Misguided Constitutional Claims

Virginia’s Sons of Confederate Veterans proclaim that Virginia exercised “her Constitutional Right to secede from the Union” to retain her honor. Such an egregious misunderstanding of the Constitutional history of the country inspires citizens to rally and wave flags and to convince themselves that their anti-government rhetoric can be proven in the Constitution.

It’s important to remember that all nations have constitutions. We are one of the few that lives deliberately within the constructs of ours. An increasing number of claims on the Constitution makes one wonder if we are talking about the same document. Twisting the secession of the South into a noble and Constitutional act renders meaningless any reference to the Constitution. We can’t make the Constitution say what we want it to as a way to elevate our own biases.

So let’s back up and see if Virginia’s Sons are correct. First, as Lincoln reminded his citizenry in his first inaugural address, the Union is older than the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation was ratified in 1781. Its preamble includes the phrase “perpetual union between the states . . . ” The word perpetual shows up in some form or other seven times. The state of Virginia signed this first contract as did the other southern states of Georgia, North and South Carolina. Maryland, a border state, also signed.

Aside from the idea that they aligned themselves into perpetuity, they also signed off on Article VI which says “no two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it will continue.” I include the entire statement in order to demonstrate that the Founders did indeed think about future possibilities of disagreement, and made it clear that the Congress had to approve such an institution.

The idea was restated in the Constitution in Article IV: New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

By Lincoln’s election, seven states had already seceded and elected Jefferson Davis as their president. Undeterred, Lincoln went on to remind all the United States citizens that “it is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.”

And he went on to say, “in your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend it.’”

After such a bloody war on our own land, it is a shame that so many still don’t know what it was about.

Increasingly, rallies crying out to preserve the Constitution fall flat when their participates are asked to identify specific violations. The protesters speak from a fear that they seem at a loss to fully articulate. Their anti-tax stance seems odd in the face of a such large tax cuts for the middle class this year. Their opposition to President Obama's recent arms treaties seems odd given that their hero, Ronald Reagan, spoke passionately about his dream to eliminate nuclear weapons. Their rage against changes in health insurance seems odd given their opposition to large corporations, their opposition to illegal immigrants receiving benefits, and their opposition to paying for those who don't pay their own way. It's just odd. It doesn't square right.

The changing demographics has instilled fear in large portions of the American population and they look, appropriately, to the Constitution for comfort. The innacuracy is to suggest that somehow our Constitution has been violated. It has not. We are living our Constitutional guarantees: neither race nor gender shall determine our rights to achieve and participate in the American landscape of politics and justice. What does it mean when someone cries, only weeks after the election that she wants her "country back." Back from whom?