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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Sometimes I (don't) agree with Don Black
Message-ID: <745@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 18:39:19 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.745
Posted: Mon Oct 28 18:39:19 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 22:55:42 EST
References: <774@x.UUCP> <244@3comvax.UUCP> <818@x.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Distribution: net
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 27

In article <818@x.UUCP> wjr@x.UUCP (STella Calvert) writes:
>In article <244@3comvax.UUCP> michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil) writes:
>>Now, once having agreed that the U.S. Constitution -- and its
>>institutions such as the Congress -- are the "supreme law of the
>>land," where do the signatory states get the idea that they can
>>unilaterally withdraw?  Don't get me wrong, I believe that states
>>can legally withdraw from the Union -- but it seems clear that
>>the Congress must acquiesce.  The Confederate States did not get
>>Congress's approval before attempting to dismantle the Union!  
>
>I don't know where those states got the idea they could withdraw unilaterally
>-- but it might have been from Thomas Jefferson.
>
>	"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one 
>people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with 
>another...."  I won't quote the whole thing, but TJ argued that there are
>rights that cannot be superceded by any government.
>
>And if that argument was sufficient for the first revolution, it would seem
>sufficient for any other.

Quite so -- if the government is sufficiently oppresive, you have a right to
revolt against it.  But that isn't a *legal* right, and you had better be
prepared for it to fight back.  Which is of course what happened.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108