In a message dated 07/23/2003 3:06:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time, mocsa@earthlink.net writes: > ? For example, except for the original States, territories were obtained > from funds and > treaties of the Federal government. Also what right of sovereignty did > Tennessee, Mississippi or Missouri have ? They never had > sovereignty before they were admitted into the Union. (but the original > colonies and Texas did--that's another argument). These territories were bought with tax monies, and these tax monies were from the people of the original Colonies and Texas. How are these Territories not equal with the original colonies once they become a state? The original Colonies and Texas, WERE the government, Federal or otherwise. From the DOI.... 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. (Great article below) CMF From: SECESSION.NET Creating a worldwide Secession Network based on principles of: Right to Secede - Community-Based Secession - Libertarian/Decentralist Political Processes - Nonviolent Secession and Institutions PRIMACY OF THE RIGHT TO SECEDE The primary political right of the individual and of political communities must be to secede from any larger political entity, whether they were born into it, were forced to join it, or voluntarily joined it. If one denies or relinquishes that right, one is little more than a slave--and no agreement to become a slave can be legally or morally binding. Secession of individuals and communities does not have to mean war and violence. It should be a natural evolutionary feature of all political entities. Large, multi-national nation states were created by military conquest of smaller independent communities, tribes and nations. Individuals today have little control over their local communities, most of which have become mere administrative units of large, distant, oppressive nation states. Government and special interest confiscation of communal and private land has further muddied the territorial basis of many communities. In the last 50 years the largest and most powerful nation states have been building big super-national organizations like the United Nations, NATO, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization to ensure that special interest-corporate-state-bureaucratic-military elites further concentrate their control. What some call "corporate globalization" is really government globalization in service of (mostly "First World") corporate and political elites. The world's large nation states are maintained through threatened and actual military violence against even perceived secessionists. Democratic welfare states bribe their citizens with unsustainable social welfare programs while they build up powerful and increasingly nuclear-armed militaries. Dictatorships dispense with social welfare bribes, sacrificing their people as they focus on military buildups. Only abolition of large multi-national nation states and their militaries will prevent destructive regional wars and eventual and inevitable, accidental or intentional, nuclear war. Carolyn Whenever government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness), it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government. Declaration of Independence of the American Colonies, 1776

> These territories were bought with tax monies, and these tax monies were from > the people of the original Colonies and Texas. How are these Territories not > equal with the original colonies once they become a state? Yes, the money to buy the territories were bought by the people of the United States. And it was Congress that gave them the privileges and recognition of being a State of equal standing. Lincoln's stance, and I assume it is now national policy, is that secession can only be permitted if that State gets consent from Congress (who represents the people of the U.S.). Congress was the one to admit it, so Congress must be the one to omit it. Otherwise it is revolution and the State is subject to military action. The one with the bigger stick wins. --Scott K. Williams