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YouDebateIt.com -- Is It Better To Be A Divided Nation?
Topic: Is It Better To Be A Divided Nation?

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Opinion #1
Debater: interested
Nullity and secession are slogans only.
The ideas of nullity and secession are reactionary and have had no currency in American affairs since Calhoun. Even Calhoun saw nullity as a tool to enforce equality in laws. Yet, it could only be used to achieve a condition of inequality. Jackson effectively disposed of that thought.

Secession is, as it always was, a non-starter. The states are not sovereign entities as such: they are sovereign within their jurisdictions and limits. The USA is sovereign in a national sense and sovereignty means indivisibilty. Secession has no legal basis. Neither do any of the States meet the criteria set by the Helsinki Accords for self-determination and, therefore do not meet the agreed international standards to form independent nations.

There is something inherently bad about division that outweighs any suggestion that there is nothing inherently good about Unity. That is, the conditions of inequality and dissension - perhaps confrontation - that would follow disunity. The ends of politics are-
Opinion #2
Debater: The Wild Goose
The states predate the constitution; if not, then "God Save the Queen"!
Many are aware that Calhoun was a proponent of nullification, but few ever bother to name any of nullification's more distinguished proponents, among them Thomas Jefferson. It is fine to say that the federal government is sovereign, but saying it does not necessarily make it true. Saying that the federal government is sovereign while maintaining that "Secession has no legal basis" is utterly ridiculous- if that is true, the United States of America are currently under the jurisdiction of Queen Elizabeth II, because the secession of the American colonies in 1776 had no legal basis. The states created the federal government in the first place, by ratifying the constitution. If the states created the federal government by ratifying the constitution, how is it possible that the federal government alone has the right to decide what is and is not legal as regards the constitution? The government cannot be allowed to define its own powers without running the risk of tyranny.
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