Possible Montana Secession?

I guess what the Montana Secretary of State's argument boils down to the assumption that anything that has offer (e.g., statehood), consideration (e.g., the physical territory of the state), and acceptance (e.g., the adoption of the US Constitution at the constitutional convention) is a contract. It is true that a contract is defined as having offer, consideration, and acceptance, to be a contract, but it is not clear (at least to me) if a contract is the only thing that can have offer, consideration, and acceptance.
 
I thought the thread title was Possible Montana Sex Session which would have been about something much different.

So if Montana secedes and declares itself independent then the US would have just lost a bunch of doomsday cults, white supremacists and barking mad militias. If we could just get Britney Spears to move there the US could get rid of a lot very annoying things in one stroke.
 
Okay, so we take a little bit of Montana, mix it with water, shake it, dilute and shake repeatedly- what is this supposed to cure?

Oh, wait- I was thinking succussion.
 
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Travis said:
I thought the thread title was Possible Montana Sex Session which would have been about something much different.

So if Montana secedes and declares itself independent then the US would have just lost a bunch of doomsday cults, white supremacists and barking mad militias. If we could just get Britney Spears to move there the US could get rid of a lot very annoying things in one stroke.
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You are confusing Montana with Texas.
 
Travis said:
Even her leaving the country would not insulate us from the corporate created Miley Cyrus juggernaut.
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Hey at least the Miley Cyrus juggernaut is fairly benign,unlike the trainwrecks that Lohan and Spears are providing.
 
dudalb said:
Hey at least the Miley Cyrus juggernaut is fairly benign,unlike the trainwrecks that Lohan and Spears are providing.
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Yes....so far.

What really stinks is that a train wreck is almost impossible to not look at.
 
Darth Rotor said:
If they secede, Canada will doubtless gobble them up!

Won't someone think of the children?
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Once in a while, usually when cattle prices are low, some Alberta ranchers make noise about wanting their province to join the States. That would make for an interesting border.
 
Heh. I suspect that the Blackfeet tribes would welcome the opportunity to revisit some old treaties.
 
Here's how someone described the validity of the "secession" to me:

In order to have a contract you MUST HAVE offer, consideration, and acceptance. Montana had all these things, therefore the compact with the United States is a valid contract. If the United States were to alter their rulings so that the Montana Constitution is now repugnant to the United States Constitution it would be a case of breach of "conditions subsequent." This is a rare legal device whereby a party is in breach of a contract and the unbreaching party is released from the contract due to a change in the breaching party's position making them unable to fulfill the terms of the contract. If I was hired as a licensed surgeon and after a period of time was no longer licensed then I would be breaching a condition subsequent and the entity who hired me would no longer be bound by the contract.
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Does this make sense?
 
mijopaalmc said:
Here's how someone described the validity of the "secession" to me:



Does this make sense?
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no, just because something has "offer, consideration, and acceptance." does not make it a contract. That guy may have well have said that "in order to be a normal healthy dog you MUST HAVE four paws a head and a tail, tiddles the kitten has all three, therefore tiddles the kitten is a dog".

Constitutions set legal frameworks, contracts work within legal frameworks, contracts also require the agreement of all parties bind to said contract, at which point do citizens of the US or Montana explicitly agree to the terms of the "contract"?
 
brodski said:
no, just because something has "offer, consideration, and acceptance." does not make it a contract. That guy may have well have said that "in order to be a normal healthy dog you MUST HAVE four paws a head and a tail, tiddles the kitten has all three, therefore tiddles the kitten is a dog".

Constitutions set legal frameworks, contracts work within legal frameworks, contracts also require the agreement of all parties bind to said contract, at which point do citizens of the US or Montana explicitly agree to the terms of the "contract"?
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The problem here is that a contract is defined as a document that provides offer, acceptance, and consideration. In your example, there are other things that make Tiddles the Kitten a kitten and not a dog; therefore for your example to be meaningful there must be something else that makes a contract a contract that the Compact and the Enabling Act of 1889 from which the Compact derives do not fulfill.
 
mijopaalmc said:
The problem here is that a contract is defined as a document that provides offer, acceptance, and consideration.
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If you see that definition, it is a poor definition, or is it making a number of unvoiced assumptions about the context in which the definition is used.

A contract must also exists within a legal framework, constitutions do not they are the legal framework.
A constitution is not a contract in the legal sense, and any attempts to apply contract law to constitutions is foolish in the extreme. I believe this issue came up once in the past is the USA...
 
brodski-

The better question is: Does the Enabling Act of 1889 constitute a contract?

It predicated the offer of statehood on the acceptance of the Constitution of the United States whit the consideration of federal land grants.
 
mijopaalmc said:
brodski-

The better question is: Does the Enabling Act of 1889 constitute a contract?
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And the answer is "no", it is an act a legislative measure, not a contract (the hint is in the word "act" ;) ), contracts and legalisation are profoundly different legal entities.
An analogy may be drawn between legislation and contract, but to attempt to apply contract law to legislation, as your quote did, is foolish and pointless.

Contract law, whether legislative or common, does not apply to legislation.
 
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