Questions About The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War

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Does anyone know of a Constitutional basis or documentation from the Constitution's authors that suggests that, although membership in the Union would initially be voluntary, it would thereafter be permanent and obligatory? Is there a basis to know or assume that colonial and territorial governing bodies intentionally voted for membership to a union that required compulsory and permanent membership?

Werner The Articles of Confederation (which the Constitution replaced) included a specific prohibition of secession from the Union. Lincoln, in his first ina…moreThe Articles of Confederation (which the Constitution replaced) included a specific prohibition of secession from the Union. Lincoln, in his first inaugral address, based his argument for the supposed indissolubility of the Union entirely on this provision. Since the Constitution declares its aim as the creation of a "more perfect" union, and since in his view absolute indissolubility must be by definition an aspect of "perfection," then the Union created by the Constitution must be even more absolute than that created by the Articles.

IMO, that reasoning is not at all convincing, depending as it does on a tortured and subjective interpretation (not supported anywhere else in the text of the Constitution) of the word "perfect." A more intuitive view, to my way of thinking, would be that if the framers of the Constitution had wanted to retain the Articles' prohibition of secession, they would (and easily could) have simply kept its language on that point. Their decision not to do so could hardly have been anything other than deliberate.

(That answer doesn't imply any agreement, as such, with whatever views may be expressed in DiLorenzo's book, which I have not read. It's simply an answer to the specific question which was asked.) (less)

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