This is only true if you play REALLY fast and loose with the definition of an "inalienable right."

If you give "right" it's correct meaning of a liberty interest others may not arbitrarily or capriciously deny you, it's far more accurate to say that every society has recognized this right than that none have (although that'd be an exaggeration, too, just much less of one).

I've read Locke and since he ultimately derives natural rights from our having been created by God, something I and many other contemporary thinkers reject, yes you probably should rehash his stuff.

There is an undeclared constitutional responsibility not to secede. And that has more weight than an undeclared right to secede in my opinion.

Why is there an undeclared responsibility to not secede? The spirit of the Declaration seems to be that we have a clear right to change our government if it's tyrannical? (that's not an endorsement of the CSA's position on the USA).

The spirit of the US Constitution is also clearly pro-secession--states can only voluntarily relinquish sovereignty--surely they can take back that which they voluntarily surrendered?

And what duty is the source of this responsibility? To whom do they owe this responsibility? The other states? If so, what is the nature of this duty? To avoid doing them harm? What possible harm does it do the US if, for instance, Rhode Island decides it wants to reclaim its status as a fully sovereign nation?

loladler

Good way to spot a neo-con apologist is to see just how far they trumpet the South's admiration of the Fugitive Slave Clause as conclusive evidence of their distaste for states' rights.

Mpethy, your history, philosophy, and political theory all seem to be rather, um, superficial. You mainly seem to be making things up.

As far as god in the constitution, that's just absurd. If anything the constitution was the most nonreligious outline for a government ever to that point. People have cites to relevant passages in Locke? The are many ways to get rights without god and almost all are superior to that, um, unnecessary hypothesis.

Also, saying things like "the constitution is x (and only x)" is naive and silly. The constitution is many things, including a thing that can be used to protect irrational prejudices from revision in light of reason and experience by trying to try those prejudices to 18th or 19th century customs.

Finally, one person's pursuit of happiness almost inevitably infringes on the rights of others. Deciding which right(s) has priority is a political question, often decided by implicitly or explicitly weighing harm to others vs imposition on individuals.

Do you really think I'm going to engage you after I outted you in Unchained?

I know what you're doing. I have known for a long time. If I wanted to keep playing, I wouldn't have said what I said.

Pretty epic reading comprehension fails. I NEVER SAID GOD WAS IN THE CONSTITUTION. I said the political philosophy on which the Constitution was based is based on the idea of God-given rights. If you can't understand the difference between those two statements, don't try and blame me by falsely claiming I made something up--just admit that you don't understand American history or the constitution.

If you don't understand the God connection to the Constitution, I can help you there. It's actually pretty simple. The Constitution recognizes natural rights that government is powerless to infringe; it is powerless to infringe them because, according to the political philosophy of the time, they were bestowed by God.

It's not hard to trace the philosophy. You go from Locke's statement in Two Treatises that everyone has a natural right to defend his life, health, liberty and possessions to the Declaration "that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," to the fifth amendment's "nor be deprived of life liberty or property without due process of law."

The fact that God is not actually mentioned in the Constitution is irrelevant, but also owes its existence to Lockean political philosophy concerning the separation of church and state.

If you need a cite to Locke making scriptural arguments regarding the basis for people's rights, I suggest, maybe, um, the whole damned First Treatise, lolol.

Seriously, man, your apparent complete ignorance about what Locke wrote, the philosophy that influenced the framers, and the role of the Constitution is really a poor basis for accusing me of making things up.

This deserves separate comment:

You're just wrong about this, because of what I said the Constitution is:

There was no other purpose for the US Constitution. Paraphrasing myself, the purpose of the Constitution was to create a national government and define its structure and powers. It didn't do anything else. The Bill of Rights muddies the waters some because it talks about individual rights, but really that's the same subject--delineating the powers of the federal government as "not 1-10."

Isn't simplicitus an attorney?

How the hell can he not know this?

He can't possibly be. Any first year law student would know everything I said. (any liberal law student would find them distasteful truths to be avoided by claiming that the Constitution is a living document.)

WRT the foundational philosophy of the US and the purpose of the constitution, I haven't said anything that would surprise any poli sci 101 student two weeks into the class--I'm practically plagiarizing the Intro to Politics textbook I taught from when I was teaching poli sci.

Your analysis of Locke reads like you picked him up second hand from a shallow conservative magazine or legal opinions, and your discussion of God as undergiriding natural rights and law is as superficial as it comes.

Regarding Locke, one can find relevant discussion in thousands of books and articles, but the Stanford Encyclopedia is good enough place for an overview:

"In the century before Locke, the language of natural rights also gained prominence through the writings of such thinkers as Grotius, Hobbes [big theist, he], and Pufendorf. Whereas natural law emphasized duties, natural rights normally emphasized privileges or claims to which an individual was entitled. There is considerable disagreement as to how these factors are to be understood in relation to each other in Locke's theory. Leo Strauss, and many of his followers, take rights to be paramount, going so far as to portray Locke's position as essentially similar to that of Hobbes. They point out that Locke defended a hedonist theory of human motivation (Essay 2.20) and claim that he must agree with Hobbes about the essentially self-interested nature of human beings. Locke, they claim, only recognizes natural law obligations in those situations where our own preservation is not in conflict, further emphasizing that our right to preserve ourselves trumps any duties we may have.

....
"Those interested in the contemporary relevance of Locke's political theory must confront its theological aspects. Straussians make Locke's theory relevant by claiming that the theological dimensions of his thought are primarily rhetorical; they are “cover” to keep him from being persecuted by the religious authorities of his day. Others, such as Dunn, take Locke to be of only limited relevance to contemporary politics precisely because so many of his arguments depend on religious assumptions that are no longer widely shared. More recently a number of authors, such as Simmons and Vernon, have tried to separate the foundations of Locke's argument from other aspects of it. Simmons, for example, argues that Locke's thought is over-determined, containing both religious and secular arguments. He claims that for Locke the fundamental law of nature is that “as much as possible mankind is to be preserved” (Two Treatises 135). At times, he claims, Locke presents this principle in rule-consequentialist terms: it is the principle we use to determine the more specific rights and duties that all have. At other times, Locke hints at a more Kantian justification that emphasizes the impropriety of treating our equals as if they were mere means to our ends. Waldron, in his most recent work on Locke, explores the opposite claim: that Locke's theology actually provides a more solid basis for his premise of political equality than do contemporary secular approaches that tend to simply assert equality."


So, at best, you are adopting one, oft repeated, minority view of the role god in Locke as it relates to rights and natural law. You are then claiming that Locke's "natural law" perspective on rights is the sine qua non perspective of rights embodied in the Constitution, when, in fact, 1) whether the Constitution embodies some natural law perspective, and just to what extent, is eminently debatable, and 2) Locke's specific and peculiar understanding of the role of natural law, and your minority view of it, should be conceived of as the whole or partial basis for such as view as embodied in the Constitution, at least to the extent and degree the Constitution embodies such a view (which it doesn't).


More importantly, and more obviously, god does not pull any weight in any such "grounding" of natural law. To borrow from Plato, is it natural law because god made it thus, or did god make it thus because it's natural law. A contractatian perspective of natural rights more plausible and has the benefit of not introducing any unexplained expainers into the mix. In short, it is historically and philosophically false that god has any role in relation to rights based (to the extent that is the case) perspective that informed the Constitution, despite what your conservative high school teacher told you.

Also, I don't know if they mentioned this to you in law school or poly sci class, but no one believes in natural law anymore.

II'll continue because your view is so perniciously false, though it has the benefit of being widely accepted of people who don't know about such things but yet feel eminently qualified to address them.

This is Madison in Federalist 51. Please let me know how all his talk of rights (which he often uses interchangeably with "interests") is in any way reflective of a "natural law" perspective as (supposedly) articulated by Locke and embodied in the Constitution. Can we agree that the Federal Papers are a better perspective on what the Constitution means than what Locke wrote a century earlier? Well, surely you object, there we many people involved in the debate, drafting, and ratification of the Constitution to accept one narrative or interpretation, even Madison's, as canonical. Exactly. See, it's easy to spout off superficial talking points leaned from poor sources, the real work is in actual analysis of the facts.

Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. [Not to protect their rights but to guard against injustice?] Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. [Wait, rights aren't made secure by their natural law status but by checks against the majority?] There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority -- that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable. [Wait, so "rights" are protected by a multiplicity of conflicting interests?] The first method prevails in all governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties. The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. [Why? Because such civil rights follow from natural law? Apparently not.] It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government. This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated: the best security, under the republican forms, for the rights of every class of citizens, will be diminished: and consequently the stability and independence of some member of the government, the only other security, must be proportionately increased. Justice is the end of government. [Well, hello, big claim! Madison says government is not there to protect rights or advance natural law, but to promote justice.] It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. [So the goal of government is for society to keep evolving toward more perfect justice? Damn, that there is results, not rights, talk.] In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted that if the State of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of factious majorities that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of it. In the extended republic of the United States, and among the great variety of interests, parties, and sects which it embraces, a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good [but what about natural law??]; whilst there being thus less danger to a minor from the will of a major party, there must be less pretext, also, to provide for the security of the former, by introducing into the government a will not dependent on the latter, or, in other words, a will independent of the society itself. It is no less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary opinions which have been entertained, that the larger the society, provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government. And happily for the republican cause, the practicable sphere may be carried to a very great extent, by a judicious modification and mixture of the federal principle.

Well then, an entire statement by Madison of the protection of minority rights, and nary a word about natural law or natural rights or Locke. Doesn't even mention god, except to mention that civil rights should be protected like the right to religious liberty.

I know people like George Will and William Kristol seem to know what they are talking about, but they don't.

Edit: cites for the quotes in the previous post. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/

While I'm not super up-to-date on this stuff, my understanding is that many contemporary historians (e.g. Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, J.G.A. Pocock) regard republican thought as the primary intellectual background for the Constitution rather than the liberalism of Locke. Natural rights (when they show up at all) are not nearly so central to republicanism as they are to Lockean liberalism.

I'm not sure why the political philosophy of the framers is really relevant to the question of secession. There is a legal issue: do the states have a legal right to secede from the Union? If so, under what circumstances? In answering this question, the relevant bit is not the political philosophies of the framers, but the actual Constitution itself. Sure, many of them believed in natural God-given rights. You still have to show where that is in the Constitution and how it is relevant to the question of secession.

Then there is a philosophical question: do states have a moral right to secede from a union? This is obviously separate from the legal question (states might have such a right even if it is illegal). Here we might be interested in Locke's justifications of moral rights--but only insofar as we think his justifications are correct, not because they were accepted by the framers.

@simpliticus: Heh, glad to see you're trying to get up to speed. Props for that.

I get why you're saying this; there certainly have been attempts to divorce the concept of natural law from the constitution. Heck, that's one of the main premises, or maybe goals, of progressivism. But the historical record is pretty clear, in the form of the three documents I cited.

It's not my fault the majority denies the textual evidence for ideological reasons.

Accepting the exaggeration as true for the sake of argument: so what? My only point regarding natural law is that the idea is essentially enshrined in the Constitution as individual rights that government cannot abridge. That later political philosophers are constitutionally irrelevant, because the constitution basically took a snap shot of 1780s political philosophy and made it the supreme law of the US.

(obviously that's oversimplifying because of subsequent amendments, but it's accurate for the original text plus bill of rights, anyway).

I've made multiple points ITT. The Lockean argument is a bit of a derail. One poster took another poster to task for not being conversant with political philosophers after Locke, and I simply pointed out that most later philosophers were constitutionally irrelevant.

That point wasn't really intended to address directly the question of whether states have a right of secession.

As for this bit of your post:

It was an altogether different point that I was making, mainly in my discussion with Wookie.

The idea that you have to be able to find an individual or state right in the Constitution in order for it to exist evidences a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution is a grant of limited power to the federal government. The 9th and 10th Amendments make it absolutely clear that the Constitution is not the source of state rights, nor individual rights; those rights preexist the federal government. State sovereignty is only constrained by the Constitution to the extent that the states voluntarily surrendered their sovereignty (The reconstruction amendments act as a bit of a qualification of that statement, or at least muddy the waters).

So the constitutionally correct form of the question is: Does a sovereign nation state have a right to decide what supra-national organizations it wishes to join or leave? If yes, is there anything in the constitution that demonstrates that the states voluntarily surrendered this aspect of their sovereign powers?

Let's grant your understanding of the 9th and 10th Amendments. Does that mean that states or individuals have rights which preexist the federal government? No. It does mean that (some of) the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution believed that they had such rights. But obviously their beliefs do not make it so. If you accept, say, a utilitarian political philosophy that rejects the existence of natural rights while acknowledging legal rights, then you'll think that the rights granted in the Constitution (contrary to the views of those who wrote and ratified the Constitution) are in fact given by the Constitution.

Now, there is a legal question here that would still be relevant to my hypothetical utilitarian: what is the relation between the (legal) rights guaranteed by states and the (legal) rights guaranteed by the federal government? That is, it would be possible to have a constitution that reserved to states rights of nullification and secession. If the U.S. Constitution did in fact do this, then sure, the states have these rights as a matter of law. But you would have to then show that the Constitution actually did do this. Merely showing that the Framers believed it as a matter of political philosophy would be insufficient as (according to the utilitarian) they held false beliefs about the nature of rights.

Eh, I don't mean to be flippant, but: yes, that the framers believed our legal rights preexisted the federal government absolutely makes it so.

I'll expand to keep from being completely flippant. It makes it so simply because they made that political philosophy the supreme law of the land.

I guess that could be considered a legalistic view, and we could remain free to debate some abstract truthfulness of their philosophy. If that's the level you're talking about, that's fine, I have no issue with it. But I'm not really interested, either. This is a nation of laws, and the law says that state and individual rights preexist the federal government, which is powerless to abridge them unless voluntarily permitted to do so by the states (again, reconstruction amendments caveat).

I'm not trying to convince people of the abstract truthfulness of a political philosophy. I'm just pointing out that a particular abstract political philosophy was in large part codified into the fundamental law in this country.

Utilitarian philosophy may make compelling arguments that there are no natural rights. That's fine. It may even be, in some unknowable way, correct. That's completely irrelevant, though, because the law of this country very clearly and plainly says otherwise.

Your argument is very appropriate in a situation where we are debating, for instance, whether the constitution we write will treat rights as natural or legal. But it's irrelevant to answering a question under existing law which has already settled the debate. It's like going into court and arguing that the law ought to be other than what it is. The judge will usually nod, say that's interesting, take it up with the legislature, and rule based on the law as it actually is.

According to the law of the US, the correct form of the secession question is as I framed it: Does a sovereign nation state have the inherent power to decide which supra-national organizations it will join or leave? If yes, is there any indication in the US Constitution that the states voluntarily relinquished this power?

This is incoherent. A legal right is (roughly) a right you have by virtue of some government granting/guaranteeing it. A natural right is generally understood as a right you have by virtue of your nature as a human being (roughly, a right we would have in the state of nature). Here you are saying we have natural rights because the U.S. Constitution says we do. But this doesn't make sense. If we have these rights because the Constitution made it so, then they are legal rights, not natural rights. The U.S. Constitution can't make it the case that we would have rights if there were no U.S. Constitution--which would be required in order for our rights to be natural rights.

Right, it is a nation of laws, but there are some things about which you can't make effective laws. For instance, we can pass a law saying that God created the universe six thousand years ago and it makes not a whit of difference about what actually happened six thousand years ago.

Yeah, I get that. I'm claiming that this is wrong because you can't codify certain parts of abstract political philosophy into law--for instance, false descriptive claims such as that we have natural rights. I don't even know what a law like that would look like.

The spirit of the USC is clearly pro-unity. Obviously, seceding is the opposite of forming a more perfect union. I say the ideals it contains sets the bar of rationale for responsible secession so very high.

First off, mpethy, are you aware that this is a settled question? There is binding SCOTUS case law on this subject. There's also, though not legally binding, pretty substantial historical record that the Founding Fathers leaned towards suppressing armed insurrections with violence instead of like, holding independence parties for them. Also there's common sense, you think there was a scrivener's error that just forgot to put "*None of the above applies to Southern conservatives if they get afeared or angry 'bout something." at the end?

Secondly, what? Unlike the right to privacy from Griswold, your imaginary right to unilateral secession requires some followup questions.

How does Rhode Island go about seceding? What happens to federal property in Rhode Island? What happens to Rhode Island's share of the national debt? What happens to people in Rhode Island who wish to remain US citizens? What about Rhode Islanders currently serving abroad in our armed forces? What is the venue for adjudication of disputed secessions?

Anyone who truly thinks that the framers didn't think that secession was a possiblity or that a state wasn't meant to be it's own sovereign needs to look at the first federal government of the United States which was established under the Articles of Confederation. They pretty much wanted to be 13 states that were loosely bound for trade and protection from Britain.

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

Derp Derp. Of course, they don't teach you about this little 10 year period in school.

Who's derping?

Except for the fact that states wouldn't sign it until include in the constitution was a guarantee of their individual rights and their right to establish their own military units, militia, and for the citizenry to own guns. That wasn't added because people liked to hunt it's because they wanted recourse from a federal or state government that overstepped it's bounds.