Posted on 10/03/2015 1:28:14 PM PDT by Kaslin
“No. It’s just that the Founders were pretty fond of that approach.”
That is yet another false statement. The Founders, other than a few like Sam Adams, bent over backwards and turned themselves inside out and into pretzels in an effort avoid and escape an armed conflict with Britain. When they finally concluded they either had to hang as traitors or win their independence, only then did the they majority of the Founders embrace a revolution for independence from Britain and only to preserve their God given rights as Englishmen under the lawful authority of the English Declaration of Rights and prior Royal Charters granting perpetual rights.
I believe the Articles of Secession were made null and void by the ratification of the Constitution.
Articles of Confederation not Articles of Secession
So you’re saying the Declaration of Independence was a typo?
“I believe the Articles of Secession were made null and void by the ratification of the Constitution.”
Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union are among the permanent laws of the United States, and they are still in effect today. Your belief is mistaken and wrong.
“So you’re saying the Declaration of Independence was a typo?”
On the contrary, the Declaration of independence was and is a part of the permanent laws of the United States, and the attempted secessions of the states were in breach of the Declaration of Independence.
It was all the papers. You should get up to speed.
“It was all the papers. You should get up to speed.”
You are misinformed, misapprehending the subject matter, and defying U.S. Law. The Articles of Confederation are still in effect as the laws of the United States right alongside the Constitution which has a preamble stating its purpose to perfect the perpetual union set forth in the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence. Read the laws and forget the brainless news media.
I think, you’re crazy.
Read the U.S. Code, Volume 1, Organic Laws.
I don’t think you understand that the Articles of Confederation have been superseded. If you can’t understand that then you are hopeless.
“I don’t think you understand that the Articles of Confederation have been superseded. If you can’t understand that then you are hopeless.”
You haven’t read the U.S. Code. You obviously do not know the law. You obviously disregard how the Constitution was written to be an extension of the Articles of Confederation to perfect the Union as is written in the Constitution. Also note, the Articles of Confederation are still in force, the Congress (also known as the Continental Congress) is in adjournment and has not been dissolved, and the Constitution only supersedes those provisions of the Articles of Confederation which were addressed by the Constitution. The Constitution also contains clauses which forbid states from taking actions necessary to unilaterally seceding from the perpetual union. This is why the Articles of Confederation are still among the permanent laws of the United States in force in the U.S. Code. A 19th Century Supreme Court included this finding in one of their 19th Century decisions.
“I don’t think you understand that the Articles of Confederation have been superseded. If you can’t understand that then you are hopeless.”
What is hopeless is your denial of the written letter of the law in the U.S. Code.
The Organic Laws of the United States of America can be found in Volume One of the United States Code which contains the General and Permanent Laws of the United States. U.S. Code (2007)[1] defines the organic laws of the United States of America to include the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, the Articles of Confederation of November 15, 1777, the Northwest Ordinance of July 13, 1787, and the Constitution of September 17, 1787.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_law
Thanks for doing a masterful job here, defending truth & right, against endless Democrat inspired pro-Confederate propaganda.
Yes, we must never forget that the folks who first concocted all such cockamamie nonsense were 100% Democrats.
Today their descendants, now posing as Republicans, or at least "Conservatives", continue to perpetrate the Lost-Causer mythology, regardless of facts, reason or common sense, even though there are very few sympathetic ears left to listen these days.
I especially appreciate all your data on the Battle of Fort Sumter.
Just for perspective, let me add two points:
Finally, and to your point here, we should first note that DiogenesLamp has frequently argued: the US Declaration of Independence is the only controlling founding document, and since, says DL, it authorized unilateral, unapproved secession, that means any interpretation of the Constitution denying such a "right" must be wrong.
That's rubbish, of course, for one reason because circumstances in 1776 were totally different from those in 1860-1.
For another, the Declaration "authorized" no such secession as perpetrated in 1861, nor did any Founder ever argue in favor such a thing.
And, importantly, the Constitution was ratified by elected conventions in every state as, "the supreme law of the land".
So the Constitution certainly draws inspiration and interpretation from the Declaration, but in to court does the Declaration supersede the Constitution's Original Intent.
But now I notice your argument that the old Articles of Confederation are still in force, especially as they apply to the issue of "perpetual union" versus unilateral, unapproved secession.
Interesting, but I doubt if it would hold up a court, or in Congress.
The US Constitution is intended to be our Supreme Law, to be superseded by no other documents or ideologies, except those approved as Amendments.
Yes, it's true that Lincoln made a similar argument, in saying: since the old Articles were "perpetual" and the new Constitution "more perfect", the Constitution could not be less perpetual than the Articles.
And that's a good argument, but it's not the same thing as saying the old Articles are still in force.
Bottom line: the issue here is Founders' Original Intent, and on that there is no doubt they did not intend to authorize unapproved secession "at pleasure", meaning for no substantial material reasons.
And yet, in November 1860, when Deep South Fire Eaters began calling secession conventions, there were no material reasons, beyond threat to slavery represented by the election of "Ape" Lincoln's Black Republicans, officials who would not even take office for another four months.
No Founder condoned unilateral, unapproved declaration of secession "at pleasure".
First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1861
Fellow-Citizens of the United States:
In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President before he enters on the execution of this office.”
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause—as cheerfully to one section as to another.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause “shall be delivered up” their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
Again: In any law upon this subject ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not in any case surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that “the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States”?
I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed than to violate any of them trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as acontract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was “to form a more perfect Union.”
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and Ishall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised, according to circumstances actually existing and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.
That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from, will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?
All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new union as to produce harmony only and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive- slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
I still say:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST EPITOMES OF RACISM AND ONE OF THE GREATEST PRODUCTS OF PROPAGANDA IN AMERICA. HE WAS A RACIST.
The black community celebrates this man’s life with fondness ignorant of his support for the status quo of black subjugation. Black parents dress their children up to play this man for school plays. We have bought the lies hook, line, and sinker. This was no friend of the black community. Abraham Lincoln was no abolitionist. Black people really need to do more to know our history instead of having it spoon fed to us by the dominant community.
What Lincoln said about blacks:
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ..
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.
Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.
“I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes.” – Abraham Lincoln in the fourth debate with Stephen Douglas.
. “I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. And I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. … And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” – Abraham Lincoln in his fourth debate with Stephen Douglas in the campaign for the United States Senate on September 18th of 1858.
858. “I have never had the least apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it, but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes.” – Abraham Lincoln in the fourth debate with Stephen Douglas.
Negro equality! Fudge! How long, in the government of a god, great enough to make and maintain this universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogue-ism as this?” – Abraham Lincoln in notes for speeches in September of 1859.
Lincoln first publicly advocated for colonization in 1852, and in 1854 said that his first instinct would be “to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia” (the African state founded by the American Colonization Society in 1821).
Lincoln STARTED A WAR THAT KILLED 800,000 AND WOUNDED A MILLION OF HIS FELLOW AMERICANS.
I have not studied the Civil War - or the Old South - in sufficient depth to debate your argument.
I do know the Old South was deeply concerned about being outvoted in the US Congress, and being outvoted in presidential elections, and those issues were a major factor in Secession and their decision to fight.
Since 90% of the Confederate soldiers did not own slaves, I have always been skeptical that slavery was the central issue for those who actually risked their lives for the Old South.
In fact, since 90% of the men fighting for the Confederacy were not well educated or highly skilled, it appears to me that those soldiers were in direct competition with slaves for many jobs, and that slavery would have crushed the wage scale for all low skill jobs in the South, the same way massive legal immigration in 2015 has crushed the wage scale for all low skill jobs in America.
Your claim that the Confederate states planned to defeat the much larger and more industrialized North in a war, and then planned to conquer and enslave Cuba and Mexico, sounds ridiculous.
If you are claiming that some people in the Old South believed that might happen, or wanted that to happen, well, OK, I believe that.
But if you are claiming that large numbers of Confederate soldiers were fighting for that goal, or even believed that such a goal was possible, well, that sounds ridiculous.
The idea that the Articles of Confederation just suddenly ceased to be the law of the land because they were “replaced” by the Constitution and its articles is a common or near universal misconception due to the failure of the educational system. The Founders, however, pretty well knew what they were doing when the wrote the Preamble to the Constitution saying:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Nowhere in the Constitution did they say anything whatsoever about the Articles of Confederation being rescinded, replaced, or in any other way eliminated, except to note the Constitution would now be the Supreme law of the land. Even then, being the supreme law of the land does not replace the Articles of Confederation, because the Constitution was written as a supplement or extension of the Articles of Confederation that simply reorganized how the government of the United States of America arising from the Declaration of Independence and formally established by the Articles of Confederation were to be made a more perfect union than before.
So, what then were the Founders thinking? It’s simple. They were applying the principle of Stare Decisis as they were already accustomed to doing in their legislation and legal affairs. In other words, the Organic Laws represented by the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and northwest Ordinance continued to serve as the permanent laws of the United States used “to stand by that which is decided” in subject matter not explicitly superseded by the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. For the Founders, this was a natural compilation of laws built one atop of the other without the need to repeat the decisions already made, such as independence from Britain, and perpetual union of the states.
When it came time to move the government from the former unicameral Congress established by the Articles of Association and changed by the Articles of Confederation to the new bicameral Congress established by the Constitution, there was some slight overlap as the delegates adjourned the unicameral Congress sine die and convened the bicameral Congress. Note, the unicameral Congress was never dissolved, but it was adjourned indefinitely (sine die) until such time as the Articles of Confederation authorizing it should be rescinded or otherwise deprecated. This was done by design by the Founders. This is also why the Articles of Confederation are included as the permanent or Organic Laws of the United States in the U.S. Code.
There, fixed it for you, FRiend.
Actual statistics on Civil War dead are readily available here, though missing Confederate wounded, if we assume those to be relatively the same as Union wounded, we get the above totals.
It is indisputable that the Confederacy in early 1861 first provoked, then started (at Fort Sumter) and formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861, while sending military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri.
All this happened months before a single Confederate soldier (Pvt. Henry Wyatt) was killed directly in battle with any Union force (June 10, 1861), and before any Union army invaded a single Confederate state.
It is also indisputable that the Confederate leadership refused to end the war until their armies were totally defeated as organized fighting forces and they could only accept "unconditional surrender" as terms of peace.
“But if you are claiming that large numbers of Confederate soldiers were fighting for that goal, or even believed that such a goal was possible, well, that sounds ridiculous.”
Those who associated themselves with the Knights of the Golden Circle and some of their friends became enamored of such schemes, but the great majority of the Confederate soldiers were ignorant or disbelieving of such secret society schemes. Their motivations ran the gamut from rabid pro-slavery enthusiasm to appeals for defense of the homes to the soldiers who were there only because they were compelled to by peer pressure or the point of a gun and the threat of a hanging. Desertion rates rose to some 50 percent of the troops as they discovered the injustices the rich slaveowners were committing as they starved soldiers’ families while exempting themselves from the ruinous taxation and conscription into Confederate military service. Example:
The War Within the Confederacy: White Unionist of North Carolina. By Michael K. Honey
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncuv/honey1.htm
The question of what motivated the Confederate soldiers is a very interesting and often contradictory one in its answers. Time and again you’ll find one section where non-slaveowners were loyal to the Union in any Confederate state and slaveeowners were loyal to the Confederacy. Then in the next section of the same state, the opposite was true. Slaveowners in that section paradoxically remained loyal to the Union, while the poor non-slaveowners gave their loyalty to the Confederacy. The reasons varied. In some cases the non-slaveowners said they didn’t want the negroe slaves to become their poor equals at the bottom rung of society or belived in their racial superiority. Others saw opportunities in the event the rich slaveowners prospered with their slaves, only to become disillusioned when the rich slaveowners used their absence in the war to unfairly and corruptly tax away their livestock, crops, and land leaving their families destitute and starving.
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