Texas Governor Rick Perry, apparent champion of nullification and secession, as well as an ostensible Republican, would do well to consider another Republican president's views on nullification and secession...in fact, the very FIRST Republican president...
"In contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the union of these States is
perpetual...It follows...that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of
the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of
violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are
insurrectionary or revolutionary."
"The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they
break from this they can only do so against the law and by revolution."
"Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy."
"The principle of secession itself is one of disintegration, upon which no government can
possibly endure."
"The distinct issue, 'immediate dissolution or blood'...embraces more than a fate of these
United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question of whether a
constitutional republic or democracy--a government of the people, by the same people--
can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents
the question whether the discontented individuals--too few in numbers to control the
administration,...can...break upthe government and thus practically put an end to free
government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: 'Is there, in all republics, this inherent
and fatal weakness? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of
its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?"
-Abraham Lincoln
