re: The Declaration of Independence is not the law of the land...

I do not believe that I said it was. I posted it in response to the statement that talk of secession was "the language of treason". The Declaration of Independence sets forth what is known as the "extraconstitutional right of revolution". That right is at the core of who we are as a country. So it leads to a very interesting discussion, which is really the only thing I'm interested in.

"Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms."

--President Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jack01.asp

Scorpio69er: " "Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms."

--President Jackson's Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832"

Yup. And no way would Jackson have regarded secession under the current circumstances as "morally justified by the extremity of oppression." For Jackson preservation of the Union was a top priority - as such he was quite ready and willing to go to war with the southern states over the issue of nullification alone, which he regarded as a stepping stone to secession.

Old Poor Richard: "It's so fun and amusing to attack the 16% of Americans who aren't totalitarian thugs"

According to that rhetoric, anyone who isn't a libertarian is a "totalitarian thug." And libertarians wonder why they don't get invited to more and better parties.

Old Poor Richard: "particularly by smearing them"

I love irony.

Two posters above have suggested either Alcatraz (ha ha) or a couple of the Aleutians (intriguing) as possible Libertarian homelands. I have a slightly more radical suggestion that may "kill two birds with one stone."

A right-wing kook group claims that several islands near Siberia should have been included in in the 1867 Alaska Purchase but weren't, or more mysteriously, were dropped from it at a later date. As so often happens with things like this, there is a supposed conspiracy -- here often involving Henry Kissinger -- and all sorts of supposed motives for the "giveaway."

http://www.statedepartmentwatch.org/AlaskaGiveaway.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangel_Island

Russia is always hard up for dough. (Some things haven't changed since czarist times.) The Libertarians might be able to buy these islands -- the US State Department officially denies any claim to them -- and create their new society on the fringes of Ayn Rand's native country. Everybody happy except maybe a few Inuit, and I think Sarah Palin would be able to see them from her house.

re: no way would Jackson have regarded secession under the current circumstances as "morally justified by the extremity of oppression."

I dunno. I cannot channel Jackson. Given his great disdain for central bankers, maybe he'd be leading the revolution.

re: ...unilateral secession is not permitted under the constitution

If the government itself demonstrably subverts the Constitution, as many on both the left and right have maintained, can that same government use the very Constitution it has subverted as a basis to prevent secession? Has not the compact that would bind any state to it already been breached?

me: "no way would Jackson have regarded secession under the current circumstances as "morally justified by the extremity of oppression."

Scorpio69er: "I dunno. I cannot channel Jackson. Given his great disdain for central bankers, maybe he'd be leading the revolution."

Jackson dismantled the 2nd National Bank because he believed that it had so much power as to threaten the security of the Union. He did not, however, ever so much as hint about "leading a revolution" if he was not successful in his goal there. He did, however, make it explicitly clear that he would go to war over nullification.

Scorpio69er: "If the government itself demonstrably subverts the Constitution, as many on both the left and right have maintained, can that same government use the very Constitution it has subverted as a basis to prevent secession?"

(emphasis in original)

The United States has been there, done that. What you are talking about here is essentially nullification - the legal theory that state have the right to "nullify" any federal law that the state has deemed unconstitutional. That is exactly what Jackson almost went to war with at lease one state in the south over. Why? Because he understood that it would lead to the dissolution of the Union.

But hey don't take my word for it - here's Jackson, from the exact same proclamation that you quoted from:

,Look, for a moment, to the consequence [if nullification were a valid legal doctrine]. If South Carolina considers the revenue laws unconstitutional, and has a right to prevent their execution in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objection to their collection in every other port, and no revenue could be collected anywhere; for all imposts must be equal. It is no answer to repeat that an unconstitutional law is no law, so long as the question of its legality is to be decided by the State itself, for every law operating injuriously upon any local interest will be perhaps thought, and certainly represented, as unconstitutional, and, as has been shown, there is no appeal.

If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the Union would have been dissolved in its infancy...

I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.

After rejecting nullification as a valid legal position, in the same proclamation Jackson then goes on to specifically address the citizens of South Carolina -- which was the state that was leading the rebellion threat over the nullification issue. One one hand he tries to convince them them that they were being duped by their nullificationist leaders. On the other, Jackson makes it clear that if they rebelled against the federal government over the issue then they were traitors to their country and would therefore suffer "all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your country":

Fellow-citizens of my native State! let me not only admonish you, as the first magistrate of our common country, not to incur the penalty of its laws, but use the influence that a father would over his children whom he saw rushing to a certain ruin. In that paternal language, with that paternal feeling, let me tell you, my countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are either deceived themselves or wish to deceive you. Mark under what pretenses you have been led on to the brink of insurrection and treason on which you stand! ...

They [nullificationist leaders] the are not champions of liberty emulating the fame of our Revolutionary fathers, nor are you an oppressed people, contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than colonial vassalage. You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union....

The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject-my duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived you-they could not have been deceived themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object is disunion, hut be not deceived by names; disunion, by armed force, is TREASON. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the head of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences-on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment-on your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your country.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Proclamation_on_Nullification