"I will never be taken alive."
Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, CSA
to Dr. Moses Hoge
Judah P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, CSA
to Dr. Moses Hoge
***************************
H. Newcomb Morse
Stetson University College of Law
Stetson Law Review, 1986
Senator Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana was a brilliant legal mind who was later attorney general, secretary of war and secretary of state of the Confederacy.
In his farewell speech to the United States Senate on February 5, 1861 he went into great detail about the right of secession. He asserted that the denial of that right is a "pretension so monstrous" that it "perverts a restricted agency [the Federal Government], constituted by sovereign states for common purposes, into the unlimited despotism of the majority, and denies all legitimate escape from such despotism . . . and degrades sovereign states into provincial dependencies." He said that "for two-thirds of a century this right [of secession] has been known by many of the states to be, at all times, within their power."2
No American who believes in the Declaration of Independence can ever doubt the right of secession. Our country was born of secession from the British Empire. Secession is defined by Merriam-Webster as "the act of separating from a nation or state and becoming independent."3 The Declaration of Independence starts with:
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The principle is clear as stated in the Declaration of Independence by "free and independent States. They united by a Constitution which created and limited the "general government" to delegated powers without which it may do NOTHING according to the clear wording of the 10th Amendment. The U.S. Government has NO power to prevent a State or States from seceding. Therefore, they are free to do so. --Ron W
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. Government has NO power to prevent a State or States from seceding. Therefore, they are free to do so.
DeletePrecisely.