Doesn't Texas maintain her right to secede in her constitution?  Where's the Texan in this group?

David Kiracofe <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  I remember reading this essay some time ago and agree with Kevin that
the question of perpetual union was not a settled one in 1861. Looking
at everything from the Dopctinres of 1798 to the New England Federalists
in the 1805-1814 period to the Nullifiers in 1832 and the Massachusetts
"personal liberty laws" in the 1850s makes it clear that Lincoln's
notion that the states were truly subsumed into one whole was not a
universally held one. I always thought it was a telling choice on the
part of the founders to depart from the assertion made in the Articles
of Confederation which aimed at a "perpetual union" -- the founders were
content to aspire merely to a "more perfect union." Lincoln's
assertion strikes me as one of his great pieces of political innovation
on a par with the new formulations in the Gettysburg Address. Of course
in the end, Lincoln and his armies settled the matter of secession with
military victory (and then there was a legal decision in, I think ,1867
that finally removed the legal possibility of secession.)


The essay is "The Concept of a Perpetual Union," by Kenneth M.
Stampp, published in The Journal of American History, Vol. 65,
No. 1. (Jun., 1978), pp. 5-33. It is available readily via
JSTOR, or in any good academic library.



David Kiracofe
History
Tidewater Community College
Chesapeake Campus
1428 Cedar Road
Chesapeake, Virginia 23322
757-822-5136

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