Posted on 03/10/2010 6:35:02 PM PST by Idabilly
Over the course of American history, there has been no greater conflict of visions than that between Thomas Jefferson’s voluntary republic, founded on the natural right of peaceful secession, and Abraham Lincoln’s permanent empire, founded on the violent denial of that same right.
That these two men somehow shared a common commitment to liberty is a lie so monstrous and so absurd that its pervasiveness in popular culture utterly defies logic.
After all, Jefferson stated unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence that, at any point, it may become necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…
And, having done so, he said, it is the people’s right to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Contrast that clear articulation of natural law with Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, where he flatly rejected the notion that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Instead, Lincoln claimed that, despite the clear wording of the Tenth Amendment, no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; [and] resolves and ordinances [such as the Declaration of Independence] to that effect are legally void…
King George III agreed.
(Excerpt) Read more at southernheritage411.com ...
Yo, bonehead. First you say Madison never claimed that and then you bring up the letter where he does? Did you miss something?
James Madison to Nicholas P. Trist
Don't forget similar letters to William Rives and Daniel Webster.
It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties, that all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a breach of any one article is a breach of the whole treaty; and that a breach, committed by either of the parties, absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void.
"It surely does not follow, from the fact of the States, or rather the people embodied in them, having as parties to the Constitutional compact no tribunal above them, that, in controverted meanings of the compact, a minority of the parties can rightfully decide gains the majority; still less than a single party can decide against the rest; and as little that it can at will withdraw from its compact with the rest...The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains." - James Madison
I appeal to your namesake: that does not follow.
“…tell me these people are to be taken seriously.”
You can point to particular posts on many threads, including this one, and say “…tell me these people are to be taken seriously.”
Basically that poster is writing about “…the right of the people to alter or to abolish…”, although a better job of it could be done than he did.
You complain that you were oh so frustrated with me, yet that doesn't stop you from popping up here again. Clearer now?
So what was it about those three posts you found so insightful?
Sure he was. I especially liked his military junta and shooting protesters. That's sarcasm, by the way.
Maybe I should have written "a much better job of it could be done than he did." :)
No need. You've seen many such and there's little point. (and btw you did respond to 1073 though I disagree with your judgement)
Rather let me try to delineate our differences:
You and I differ in this: you say secession cannot occur without consent of the rest; I say it can. My reason, which we've rehashed many times, is that states with equal authority cannot be judges of their own case and that any state can leave if the contract has been violated. You say it is unfair for one state on its own to leave without the consent of the others because all agreed together and because of the harmful consequences.
Moreover, we disagree in our estimation of Lincoln whom I think sought Union before freedom, and empire before Republic, and regardless of whatever aggressive or seemingly aggressive actions taken by the South, he consciously and knowingly made the decision to prosecute war. Even had the South acted in bad spirit or from bad motive, Lincoln still made a decision to go to war, the reasons and consequences of which do not justify his decision. There also we disagree. (I don't know entirely your opinion, as it's not a point I wish to contend nor likely one from which I'll be dissuaded since it is concluded from other studies of remoter times and from a very different perspective of our history than yours.) In short, regardless of the South's imperfect motive, the Civil War as initiated by Lincoln was unjust in my opinion, based upon my understanding of just war. You'll be happy to know I suspect every war since the Revolutionary as such, not only these but almost all wars in history. You may see now how far apart we are.
The question of whether states have the right to secede or not has long been debated. The opinions on one side and the other are easily segregated into those who regard true liberty as higher than safety and those who prefer safety and empire to real self-government, such self-government as de Tocqueville observed.
This contemporary (from Idabilly in post 376 above) well states my opinion on Lincoln's decision:
Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon March 2, 1861:
My residence is in the North, but I have never seen the day, and I never shall, when I will refuse justice as readily to the South as to the North. . . .
Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in any such state that can be protected by the power of this Government. In attempting, however, to substitute the smooth phrases “executing the laws” and “protecting public property” for coercion, for civil war, we have an important concession: that is, that this Government dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real purposes and of their consequences. No, sir; the policy is to inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the designs in smooth and ambiguous terms.
Bravo! Good for you! It takes a big man to admit to his limitations like you just did.
As I sat by the pool tonight grilling steaks, I hoisted a beer in your honor in the general direction of Kansas.
Speaking of long standing things, occasionally I've said that South Carolina could claim eminent domain over Fort Sumter. I found my first confirmation that it did just that today in a February 9, 1861 issue of the New York Times. The paper reprinted a letter from Colonel Hayne, Attorney General of South Carolina. Hayne had come to Washington to offer to buy the fort. The letter said in part:
I do not come as a military man to demand the surrender of a fortress, but as the legal officer of a State -- its Attorney General, to claim for the State the exercise of its undoubted right of eminent domain and to pledge the State to make good all injury to the rights of property which arise from the exercise of the claim. South Carolina, as a separate, independent sovereign, assumes the right to take into her own possession everything within her limits essential to maintain her honor or her safety, irrespective of the questions of property, subject only to the moral duty requiring that compensation should be made to the owner.
This right she cannot permit to be drawn into discussion. As to compensation for any property whether of an individual or a Government which she may deem it necessary for her honor or safety to take into her possession, her past history gives ample guarantee that it will be made upon a fair accounting to the last dollar. The proposition now is, that her law officers should, under authority of the Governor and his council, distinctly pledge the faith of South Carolina to make such compensation in regard to Fort Sumter and its appurtenances and contents, to the full extent of the money-value of the property of the United States, delivered over to the authorities of South Carolina by your command.
Palpably untrue. You're refuted. I'll wear your lie like garland of roses.
Oh, were you away?
Yeah, and you were watching every minute.
No, I didn't -- I quoted John G. Nicolay in extenso, a confidential eyewitness who knew a lot more about Lincoln and his night moves than you ever will, and you're still trying to wriggle out of the headlock he's got you in.
You're done, son. Branded and castrated. Into the cattle car with you.
Please try to stay in the grassy area.
“Under this Constitution, as originally adopted and as it now exists, no State has power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States; and this Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance of its delegated powers, are the supreme late of the land, anything contained in any constitution, ordinance, or act of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
28 nays to 18 yeas
[Non-Sequitur] All the parties affected by the decision. Madison wrote that a proper secession required the consent of the states.
Madison nodded. In the light of his own notes above from the Philadelphia convention, it is seen that the right of secession was explicitly and emphatically not renounced by the compacting States.
The language about secession was nowhere modified, amended, or otherwise grafted into the final Constitution.
Therefore, secession remained among the reserved powers protected against federal invasion (while a member of the Union) by the Tenth Amendment.
Sovereign powers need no "permission" to secede.
[Non-Sequitur] There is no reason to believe that the approval for a state to leave need be any more than what is required for a state to join - a simple majority in both houses of Congress.
And did Congress "admit" the original Thirteen States? No. The People<=>States "admitted" themselves, by sovereign acts.
You elide and confound the status of a Territory, which requires Congressional assent to become a State of the Union, with that of a State, whose powers the former Territory assumes on a basis of complete equality with the original Thirteen as soon as admitted, without let, quibble, or qualification. The former territorial inhabitants at once become the People of a new State.
Texas, to amplify the point, became a State, despite being blockaded out of the Union by John Quincy Adams for ten long years. Texas was not a State of the Union but was a sovereign State nevertheless, a status the Texians achieved on the battlefield.
Likewise, the last two signatories of the Constitution were States even though they were not yet in the Union, the old Union having been dissolved by secession of the other eleven States from the Confederation. Idabilly's Madison quote about the Confederation and the new Union applies here.
On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? .....The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.
-- Federalist No. 43 (Madison)
[You, playing dumb and petulant] And what does that have to do with secession?
Because secession, justified by the last three clauses of the quote, is exactly what the States did that left the Confederation to join the new Union, which they did when the Constitution was ratified by the ninth State.
By agreeing to a new form of government in a way violative of the Articles of Confederation, the departing States broke their relations and their obligations to the Confederation.
Just like the Southern States did in 1861.
Continuing the quotation from Federalist 43,
It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties, that all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a breach of any one article is a breach of the whole treaty; and that a breach, committed by either of the parties, absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to answer the multiplied and important infractions with which they may be confronted? The time has been when it was incumbent on us all to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits. The scene is now changed, and with it the part which the same motives dictate.
(Emphasis added.)
That is what it has to do with secession, and vice versa.
Game over, Non-Sequitur. Elenchus.
And what you are saying is that when it comes to secession only the leaving state has any rights. The remaining states have no choice in the matter. They have no recourse when the leaving state repudiates responsibility for obligations and steals every bit of federal property they can get their mitts on and threaten the economic well-being of the remaining states. No choice at all, except to accept it or resort to war. And somehow you and rustbucket conclude that the Founding Fathers would endorse this. That they would promote a scheme that guarantees bitterness and acrimony.
You say that states have equal authority. That's nonsense. What you are really saying is that some states have more authority than others. All a state has to say is that they're leaving and suddenly their decision outweighs that of all the other states. That they are automatically right and all the other states are wrong. That they can do anything they want and the other states can do nothing. That's a rather Orwellian 'all states are equal but some states are more equal than others' viewpoint that I believe the founders would have scoffed at.
Moreover, we disagree in our estimation of Lincoln whom I think sought Union before freedom, and empire before Republic, and regardless of whatever aggressive or seemingly aggressive actions taken by the South, he consciously and knowingly made the decision to prosecute war.
And yours is the opinion of someone who has admitted time and again that he really doesn't know a lot about Lincoln. So given an opinion based on self-admitted ignorance how am I supposed to take it seriously? All you do is parrot Southron talking points without any idea if they are right or not. They sound right to you. They fit your biases and your prejudices. But you couldn't come up with an example of why Lincoln is responsible for all our current ills if your life depended on it.
Even had the South acted in bad spirit or from bad motive, Lincoln still made a decision to go to war, the reasons and consequences of which do not justify his decision.
See what I mean? Why wasn't Lincoln justified in fighting the war that Davis started? Can you at least take a stab at answering that?
Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon March 2, 1861:
Oh my God! You managed to find a Democratic Senator who opposed a Republican president. You must be sooooo proud of yourself.
there were no Jews in Portugal or Spain during that period, dummy. .lol They had all been expelled.
Please read up on your history.
Sure they had. I'm sure that's what they told the Inquisition.
And who are you calling "dummy"? I didn't say I bought Bennett's explanation.
You keep saying that after you've been refuted. We had a post above, of South Carolina's offer of compensation.
It's your mantra, and you're going to have to own that it's a lie.
Yo, Lincolnite Nitwit
“Did you miss something?”
Did you? It does appear you like skipping the most enlightening parts...
“or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect”
“Don't forget similar letters to William Rives and Daniel Webster.”
In the Webster letter Madison politely informed him that his “one people” theory was dead wrong.
“It is fortunate when disputed theories, can be decided by undisputed facts. And here the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as embodied into the several States, who were parties to it; and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity.”
It matters not.
I accept your Webster letter (for Whatever you think it means )
and spot you the: REPORT OF 1799
The resolution, having taken this view of the federal compact, proceeds to infer, “that, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are parties thereto, have the right and are in duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them.”
It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal, superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and, consequently, that, as the. parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.
Since you enjoy letters:
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, august 23, 1799,
“sever ourselves from that union we so much value, rather than give up the rights of self government which we have reserved, and in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness”
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.