Posted on 05/10/2015 6:19:23 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012
One of my ancestors did the same. MO militia, captured by Union Army, joined it and went west to fight Indians.
I am curious. Would you care to spell out the violations of the Constitution that justified secession? Thanks.
Looks like ole Jamie cannot stand the heat. He has blocked his account. Says a bunch about him....
Nah, I suspect it was some lily-white trust fund babies with a severe case of white guilt.
The same clauses that justified our leaving the UK.
I’m sure plenty Freepers will cheer this
The Baltimorization of my nation
The latinos will come for the Alamo eventually
Do not doubt me
Will the breakup come before or after the water and power are lost?
You said: “especially, not abiding to the U.S. Constitution.”
I then asked which violations of the Constitution you were referring to.
You have not answered the question.
The British never violated our Constitution because it didn’t exist yet.
How about when the Federal government abuses it's Constitutional power or abandons the Constitution altogether? Haven't we been facing this issue lately? No? Yes?
By the way, I'm referring to today, actually. However, this argument is nothing new in American history going back to 1787.
I guess we will just keep debating this as the chains get heavier on our limbs.
For one thing, see the 10th Amendment. Lincoln used force to keep states in the Union that no longer wanted to be a part of it. The rights of nullification and secession were implicit in what was meant to be a federation of sovereign states. Lincoln (and his power network) fundamentally changed the nature of the United States, making it a consolidated nation with an all-powerful central government. Fast forward 150 years. Like what you see?
Yes. So, what happens when the governing authorities over you don't abide in the rule of law? Don't you believe a moral man has the right of revolution?
Just another attack on whites. Washington, Jefferson and all the founders are already under attack too and that will only accelerate.
Yes, moral men have the right to revolution - but it had better be morally correct (unlike the cornfederates) because moral men have the right, the duty, and the obligation to put down rebellion too.
Lincoln’s use of force did not justify secession of the first seven states. In fact, he wasn’t even president yet when they seceded.
Your claim was that violations of the Constitution justified their secession. I’m still waiting for you to provide one single example of the federal government violating the Constitution in such a way as to justify secession.
Insofar as the argument that we would have a better country had Lincoln never fought the Civil War to keep the country together, it is a classic example of the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy. IOW, B happened after A, therefore A caused it and without A, B would never have happened.
In actual fact, the federal government pretty much returned to its prewar role after the war, with the massive expansion we all know and love not starting till the Progressive Era of the late 1800s.
More to the point, perhaps, do you have any reason at all to think that two countries with inevitable rivalries on this continent wouldn’t have led to even faster expansion of central government in each? What was the great driver of centralization in Europe? It was military and economic rivalry. Those countries, like Poland, that failed to centralize quite literally disappeared, devoured by those which did. In its final form, this military/economically driven centralization was the ultimate cause of WWI.
Is there any reason to believe USA and CSA wouldn’t followed a similar path?
You seem to be saying that a state would have to prove that the federal government was violating the constitution in some way, or secession would not be justified. Who would be the judge of that? The Supreme Court? The idea of sovereignty meant that a state could withdraw from the federal compact when it pleased and for reasons that seemed fitting to that state. At the time of ratification, that was the understanding of many. They would have been horrified to think that one group of states could invade another group and force them not to secede.
Also, “returned to its pre-war role” would not be a very good description of the Reconstruction era.
Reconstruction is, of course, the exception.
It ended between 1873 and 1877. So it was by definition not a permanent expansion of federal government power.
I was responding to a poster who stated specifically that southern states seceded “especially” because of violations of the Constitution. I simply asked what those violations were.
He hasn’t answered, for the simple reason that there weren’t any. He cited actions taken after secession, which cannot be logically used to justify secession itself.
I agree that the idea that a state could secede was widespread, though you might be surprised by some of the editorials in southern states when New England was supposedly contemplating secession during the War of 1812.
IOW, it was a debated point throughout the prewar history.
I do object to the notion that everything would have been hunkydory in our history had Lincoln simply accepted secession.
Let’s see. Lincoln accepts the secession of the seven Deep South states. The initial CSA is too small to be a viable state in the long run.
Do you think there would have been ongoing attempts by the CSA to encourage loyal slave states to secede? Would such efforts by a foreign power be properly considered an act of war?
The straw that broke the camel’s back in the regional dispute was whether southerners would be allowed to go with their slaves into the territories. Does anybody think the independent CSA wouldn’t have claimed right to some of the territories? Would such rivalries lead to war?
The whole idea behind southern aggressiveness in defense of their institution was that slavery had to expand to survive. How does that square with it being penned into the 7 initial seceders or even the 11 that finally seceded?
Few if any of the seceding states, at least among the initial 7, made any attempt to claim they were seceding because of constitutional violations by the federal government. A decent respect for the opinions of mankind required they declare why they were seceding. Their declarations were almost entirely about protection of the institution of slavery, not resistance to tyranny. Though of course they defined any threat, no matter how distant or unlikely, to slavery as tyranny.
The slavocracy's first recourse was violent insurrection. In doing so they relinquished any claim to a moral high ground. Yes, a SCOTUS affirmation of their rights would have been infinitely better than no affirmation. Likewise they could have gone to Congress where redress of their concerns rightly belonged. Even if the outcome was a certainty they should have made the good-faith attempt. They didn't and their Lost Cause is relegated to the trashbin of history for it.
He did? Are you sure?
He cited actions taken after secession, which cannot be logically used to justify secession itself.
He did? I think you're a little confused.
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