Posted on 09/11/2014 11:24:25 AM PDT by C19fan
Global markets are suddenly jittery about the prospect that Scotland, after 307 years as part of the United Kingdom, could become its own country if Scots vote for independence in a Sept. 18 referendum. If proud but tiny Scotland can do it — which polls suggest is a distinct possibility — then America’s 28th state, Texas, will certainly take notice.
If any state is fed up with the rest of America, it’s Texas. Republican Gov. Rick Perry floated the idea of seceding from the United States in 2009, though he later backpedaled. A petition for Texas to “withdraw" from the United States, lodged on the White House’s “We the People” Web page, gathered 125,000 signatures before voting closed in 2013. A group called the Texas Nationalist Movement has nearly 190,000 likes on Facebook.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I guess there was no such thing as the US Mail in 1861. Or telegraphs for that matter. Once Congressmen left Washington City they were in a limbo where no mortal could reach them.
Certainly not the President of the United States, who had no options available to him. Poor Abe.
My guess is that your post was some sort of lame attempt at snark.
Lincoln had options but it was the slavers who dealt the cards. They dealt poorly and left the table empty-handed.
Poor stupid slavers.
If your standard of morality for invading foreign countries and seizing their territory is that they're better off that way, I guess you have a point.
Is that the church of Lincoln’s current position? ‘They made him do it!’ Poor Abe, he had no choice in the matter.
Ah, I must have missed where Lincoln personally sent the orders to the confederate batteries to fire on Ft. Sumter, timing it so that congress was out of town.
Putin makes pretty much the same argument when he explains away his responsibility for sending troops into Ukraine.
Funny, I was just thinking of Putin. I'll bet he believes Crimea is "better off" with Russia.
And good try with the Pearl Harbor/ 9-11 rationale. Ft Sumter was located in Confederate territory, quite the opposite of the Pearl Harbor and Twin Towers situation.
Just announcing that you're now a different country doesn't make it so. But just to be consistent, you think that if Cuba started shelling Guantanamo, we should refrain from reacting, because it isn't US territory, right?
Lincoln of course was looking for an excuse to launch his war and he gladly seized on Sumter.
So you're saying that a president should just ignore when a fort is shelled into surrendering.
But with Congress safely out of session Lincoln called up 75,000 troops, blockaded ports, declared martial law, and suspended habeus corpus all on his own.
And when congress came back they approved of everything that he had done.
“If your standard of morality for invading foreign countries and seizing their territory is that they’re better off that way, I guess you have a point.”
I see. Then you are in agreement with the Aztlan activists who want the American Southwest returned to Mexico. They share your view of the immorality of the United States. Lincoln may be the last American President they approve of. Maybe Obama.
“Ah, I must have missed where Lincoln personally sent the orders to the confederate batteries to fire on Ft. Sumter, timing it so that congress was out of town.”
Confederate batteries had fired on the supply ship Star of the West in January. Lincoln took office in March and could have used the previous Star of the West incident to ask Congress for a war vote. Congress adjourned and Abe sent a second supply ship. I give Abe credit for knowing it would be treated the same, giving him his pretext while Congress was gone.
“Funny, I was just thinking of Putin. I’ll bet he believes Crimea is “better off” with Russia.”
He certainly agrees with Lincoln that secession is unacceptable and needs to be put down by force.
“Just announcing that you’re now a different country doesn’t make it so. “
King George III agrees. Brezhnev too. And Putin.
“And when congress came back they approved of everything that he had done.”
11 states were missing from that Congress but there’s little surprise that the ones that remained rubber stamped what Lincoln wanted. They would have been slow learners if they missed the message when Abe had the Maryland legislature arrested.
I don’t know of another President who suspended habeus corpus, arrested political opposition, shut down newspapers. Maybe Woodrow Wilson during WWI. It is a good method for discouraging any opposition.
Poor Abe you mean. Those Confederates forced him to assemble a large army and invade. He was but a puppet and cannot be held responsible.
Actually it is poor pelly who tries so hard and achieves so little.
“Actually it is poor pelly who tries so hard and achieves so little.”
I’ve noticed your fondness for ad hominem in the past. Some would argue that resorting to ad hominem, at least in an adult, is an admission that you can’t answer an argument. It’s certainly easier than constructing a logical argument.
I’d recommend adding “you’re a poo poo head” to your repertoire. It was always a favorite of one of my young cousins, and it has an earthy, concise quality about it that is hard to beat. I never was able to find an adequate counter to it.
Is it moral to invade weaker nations and annex their territory? Yes or no.
I give Abe credit for knowing it would be treated the same, giving him his pretext while Congress was gone.
Maybe nuance escapes you, but there's a difference beween firing a shot across the bow of a ship and shelling United States fort into surrendering.
He certainly agrees with Lincoln that secession is unacceptable and needs to be put down by force.
Which is why Putin is supporting the separatists in Ukraine. Got it.
King George III agrees. Brezhnev too. And Putin.
Not one nation recognized southern independence. What does that tell you?
11 states were missing from that Congress but there’s little surprise that the ones that remained rubber stamped what Lincoln wanted.
I always love the Lost Causer argument that they were somehow being denied representation after they walked out. It's right up there with the "that crafty Lincoln tricked us into firing at Ft. Sumter" argument.
They would have been slow learners if they missed the message when Abe had the Maryland legislature arrested.
You seem to have trouble with time lines. Congress' authorization was over a month before the Maryland arrests.
“Is it moral to invade weaker nations and annex their territory? Yes or no.”
When Lincoln did it? No. Dixie had a large population who had voted to be independent. Lincoln ignored their right to self determination.
When Polk conquered the American Southwest? Yes, it was virtually uninhabited. There were maybe a dozen settlements in the entire territory. Santa Fe, Tucson, San Diego, San Jose, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, San Bernardino, San Francisco, Monterey. The Apache and Commanche had kept Mexicans below the Rio Grande.
Aztlan reconquistas consider it immoral because their allegiance is to Mexico. You are welcome to side with their Lost Cause if you want. But Mexico was paid $15 million for the territory in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
“Maybe nuance escapes you, but there’s a difference beween firing a shot across the bow of a ship and shelling United States fort into surrendering.”
No nuance needed here. Star of the West was hit by three shells after the first shot across her bow.
“Which is why Putin is supporting the separatists in Ukraine. Got it.”
Putin is trying to force Ukraine to return to Russia. As Abe forced the Confederacy to return to the union.
“Not one nation recognized southern independence. What does that tell you?”
It tells me that you think “world opinion” is all important.
“I always love the Lost Causer argument that they were somehow being denied representation after they walked out. It’s right up there with the “that crafty Lincoln tricked us into firing at Ft. Sumter” argument”
Ignore the voices in your head. I didn’t say that the Confederate States were denied representation. I said that the states left in Congress were unlikely to oppose Lincoln especially considering his policy of jailing those who opposed his war making.
“You seem to have trouble with time lines. Congress’ authorization was over a month before the Maryland arrests.”
In that case the jailing of Maryland’s elected government in August wouldn’t have put fear into opponents of Lincoln.
Well it wouldn’t have except that it was the culmination of what Lincoln had been doing since May when he arrested John Merryman and ignored a writ of habeus corpus issued by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Poor pelly who, at his advanced age, still can’t distinguish an insult from an ad hom.
Poor pelly!
Okay, but you don't want to be too dependent on oil. Wasn't there an energy bust in the 80s that hit Texas hard? Also, isn't most of the oil shale people are talking about actually located elsewhere? Texas may have the corporate offices, but that may not count as much as the actual resource.
Did you realize that the port of Houston is the second most active in the US and the expansion of the Panama anal is only going to increase Houston’s impact.
That expansion sounds painful.
Combine Houston, New Orleans and Mobile, and you control the flow of energy, food and manufactured goods into the US.
Okay, but if you change one thing in a system you may alter the whole system drastically. If Houston is the 2nd busiest port in the US, what happens when it's no longer in the US? Will trade reroute to other cities?
Houston is rapidly becoming the financial capital of the country. New York and California will remain the major players in name only.
Banking is becoming decentralized (or recentralized). North Carolina and Georgia may give you a run for your money. Even places like Minneapolis or Washington DC have a shot. And foreign centers may dwarf all of them.
But finance is mobile. What happens if Texas isn't part of the US? And for manufacturing -- Texas can produce more cheaply than other parts of the US, but the situation could be different if Texas is outside the US and competing with cheap (and not cheap) foreign countries.
Texas actually has two shale fields, one west of Dallas, Barnett and one in south Texas, Eagle Ford which is the the most active in the country. Oil is only the icing on the economic cake in Texas. We have manufacturing, agriculture, shipping, aviation and a plethora of other dynamic sources of commerce. Companies are moving to Texas in droves. They can't get her fast enough.
Okay, but if you change one thing in a system you may alter the whole system drastically. If Houston is the 2nd busiest port in the US, what happens when it's no longer in the US? Will trade reroute to other cities?
There isn't the capacity in other cities. New Orleans is the deep water port for Mississippi River traffic. It offloads and transfers to shallow water conveyances. Corpus Christi, Houston, Beaumont, New Orleans, and Mobile have the refineries and are also the origination point for major pipelines. Regulation and unions have killed east and west coast ports where they no longer have suitable infra structure to handle the volume.
Banking is becoming decentralized (or recentralized). North Carolina and Georgia may give you a run for your money. Even places like Minneapolis or Washington DC have a shot. And foreign centers may dwarf all of them.
It is more than banking, it is trade, where transactions are taking place and the place to be to be involved in those transactions. Texas' tax codes are friendly where the US codes are burdensome. The US could change its codes, but they could do that now and clean up a whole bunch of crap. They won't do it because liberals don't believe in it.
But finance is mobile. What happens if Texas isn't part of the US? And for manufacturing -- Texas can produce more cheaply than other parts of the US, but the situation could be different if Texas is outside the US and competing with cheap (and not cheap) foreign countries.
Control of overall port capacity will prevent any significant change in trade patterns. Texas does not rely on income tax which gets embedded into the cost of goods and services. They use sales taxes and the equivalent which means foreign goods are subject to the same tax burden as domestic goods. They lose their built in advantage of about 15% which they currently have. Texas exports will not have embedded taxes, so they will ship at about 15% advantage to US goods and on pretty even footing with cheap labor countries and the cheap countries cannot compete with Texas on High Tech durable goods, especially in the oil and energy arenas.
The robust and efficient economy in Texas is not well known around the country because the media covers much of it up. Liberals do not want people seeing what really works.
Whatever little man. You ought to at least try to be clever if you think insult is your best option.
Damn straight! Texas is a free state, we have EVERY right to secede and go forth independently of the Union. The second statehood was fun while it lasted, but the fact is that it is no longer beneficial to STAY in the Union. Our rights have been stripped, our economy has been hampered (strong, but could be stronger), and the promise to defend our border has not been honored. To all the naysayers, tell me, why the hell should Texas stay?
You get only as much as is warranted. pelly
Since the South didn't try then I guess we'll never know.
“That last one would have been a critically nasty bone of contention in congressional negotiations. The Southern attitude would have been that slaves are property, property is sacred, and thus runaway property should have no protection simply because it crosses a new international boundary. “
Is there historical evidence of this or is it an educated guess? I don’t see how this would have been any different than the situation that already existed between the US and Canada. Canada didn’t honor the American runaway slave law and there would be no reason for the US to do so either.
Either way the runaway slave issue is particularly interesting if secession had gone forward.
Had Lincoln let the initial seven states go the balance of power in the US Congress shifts dramatically bringing an end to laws favoring slavery. The border states would have needed to be brought along, but slavery was not embedded in their economy like it was in the cotton belt. Compensated emancipation like the British used would have worked.
The end of the runaway slave law would have posed a major problem for the rump seven state CSA. While getting to Canada was difficult crossing into the American border states was not much of a problem.
It’s an educated guess on the part of two historians: Shelby Foote and Forrest McDonald.
Two of my favorites. Always happy to see a reference to Forrest McDonald. Do you know offhand where he wrote about it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.