations, the Constitution is
fundamentally a treaty between separate and sovereign nation-states, which
those states agreed to support, as opposed to being bound
to obey by law. This is a very important point that illustrates the rape of the
Constitution commencing with the administration of Lincoln. There are thousands
of legal interpretations that are both pro and con on this issue, so consult
your library (or the Internet) if you wish to pursue this matter in greater
depth.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus (a writ to release a party
from unlawful restraint) and people were seized and confined on the possible
suspicion of disloyalty. At least 13,000 civilians were held as political
prisoners, often without trial or with minimal hearings before a military
tribunal. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ruled that the suspension of
habeas corpus was unconstitutional, but was overruled by Lincoln. Does this not
ring a bell? The Patriot Act was not the first instance of suspension of the
people’s rights under the Constitution.
Once Lincoln and his supporters had made the decision that
states had surrendered their sovereignty, the Civil War caused a tremendous
expansion of the size and power of the Federal government. A progressive income
tax was imposed on the people to pay for the war, the start of the extortion of
our paychecks that we live with today.
One of the key provisions of the Constitution is that it is
a “living” document. Our Founding Fathers recognized that they could not
foresee the needs of the people 100 or 200 years in the future, so they
developed the system of amendments to permit continual update of the document. However,
a very important point must be emphasized in that two-thirds of the states must
ratify any change. Obviously since the south represented about one-half of the
states in the Union, Lincoln would not have been able to modify any provision
of the Constitution dealing with states rights – he would not have obtained
approval on this issue.
States must exercise their rights given under the Constitution...as is the case by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and several State AG's in this fight to regain our country... as Congress has failed us!
No comments:
Post a Comment