Posted on 11/04/2013 1:43:45 PM PST by AT7Saluki
You are correct that our union has been tenuous at times and that culturally the north and the south have been at times worlds apart. But there was a point of mutual interest that overrode all other considerations:
“...provide for the common defense...”
Every colony, even the most recalcitrant, recognized that they would be naked against the assault by their enemies without the united defense offered by the republic.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 does not give the President control of a foreign militia. Once the Commonwealth of Virginia seceded, their militia was no longer under US control. Virginia was no longer one of the ‘several states’.
And Clause 7 is not applicable since the Constitution of the United States was never under threat.
Other than that, nice hat.
They didn’t secede legally and thus were states in rebellion.
And the threat was all too real.
You talking about jeff davis again?
With al due respect rockrr, please consider the following. Regarding the strength of the Union, don't you see the irony with respect to providing for a common defense, only to have a civil war later tear the nation to pieces?
Again, I question if the constitutionally limited powers of the federal government were ever taught the way that the Founding States had intended for them to be understood.
I absolutely see the irony of being forced into a position of fighting an enemy within instead of the expected foreign invader. But it was a test of the principle of mutual defense - and it passed.
The image at the top has been Photoshopped to remove the comma after ‘Lincoln’. Not sure why but it IS obvious.
the Jacob Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies
Stephen Douglas as well? S/
Your interpretation of history is based in profound misunderstandings of what actually happened in 1860 and early 1861.
In fact, neither outgoing Democrat President Buchanan nor incoming Republucan President Lincoln did anything to suppress secessionists’ rebellion until after the Confederacy had first provoked, then started (at Fort Sumter), and then formally declared war (May 6, 1861) on the United States.
After declaring war, the Confederacy sent military supplies to support rebellion in Union states.
And all this happened before a single Confederate soldier had been killid in battle with any Union force, or any Union force invaded a single Confederate state.
Point is: if you misunderstand history, you will be forever confused about the profound difference between real republicans and Amrrica’s long dominant Democrat party.
“Lincoln did represent a huge expansion of federal government.”
Only in the minds of people determined to misunderstand actual history.
In fact, Lincoln merely set out to win the war first provoked, started and formally declared by the Confedacy on the United States.
Yes, in the process many other things happened — i.e. slavery abolished — but those were not Lincoln’s original intentions.
The truth is, Confederates were the aggressors (like the Japanese in 1941) and so must take the blame for consequences of their actions.
“Please don’t say it was constitutional. It wasn’t.”
But of course the US Constitution fully authorizes the federal govetnment to repel invasions, defeat rebellions and fight wars formally declared on the United States.
Therefore, people who pretend otherwise are practicing self-delusions they hope to perpetrate on others.
So the question is, why?
The Democrats fought long and hard to keep slavery and the Jim Crow laws.
They continue to fight for slavery today in the form of Big Government, Big Taxation, Over-regulation of citizens, and hardcore Socialism.
The Commonwealth of Virginia attacked no one, rebelled against no one, fought against no one. In fact the opposite was true. Federal troops attacked the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry before a Union force crossed the Potomac and invaded Northern Virginia. And why was this? Because Virginia exercised their right to secede - a right guaranteed them at the time they adopted that same Constitution.
“The right call would have been to recognize the right to seceed, then go to war anyway...”
You too seem woefully misinformed.
The fact is that neither outgoing “Dough-faced” Democrat President Buchanan nor incoming “Black Republican” President Lincoln acknowledged a “right to seceed” at pleasure.
They believed there had to be a constitutionally justifiable reason, which did not exist in 1860 or early 1861.
But neither president took military actions to stop secession until after the Confederacy first provoked, then started and then formally declared war on the United States.
As for Confederates supposedly abolishing slavery on their own, the historical fact is that they preferred death for themselves to freedom for their slaves.
In historical fact, no Union force invaded any Confederate state until after the Confederacy first provoked, then started (Fort Sumter), then formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
In historical fact, Virginia did not formally seceed and join the Confederacy’s declared war until some weeks later.
Then it was Confederate, not Union forces which seized Harpers Ferry, while Virginia was still formally a Union state.
The first Union forces enterred Virginia only after Virginia’s voters formally ratified secession, joining the Confederacy and its declared war on the United States.
So, unlike most other Confederate voters, Virginia’s voters knew ahead of time that a vote for secession was also a vote for its declared war against the US.
There is no enumerated right to secede.
There is no enumerated prohibition against secession.
Declared war on the United States? You sure about that one?
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