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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
Secession not on
Jefferson may have appeared to support nullification as an advocate of State's rights, but he opposed it over the Tariffs Act. His early support was a "convenience."

If nullification were to exist, then the Bill of Rights would not be effective against any state that did not ratify it. Rights have only been "protected" against the states since most of the Bill of Rights became "nationalised - not all of it yet, BTW.

The "States" were not states before the Constitution: merely a group of colonies that had banded together in revolution. They were not sovereign entities. Had they remained states with sovereignty, then the USA would have been merely a latter day Hanseatic League and would have soon lost its independence to European powers that were then far stronger.

Secession does not have legal basis from a sovereign entity. That is International Law. The "secession" from Britain is different in that it is the securing of independence by a colony.
Opinion #2
Debater: The Wild Goose
What were the Articles of Confederation?
It is somewhat surprising that the Articles of Confederation, which guided the United States through their fragile early years, seem to have been so thoroughly wiped from the American memory. Under the Articles, the United States were, more or less, a loosely organized group of sovereign entities. The national legislature was weak and decentralized. The Bill of Rights was penned to placate Antifederalists who preferred the Articles to the Constitution- these rights were NOT in danger under the loosely centralized Articles, but they WERE threatened by the Constitution. The federal government is, as Americans then knew, a danger to our rights, not a protector of them. If the states were not sovereign entities, but merely colonies, and there is no basis for secession from a sovereign entity in law, how is it possible that the "securing of independence by a colony" is legitimate? If secession is illegal, then Americans are subjects of Queen Elizabeth II.
Supporting URL[s]:
http://www.lewrockwell.com
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http://www.lewrockwell.com
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