I'm moving to the first state that secedes from the Union. Who's with me?

would do well to take this advice. We cry for our lost freedoms, when at our own insistence, we fail to enact our Liberty. We blame trespass on others for signs we clearly do not post, but claim are there. Liberty is not simply our belief, it is our faith in our rights, and the actions taken on that behalf. You want freedom? Then take it (this is aimed at myself as well).

There being VT. One of the programs he'd like to implement is a socialist medical care system modeled after the Swiss' health care system. So I suppose if your idea of 'freedom' and 'liberty' involves being forced to purchase ANYTHING lest you become the victim of state enacted violence against you, sure... Dennis Steele is your guy.

I don't believe that you'd really approve of Mr. Steele if you knew this, Michael. I certainly don't. And please don't take my word for it though, go check his campaign webpage.

"no Constitutional mechanism for secession"

I beg to differ:

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Additionally, the entire concept, found within the Constitution, concerning the nature of the States, both in the Doctrine of Retained and Reserved Rights is substantial. When considered that, along with the firm foundation upon which the Constitution was written that the People are ultimately Sovereign and that government governs only by the Consent of the People grounds the Act of Secession into the very foundation of the Constitution.

Indeed, in the Federalist, this is given an explicit explanation: "...the States will retain all preexisting authorities which may not be exclusively delegated to the federal head."

"All authorities, of which the States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union, remain with them in full vigor."

Virginia, in particular, expressed their views of acceding to the union in no uncertain terms:

"We, the delegates of the People of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the People of the United States, be returned by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression"

William Rawl states that "The Union is an association of Republics". He continues by saying: "It depends on the State itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on the State itself whether it continues a member of the Union." "The secession of a State from the Union depends upon the will of the People. The Constitution of the United States is to a certain extent, incorporated with the Constitutions of the Several States by the act of the People. Nothing is more certain than that the act [secession] should be deliberate, clear, and unequivocal. The perspicuity and solemnity of the original obligation require correspondent qualities in its dissolution."

Hence, our Union is a federation of States [Republics], free and independent, associated by a voluntary compact.

John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court went as far as to say: "The State governments did not derive their powers from the general [federal] government, but each [State] government derived its power from the People"

Indeed, it is very evident in a variety of State Ratification documents that the States fully understood that the union was based on a completely voluntary basis and in the same manner that the States Acceded to the Union they could Seceded from the Union. Where did the States surrender their Sovereignty or where did the People surrender theirs in the Constitution? There is, within the Constitution, as well as the Ordinances of Ratification, the inherent Right of the States and the People, those Rights were never ceded to the general [federal] government at any time and to do so would, in fact, negate the entire concept behind both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself. The powers delegated to the general government were extremely limited and very restrictive in nature, there was no absolutely sovereignty ceded to the federal government and all powers that were delegated were of a very specific nature, for a very specific purpose.

The Act of Secession, no different in nature than the Act of Accession are based upon voluntary actions of the consent of the People therefore, if the consent of the People gave rise to the Act of Accession to the union is it not also necessary that the same consent of the People be withdrawn and the Act of Secession be entered into by the People?

The general [federal] government was a creation of the States in Convention, they are its creator by the People's consent. The creation is not greater than that which created it.

John Quincy Adams put it very clearly: The indissoluble link of union between the People of the Several States [free and independent] of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the right, but in the heart. If the day should ever come when the affections of the People of these States shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interest shall fester into hatred, the banks of political associations will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the People of the disunited States to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect union, by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by law of political gravitation to the centre."