Secession and the Constitution

wilber6150

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Retired Moderator
Joined
Apr 1, 2009
Location
deep in the Mohawk Valley of Central New York
Theres been a question thats been nagging me and I thought I would post it here and get some thoughts on it from this forum..

If it was openly known that the Union was voluntary and that states could leave at their leisure as secessionists declared, then why was there so much time spent debating its ratification at the state level.. Why wouldn't they think, heck lets just sign it and if we don't like it we could just leave the Union anytime we want anyway.. There were countless heated meetings and negotiations over fine points and the wording of sections that had to be hammered out before it was accepted. Seems kind of silly and pointless to spend all this time for something that they knew wasn't really permanament..
I believe they took so much time, because they knew it was going to be a permanent or Perpetual Union, and thats why they took so much care in its wording.. Lets look at it a different way.. Why would the founding fathers create a Union in which a state could take money and resources from it to build up its infrastructure and industry, and then just be able to leave at will.. Or, in the midst of a war have a state have the ability to just up quit the Union and join the other side and be within its rights to do that.. Would the creators of the Constitution and the Union have been dumb enough to write the seeds of its own destruction within itself...I think they were smarter then that..Any ideas?
 
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