Its Time for States to Secede from the Union :: Politics Political Essays

It's Time for States to Secede from the Union There is clear evidence that Congress, the White House, as well as the Courts, have vastly exceeded powers delegated to them by our Constitution. To have an appreciation for the magnitude of the usurpation, one need only read Federalist Paper 45, where James Madison the acknowledged father of our Constitution explained, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." Short of some kind of cataclysmic event liberties lost are seldom regained but there is an outside chance to regain them if enough liberty-minded Americans were to pursue Free State Project's proposal to set up New Hampshire as a free state. Free State Project (www.freestateproject.org) intends to get 20,000 or so Americans to become residents of New Hampshire. Through a peaceful political process they hope to assume leadership in the state's legislature and executive offices and reduce burdensome taxation and regulation, reform state and local law, end federal mandates that violate the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and restore constitutional federalism as envisioned by the nation's Founders. Since there is only a remote possibility of successful negotiation with Congress, the Courts and White House to obey the U.S. Constitution, it is my guess that liberty could only realized by a unilateral declaration of independence - namely, part company - in a word secede. While our Constitution is silent about secession, there is clear evidence that our Founders saw it as an option. On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Senator James R. Doolittle (WI) proposed a constitutional amendment that said, "No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States." Several months earlier Representatives Daniel E. Sickles (NY), Thomas B. Florence (PA) and Otis S.