Re: Was Secession Legal? Part 7
>And yet Ratification by States said:
“the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or
oppression and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will”.
Your statement is somewhat incoherent. “Ratification by States” did not say this; the Virginia “form of ratification” said it. This statement does not refer to secession. It refers to the resumption by the people of the United States of particular powers from the federal government, by taking any such powers, previously delegated, from the government.
Of course it is secession; the “formal withdrawal from the union”. The “resumption by the people” refers to the people of the several States, not all the people of the united States in the agregate. Virginia can only speak for Virginians; New York for New Yorkers. But what applies to one State, by virtue of membership in the compact of union, applies to all the States, both the original 13 and those hat come after. If the State “resumes” those powers previously “delegated”, the State has withdrawn the consent to be governed by the central government; ergo, the State secedes. “Resumption of delegated powers” can mean nothing else than the State has resumed its position as a Free, Independent and Sovereign Nation/State.”
It can mean nothing else? You claim that the statement you quoted from the Virginia form of ratification referred to some right of the “several” states, and not some right theoretically beloning to the people of the United States in some collective capacity. If that is the case, then it would seem to follow quite logically that, if New Yorkers believed that the power allegedly delegated to the federal government to return fugitive slaves from New York to Virginia had been perverted to the injury and oppression of New Yorkers, New York could resume the power to fugitive slaves from the federal government, while remaining in the Union. It’s probably unnecessary for me to point it out, but “remaining in the Union” is not “secession.” In 1861, did Virginia freely acknowledgre the right of New Yorkers to refure to permit the return of fugitive slaves from New York to Virginia under federal authority?
Now, if the right of a state to resume some power delegated to the federal government comes into play only if that popwer has been perverted to the injury and oppression of the people of that state, as the Virginia form of ratification plainly applies, had the power to return fugitive slaves, as exercised by the federal government, been perverted to the injury and oppression of Virginians? Remember that, this power, along with all others, was “resumed” by Virginia when it seceded. Did Virginia claim that it had been perverted to the injury and oppression of Virginians? Did Virginia claim that the power to coin money, “resumed” from the federal government, had been perverted to the injury and oppression of Virginians? Dod Virginia claim that the power to grant copyrights and patents, “resumed” from the federal government by secession, had been perverted to the injury and oppression of Virginians?
>”There can be no question, however, that the Constitution was not a treaty among thirteen independent nations, but the supreme law of the land of one nation.
I don’t follow your thinking here. Each State, acting independently as the Sovereign agent of the people of the several States, ratified the US Constitution. By ratifying the US Constitution, the several States “delegated” powers to the central government so that
it could act as their agent. These powers were “delegated”, not given away”, and the States still retained their Sovereignty, because that sovereignty comes from the people of the State and that can never be taken away.”
Therefore, when New York ratified the Constitution, it delegated the power to return fugitive slaves to Virginia to the federal government. Or at least it may have. It would seem to follow from your argument as clearly as night follows day that, inasmuch as New York retained its entire sovereignty after it ratified the Constitution, it was up to New York determine whether it had actually delegated to the federal government the power to return fugitive slaves to Virginia. If it had not, then it had not. And if it had, then New York retained the sovereign right to resume from the federal government the right to return fugitive slaves to Virginia. And therefore, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was enforceable in New York only insofar as New York was willing to permit it to be enforced. The moment that New York decided that the Fugitive Slave Law could no longer be enforced in New York, then the Fugitive Slave Law could no longer be enforced in New York. Any other interpretation would lead to the conclusion that New York had not, by ratifiying the Constitution, retained its full sovereignty, for surely the most basic attribute of sovereignty would be such that only the people of New York would have the power to decide what was and what was not lawful in New York.
Indeed, it follows inevitably from your argument that New York had the right to the federal government the pwoer to resist the return offugitive slaves from New York to Virgiinia — to make the federal government its agent in the matter of fugitive slaves, by assisting the state of New in refusing their rendition.
>”Its own words make it crystal clear that the Constitution (as well as federal laws not inconsistent with it), are superior to any state law or constitution.
There is no arguement that the US Constitution, and the laws made pursuant thereto, are the Supreme law of the land.”
But if you grant that, then you have to abandon any claim that the states are, under the Constitution, soverieign in the sense you say they are. If the people of a state are absolutely sovereign, then they need not acknowledge any law other than the laws of their government as having legal force within the state. If, and only if, the people of New York were free to regard the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 as having no legal force New York, if they wished it to have no legal force in New York, can it be said that the people of New York were sovereign. – Gary Charbonneau
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