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Does a State have the right to secede?
08-22-2013, 05:59 AM
Post: #37
RE: Does a State have the right to secede?
I do not feel adequate to enter this discussion, but I do have a question in case anyone would like to respond. Are "nullification" and "secession" two separate concepts, or are they essentially the same overall concept? The reason I ask is that courts look for precedents when they make decisions, and Lincoln was a lawyer. Nullification was an issue in 1832, and Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation regarding nullification. Just one paragraph of it reads:

The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league, and whether it be formed by compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States; they retained all the power they did not grant. But each State having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other States a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation.

Does anyone know if Lincoln looked at this as a precedent? Did this help him decide his own position on secession?

Thank you for any possible responses.
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RE: Does a State have the right to secede? - RJNorton - 08-22-2013 05:59 AM
RE: Does a State have the right to secede? - Hess1865 - 08-24-2013, 09:04 PM

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