Posted on 08/21/2017 4:46:48 PM PDT by euram
In the ongoing debate about Confederate monuments, Slate has republished a 2011 article by professor James M. Lundberg attacking Ken Burns’ monumental “Civil War” documentary. Although he concludes with an appreciation of Burns’ achievement, he disapprovingly notes the series’ sentimental tone and points to problems such as its “tidy vision of national consensus,” being “deeply misleading and reductive,” and its “careful 15 minute portrait of slavery’s role in the coming of the war” being nearly negated by Shelby Foote’s 15-second anecdote about a “ragged Confederate who obviously didn’t own any slaves” telling his inquiring Union captors that he’s fighting “because you’re down here.”
Lundberg’s complaints, like many currently raised against Confederate statues, strike me as misleading and reductive. We might start by considering the documentary’s sentimental tone. Now, sentimental appeal as a tool of rhetoric is not the same as cogent argument, and one should immediately admit the obvious: the documentary is manipulative.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
Unfortunately, there is a little more to it than that.
Students of history note that the basic structure of Congress was based on an accounting of “whole number of free persons”, and “three fifths of all other Persons.” Indians not taxed were excluded. See Article I, Section 2.
Then there is Article IV, commonly known as the Fugitive Slave Clause. This provision - voted into the constitution by the states of New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland - and also Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia - committed every state to return those held to service to “whom such Service or Labour may be due.”
“The Constitution formed an indissoluble Union.”
That is an interesting comment. Exactly where in the document is this stated?
Or is the “indissoluble Union” a concept that goes back to the Declaration of Independence?
What would be wrong? Pointing out the economic reasons for the War of Northern Aggression?
The US Supreme Court made it up:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/74/700
... The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States.
There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States...
“There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States...”
Shortly after Lincoln’s War a federal court ruled the federal government was right and noble to kill 600,000 people.
Victors’ Justice.
As you can see demojeff is just trolling you...
Comparing apples and oranges doesn’t help your argument. There was no consent of the governed when the colonies were under the King’s rule. That is the reason for the Revolution in the first place.
That changed with the constitution which set up procedures to change things if they aren’t working right. There was no right to secede in it.
There are no lame excuses which would allow and insurrection to be legal. The power to suppress them is EXPLICITLY authorized by the constitution.
The fugitive slave laws were not passed for decade after the constitution. Prior to that there was little or no cooperation in returning slaves which was the reason the FSL were passed.
That is not stated in the constitution but it was explicitly stated by its main authors, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.
However, the intention to form a perpetual union was stated in the Articles of Confederation. Since the constitution was to make a “more Perfect Union” it stayed perpetual.
The economic reason was the belief by Slavers that their property would be taken away. No other reason was on the Slavers’ minds. And “no” it was not because of the tariff or Northern industries.
The Rat Rebellion was started by attacks on United States property such as forts and arsenals. There was no Northern Aggression - that is merely an absurd excuse for starting an insurrection over slavery.
You are absolutely right. That is why the Colonies established this principle as the basis of legitimate government. Locke, Rutherford and others argued that this concept derives from the principles of natural law. It is from these ideas that the Founders found their own core principles about independence.
That changed with the constitution which set up procedures to change things if they aren’t working right.
It did not change with the constitution. The Foundation of the country was "Natural Law", and the Constitution only had authority given it by the principles articulated in the Declaration. The Declaration was the "Limb" upon which the Constitution's authority rested. If that Limb be cut off, so too would fall the Constitution.
There are no lame excuses which would allow and insurrection to be legal.
It wasn't an insurrection, despite the fact this accusation was repeated over and over. The people of the Southern States took a vote, and they voted to withdraw their consent from the existing government. (Brexit) They elected representatives of themselves, and they sent them to their new government seat in Montgomery. They existed peaceably as another nation for over four months before Lincoln attacked them.
And very little good faith cooperation after the 1850 compromise was passed.
The lack of commitment to abiding by the covenants of the constitution by the northern states led U.S. Secretary of State, and former Massachusetts Senator, Daniel Webster to warn his northern brethren of the dangers of a one-sided view of the constitution:
“If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in so doing, year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound by the rest of it?
"And if the North were deliberately, habitually, and of fixed purpose to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations?
"I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, that if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”
Was this about slavery? In part, yes. More broadly, the South and honest politicians everywhere understood northern states were attempting to gain sectional economic and political advantage with extra-constitutional methods. In other words, covenant breaking.
"Honest politicians" is certainly an interesting phrase.
Webster lost much of his support because people came to see him as too much a politician and too little honest.
Ask who paid his bills.
And not returning slaves was "attempting to gain sectional economic and political advantage"?
Whatever ...
“The fugitive slave laws were not passed for decade after the constitution.”
My post 121 was not about fugitive slave laws, but about what is commonly known as the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV) in the constitution - a provision of which you were apparently happily unaware when you wrote your post 118.
“Perpetual union” was an aspiration in the Articles of Confederation. It lasted - how long, can't remember - 11 years?
A “more Perfect Union” is not an all-powerful central government, but rather a government with sovereign states and a federal component with limited, enumerated powers.
But if you like a feral government that uses bayonets to tells local communities young girls must share bathrooms with grown men, imposes the glancing geese wetlands rule, walks gun to Mexican drug gangs and on and on . . .
Note to self: Add Webster to the politically correct list of deplorables - Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Jackson, Lee, Franklin, so forth and so on.
Nothing is more ludicrous than the idea that the federal government in 1860 was an “all powerful central government.”
That dog won’t hunt.
Nothing is more predictable from the apologists of the Slavers than to go into arguments which are nothing but attempts at sophistry. The Union was never dissolved, it merely changed the form of government to create a “more perfect union”.
However, states were not forced into the new government but were free to leave BY LAW since the new form would not take effect until a majority of the states adopted it.
North Carolina and Rhode Island (their political machines did not want to lose power) did not ratify for a couple of years. That was LEGAL unlike an insurrection.
Of course, there is no denial that the insurrection was entirely because of the Slavers’ fear for the future of slavery. That began it and sustained it.
THEY attacked the United States no matter what constitutional disputes there may have been or what Daniel Webster said or may have said. Lincoln had no choice than to respond.
While Webster worked to prevent secession I have no doubt that he would have been a strong Lincoln man demanding that the Union be preserved.
Andy Jackson made no bones about it and threatened to hang the South Carolina leaders pushing the Nullification Crisis.
He would have, too.
Nullification was not acceptable much less secession.
Washington and Jackson were clearly anti-session. Washington’s Farewell Address was a warning about it. Jackson’s attitude was made clear in the “Nullification Crisis”
This was written largely and initially by Madison and Hamilton who shared his belief in the perpetual and more perfect union.
The blood is on the hands of the Slavers, not the federal government.
Apparently you are unaware of the meaning of “union”.
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