I'm interested in finding out the US government's official legal argument, for claiming national union over the individual states.

[TomEvans]

As I understand it, the US government denies that the states had ever been 13 sovereign nations; and on this basis it claims national union over the states:




Meanwhile the following argument seems to concur with the above:



In contrast, the Confederate states held that the states were indeed individually sovereign:


So I would like to know if the US government indeed still holds to denying this argument today, in claiming national union over the states.
I do know that the most recent claim, is as follows:



And so it seems that the US government indeed denies that the states had ever been 13 fully-sovereign nations.

 

[LJMYERS]

The Civil War starts here at this gravesite.

 

[5fish]

WE are one nation, the best you can do is a soft secession...

"Silent succession," more accurately called "soft secession," refers to a state's subtle refusal to cooperate with federal laws or policies, creating a form of de facto separation without formal withdrawal from the union. It is a non-violent approach where states selectively ignore federal mandates or build their own systems, which is legally protected by the anti-commandeering doctrine from Supreme Court rulings like Printz v. United States. This is distinct from violent or formal secession and can be achieved through methods like refusing to enforce federal programs or using financial leverage

Soft secession - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[5fish]

So I would like to know if the US government indeed still holds to denying this argument today, in claiming national union over the states.
I do know that the most recent claim, is as follows:

TikTok - Make Your Day

Is It Time for California to Consider a "Soft Secession"? | KQED

We talk about the possible paths for blue-state resistance.

www.kqed.org

Well, it’s defined not as a violent break like 1861, but another term for it is “noncooperative federalism.” Basically, it’s where states that are aligned in values and purpose team up to either defensively or offensively act in their own best interest — to protect their citizens, their values, their programs, their funding.

 

[LJMYERS]

John C Fremont and his aide John Jacob Myers. The Fremonts were upset with me because I would not show them around Santa Barbara.

 

[5fish]

Here is the summary...

Texas v. White: A Landmark Supreme Court Case on State Sovereignty

Explore the historical significance of Texas v. White, a pivotal Supreme Court case that addressed the status of Texas post-secession and the legality of Reconstruction governments in the South.

www.tshaonline.org

 

[O' Be Joyful]

So I would like to know if the US government indeed still holds to denying this argument today, in claiming national union over the states.

Perhaps Tom you should tune in Ken Burns' The American Revolution for further edification upon what the Founders thought. I know that I am.

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-american-revolution

 

[TomEvans]

After watching his series on "The American Civil War," I'm skeptical that he has any objectivity whatsoever; since he never even discussed the legal issue, let alone the South's legal argument for secession.

So the South was not going to "rebellion," like the colonies did, i.e. in acknowledgement of the existing lawful political superior in the Union, like the Colonies did with Great Britain: i.e. declaring independence from it:



After all, they won that revolution, with the following express terms:



And states only need to do that ONCE.

Also they did so under the following principles:



And this applies to the people of the newer states, just like the original 13.

So Ken Burns doesn't seem much of an analyst, vs. simply an artist.
I'll look at it, however.

 

[5fish]

:

After all, they won that revolution, with the following

You remember the opening lines of our Constitution and the politics that that those opening words that states are subject to the will of the people...

You need to read Spooner and his thoughts on the Constitution and like Jefferson thought every generation should vote to accept or reject the constitution of our Founding Fathers...

"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist."
Lysander Spooner,

Lysander Spooner argued that the Constitution has no authority over future generations because it was a contract only between the individuals who were alive at the time it was written.

 

[5fish]

If you use Spooner's logic the Southern States should have had votes if they wanted to live under the Constitution... From that vote could justify leaving the union...

Spooner: We Didn't Consent to the Constitution | Mises Institute

"Even those who actually voted for the adoption of the Constitution, did not pledge their faith for any specific time; since no specific time was named during

mises.org

.

 

[TomEvans]

You remember the opening lines of our Constitution and the politics that that those opening words that states are subject to the will of the people...

You need to read Spooner and his thoughts on the Constitution and like Jefferson thought every generation should vote to accept or reject the constitution of our Founding Fathers...

"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist."
Lysander Spooner,

Lysander Spooner argued that the Constitution has no authority over future generations because it was a contract only between the individuals who were alive at the time it was written.

The US government never claimed that the Constitution formed a national union over 13 sovereign nations.

 

[5fish]

The US government never claimed that the Constitution formed a national union over 13 sovereign nations.

No accept your thesis except the fringe... It does not mean in hundred years your fringe view become the norm...

Your argument may hold for the founding state but the other states were created by the Congress of the United States or ecsorbed I into the union. You need to flush out your argument and I have given you paths...

Here another path... Gandhi way ..

Gandhi's Way...

What if President Davis had not authorized the attack on Ft. Sumter and he stopped the confiscation of federal property within the newly formed Confederacy? This has huge repercussion because without firing on Ft. Sumter, Pres. Lincoln would not have order the forming of an army. Without...

www.jggscivilwartalk.online

 

[TomEvans]

No accept your thesis except the fringe... It does not mean in hundred years your fringe view become the norm...

The "norm" claims that the Declaration of Independence, declared 13 "free and independent states," to be dependent on one another and "the Union:"


And Congress concurred with this, in authorizing Total War against all of the individual states (while carrying it out against some of them); meanwhile the US government has never since denied or retracted it in any way:



Now, do you concur with this legal argument for national union over the states-- i.e. that they declared independence from Great Britain as a single free and independent state in 1776-- and in the intended context of the Law of Nations-- regardless of what they expressly wrote?

Because if so, you have much to learn about international law.

Your argument may hold for the founding state but the other states were created by the Congress of the United States or ecsorbed I into the union.

Under the same Founding principles:


So the Union was never national, with the power to wage Total War against any state, at will; but was always an international union, among separate sovereign nations-- which simply owned certain non-state territories collectively, as such.

Therefore because the peoples of the newer states, had the same inalienable rights, as those of the Founding states; then their states were also free and independent, with the same power to levy war, conclude peace, establish commerce, contract alliances, and "do all the other acts and things that independent states may of right do."

Otherwise they would not have been recognized as self-governing states, like themselves, with equal representation in the US government; but would simply have remained territories of the United States.

Rather, this was simply a claim by President Grant, to deny the blood on his hands:



Meanwhile he says nothing about the original 13-- which most of the seceding states included (Virginia, North Carolina South Carolina, Georgia), or were created out of (Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee); while the US paid nothing for the original territories of Texas in "blood or treasure," which Grant claimed as grounds for national sovereignty over an acquired state-- but only did so seven years before it acceded to the Union, with no agreement of joining.

But this was never the US government's argument for national union-- which was simply the claim that the Declaration of Independence established "the Union" as political superior to the states, and that therefore all newer states just followed suit (while Lincoln claimed that Texas did so by simply agreeing to the same Constitution as all the rest).

Therefore what goes for any one state, goes for all states.

 

[5fish]

Therefore what goes for any one state, goes for all states.

Here a historical thought... We are a union of states that give up individual Independence to from a larger and bigger union for their safety and prosperity... Here is AI search results pointing that out ...

No, the United States was not intended to be an international union, but rather a single, federal union of 50 states.

Yes, the Founding Fathers referred to the United States as a "union" to emphasize that the states were bound together in an indivisible nation. The term appears in the preamble to the Constitution, "in order to form a more perfect Union," and was used to distinguish it from the less cohesive Articles of Confederation that came before.

Yes, the term "Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union" was the official title of the document drafted by the Founding Fathers. While the Articles were intended as a "perpetual Union,"

 

[TomEvans]

Here a historical thought... We are a union of states that give up individual Independence to from a larger and bigger union for their safety and prosperity... Here is AI search results pointing that out ...No, the United States was not intended to be an international union, but rather a single, federal union of 50 states. Yes, the Founding Fathers referred to the United States as a "union" to emphasize that the states were bound together in an indivisible nation. The term appears in the preamble to the Constitution, "in order to form a more perfect Union," and was used to distinguish it from the less cohesive Articles of Confederation that came before.

The US government never claimed that the states gave up their individual independence.

Yes, the term "Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union" was the official title of the document drafted by the Founding Fathers. While the Articles were intended as a "perpetual Union,"

A perpetual union of free, sovereign and independent states.







As noted here:

Despite the absence of any superior authority to enforce such rules, international law is considered by states as binding upon them, and it is this fact which gives these rules the status of law.

So the Constitution was only binding on the states as international law; since the US government makes no valid legal argument of national union.

 

[5fish]

US paid nothing for the original territories of Texas in "blood or treasure,"

I think you forgot the Mexican-American War 1846...

but only did so seven years before it acceded to the Union, with no agreement of joining.

Texas was bankrupt... and they did sign an agreement to join... They, like all states, gave up sovereignty...

First effort... Treaty of Annexation was signed on April 12, 1844 ...

Second effort... Joint Resolution for Annexing Texas, signed into law 1845...


What Texas gave up

• Sovereignty: Texas gave up its status as an independent republic.
• Public property: It ceded public edifices, fortifications, barracks, ports, and harbors to the United States.
• Control of military and customs: It handed over its military and postal facilities and customs authority to the U.S. government.

What Texas retained

• Public debt and funds: Texas kept its public funds, debts, and taxes. The vacant land was to be used to pay these off, and any remainder would be managed by the state.
• Public lands: Texas retained all its vacant and unappropriated lands.
• Right to divide: Texas kept the right to divide itself into up to four new states, with the approval of the U.S. Congress.
• U.S. citizenship: The resolution paved the way for Texans to become U.S. citizens.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/annexation/march1845.html

 

[TomEvans]

I think you forgot the Mexican-American War 1846...

I think you forgot that Texas became a state in 1845, and became a sovereign nation in 1837.

But that was never the stated grounds for each state being a sovereign nation.....
THIS is:



And so they did not establish the Union as a sovereign nation, but THIRTEEN:




This was discerned from what the Law of Nations defined in Book I, Chapter I, §11: “Of a state that has passed under the dominion of another:”

But a people that has passed under the dominion of another is no longer a state, and can no longer avail itself directly of the law of nations. Such were the nations and kingdoms which the Romans rendered subject to their empire; the generality even of those whom they honoured with the name of friends and allies no longer formed real states. Within themselves, they were governed by their own laws and magistrates; but without, they were in every thing obliged to follow the orders of Rome; they dared not of themselves either to make war or contract alliances; and could not treat with nations.

Therefore, since the states could “make war, contract alliances, treat with other nations,“ and “do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do;” the states were not under the dominion of another, and thus were 13 separate sovereign nations.

Meanwhile The Declaration of Independence was framed in the language of the "Law of Nations," to justify the American colonies' separation from Great Britain to the world, and to gain international recognition and support. It argued that the colonies had the right, under the law of nature and of nature's God, to separate e and form their own independent states. This established the new United States as independent actors with the power to engage in diplomacy, war, and commerce, just like any other sovereign nations. And the states were individually recognized as 13 sovereign nations in the Treaty of Paris:

What Texas gave up

• Sovereignty: Texas gave up its status as an independent republic.

Domestic sovereignty only, which is retained vs. delegated powers; with international sovereignty, which is supreme-- and which was held by each state's respective electorate, not its respective government (unlike under the Articles of Confederation, where the state government was supreme).

You may think that the Constitution united the 13 sovereign nations as a single nation, but that didn't happen-- and the US government never claimed that it did.

• [*]Public property: It ceded public edifices, fortifications, barracks, ports, and harbors to the United States.
  [*]Control of military and customs: It handed over its military and postal facilities and customs authority to the U.S. government.
  [*]

Again, domestic.

However the Republic of Texas did give up international sovereignty, over the lands outside of the state of Texas; which became US territories, that later became other states:


So it was a trade between the US and Texas, where it became a member-nation of an international continental union, such as the UN or the EU: not a sale, like the Louisiana Purchase from France.

What Texas retained

• Public debt and funds: Texas kept its public funds, debts, and taxes. The vacant land was to be used to pay these off, and any remainder would be managed by the state.
• Public lands: Texas retained all its vacant and unappropriated lands.
• Right to divide: Texas kept the right to divide itself into up to four new states, with the approval of the U.S. Congress.
• U.S. citizenship: The resolution paved the way for Texans to become U.S. citizens.

Again, you're confusing domestic sovereignty, with international.