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White House Responds to All of Those Secession Petitions: There’s No Right to Secede

Jan. 12, 2013 11:03am Madeleine Morgenstern

The Obama administration on Friday responded to the wave of secession petitions that spread online following the November election, preaching unity over division and saying there’s no right to secede.

“In a nation of 300 million people — each with their own set of deeply-held beliefs — democracy can be noisy and controversial. And that’s a good thing. Free and open debate is what makes this country work, and many people around the world risk their lives every day for the liberties we often take for granted,” wrote Jon Carson, director of the Office of Public Engagement.

“But as much as we value a healthy debate, we don’t let that debate tear us apart,” he said.

More than two dozen states from all corners of the country filed online White House petitions after President Barack Obama’s victory over Gov. Mitt Romney, calling for the government to allow them to secede. Carson’s letter was filed in response to requests from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, all of which garnered the necessary 25,000 signatures. It was also a response to a petition to deport those who had signed petitions to secede in the first place.

White House Responds to State Secession Petitions

Carson said the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution the right to change the national government at the ballot box, but not the right to secede.

“[T]hey did not provide a right to walk away from it,” he continued. “As President Abraham Lincoln explained in his first inaugural address in 1861, ‘in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual.’ In the years that followed, more than 600,000 Americans died in a long and bloody civil war that vindicated the principle that the Constitution establishes a permanent union between the States.”

After the Civil War ended, Carson said, the Supreme Court held that “[t]he Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.”

“So let’s be clear,” he concluded. “No one disputes that our country faces big challenges, and the recent election followed a vigorous debate about how they should be addressed. As President Obama said the night he won re-election, ‘We may have battled fiercely, but it’s only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future.’ Whether it’s figuring out how to strengthen our economy, reduce our deficit in a responsible way, or protect our country, we will need to work together — and hear from one another — in order to find the best way to move forward.”

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Comments (658)

breakobamanow
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:11pm
Woe to you carnal people! We do not wrestle with flesh and blood. The war we fight is with evil spirits that are ruling your lives, and the lives of those who are flesh and blood that represent you. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, laying up your treasure in heaven and not on earth. This world in not my home I’m just passing through. When people turn away from God and God’s word, something else (other spirits) comes in to replace it. Where are your treasures at?

How will you stand firm on your faith and God’s law? It starts with each individual person. However I must warn you against wolves in sheeps clothing, as Christ said. I can’t even find a church in my area that still believes and teaches the true bible. I home church and pray practically without ceasing daily and the LORD has truly blessed me. I have peace that passes understanding. Which sprit(s) rule your life? May God have mercy on you when you call upon him to save you. God bless you.

http://www.sasolo.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=110131748568

Are you vain, self-righteous, coveting material things or wealth, hate others, care only about things in the world that please your flesh, spend your time on the internet or watching TV and not reading the bible? God can help with all of it. I know, I use to be you. Some days are difficult but God sees me through and renews my soul. I war daily with Satan and his devils; my soul against my flesh.

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- revelation2012
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 12:41am
  Hosanna in the highest
  
  Have mercy on ‘us’ O Lord, thou Son of David
  
  Jesus of Nazareth ‘it is written’ King of Kings and Lord of Lords
  
  Amen
  
  Blessing and Glory
  
  Wisdom and Thanksgiving and Honour
  
  Power and Might
  
  be unto our GOD for ever and ever
  
  Amen
  
  Report this comment
DougHuffman
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:09pm
The Declaration of Independence has not been rescinded or repealed.

Text: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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, …”

The USDOI Introduction Asserts as a matter of Natural Law the ability of a people to assume political independence; acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained.

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Libfreezone
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:09pm
Nobody ever said or wrote that being a part of the union was a permanent decision. B.O. is flat out wrong. As our Declaration of Independence says “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” THAT STATEMENT GIVES US OUR RIGHT AS A PEOPLE.

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James Capps
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:59pm
I doubt very seriously that any of the signers of the petitions seriously thought that their state would succeed from the nation. I think it more a strike at the displeasure of so man Americans toward this administration and their strong arm tactics.

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OldGuard1968
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:53pm
Well in this case the next option would be to petition your Congressman and Senators to start proceedings to cease the “Executive Order” allowance given to the President. Plus file a bill on term limitations. If term limitations were in place, we would not experience the wrath from Biden, Fienstein and the rest of the career politicians. And when someone like Holder endangers our law enforcement as well as the American people, and who caters to the drug cartels by supplying them with weapons, then it would be time to answer to the people. Kinda like the old west style of trials and hangings.

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jim375
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:44pm
back in the 1700′s england said we couldnt secede either….

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LOTO
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:42pm
Of course they cant secede (except possibly Texas).
What did you think The Civil War was about?
Hint: it wasn’t slavery.
PS. Abe Lincoln didnt like Negros according to Frederick Douglass, former slave and council to Lincoln, but said Douglass, Lincoln was a good man in that he did not believe that any man should own another. Did that make Lincoln a racist? No.
We fully have the right to associate with whom we please.
A racist believes one race to be superior to another, and simply that.

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- DougHuffman
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:06pm
  The Declaration of Independence has not been repealed or rescinded.
  
  USDOI Asserts as a matter of Natural Law the ability of a people to assume political independence; acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained. Text: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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,…”
  
  Report this comment
mbean
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:42pm
The media only mentions Southern States asking to secede. 30 States had petitions but if it does not fit the civil war redux narrative then why mention the rest.

“10,064 people have signed a petition for California to secede from the United States and create its own government,” http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/california-and-the-nation/california-joins-secession-movement-121114?news=846195

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kingbee
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:41pm
The confederates had it wrong, and some still do. You get the right from here…remember this little issue: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands 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.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. and so on

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bjornskis
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:41pm
Free and open debate is what makes this country work,

only if you agree with oblumber and the demokraps

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Exidor
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:31pm
Read the fine print President Sh*tstain.

Texas CAN secede and will if need be.

The only thing you get out of Texas is a free convertable ride through Downtown Dallas.

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Tony Sanchez
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:31pm
I don’t care if I’m known because I signed the Texas petition. Let them come. It will only wake up the low-information fools that voted for a despot. I would gladly give my life for the freedoms we have shared for so long. The future is bleak.

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individualrights1st
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:23pm
The government doesn’t get to decide what our rights are.

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DougHuffman
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:22pm
Obama Oedipus Rex would have us prisoners in a nation of his creation. It is time to impeach Obama with great prejudice.

impeach:

1. To hinder.

2. To bring a legal proceeding against a public official, asserting that because he or she committed some offense, he or she should be removed from office.

3. To discredit an individual or group with presumed expertise.

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chicago76
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:19pm
There are still things to be done before a civil war becomes justified. Peaceful civil protest must always be tried before civil war.

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- Patriot Z
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 9:31pm
  you have been around for the last 4 yrs right? what do you think the tea party has been doing? but at some time, some point civil war MUST happen. we grow weaker every day as our rights are stripped from us and we ‘peacfully protest’ why on earth would obama listen to you? he WON. he has nothing to loose, a media that will cover for him no matter what and a reeady made army of welfare dependents, statist elites, and union thugs. you talk of peacful protest against those who would harm you, enslave you, and villify you no matter what you did. why? they hate you, they hate what you stand for. peacful protest is for leaders who care about the populace and care about doing whats right. Obama and his thugs are statists, bought and paid for who think anyone who does not want to bend to the states will is a fool, and dangerous, and must be silenced at all costs. individualists and statists cannot live together. they are mutually exclusive entities that are mortal enemies. you have to pick a direction, for if you try to go , up, down, left, right, in , out at the same time, all you really do is go nowhere!
  
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Azzman
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:14pm
My 200 guns and 40k rounds in my basement says differently Mr. president.

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rwinger261
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:13pm
Of course we can expect the master to forbid the slaves to leave. The War for Southern Independence proved only that the Feds will resort to brute force to stifle freedom when necessary, it did not settle the issue of whether or not a state could secede. Secession is the only answer, as the Federal govt. of this country is to far gone to change. They have tasted tyranny and love it, and will never give it up.

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- DougHuffman
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:17pm
  Lincoln-16 killed the union to save the Union. Obama Oedipus Rex will finish it off with a steak though our heart. Oedipus killed his father and ‘married’ his mother, making him a mother-huncher same as Obama
  
  Report this comment
- soybomb315_II
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:53pm
  to paraphrase GW Bush…..Lincoln abandoned the union in order to save the union
  
  Report this comment
ultraright
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:13pm
We should not waste political energy on trying to secede! We should form interstate pacts and assert local authority. We have learned that many of our higher courts have been infiltrated and are controlled by social activists who have refused the authority of the Constitution. I therefore propose that, within our interstate alliances, we refuse to recognize any ruling or authority that we would rule to be unconstitutional. Each state should make these rulings through a seven member court whose judges would be selected by each state’s houses of Reps. and ratified by their Senate. These judges would serve a single seven year term and be rotated out at the rate of one per year. The time has come that we quit the idle talk and begin the deliberate action of self governance.

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k8ti
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:12pm
It’s unbelievable how divided our country is right now…an it’s only getting worse! This is exactly why STATES rights are soooooo very important! The federal government was NEVER intended to be this big, and be able to dictate so much over the states. Think about it….if you don’t like the way your state government is being ran….you are free to move to another state. But if you don’t like the way your federal government is being ran….you have to move to a completely different country (and good luck with that).

The country is split right down the middle, liberals want it to go one direction…and conservatives the complete opposite way! We want two totally different countries now…and niether side will EVER agree on the direction they want to country in.

If any liberals are reading this…..OPEN your eyes to the bigger picture, and read your history!

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Country_of_Arizona
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:00pm
Yes it is true that Glenn Beck would be against seceding from the Union but why did he move to Texas? Texas, according to Mr Beck, is the only country that had language put in the agreement to become a state that if there comes a time it can secede becoming its own country. The civil war was actually fought over the slavery issue and yes it could be argued that it was over states rights. If that was the case whet did the feds allow segregation; which was a form of slavery in of itself.
When this nation won the Revolutionary War it was not the USA but several countries (colonies) coming together to defeat a common enemy. Even today all 50 states can be considered small countries because each have their own governments.

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- Metallicat
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:33pm
  the civil war wasnt about slavery. it was about resources the Confederacy controlled,that the US would have to compete for in the free trade market against rich nations like England and France. Lincoln invaded the South,who peacefully seceeded from the Union,to maintain control over those resources and using slavery as the excuse as a humanitarian cause,when it was really a war to fatten the pockets of northern industrialists. The South did not need the North to survive. The North could not survive without the resources of the South.
  
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- UnreconstructedLibertarian
  Posted on January 14, 2013 at 11:42am
  Texas is the only State in the present Union having its antebellum Constitution completely intact.
  
  Northern states all adopted new Constitutions immediately after the War between the States. The Southern states were forced to write new Constitutions at bayonet point. Every State had secession language in its constitution prior to the war – I say again – Every State, North and South, had secession language in its Constitution prior to the war. New York had perhaps the most explicit language stating its right of secession of any – but no modern “credible” historian would dare bring that to your attention.
  
  Texas – never re-wrote its Constitution. Reconstruction in the upper-south had become so odius and violently opposed, Texas simply waited it out and escaped the requirement of a new Constitution in order to be relieved of Martial control. Texas was the only former Confederate State allowed back into the Union with its previous Constitution. That’s why it has the legendary “Secession” clause.
  
  What David Barton doesn’t tell you about those “5″ congressional photographs he’s waged a campaign to have placed on the walls – is that Texans never considered those to be legitimate congressional assemblies – they were martially imposed – not elected. They deserve extreme ridicule by Texans rather than to be placed on the walls with their duly elected and legimate Legislative assemblies. Those photos represent the only time Texas was not its own.
  
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MBA
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 4:00pm
I’m sure the South didn’t send a petition to Lincoln they just did what they thought they needed to do. Doh! I guess ole obamy in chief didn’t think of that!

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ArchaicSEAL
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:55pm
And the colonies had no right of secession from England either. Didn’t stop them, now did it? So it is well and good for them to violate the hell out of the Constitution of the United States when it suits THEIR INSANE liberal progressive and centralist views? That is the elephant in the room here that no one seems to want to pay attention to. Hell, I don’t want any states to leave the union, I don’t want civil war, I just want to live my life in peace. But they have been pushing us VERY hard for awhile now and we have reached a point where there is no further room for us to back up. We are up against a wall. If they continue to push we will have no choice but to push back.

Beck, if you truly have your heart where your money is you would realize this. Yes, it IS crazy. Insane even. As it was crazy for our forefathers to have pushed back against the empire of England in its time. But one thing you fail to realize in ALL of your preaching is that when it came time, our forefathers stopped talking and started acting. Let us continue talking, demanding, yelling because the alternative is as unthinkable today as it was to our forefathers. And YOU, Beck, need to start talking hard… or just the STFU already and join em at CNN and MSNBC.

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- Chris.underhill
  Posted on January 12, 2013 at 5:41pm
  Why does beck have to? Even you are missing you’re own point.. ITS not just GLENN That needs to speak out HE is only one voice ITS US.. WE THE PEOPLE THAT NEED TO SPEAK UP>.
  
  When sopa and pipa was about to be passed, WE SPOKE UP AND IT FAILED>.
  WE NEED TO SPEAK UP AND BAND TOGETHER AND WE NEED TO PUSH BACK>. WE NEED TO THROW THESE IDIOTS OUT AND START ANEW WITH LIKE MINDED REPS>>AND WE NEED TO ACT NOW NO LATER NOT NEXT YEAR NOT NEXT MONTH NOW! RIGHT NOW.
  
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Metallicat
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:52pm
I can see Obama now faced with a secession. he would open up immigration to millions of muslims in the Middle East and North Africa to crush the secessionist rebellion under his watch,forever changing America into something more friendly to his world view.

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- UnreconstructedLibertarian
  Posted on January 13, 2013 at 4:30pm
  That’s exactly what Lincoln did. Except Middle East and North Africa, Lincoln brought in boatloads of every European Socialist faction he could. Irish, German, Eastern european, socialists. You won’t find any of those demographics in the southern army – only immigrants of 2nd or 3rd generation who’d tasted the constitutional freedom of what was “America”.
  
  This is all “tried and proven”, which is why its happening again.
  
  Hell, even hispanics of 2′nd or 3′rd generation don’t agree with the current agenda, do they? See what I mean.
  
  Its now or never folks, this is the beginning of the “Final Solution” for any former semblence of American constitutionalism.
  
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Chris.underhill
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:47pm
I love it When the people speak up, the WH throws the constitution at us when the WH speaks out they bury the constitution..

So only the constitution applies to the citizen not the government in power..

i wonder how much crap people will take before forceful secession starts to take place…

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angryamerican33
Posted on January 12, 2013 at 3:44pm
whats Obama gonna do if a state wants to leave,send in troops like Lincoln did? Start another civil war,this time it will be patriots verses communist/libs…..and they will lose

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