Posted on 07/22/2020 3:14:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Confederacy has been the excuse for some of today's rioting, property destruction and grossly uninformed statements. Among the latter is the testimony before the House Armed Services Committee by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley in favor of renaming Confederate-named military bases. He said: "The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought, and it was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution."
There are a few facts about our founding that should be acknowledged. Let's start at the beginning, namely the American War of Independence (1775-1783), a war between Great Britain and its 13 colonies, which declared independence in July 1776. The peace agreement that ended the war is known as the Treaty of Paris signed by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens and by British Commissioner Richard Oswald on Sept. 3, 1783. Article I of the Treaty held that "New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States."
Delegates from these states met in Philadelphia in 1787 to form a union. During the Philadelphia convention, a proposal was made to permit the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, rejected it. Minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: "A union of the states containing such an ingredient [would] provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
During the ratification debates, Virginia's delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments; namely, they held the right to dissolve their relationship with the United States. Ratification of the Constitution was by no means certain. States feared federal usurpation of their powers. If there were a provision to suppress a seceding state, the Constitution would never have been ratified. The ratification votes were close with Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts voting in favor by the slimmest of margins. Rhode Island initially rejected it in a popular referendum and finally voted to ratify -- 34 for, 32 against.
Most Americans do not know that the first secessionist movement started in New England. Many New Englanders were infuriated by President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which they saw as an unconstitutional act. Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who was George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state, led the movement. He said, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." Other prominent Americans such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III, and Joseph Story shared his call for secession. While the New England secessionist movement was strong, it failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a state's right. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty." New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent." The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
Confederate generals fought for independence from the Union just as George Washington fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who label Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals as traitors might also label George Washington a traitor. Great Britain's King George III and the British parliament would have agreed.
You are a capable name-caller but could not answer any of woodpusher’s points. If you can not see the tie between the growth of today’s socialist super state and the federal over-reach of the earlier federalism then you are willfully blind. You’ll be happier over at HuffPost. Lots of them with be in full agreement with you.
[BroJoeK #403] OIFVeteran: "There was a short period when two states were not part of the government currently operating at the time, but they were still apart of the United States of America."[woodpusher #404 to OIFVeteran] "States were never part of the Federal government, and are not part of the government today.
[OIFVeteran #419] Your first sentence is a minor quibble over words.
I see that you cannot identify what branch of the Federal government the States are a part of. Your omission is telling.
[Woodpusher #404] Which branch of the government do find the States to be in? Legislative, Judicial, or Executive?[OIFVeteran #419] Your second sentence confirms OIFVeteran's point.
Just how does my unanswered question confirm OIFVeteran’s absurd conspiracy theory that the United States suffers from schizophrenia?
[Woodpusher #404] The States are the members of the Union that created the Government.[OIFVeteran #419] The Union exists since 1776 regardless of which specific forms its government takes. States like North Carolina, Rhode Island and Vermont were never formally recognized as separated from that Union.
See Congressional Register, Volume I, 1789, title page,
The Congressional Register; or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the First House of Representatives of the United States of America, namely, New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South-Carolina, and Georgia,Being the Eleven States that have Ratified the Constitution of the Government of the United States.
Congressional Register, Volume I, 1789,
Page 412, Mr. SHERMAN, June 5, 1789:
But all we are now to consider, I believe, is, that we invite the state of Rhode Island to join our confederacy, what will be the effect of such a measure we cannot tell till we try it.
Page 413, Mr. MADISON, June 5, 1789:
My idea on the subject now before the House is, that it would be improper in this body to expose themselves to have such a proposition rejected by the legislature of the state of Rhode Island
Page 413, Mr. AMES, June 5, 1789:
I should be glad to know if any gentleman contemplates the state of Rhode Island, dissevered from the union; a maritime state, situated in the most convenient manner for the purpose of smuggling and defrauding our revenue. Surely a moment's reflection will induce the house to take measures to secure this object. Do gentlemen imagine that state will join the union? ... If a wish of congress will bring them into the union, why shall we decline to express such a wish?
Page 424, Mr. MADISON, June 8, 1789:
It cannot be a secret to the gentlemen in this house that, notwithstanding the ratification of this system of government by eleven of the thirteen United States, in some cases unanimously, in others by large majorities; yet still there is a great number of our constituents who are dissatisfied with it....
Page 438, Mr. JACKSON, June 8, 1789:
I hold, mr. speaker, that the present is not a proper time for considering of amendments. The States of Rhode-Island and North-Carolina are not in the Union. As to the latter, we have every presumption that they will come in. But in Rhode-Island I think the antifederal interest yet prevails. ...But to return to my argument. It being the case that those states are not yet come into the Union, when they join us we shall have another list of amendments to consider, and another bill of rights to frame.
Page 441, Mr. GERRY, June 8, 1789:
There are two states not in the union; it would be a very desirable circumstance to gain them. I should therefore be in favor of such amendments as might tend to invite them and gain their confidence; good policy will dictate to use to expedite that event. Gentlemen say, that we shall not obtain the consent of two-thirds of both houses to amendments. Are gentlemen willing then to throw Rhode-Island and North-Carolina into the situation of foreign nations. They have told you, that they cannot accede to the union unless certain amendments are made to the constitution; if you deny a compliance with their request in this particular, you refuse an accomodation to bring about that desirable event, and leave them detached from the union.
Why did nobody in the Congress even question or oppose these claims by MADISON et al?
Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U.S. 593, 607-608 (1933)
Our conclusion as to the meaning and effect of the Order-in-Council of 1764 would be decisive of the boundary of Vermont upon her admission to the Union were it not for the history of Vermont as a revolutionary government and the consequent uncertainty whether she was admitted under the second clause of Art. IV, § 3, of the Constitution as a new state formed out of the territory of New York, with her boundary accordingly determined by that of New York, or whether she was admitted under the first clause of Art. IV, § 3, as an independent revolutionary state with self-constituted boundaries.[...]
In view of these facts, the Special Master concluded that the Order-in-Council was nullified by successful revolution, and Vermont was admitted as an independent state with self-constituted boundaries. But he also found, as we have said, that Vermont's claims of jurisdiction to the thread of the river were restricted to the low water mark on the western side by resolutions of Congress of August 20, 21, 1781, and their acceptance by resolution of the Vermont Legislature, February 22, 1782. In addition, he found that Vermont was not recognized as an independent state by Congress either under the Articles of Confederation or under the Constitution, but that her independence was recognized by New Hampshire in 1777, by Massachusetts in 1781, and by New York in 1790.
How was the Order-in-Council recognized as nullified, and Vermont recognized as an independent state from 1777 to 1791, and Vermont recognized as having entered the Union as an independent state, with self-constituted boundaries in 1791, without it having left the Union after 1776?
Have you duly noted that you failed to answer the question asked of you in post 430?
Post 430 came just before your post 431 - in which you were forced to asked a diversionary question.
If you want to refute Johnson v Thompkins and the federal court system, refute it.
Go for it.
bookmark
Like I said, no state ever claimed absolute sovereignty & independence
The Virginia Declaration of Rights was framed by a convention composed of forty-tive members of the colonial house of burgesses, which met at Williamsburg May 6, 1776, and adopted the declaration June 12, 1776.
The Virginia Constitution was framed by the convention which issued the Declaration of Rights, and was adopted June 29, 1776.
http://www.nhinet.org/ccs/docs/va-1776.htm
THE CONSTITUTION OR FORM OF GOVERNMENT, AGREED TO AND RESOLVED UPON BY THE DELEGATES AND REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SEVERAL COUNTIES AND CORPORATIONS OF VIRGINIAWhereas George the third, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and elector of Hanover, heretofore intrusted with the exercise of the kingly office in this government, hath endeavoured to prevent, the same into a detestable and insupportable tyranny, by putting his negative on laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good:
By denying his Governors permission to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation for his assent, and, when so suspended neglecting to attend to them for many years:
By refusing to pass certain other laws, unless the persons to be benefited by them would relinquish the inestimable right of representation in the legislature:
By dissolving legislative Assemblies repeatedly and continually, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions of the rights of the people:
When dissolved, by refusing to call others for a long space of time, thereby leaving the political system without any legislative head:
By endeavouring to prevent the population of our country, and, for that purpose, obstructing, the laws for the naturalization of foreigners:
By keeping among us, in times of peace, standing armies and ships of war:
By effecting to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power:
By combining with others to subject us to a foreign jurisdiction, giving his assent to their pretended acts of legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever:
By plundering our seas, ravaging our coasts, burning our towns, and destroying the lives of our people:
By inciting insurrections of our fellow subjects, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation:
By prompting our negroes to rise in arms against us, those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of his negative, he hath refused us permission to exclude by law:
By endeavoring to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions of existence:
By transporting, at this time, a large army of foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy unworthy the head of a civilized nation:
By answering our repeated petitions for redress with a repetition of injuries: And finally, by abandoning the helm of government and declaring us out of his allegiance and protection.
By which several acts of misrule, the government of this country, as formerly exercised under the crown of Great Britain, is TOTALLY DISSOLVED.
We therefore, the delegates and representatives of the good people of Virginia, having maturely considered the premises, and viewing with great concern the deplorable conditions to which this once happy country must be reduced, unless some regular, adequate mode of civil polity is speedily adopted, and in compliance with a recommendation of the general Congress, do ordain and declare the future form of government of Virginia to be as followeth:
[snip]
But after reply 429 where I first questioned your bizarre claim.
If you want to refute Johnson v Thompkins and the federal court system, refute it.
Refute what? That Baldwin said in dicta that property in slaves was the foundation of the Constitution? Hard to refute that; it's part of the record. You asked if I knew whether the decision was overturned by the Supreme Court. I've found no evidence that it was but so what? What I was questioning was your idiotic statement you don’t think anyone denies that the corner stone of the United States Constitution was slavery. On the contrary, other than you and Justice Baldwin I don't know anyone who does think that. I certainly don't believe it, which alters your claim right there, and I was hoping you would explain just who this "everyone" is that you are referring to?
You made all that crap up. See my #437.
[jamcusa #438] Lincoln's (sic) is irrelevant.
Then why did you make up that load of crap and try to serve it to me?
Lee and Davis were traitors you pettifogging twit.
No, you ignorant liberal sad excuse for an Adam Schiff wannabe. Their states seceded and were officially recognized as lawful belligerents by Lincoln’s declaration of a blockade which is strictly an international act, and is not a domestic act. There followed a series of international recognitions of the Confederacy as lawful belligerents. Lincoln’s proclamation of a blockade also served as the start of the war for all legal purposes.
The Protector, 79 U.S. 700 (1870)
It is necessary, therefore, to refer to some public act of the political departments of the government to fix the dates, and, for obvious reasons, those of the executive department which may be and in fact was, at the commencement of hostilities, obliged to act during the recess of Congress, must be taken.The proclamation of intended blockade by the President may therefore be assumed as marking the first of these dates....
The government did all in its power to prevent any court from ever expressing any opinion on the question of any Confederate soldier or politician had committed treason.
The Confederate soldiers were not traitors. The Union accepted them, held them and traded them as prisoners of war. Traitors are not accepted as prisoners of war.
It was Lincoln’s knowing and deliberate act of proclaiming a blockade, debated in the cabinet, to gain added powers under international law, that caused recognition of the Confederate government. It enabled foreign governments to lawfully do business with the Confederacy and to accept representatives of that government.
The Declaration Respecting Maritime Law of April 16, 1856 stated the international law on blockades. One of the requirements was:
4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.
It is impossible to prevent access to the coast of the enemy unless there is an enemy and an enemy coast. Only by the Confederacy being recognized as an enemy belligerent could there have been an enemy. A blockade acts on foreign nations or belligerents. A closing of the ports does not apply to foreign nations.
Under 19th century international law, a blockade presupposes an armed conflict, and a war presupposes an enemy. Treaties presumed another country, generally called a "belligerent" or something similar. It did not require international formal diplomatic recognition of the second party belligerent.
“Belligerent. A country involved in a war or other armed international conflict. Cf. Neutral.” Black’s Law Dictionary, 11th Ed.
Michael G. Fraunces, The International Law of Blockade: New Guiding Principles in Contemporary State Practice, The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 101, pg. 897
The first principle, that of establishment, limited the right to establish a blockade to states openly engaged in hostilities.2323. L. OPPENHEIM, INTERNATIONAL LAW 775 (H. Lauterpacht ed., 7th ed. 1952); see also Declaration of London, supra note 20, art. 9; FRANCIS H. UPTON, THE LAW OF NATIONS AFFECTING COMMERCE DURING WAR 277 (London, Methuen & Co. 1863).
Id. at 897-898:
Unlike the first four principles, the requirement to respect neutral rights represented a more complex tradeoff between neutral and belligerent rights and duties. Generally, the blockading force had the right to prevent all neutral trade directly with the blockaded port or coast. In return for respecting that right, neutrals retained the right to trade with other neutral countries. As a result, blockading forces could not extend their blockade to block access to neutral ports.More specifically, the right of a belligerent to impede a neutral vessel varied depending on the location of the neutral vessel with respect to the blockade when challenged by a belligerent warship. In the area between the ships of the blockading state and the enemy coast, a belligerent had the right to "capture" any vessel attempting to breach the blockade either inward or outward. In the case of a breach outward, the vessel that broke the blockade was "liable to capture so long as she [was continuously] pursued by a ship of the blockading force.
Outside the blockade area and on the high seas, belligerents relied on the practice of "visit and search" to stop vessels suspected of carrying "contraband" to the enemy. A belligerent warship sailing on the high seas had the right to visit and search all merchant vessels. Merchants found carrying enemy contraband were captured and escorted to the belligerent's nearest home port. The belligerent nation's prize court then determined the fate of the captured ship and cargo. In cases where merchants resisted either capture or visit and search, the blockading force was entitled to pursue and, if necessary, damage or destroy the vessel to force the ship to submit.
Lincoln desired the ability to chase after ships on the high seas and seize contraband. A domestic closing of the ports would not have permitted those international acts. The United States would not have been a belligerent power engaged in a war. The added powers are what made a blockade expedient to Lincoln, even if it meant giving recognition to the confederacy as a belligerent power.
For the umpteenth time the South . . . launched a war, causing the deaths of 600,000 Americans to preserve slavery . . . .
"Along with her servant, also named Julia, and the Grants’ youngest son, Jesse, Julia Dent Grant had lived with her husband in nearly every one of his military camps since the war began." Servant is a euphemism for slave. Julia, the servant, was most definitely a slave. In the great war to end slavery, the commanding general of the Union forces was accompanied by his wife and her slave.
ANY power exercised by a city or county is done SOLELY at the discretion of the state. The state can revoke their power at any time. Oh and of course your are wrong. Counties and Cities cannot enact laws - local ordinances only. Perhaps. Under certain circumstances.
Under any circumstances. They are not sovereign. Any exercise of power by them is done solely at the discretion of the state - which is sovereign.They rely on the U.S. Constitution for many of them. And are denied powers by the same.
You really need to study con law. No they do not. States do not rely on the US constitution for their exercise of power, right to enact laws etc. The states precede the constitution. They only delegated certain powers to the federal government. They retained all those powers they did not delegate. Your understanding is exactly backwards.
Exactly. This is the direct source of the federal government's usurpation of powers the states never agreed to delegate to it. Those who cannot see it don't want to see it. Even biographers like Gore Vidal called Lincoln "the great centralizer". That was essentially his entire program....to overthrow the original constitution and centralize power in Imperial Washington. That is the source of most of our problems today.
Can states determine their form of government? Can they raise their own army, deal with foreign countries on an equal basis? Form partnerships with other states? Levy their own tariffs?
Your post 429 did not contain a question.
You simply made a statement about what you didn't know.
I did not contest your statement that you didn't know something. I believed you.
I did ask you a followup question which went nowhere.
It is not clear when or how the States ever ceded their sovereignty.They never agreed to.
I have never seen the mythical agreement.
People should remember, the constitution was ratified only 8 years after the Treaty of Paris. They had only had their sovereignty recognized for 8 years.....and it had taken 8 long years of bloody war to get it. They sure as hell were not eager to give up something so hard won.
Yes, the notion that it emanated from a penumbra, with no explicit statement of cession, flies in the face of the historical documents and what is contained therein, and you have correctly identified the precise point which places it beyond belief.
Now the states have been reduced to being little more than administrative conveniences.....mere appendages of the federal government for most practical purposes.
Or the oversized counties they were described as by Lincoln and that other guy.
[1] Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit.
[1] Congressman Lincoln on January 12, 1848, arguing the unlawfulness of the War with Mexico.
Lincoln knew the truth; later he just found it expedient later to revise history.
[2] What is the particular sacredness of a State? I speak not of that position which is given to a State in and by the Constitution of the United States, for that all of us agree to—we abide by; but that position assumed, that a State can carry with it out of the Union that which it holds in sacredness by virtue of its connection with the Union. I am speaking of that assumed right of a State, as a primary principle, that the Constitution should rule all that is less than itself, and ruin all that is bigger than itself. But, I ask, wherein does consist that right? If a State, in one instance, and a county in another, should be equal in extent of territory, and equal in the number of people, wherein is that State any better than the county?
Rhode Island has more sovereign power than the largest county in Texas. Rhode Island can ratify an amendment to the Constitution. The largest county in the United States cannot gain admission to that club. The people, as States (political communities) delegated some of their sovereign powers to the Federal government they created. No county can do that.
President Lincoln's message of July 4, 1861 to the Special Session of Congress.
[3] The States have their status IN the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law, and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence, and their liberty. By conquest, or purchase, the Union gave each of them, whatever of independence, and liberty, it has. The Union is older than any of the States; and, in fact, it created them as States.
President Lincoln's message of July 4, 1861 to the Special Session of Congress.
Just how did the Union do that for Virginia? So, just what was Virginia in June 1776 after it had declared its independence, and adopted a Bill of Rights and Constitution? A free colony? There is an impossible term, if ever there was one.
Vermont gained its own independence in 1777.
[4] What is a confederation of states? By a confederacy, we mean a group of sovereign states which come together of their own free will and, in virtue of their sovereignty, create a collective entity. In doing so, they assign selective sovereign rights to the national body that will allow it to safeguard the existence of the joint union.This theoretical definition does not apply in practice, at least not without some alterations, to any existing confederation of states in the world today. It applies the least to the American Union of States. Most of these individual states never possessed any sovereignty whatsoever. They were gradually brought into the framework of the union as a whole. Therefore. the various states of the American Union constitute, in most instances smaller or larger territories that were formed for technical administrative reasons and their borders were frequently drawn with a ruler. These states never possessed any previous sovereignty of their own because that would have been impossible. These states did not come together to create the Union, but it was the Union that created these so-called states. The extensive rights of independence that were relinquished, or rather rights that were granted, to the different territories are in harmony with the whole character of this confederation of states and with the vastness of its area and overall size which is almost as large as a continent. So, in referring to the states of the American Union, one cannot speak of their state soverignty, but only of their constitutionally guaranteed rights, which we could more accurately designate as privileges.
[4] That other guy. Sounds like Lincoln, but it ain’t. It’s not constitutional rights, it’s privileges that are granted to peons by some higher power.
And then there was Ronald Reagan who stayed awake in history class.
[5] All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.
[5] President Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, Tuesday, January 20, 1981
Just because states delegated some of their sovereign powers to the federal government does not mean they surrendered their sovereignty. Madison and Hamilton were quite explicit in the federalist papers that they were not doing that....that they retained their sovereignty. States agreed not to make treaties with foreign countries or levy tariffs or to have a non republican form of government so long as they chose to remain in the US. Membership in the club has certain rules members must abide by if they wish to remain in the club.
Answered in my reply 446: "You asked if I knew whether the decision was overturned by the Supreme Court. I've found no evidence that it was but so what? "
Now can you please provide your support for the claim that you don’t think anyone denies that the corner stone of the United States Constitution was slavery?
How can they be sovereign if there is a power above them telling them what they can or cannot do?
Ask Madison or Hamilton or the US Supreme Court. States are sovereign.
Well I was asking you.
and I was referring you to sources you think credible so......
When I said that in my post 416 it was true.
I was of the belief that your declaration about Johnson v Thompkins in post 332 ("I stand corrected") made the 1833 case a settled issue.
Subsequent posts by you starting with, I think, 429 indicate when you say “I stand corrected” what you really mean is Judge Baldwin stands corrected. By you.
Have it your way but the onus is on you to provide some support for your claim.
Even from my closest friends up North, I like to hear some rationale when they openly proclaim federal courts are not the law of the land.
Sorry, your view was not the law of the land. Read the relevant Johnson v Thompkins.
https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0013.f.cas/0013.f.cas.0840.2.pdf
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