Posted on 08/21/2017 4:46:48 PM PDT by euram
Lol. What idiocy.
And the Articles were not even fully accepted by all the colonies until 1781 so it was not a government for four years and barely one after that until the constitution was ratified.
Well then, I guess we agree to disagree.
“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.”
Problem identified. You haven’t read the U.S. constitution.
See Article VII.
That was the situation before the ratification.
I know enough about the constitution to know that there is no provision allowing insurrection and it is specific.
Article VII says exactly what I said.
“Article VII says exactly what I said.”
No.
Article VII says nothing about ratification with a majority.
Read it again for the first time.
It is actually a Super-majority - nine states. But thanks for playing.
I'm glad we got that straight.
Next time, I will introduce you to Amendment X.
I am well aware of Amendment X. It does not allow secession, either. It does not stop the authority of the federal government wrt to insurrections no matter how they are dressed.
BTW - A majority - GREATER than 50%. Or do you have another meaning?
You have been confused once tonight about the difference between a majority and a super-majority.
Take care it doesn't happen again.
A super MAJORITY is a majority. Like a Red tree is a tree or a bare majority is very small. Anything over 50% is a majority.
Few things are worse than an incorrect quibble.
Nancy Pelosi also said: “Never cry ‘Wolf’ in a crowded theater.”
Webster was getting money from the British banking house Baring Brothers while he was negotiating US treaties with Britain. Today, he'd be tried and imprisoned for something like that (or maybe not, given how things are in Washington).
Webster lost much of his support in the North for his support for the Fugitive Slave Act.
On the other hand, he did recognize that unilateral secession meant war and catastrophe:
I hear with distress and anguish the word “secession,” especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg everybody’s pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? No, sir! No, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character.
Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, sir, our ancestors, our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government and the harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty States to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated distinctly, there is to be, or it is supposed possible that there will be, a Southern Confederacy. I do not mean, when I allude to this statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things. I do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard it suggested elsewhere, that the idea has been entertained, that, after the dissolution of this Union, a Southern Confederacy might be formed. I am sorry, sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, or dreamed of, in the wildest flights of human imagination. But the idea, so far as it exists, must be of a separation, assigning the slave States to one side and the free States to the other. Sir, I may express myself too strongly, perhaps, but there are impossibilities in the natural as well as in the physical world, and I hold the idea of a separation of these States, those that are free to form one government, and those that are slave-holding to form another, as such an impossibility. We could not separate the States by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here to-day and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we could. 2 Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense and growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that ere long the strength of America will be in the Valley of the Mississippi. Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two, and leaving free States at its source and on its branches, and slave States down near its mouth, each forming a separate government? Pray, sir, let me say to the people of this country, that these things are worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, sir, are five millions of freemen in the free States north of the river Ohio. Can anybody suppose that this population can be severed, by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and an alien government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the Mississippi? What would become of Missouri? Will she join the arrondissement of the slave States? Shall the man from the Yellowstone and the Platte be connected, in the new republic, with the man who lives on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. I dislike it, I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this great government! to dismember this glorious country! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government or any people! No, sir! no, sir! There will be no secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession.
Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams and others also warned that secession would mean war -- and not a short war either.
The above statement is probably true - to some extent.
How much? Well the Fugitive Slave Act did pass Congress so, in one since, Webster was persuasive in getting northern votes for the measure. He couldn't have become too unpopular at the time. Recent surveys on up-scale college campuses, however, shows him polling at all-time lows.
At the same time, knowing northern politicians the way we do, many who voted for the five-part legislative compromise of 1850 (which included the
Fugitive Slave Act) did so with the intent of gaining the benefit of the bargain and then reneging on enforcement.
As expected, northern governors and mayors set up what are now called “sanctuary states” and “sanctuary cities” where the U.S. constitution and federal laws could be violated with impunity. In hindsight, it is clear the goal was to set up strife and conflict and to eventually establish a pretext for war. It took ten years.
He sure did. That you for finding and posting his long argument.
And as you say, Webster joined Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams and others in saying that secession would mean war — and not a short war either. You could have added Washington, Madison, Lee, Thomas Jackson, Davis and others.
That is what made Webster's warnings to the north about covenant breaking so important - he did not want war but knew their violations of the constitution would probably lead to justified secession.
Webster's warning was so clear, it should be repeated again:
“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.”
I agree with Webster: “A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”
I also know many people don't agree with Webster and contend that as long as “their side wins” it's ok to violate the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the constitution, federal, or state law.
“There you go with your logical fallacies...again.”
About a week ago you made the above post.
It didn’t seem like something that needed an immediate response so I set it aside.
I do want you to know I saw it.
Understand the Ken Burns documentary on The Vietnam War starts tonight. I will have to pass. Will he make heroes out of JFK and others for 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.