🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DZOEY.92Sep17225713@frob.eng.umd.edu> dzoey@frob.eng.umd.edu (Joseph Herman) writes:
>Well, actually it is true.  West Virginia joined the Union during the Civil
>war when Virginia had seceded from the Union.  Virginia was not technically
>a state at that point.

Actually it is not true.  From the Union's point-of-view the Southern
states did not secede, they were in rebellion.  As far as Lincoln was
concerned they were still a part of the United States and he was just
trying to preserve the Union.  (A good book on Lincoln's thought on this
issue is Garry Wills's book *Lincoln at Gettysburg*.)

>The question is, suppose me and my neighbors get fed up paying yet another
>Willie Don tax increase.  Now suppose we vote to secede.  Is the US
>justified  in sending troops in to suppress our secession?  Think of
>the Baltics or Yugoslavia...

I think this question has answered many times (the Aaron Burr case, the
Jackson/Calhoun fight over nullification, the Civil War, etc.).  The answer
is yes.  Do not confuse the issue by analogy's to the Baltics or
Yugoslavia.  The Baltics were independent COUNTRIES before their annexation
by the Soviet Union.  The states never had the rights of an independent
country such as raising armies or negotiating treaties.

Bill Szewczyk
wfszewc@afterlife.ncsc.mil