Posted on 07/11/2015 9:54:21 AM PDT by golux
So, your support for your contention that the Declaration of Independance takes precedence over the Constitution is “ It is the Mother of the two succeeding documents. It is empowered by God.” Not sure what the two documents are, as I don’t think the Articles of Confederation are in contention here. As far as the “empowered by God” thing, you really need to add “based on my interpretation”. Other people had different interpretations. Why is yours right? If you had the Grace of God on your side, why did you lose?
I’m still confused on the whole comparison to the Revolutionary War, and the fact that the US didn’t win the war. We are only a country due to the British quitting. Still seems to me that you are essentially insulting the courage of the American patriots (you didn’t win - they quit). I think you are also ignoring the fact that the Colonies had the support of the second most powerful nation in the world (France). There were over 8,000 French regulars at Yorktown, and a significant portion of the French fleet at the Battle of the Capes. I also fail to see the significance of your point. The Colonies started the Revolutionary War to gain their freedom from Great Britain. It ended with our freedom from Great Britain. How is this not a win? It really sounds like you’re an apologist for the reign of George III.
As far as the bloodshed of the Civil War, all of it could have been avoided if the South had not seceded. Why was the right to own other people worth the deaths of 600,000 Americans?
Unfortunately, that was one resolution passed by the Mississippi legislature among dozens passed at the time of secession.
I can find no record of the vote...perhaps you have it. But it was nothing more than a publication from the printing office, and not official law.
You do not know what was in their minds.
Use it as you will, but it is narrow in historical context.
You seem to be quick to overlook history and insert mockery. Here are some of the comments...see if you can feel the emotion...
We confess that we intend to trample on the Constitution of this country. We of New England are not a law-abiding community, God be thanked for it! We are disunionists; we want to get rid of this Union.
-- Wendell Phillips, Boston, May 1849.
A great many people raise a cry about the Union and the Constitution. The truth is, it is the Constitution that is the trouble; the Constitution has been the foundaton of our trouble.
-- Henry Ward Beecher
No act of ours do we regard with higher satisfaction than when several years ago, on the rth of July, in the presence of a great assembly, we committed to the flames the Constitution of the United States and burned it to ashes.
-- The Boston Liberator, April 24, 1863
Resolved, That we seek the dissolution of this Union, and that we hereby declare ourselves the friends of a new Confederacy of States, and for a dissolution of the Union.
-- Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston, January 2-4, 1854.
If the church is against disunion, I pronounce the church of the devil! Up with the flag of disunion!
-- William Lloyd Garrison
A dissolution of the Union is what a large portion of the Republicans are driving at.
-- Parson Brownlow, 1858
Why preserve the Union? It is not worth preserving. I hate the Union as I hate hell!
-- Mr. Langdon of Ohio
All this twaddle about preserving the Union is too silly and sickening for anything.
-- The True American, Republican newspaper of Erie, Pennsylvania.
Let us sweep away this remnant which we call a Union.
-- Senator Wade of Ohio, 1855.
Disunion is the sweetest music! What if a State has no right to secede? Of what consequence is that? A Union is made up of willing States, not of conquerors and conquered. Confederacies invariably tend to dismemberment. The Union was a wall built up hastily; its cement has crumbled hastily. Why should we seek to stop seceded States? Merely to show we can? Let the south go in peace.
-- Wendell Phillips, after the first state had seceded, 1860.
From this time forth I consecrate the labor of my life to the dissolution of the Union, nd I care not whether the bolt that rends it shall come from heaven or from hell!
-- Frederick Douglass
In 1848, Seward voted to receive a petition to dissolve the Union.
In 1854, John P. Hale, Chase and Seward voted to receive and consider a petition demanding the dissolution of the Union.
August 23rd, 1851, the New Hampton, Massachusetts Gazette announced that a petition was circulating in that region for the dissolution of the Union, nd that more than one hundred and fifty names of legal voters had signed it. In 1854 New England sent to Congress a petition, numerously signed, prayer for the dissolution of the Union, using these words:
We earnestly request Congress to take measures for the speedy, peaceful, equitable dissolution of the Union.
This is strong evidence that those that would accuse Southern state legislatures of seceding over the single issue of slavery ignore the fact that sectional pressure to conform or expect vitriol, and soon enough violence, was known, accepted, and expected in Southern political circles.
In regards to the vote on the Mississippi Articles of Secession, it was 83 for secession, and 15 against.
Your characterization of this as “nothing more than a publication from the printing office” really minimizes it. You make it sound like a disgruntled employee gained access to the printing press one night and ran this off. In fact, it was an official convention of the state of Mississippi convened “IN accordance with an Act of the Legislature, approved November 29th, 1861, entitled “An Act to provide for a Convention of the people of Mississippi”. Sounds like more than “a publication from the printing office, and not official law.”
You say that I do not know what was in their minds, when in fact I do, because they printed it.
Don’t see how this is narrow in a historical context. It is an official document from the state of Mississippi as to why they seceded, and the reason was (say it with me), slavery.
And as regards to your statement that this was “one resolution passed by the Mississippi legislature among dozens passed at the time of secession.”, that is a true statement. It is, however the most important and definitive one as regards Mississippi, and it’s reason for secession. I have read all of the others and South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Florida were all clear in that their reason for secession was slavery. Of the others, most did not give a reason at all.
So, a lot of people (and, in many cases, influential people) said mean things about the South in the paper. Definitely a reason to start a war that killed 600,000 people.
How does this do anything but prove my point that one of the reasons the South seceded was because mean people in the North hurt their little fe-fe’s? Is your point that they were really, really mean? Again, how does this arise to the point of starting a war?
Actually the PERRY, the WABASH, and the ATLANTIC all sailed days before Lt. Talbot appeared in Charleston.
Are you sure on that? Because according to Wikipedia (I know, I know) the Wabash was not commissioned for service in the Civil war until May 16, 1861, the Perry until April 23, 1861, and I couldn't find anything on a USS Atlantic. Weren't the ships in the Sumter resupply effort the Baltic, the Pawnee, the Pocahontas, the Harriet Lane, and the Powhatan?
Well, if you had read my earlier posts you’d have seen that GB was just waiting to see how the CW was going before it declared one way or the other. You will note that during the CW Great Britain was officially neutral.
They were officially neutral, but there was a lot of sympathy for the South in the upper class. A couple of commerce raiders were fitted out in British ports, with no great attempts at secrecy.
You said in an earlier post that Great Britain would not recognize the Confederacy because of slavery.
Yet, in 1824, after Brazil had achieved its independence from Portugal, and a national constitution was introduced, solidifying the government as a constitutional monarchy, the United States became the first nation to recognize the Brazilian Empire, and Portugal and Great Britain followed the United States in recognizing Brazil’s sovereignty in 1825.
And Britain did not stop recognizing Brazil, even though Brazil did not abolish slavery until 1888.
Britain recognized many nations that practiced slavery. So your comment that Britain would not recognize the CSA because of slavery just does not hold water.
“OK so let’s start there. In spite of the fact that I know other posters have provided information that tariff collections in the North outstripped tariff collections in the South by something like 15:1 or 20:1 you all keep clinging to that claim.”
There is a major difference between tariff collection points and who pays the tariffs. I don’t live in Missouri, but my federal income taxes are paid (or collected) in Missouri. Southern interests purchased the goods from (primarily) Europe, and those Southern purchasers had to pay the tariffs to the federal treasury (at whichever tariff collection point it was determined applied).
“How could it be that even after losing the South, and all that revenue you claim they provided, that in his 1864 message to Congress Lincoln mentions that tariff revenue had more than doubled since the beginning of the war? How would that be possible if you are correct?”
Simple. The Lincoln administration levied huge taxes and tariffs on the Northern citizens and business interests. Also, Lincoln included loans as revenues. Prior to secession it is fact that Southern interests paid the majority of the tariffs, and that the majority of the federal revenue was spent up north (especially on railroads and on the growing Northern mercantile and industrial projects). The South believed — and rightfully — that it was getting screwed economically staying in the Union.
It sounds like you have a case. Except....
Brazil achieved independance in 1825. Slavery was legal in the British Empire until abolished by the aptly named Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. This act outlawed slavery in the United Kingdom, with the exceptions of St Helena, Ceylon, and those territories controlled by the East India Company. These exceptions were removed in 1843.
So it comes as no surprise that the British Empire had no problem with slavery in 1825. However, we’re talking about the 1860s, and during that time the British DID have a problem with slavery.
I think my contention does, in fact, hold water.
Tariffs are paid at the place where they are unloaded into the country. If all those goods are destined for Southern purchasers then why are they being unloaded in New York or Boston?
The Lincoln administration levied huge taxes and tariffs on the Northern citizens and business interests.
Tariffs are meant to discourage imports, not promote them, because they are supposed to make domestic goods more cost effective. Tariffs as high as the Morill Tariffs were should have led to a decrease in imports not an increase. Adding to that the fact that supposedly the South consumed the vast majority of imported goods and tariff revenue should have been way below 1860 levels and not considerably higher.
Yes, I am sure. All three of those ships were not commissioned US naval ships at the time but privately owned and operated. They were rented for the mission from private owners.
A good question would be WHY and how was this financed.
The ATLANTIC was a civilian transport that was quickly outfitted and loaded with troops.
Regarding the ships you mentioned, there were many more, eleven in fact, that were ordered to sea.
I have come to realize that this event was not only one of the most notorious events leading to war but the greatest example of the administration’s abuse of power.
So you agree. That's nice.
That is the vote on the Ordinance ratification. The question was how many voted for the acceptance on the causes narrative.
Don’t know, and don’t really care to spend the time researching, but what’s your point? Are you implying that a large percentage of the Mississippeans didn’t want to secede and go to war? Or are you back to the lone printer theory (there’s got to be agrassy knoll around here somewhere)?
I do not think you will find that the Mississippi document is anything more than a press release.
You seem to think these ghost documents represent majority thinking while ignoring the fact that in your only remaining issues they show the very first grievance in both the South Carolina and Georgia documents describes the failure of the Northern states to respect the Constitution. Texas not withstanding.
“I think my contention does, in fact, hold water.”
No, it doesn’t. Your premise was that Great Britain would not recognize CSA because of slavery. My whole point is whether CSA did or did not practice slavery was immaterial to whether or not GB would recognize it, because GB continued to recognize many countries that had and continued to have slavery. One would think that GB would have withdrawn recognition of those nations in 1833 when GB abolished slavery from its Empire (but history shows that was abolishing slavery in name only; because GB continued to practice what amounted to slavery in, for example, India and Africa).
“Tariffs are paid at the place where they are unloaded into the country. If all those goods are destined for Southern purchasers then why are they being unloaded in New York or Boston?”
You’re joking, right? For one thing, tariffs are not exclusively paid at the point of unloading. For another thing, shipping goods from Europe to America is a lot quicker — and cheaper — if they are unloaded or delivered to a northern port, because delivering them to, say, Mobile or New Orleans or Galveston is twice the distance and would take twice the time and would double the cost.
Even today, goods manufactured in Asia are almost exclusively shipped to the American west coast, even if the purchaser of the goods is a company in Maine.
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