May a professor of constitutional law join in? There *are* things you might object to about Lincoln, e.g. his unilateral suspension of the writ of habeus corpus (it was more than arguable that this should have required a congressional act), but the arguments in this post are not among them. Read on. On Sun, 10 Aug 1997, Steve Schear wrote lots including:
But, as Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, pointed out, the Constitution had been "a compact between independent states." The powers given to the federal government had been "delegated," and whatever is delegated can be withdrawn.
The above is the historical and logical error. In fact, as you will see if you read Gordon Woods' magisterial account of the legal and political history of the constitution, the dominant view (articulated in the Federalist papers, for example) was the "dual sovereignty" thesis. In this view BOTH the federal government AND the states were agents of the PEOPLE, who were the only sovereign. This is why the federal constitution was ratified by popular votes, not by state legislatures -- the legislatures were not vested with the power to create the union, as this power was outside the delegation to the states. Naturally, rebel Jefferson Davis glossed over all this, if he even understood it, since it was fatal to his cause. It is consistent with the dual sovereignty thesis to say that "what is delegated can be withdrawn" but the entity doing the "withdrawing" is the people (by some democratic process, presumably, e.g. a new constitutional convention), not the states, for it is the people who did the delegation in the first place. A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | "Cyberspace" is not a place. U. Miami School of Law | froomkin@law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's @%#$%$# hot here.