Free Republic

FLT-bird: "Southerners are Americans genius.
Confederate States of AMERICA.
The Republican party of the 1860s is not the Republican party of today.
If it were, I couldn't support it."

Then you are absolutely not Republican, you're a Southern Democrat, if not Dixiecrat.

I have it on the authority of President Donald Trump -- repeated to every Southern rally -- that we Republicans are the party of Lincoln.

So I'm sorry you're not one of us, but maybe someday you'll grow sick of Democrat lies and wish to join us.
When that day comes, I promise you'll be welcomed with open arms & hearts, FRiend.

Monterrosa-24: "Confederates vote Republican today and that is why the deep South is solid red."

Anti-American Confederate Democrats are not Republicans, ever, regardless of how they vote.
You can't be a Republican until you give up your GD Democrat lies.

Monterrosa-24: "Yankees vote Dem today and that is why Massachusetts and New England are solid blue."

Northern Democrats today are the same people they were in 1860!
Then as now they were big city immigrants & business globalists who dominated their state governments and allied with Southern Democrats to rule in Washington DC -- to support the social institutions (i.e., slavery) which made them wealthy.

In 1860, just as today, Republicans were small town, small businesses, farmers, professionals, middle-class, freedom loving -- PUT AMERICANS FIRST-ers.

Monterrosa-24: "You name-called our points a “big lie” but we have all the evidence and all you have are insults."

Sorry, but you have only lies, and it's all just lies, but I do confess one thing: some of your lies are so cleverly expressed it takes one's breath away and requires a lot of words to unpackage & straighten out.

That's why the temptation to simply resort to insults can get pretty... strong.

woodpusher: "And whatever you quoted was not the next paragraph.
Or the one after that.
Here is my quoted paragraph, and the rest of the document.
Your quote does not seem to appear in the Virginia Bill of Rights or the Virginia Constitution."

FRiend, we all make mistakes and can all sympathize when we see glaring mistakes from our "debate partners".
In this particular case, the words you claim here are not found in the "next paragraph", are in fact both quoted and highlighted by you, exactly as I said, in the next paragraph.

Like I said, we all make mistakes, so I won't rub this one by you in... too much. ;-)

woodpusher: "In have not seen it and generally do not take Broadway or Hollywood as historically accurate.
For example, there are many stirring examples of congressional dabate in the Spielberg movie, Lincoln.
Not a word of it was taken from the verbatim records of the actual debates."

In both examples, the dramatized words catch the essence of historical events.
In the case of the Lee's song, it's the fact that Congress requested a declaration from Virginia, to which Virginia responded,

"...in compliance with a recommendation of the general Congress, do ordain and declare the future form of government of Virginia "

Standard histories of the time put it this way:

"In 1775, Richard Henry Lee and John Adams began to explore how a new form of government could replace the colonial structures.
The two men were in Philadephia at the Continental Congress.
They discussed how authority could be divided among executive, legislative, and judicial branches, reducing the excessive concentration of power that made colonial governors a threat to liberty.

Lee arranged to have an anonymous handbill published that shared his ideas, while Adams published his own Thoughts on Government.
The proposals reassured reluctant revolutionaries that there would be continuity after independence, not chaos.
Colonial authority could be replaced by state authority without a massive disruption of the decision making process.
A new form of government could be established, and Virginia would not be in a "state of nature" after declaring independence from Great Britain.2

Virginia's Fifth Revolutionary Convention, meeting in the Capitol at Williamsburg between May 6-July 5, 1776, was the first in North America to write a constitution.
It defined the shape of an independent state government, one that owed no allegiance to King George III.

On May 15, 1776, the convention delegates decided in a unanimous vote to instruct Richard Henry Lee and the other Virginia delegates at the Second Continental Congress to propose that the colonies declare themselves to be independent of Great Britain.
The Fifth Revolutionary Convention also appointed a committee to draft a new form of government for the colony, and that led to adoption of Virginia's first constitution....

Jefferson prepared three drafts of a constitution for Virginia, and even proposed the Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia return to Williamsburg to participate in the debate and decision process.
According to him, creating a good alternative to the royal form of government was: 'the whole object of the present controversy'. "

My point is: leadership here came from Congress and Virginians acted "in compliance" with Congress's wishes.
One historical question is whether RH Lee himself was in Virginia on May 15, 1776?
Jefferson's intentions, and, of course, the musical's lyrics, suggest he was.

woodpusher: "I am not the one who (#403) posted: [BroJoeK #403 quoting] 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."

To which you responded, "...what branch of the Federal government the States are a part of?"

Now, FRiend, you well know that is a stupid question, intended not to enlighten but to befuddle.
The answer is not "what branch of government", but rather "which constitution" governed which states.
Before their individual ratifications, each state was governed by the Articles of Confederation and after by the new Constitution.
At no time did any original state claim to be, or was officially recognized as, free & independent from the United States.

woodpusher: "Your attempt to avoid explaining is understandable. "

Your attempt to ask senseless questions is quite understandable.

woodpusher: "How do you invite a state to join a confederacy if it is a member of said confederacy?
How does the legislature of Rhode Island reject said invitation unless it is not a member of said confederacy?"

Before ratifications, each state remained under the United States Articles of Confederation.
The issue was, which constitution would govern them, not which country did they belong to.

woodpusher: "You can't handle the truth. "

Nonsense, the truth you can't handle is that none of those states ever formally claimed to be, or were officially recognized as, free & independent from the United States.

By "formally claimed to be", I mean documents of secession or declarations of war against the United States.
By "officially recognized", I mean such normal things as ambassador exchanges, treaties & tariffs, etc.

And that's the truth you can't handle.

woodpusher: "Mutual consent, or as the U.S. Supreme Court put it, successful revolution."

In 1933!
In 1791 Vermont was admitted as a state, by mutual consent, just as the Constitution and James Madison required.

woodpusher: "It does not matter that the U.S. government, when there was one, did not officially recognize Vermont's independence until it entered the union.
At the time of admission, and thereafter, they were officially recognized by the U.S. Government to have been previously, and at the time of admission, a free and independent state.
Vermont was explicitly NOT admitted under Clause 2 of Article 4, Sec 3.
You keep prattling on as if Clause 2 applied.
It did not.
Vermont was admitted and a free and independent state which achieved that status by their successful revolution of 1777."

That is total & complete rubbish, sure, concocted by SCOTUS in 1933, but not by our Founders in 1791.
In fact, the 1791 US law admitting Vermont as the 14th state says nothing -- zero, zip -- about any of it.

woodpusher quoting: "Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U.S. 593 (1933)
At 596:
Vermont was admitted as a free and independent state."
Only a free and independent state can be admitted as a free and independent state."

That ruling is from 1933, not 1791.
There is no contemporaneous equivalent document.
And the 1933 SCOTUS claim that Vermont was "recognized" by NH, MA & NY, bears some scrutiny -- were ambassadors exchanged?
Were treaties negotiated?
Were tariffs imposed?
So what, exactly, did such "recognition" consist of?
If it was nothing more than withdrawal of their own claims to Vermont territory, that is hardly the same thing as officially recognizing Vermont as a separate country, free & independent from the United States.

woodpusher "Vermont was explicitly NOT admitted under Clause 2 of Article 4, Sec 3.
You keep prattling on as if Clause 2 applied.
It did not.
Vermont was admitted and a free and independent state which achieved that status by their successful revolution of 1777.
Vermont was explicitly found to have been admitted under clause 1."

In 1933!!
There is no contemporaneous document verifying any distinction of the sort.
See, for example here.

But I think we can cut to the chase, if we simply compare Vermont to Texas.
Texas was a recognized independent country, with all the trappings & courtesies afforded a real country by foreign powers, including the United States.
Vermont achieved no such status, it called itself a "state" or "commonwealth", its chief executive was a "governor" and it only failed admission to the United States because New York opposed it, pending settlement of boundary claims.
Once those claims were settled -- Vermont paid $30,000 to settle -- then Vermont was quickly admitted, without any navel-gazing over whether clause 1 or clause 2 applied!

So why does this even matter?
Because our Lost Causers love, love to claim examples of successful secession from the United States and Vermont seems an ideal candidate, to them.
But in fact, Vermont was never officially recognized as a country separate from the United States, and it applied & became a US state at the first possible opportunity.

jeffersondem: "Sure, we all change our views from time to time. I personally like Doodledawg’s method of jinking 180: “I stand corrected.” "

Nonsense, you're just straining at gnats, I stand by all of those statements.

FLT-bird: "No, the denial is an absolute Leftist lie.
The Democrat party of 1840 and 1860 and 1910 is not the Democrat party of today.
The same goes for the Republicans.
They have each changed considerably.
The lie is that secession was "about" slavery.
Plainly it was not.
It was about tariffs and economics and more broadly, the centralization of power."

Those are absolute, complete lies.
Democrat lies.
Southern Democrat lies.
Lies told by Southern Democrats who pretend now to be "conservative Republicans".
You're not a Republican of any kind, you're still a GD Democrat, and you will be one until you stop lying about the Civil War, period.

Confederates told us why they seceded, and it was all about slavery, it had little or nothing to do with any of that other nonsense you Democrats keep lying about.
Read the documents!
But of course you have read them, and you still lie about them, which confirms absolutely your status as a GD Democrat, Southern Democrat Lost Causer.

And Democrats, by definition, were never "conservative" they've always been opposed to the United States and our Constitution.
And from time to time you Democrats go berserk and wage war against us -- all the while lying, lying, lying.
That's the definition of Democrat.

jeffersondem: "First things first: in which post on this thread have I referred to the Alexander Stephens speech?"

As I carefully explained the first time (how many times will you ignore it?), your claim that slavery is the "cornerstone" of the US Constitution, refers back to Alexander Stephens famous claim that slavery was the "cornerstone" of the new Confederate constitution.

And might I add, it's typical Democrat mind-set: projecting your own feelings onto others.
You wish the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy to be also the "cornerstone" of the US Constitution, when in fact, it was nothing of the sort.

But as Reily pointed out, your claim does fit rather well with the 1619 project, and so maybe that's your true home-base?

FLT-bird to Reily: "Notice how these PC Revisionists side with Leftists consistently while falsely claiming they're 'conservatives'? "

Notice how our Lost Causers side with their anti-American Democrat ancestors while falsely claiming they're "Republicans"?

FLT-bird: "LOL! Yeah that's it.
The Founders insisted that each have its sovereignty recognized individually by name just so people wouldn't say they were still British.
Not because the Founders wanted the sovereignty of each recognized by name or anything.... "

Sure, every Founder wanted every state to be recognized as 100% free & independent from Britain, but no Founder ever considered any state as 100% free & independent from each other.

Reily: "We have a NYT Project 1619 contributor\participant on this site?"

Jeffersondem is far to clever to ever admit such a thing, but yes, whatever garbage he can throw at the United States is fair game, in his mind.

woodpusher to jmacusa: "Your lack of intellectual depth is demonstrated by your inability to engage on the topic at hand, but rather merely descend into juvenile insults.
In fact, your shallow mind cannot even summon forth a worthy insult.
It is truly sad."

Jmacusa reminds me of many, many Lost Cause posters from years past, indeed, his language is quite mild compared to some of their threatening tones.

The proper response, which I'm sure you know, when things get too heated for rational discourse is simply to discontinue.

Monterrosa to jmacusa: "Did you ever notice that the South is the most Republican part of the country?
That is because people like me, vote Republican. "

Sure, but Lost Causers are not, by definition, Republicans -- you're still just old-time Southern Democrats, Democrat wolves dressed up in Republican sheep clothing.

Monterrosa "Of course I would have been an Andrew Jackson Democrat in Antebellum times because I consistently oppose Federal over-reach.
Today, I have to be Republican."

Right, you don't want to be Republican, and at heart you're not, you're still old-time Southern Democrat, if not Dixiecrat.

As for President Andrew Jackson, he is a hero to many, including our current President, and yours truly, and not just for raising taxes (the Tariff of Abominations) to pay off the national debt, but also because he was, first & foremost an American patriot, who set the example Abraham Lincoln followed in 1861 in Jackson's response to South Carolina's 1830 threatened secession:

"...please give my compliments to my friends in your State and say to them, that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.[65]"

Jackson then sent a fleet of US warships to Charleston Harbor and that was the end of secession for another 30 years.

It's why many of our Lost Causers loathe & despise Andrew Jackson.

Monterrosa to jmacusa: "You’re mentally ill and yes I will tell you to get lost and take it to HuffPost.
This is a site for Americans."

The category of people who love the United States and our Constitution does not include the 1861 slaveholders who provoked, started, formally declared & waged war against the USA, refusing to stop fighting for any terms better than Unconditional Surrender.

Those people were Democrats and they help define the essential attitude of Democrats toward the United States, from Day One until today.

FLT-bird to DoodleDawg: "Oh and of course your are wrong.
Counties and Cities cannot enact laws - local ordinances only. "

Synonyms for the word "ordinance" include: "edict · decree · law · injunction · fiat · command · order · rule · ruling · dictum · dictate · directive · mandate · enactment · statute · act · canon · regulation..."

So FLT-bird is here making a distinction which has no meaning, apparently for no other purpose than to be quarrelsome.

jmacusa post #411: "Due to political expediency, the nations psychical, emotional, industrial, financial cost and staggering death toll on both sides Lincoln saw no point in prosecuting Lee and Davis as the war criminals they were even though Davis wanted to continue the war in a guerrilla style fashion."

woodpusher: "You made all that crap up. See my #437."

I read your #437, it supports the historical fact that neither Presidents Lincoln, nor Johnson, nor Grant, nor Chief Justice Chase wanted to try Confederates for treason.
Our FRiend jmacusa wishes to explain that as a form of war-weariness, but I think there is a simpler, more straightforward explanation -- no Union prosecutions for treason was quid pro quo for no continuing guerilla warfare by Confederates.

Remember, Lincoln's first aim, even before freeing slaves, was to reunite the Union, and he believed, as did others, that the surest way to accomplish that was:

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Democrats then as now hated the United States, hate our Constitution and will do whatever they can, including open warfare, to corrupt or destroy us, under whichever banners they think can raise the most troops.
Back then it was the cause of "states rights" to enslave African Americans, today it is the cause of serfdom for American taxpayers.

woodpusher to jmacusa: "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 fact is that many in Europe's "upper crusts" sympathized with Southern slaveholding planters and wanted to support them, and some did.
But no significant European government officially recognized the Confederacy or openly provided them with the kinds of military aid which were essential to George Washington's victory in the Revolutionary War.
Had they received such massive & open aid from recognized European allies, Confederates may well have won the war, just as Washington did.

I think we can thank Secretary of State Seward on the Union side, and Jefferson Davis' poor choice of emissaries on the Confederate side for Confederates' failure to achieve even a modicum of international recognition.

woodpusher: "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."

Nothing inherent in a blockade presupposes the enemy is a foreign nation.
Indeed, the Brits blockaded American coasts in both the Revolution and the War of 1812, the first time against the rebellion, the second against the American nation.
The blockades were the same, but nothing in the first constituted British recognition of Americans as a separate nation.

woodpusher quoting Virginia 1776 Constitution, adopted June 29, 1776. : "By which several acts of misrule, the government of this country, as formerly exercised under the crown of Great Britain, is TOTALLY DISSOLVED."

Part of the answer here is in the next paragraph:

"...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: "

Virginia was a member of the Continental Congress and recognized its authority.

But there's more to this story, which you may remember from the musical "1776" -- Adams & Franklin are sitting with Richard Henry Lee and ask him to go back to Virginia and secure from Virginians, "a resolution on independency".

Lee then delivers the catchiest tune of the play:

"Lees of Old Virginia

My name is Richard Henry Lee; Virginia is my home
My name is Richard Henry Lee; Virginia is my home
And may horses turn to glue if I can't deliver
Unto you a resolution on independency!

For I am FFV, the first family
In the sovereign colony of Virginia
Yes the FFV, the oldest family
in the oldest colony in America
And may the British burn my land if I can't deliver
To your hand a resolution on independency!

You see it's here-a-Lee, there-a-Lee
And everywhere-a-Lee-a-Lee..."

And the song's point is entirely historical: the Continental Congress requested Virginia's declaration in order to persuade reluctant states to go along -- a fact Virginians acknowledged in saying: "in compliance with a recommendation of the general Congress…".

It was then Congress which declared all 13 colonies to the free & independent united States.
Even Virginians never considered themselves a separate country independent of the United States.
And, more to the point: when Virginia was invaded by British troops, it never insisted on fighting the Brits alone.
Virginians served, as did all others, in the Continental Army under its Commander in Chief, George Washington.
So the United States not only declared 13 colonies independent, it fought a long, bloody war to make them so.

woodpusher: "I see that you cannot identify what branch of the Federal government the States are a part of.
Your omission is telling."

Your insistence on playing senseless word games is more telling.

woodpusher: "Just how does my unanswered question confirm OIFVeteran’s absurd conspiracy theory that the United States suffers from schizophrenia? "

That is a completely dishonest question, revealing some of what's going on in woodpusher's soul.

woodpusher: "Why did nobody in the Congress even question or oppose these claims by MADISON et al?"

Neither Madison nor anybody else at the time officially recognized Rhode Island as a separate & independent country.
Indeed, Madison specifically refers to it as a "state" and says it would be improper for Congress to invite the "state" to join the United States.

woodpusher: "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?"

As with Rhode Island & North Carolina, Vermont was never officially recognized as a separate country by any foreign power, or by any United States authority.
Nor did Vermont seriously claim to be a separate country, and indeed joining the United States as a state was a primary reason for changing its name from "New Connecticut" to "Vermont".

But the key point in all these discussions is that changes to state or territory status & boundaries were accomplished by mutual consent, just as James Madison and the US Constitution require.

Monterrosa-24 to jmacusa: "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."

FLT-bird: "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."

And those are all absolute Democrat Big Lies.
The real connection between 1860 and today is Democrats going berserk & waging war because they hate the US Constitution and the United States.

Sure, to hear Democrats tell it, you'd think 1860 was over "states rights", but their states' rights were never threatened.
The real truth is 1860 was about, as now, Democrats use of Federal government to enforce special privileges for Democrat voters, period.
Then it was their privilege of owning slaves so Democrats could live the easy-life; today it's their privilege of having taxpayers pay for Democrats' easy-lives.

Everything else Democrats claim is 100% pure nonsense.

woodpusher: "Vermont was part of one of the supposedly indestructible, indissoluble states in 1776.
And then in 1777, it wasn't.
And it remained a free and independent state until 1791 when it joined the union of 13 as a free and independent state, with its self-constituted borders."

Vermont was never officially recognized by anyone as free & independent of the United States.

Throughout our history states & territories have formed or changed status according to Constitutionally mandated "mutual consent".
State boundaries have been changed, states have been split into two or more, proposed states absorbed (i.e., Franklin, Jefferson, Deseret) by others, territories added & "retroceded" -- i.e., Philippines, Panama Canal. All that was perfectly normal & constitutional.

So, land which came to be called first "New Connecticut" and then "Vermont" was previously claimed by New Hampshire, Connecticut & New York.
The issue was settled by Congress admitting Vermont as a free state, then Kentucky as a new slave-state, the first such pairing among many.

Mutual consent for such things is what the Constitution requires.