Posted on 01/25/2002 8:41:32 AM PST by Publius
I wasnt aware that the city actually paid for it tho. I thought some businessman from Puyallup saved it from the scrapheap and offered it to them. They should have let that S.O.B. stay in the scrapheap of history where he, and all other communists, belong...JFK
Actually, it was the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, not Mr. Lincoln or the war, which "ended slavery." And any claim that "the secession issue" was "for all time settled" would seem to rely upon prescience rather than the words of that same Constitution...
;>)
If a state could unilaterally withdraw from the Union, then supremacy would rest with each state, respectively - not with the Constitution and the laws made pursuant to it. As the Constituion expressly declares the Constitution to be the Supreme Law of the land, any act that denies this supremacy (e.g., unilateral withdrawl) must be unconstitutional.
Once again you jump to an irrational conclusion, as you completely ignore any reservation of rights to the States and their people guaranteed by the Constitution itself. When the Constitution states that “powers not delegated...nor prohibited...are reserved,” that reservation is part of “the Supreme law of the land” – whether you like it or not. Or, in the words of the conservative justices of the current Supreme Court (I know how much you love court opinions! ;>): ”where the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people [of each State].”
And, as anyone who reads the document will discover, “the Constitution is silent” regarding State secession.
;>)
Not only that, the 10th amendment reserves the right to the people to maintain the Union. That is exactly what they have done.
As even the conservative justices of the current Supreme Court have noted, the Tenth Amendment refers to “the people of each individual State.” Pray tell – how can you insist that “the people of each individual State” maintained “the Union,” when “the people” of nearly half the “individual States” had seceded from that union? Your conclusion does not follow from your premise – you are once again jumping to conclusions.
I can only surmise that all you neo-confeds don't pay any taxes. Why should you? If you are ever caught by the IRS, you can just say, "your laws don't apply to me."
You “can only surmise” – given you preference for unfounded assumptions, and your disdain for historical fact, truer words were never spoken!
(And by the way, you’re wrong – again! May I recommend an excellent tax attorney? ;>)
I bet none of you have the nerve to try it. The slave holders only tried it because they thought the north would let them go.
I see you have decided not to contest the point that “(s)ecession was...generally accepted as constitutional.” Perhaps “the slave holders only tried it because they thought” State secession was constitutional, and assumed for that reason that “the north would let them go.”
They made a big mistake.
Yes, apparently trusting others to observe the terms of the Constitution can be a “big mistake.” Nothing will prove that point quicker than a discussion of the ‘palpably-unconstitutional-but-federal-court-approved’ Alien & Sedition Acts. Care to debate the subject?
;>)
"The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates, but when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of an avalanche."
- Texas Gov. Sam Houston (1861)
I note that Mr. Houston merely predicts the outcome of war between the Southern agricultural States and the Northern industrial States: he nowhere claims the Constitution prohibits secession. Perhaps he never went looking for such a prohibition. I know you have - have you found that elusive ‘no State shall secede’ clause yet? How about your supposed ‘all powers...not explicitly reserved to the States respectively, or the people...are delegated by the Constitution to the United States’ amendment – have you tracked that one down?
;>)
I mean Toombs himself calls it revoultion. Why do you call it legal?
You’re wrong again, Walt. Mr. Toombs does not ‘call it revolution:’ he states that “(y)ou may call it secession, or you may call it revolution.” (Since you seem to alternate between the two terms, he appears to have seen you coming! ;>) He himself notes that the people of Georgia “wisely excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that ‘the powers not granted by the Constitution to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States, belonged to the States respectively or the people.’” And that, by the way, is a paraphrase of the Tenth Amendment. Read the Constitution sometime, including the Tenth Amendment, and you will discover why I “call it legal”...
;>)
Even the occasional extreme lefty in Fremont doesn't see the statue as a tribute.
LOL. Yes, slavery would have been ended eventualy, maybe in 20 or 30 years, without Lincoln's insistance on Union. But in what condition would North America be in by that point? Something like Brazell, which the slaveocrarts admired, I suspect.
And any claim that "the secession issue" was "for all time settled" would seem to rely upon prescience rather than the words of that same Constitution...
Go ahead and try it. ----------------- Make my day.
“Lincoln's insistance on Union?” That’s the best you can do – ‘the president said so?’ A shame you can’t find any prohibition of State secession within the Constitution: after all, it is the Constitution, and NOT the president’s opinion, that is the law of the land. Don't you agree?
;>)
Go ahead and try it. ----------------- Make my day.
Trying to change the subject again, sport? We were discussing “historical fact,” not your personal fantasies. Excuse me – allow me to correct myself: I was discussing historical fact. You, on the other hand, appear more comfortable with “prescience” and presidential “opinion.” But don't let me discourage you...
;>)
You can't point to any article in the Constitution that indicates that the Founders intended the Union to be anything but prepetual.
Why would they have labored so hard to create a document that would be rendered meaningless with the first crisis or be subject to the whims of petty demogauges playing to partisan passions.
Were the Founders fools?
Are you suggesting that any power or right that is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution somehow belongs to the federal government? Hmm? The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution clearly states otherwise.
But your argument is easily refuted, in any case. First, please note that previous American compacts specifically claimed perpetuity, when such was the intent of the parties. The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England stated in 1643 that their association was to be “firm and perpetual.” The Articles of Confederation which directly preceded the Constitution also claimed to establish a “perpetual Union between the States.” Significant portions of the Constitution were copied directly from the earlier Articles, which should improve your odds of finding the phrase “perpetual Union” within the Constitution. Take a look – do you find the word ‘perpetual?’
Second, even when the colonies and States specifically indicated an interest in “perpetual Union,” they did not deny themselves the right to secede. The “firm and perpetual” union of New England colonies lasted about forty years, while the “perpetual Union” formed under the Articles of Confederation lasted less than a decade. Clearly, even when ‘perpetuity’ was the intent, that intent was not binding.
But don’t let me stop you. To prove your point, you must simply prove intent (in this case, an ‘unwritten and extra-constitutional’ intent to form yet another “perpetual Union”) by each of the parties – and you must also prove the legally binding nature of that intent. Have at it...
Why would they have labored so hard to create a document that would be rendered meaningless with the first crisis or be subject to the whims of petty demogauges playing to partisan passions.
Were the Founders fools?
A few points. First, the benefits of union were many, and they were clear to most Americans. The Constitution was not “rendered meaningless with the first crisis” that the nation faced – in fact, it was some seventy years before the first State seceded. Nor did the first instance of “petty demogauges playing to partisan passions” produce disunion. Your suggestion is quite dramatic, but it is not supported by the facts.
Second, I would be the last to suggest that “the Founders [were] fools.” Quite the opposite, actually. For example, the 1775 Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of taking up Arms observes that:
”By one statute it is declared, that parliament can ‘of right make laws to bind us in all cases whatsoever.’ What is to defend us against so enormous, so unlimited a power? ...We saw the misery to which such despotism would reduce us.”
And as Professor Akhil Reed Amar of Yale University noted:
“...Madison, Jefferson, and Henry belonged to an ongoing republic that had been practicing self-government for 150 years before the Constitution came along. Thus the Virginia House of Burgesses was already older for them than the Fourteenth Amendment is for us today. In a deep sense, the Virginia Declaration of Rights was for them prior to the federal Bill of Rights. Chronologically and perhaps emotionally, Virginia came first...many Americans in the 1780’s associated a strong central government with tyranny and a strong state government with freedom...”
In other words, to "many Americans" of the era, their State "came first." Nevertheless, there are those who claim the Founders willingly created a new central government with the power to “make laws to bind us in all cases whatsoever,” suggesting that the people of the era trusted an untried federal government more than they did their ‘tried and true’ individual State governments. Such claims are absurdly inconsistent with history. Frankly, it is those who make such claims, and not I, who seem to be suggesting that “the Founders [were] fools.”
I submit that we did not see it for the first 70 years because only the wildest imagination would consider unilateral secession to be Constitutional. In the first 50 years, we did see attempts at nullification in both the North and South by radical elements who evoked the 10th amendment as justification. Only when those attempts failed did the apostles of disunion begin to beat the secession drum. After several decades thay had managed to fabricate in the minds of many a right that can not be discovered through original intent. What is secession if not nullification on a grand scale?
Analogies to the revolutionary period are disingenuous. The Founders clearly did not claim a legal right under British Law to sever ties. They claimed the moral right to revolution based on the merits of their grievances. If you care to make a moral case for a slave state revolution, have at it. But unilateral secession was not and never had been a legal right.
“Only the wildest imagination?” Is that why the constitutional nature of secession was discussed in detail in at least two of the most respected legal references of the era, Tucker’s Blackstone’s and Rawle’s A View of the Constitution? (Both of which are still being cited, by the way - even by federal judges... ;>) Is that why Thomas Jefferson himself declared that the individual States must judge “as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress?” Is that why James Madison stated unequivocally that “the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined?” Your claim is nothing but hogwash...
In the first 50 years, we did see attempts at nullification in both the North and South by radical elements who evoked the 10th amendment as justification. Only when those attempts failed did the apostles of disunion begin to beat the secession drum.
The “radical elements” to which you refer included the primary authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And if you think the efforts of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison “failed,” perhaps you should read the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, Mr. Madison’s Report on the Virginia Resolutions, and the history of the notorious Alien and Sedition Acts.
After several decades thay had managed to fabricate in the minds of many a right that can not be discovered through original intent.
"After several decades?" Tucker's Blackstone's was published in 1803, and had been some time in the making. And only eight years passed between Rhode Island's ratification of the Constitution and the publication of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, wherein Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison clearly stated that the States reserved the right to judge in 'the last resort' regarding constitutional matters - which by definition includes secession.
In other words, it is you who appear to be guilty of ‘fabrication.’ The independent States had just won independence from one all-powerful central government – yet you insist they immediately set out to establish another. The Constitution, unlike earlier American compacts, makes absolutely no mention of “perpetual Union” – yet you insist that such was the binding intent of the Founders. During the ratification debates, several States discussed the possibility of establishing a separate confederacy independent of the proposed constitutional union – a point you ignore completely. Several of the States explicitly reserved the right of secession, in writing, when they ratified the Constitution. Other States implicitly reserved that right. You ignore these facts as well.
But I am always willing to consider additional evidence: feel free to document the supposed “original intent” to prohibit secession. If you can manage that, please feel free to document the legally binding nature of such intent – after all, it is the Constitution, not anyone’s ‘opinion,’ that is the “supreme Law of the land.”
What is secession if not nullification on a grand scale?
Wrong again - secession requires the nullification of no law. The United States Constitution nowhere prohibits secession: the power to secede is therefore reserved to the States and their people by the Constitution itself, as Senator Toombs so aptly noted.
Analogies to the revolutionary period are disingenuous.
And your disregard of that era is, at best, intellectually dishonest. Your claims are clearly inconsistent with colonial history and the early history of the Republic.
The Founders clearly did not claim a legal right under British Law to sever ties. They claimed the moral right to revolution based on the merits of their grievances. If you care to make a moral case for a slave state revolution, have at it.
Why on earth would I feel a need to “make a moral case for a slave state revolution?” The Constitution is the “supreme Law of the land” – and the Constitution itself states that “powers not delegated...nor prohibited...are reserved to the States” and their people. Please read Mr. Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions and Mr. Toombs address (excerpts of which I quoted above) if you are under the delusion that the Tenth Amendment was not taken literally.
Frankly, it has been the ‘union-at-any-cost’ types who have been claiming a “moral right” for their actions, for almost a century and a half – precisely because they can find no constitutional justification for the use of military force to prevent formal State secession. Your posts are a fine example: you make multiple references to “slavocrat idiots” – but can’t manage to quote a single constitutional prohibition of secession...
But unilateral secession was not and never had been a legal right.
We're still waiting: to which article, section, and clause of the United States Constitution are you referring? Perhaps you should read the Tenth Amendment - and admit that you're wrong...
;>)
Free republic has some of its finest hours, on account of you, Who Is John Galt? :)
Ditto's arguments are indeed hogwash. If Massachusetts' secession in the early 1800s had been successful, he'd have seen as little wrong with it as the nation saw Rhode Island's 2 year absense from the Union as an independently existing state.
He's obsessed with race.
;>)
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