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 ...
Of course the natural reaction to this event is to form armies and invade the offender burn their cities to "Preserve the Union". /sarc
Yes. Paine almost lost his head over it. He preached his "rights of man" BS in France but his real motivation was mercenary. He was a looter working with the revolutionaries trying to steal Spanish property. Jefferson, who wanted a second American revolution to break the Congregationalist/Federalist power structure in New England, used Paine (and even Baptists).
Corrupt aristocracy? I'll let you defend that one -- you and Alexander Hamilton, who threw a woman's honor and good name under the bus to protect his own reputation from charges of defalcation.
Of course it was corrupt. They were slave owners. Jefferson didn't free his slaves because he took out mortgages on them and couldn't. He liked the foreign wine and playing the country squire more than he wanted to uphold all those virtues he mouthed off about. They were so corrupt, they jury rigged congress to count their slaves as 3/5ths of a person to gain representation in Congress to which they were not entitled.
My ancestors killed alot of Yankees (very proud of that) and not one of them owned a slave. Even if they did, it makes no difference. A dead Yankee is a dead Yankee.
That is true as well but the point I was attempting to convey is that those who think our current problems with such types began in the 20th century are sorely misinformed.
“Secession and ratification are ultra vires the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can’t overturn, say, Mississippi’s ratification of the 13th Amendment (which they gave belatedly, a few years ago). They simply have no say in such matters.”
I guess we will never know.
That would be, John Quincy Adams:
[snip] ...Notwithstanding the commemorative purpose of Jubilee, Adams said recent events made it necessary once again to consider, as in the revolutionary era, questions "of the deepest and most vital interest to the continued existence of the Union itself." The key questions were "whether any one state of the Union had the right to secede from the confederacy at her pleasure," and "the right of the people of any one state, to nullify within her borders any legislative act of the general government."Secession was possible under the confederation. Adams pointed out that the question came up and was "practically solved" in the framing and ratification of the Constitution. The people of Rhode Island, for example, refusing to take part in the Convention, "virtually seceded from the Union." When eleven states formed and ratified the Constitution, North Carolina, although it participated in the Convention, joined with Rhode Island in staying out of the reorganized Union. Adams wrote: "Their right to secede was not contested. No unfriendly step to injure was taken;...the door was left open for them to return whenever the proud and wayward spirit of state sovereignty should give way to the attractions of clearer sighted self-interest and kindred sympathies."
With the ratification of the Constitution, secession assumed a different aspect. Adams explained: "The questions of secession, or of resistance under state authority, against the execution of the laws of the Union within any state, could never again be presented under circumstances so favorable to the pretensions of the separate state, as they were at the organization of the Constitution of the United States." Although a national government had the power to decide when violation of a contract absolved it from reciprocal obligations, Adams argued that "this last of earthly powers is not necessary to the freedom or independence of states, connected together by the immediate action of the people, of whom they consist."
Nevertheless, in the conduct of American federalism, uncertainty about the boundary line between the constitutional authority of the general and the state governments led to collisions threatening the dissolution of the Union. In different sections of the Union, Adams noted, the right of a state, or of several states in combination, to secede from the Union, and the right of a single state, without seceding, to nullify an act of Congress within the borders of that state, had been "directly asserted, fervently controverted, and attempted to be carried into execution." Fortunately, these examples of state resistance proved abortive, demonstrating in Adams's view the superiority of the Constitution over the Confederation, as a system of government "to control the temporary passions of the people." Adams observed: "In the calm hours of self-possession, the right of a State to nullify an act of Congress, is too absurd for argument and too odious for discussion. The right of a state to secede from the Union, is equally disowned by the principles of the Declaration of Independence." Adams's fundamental argument was that no right of state secession or nullification existed under the Constitution because the right to revolution was a natural right of the people. "To the people alone is there reserved, as well the dissolving, as the constituent power, and that power can be exercised by them only under the tie of conscience, binding them to the retributive justice of Heaven." In Adams's theory of the Union, the "whole people" of America, in the Declaration of Independence, declared the existence of a "compound nation." In their dual or compound character, the people were capable of acting as a "whole people" for national purposes in the government of the Union, and as a state people for particular purposes in their state government. "With these qualifications," Adams summarized, "we may admit the same [natural] right as vested in the people of every state in the Union, with reference to the General Government, which was exercised by the people of the United Colonies, with reference to the Supreme head of the British empire, of which they formed a part—and under these limitations, have the people of each state in the Union a right to secede from the confederated Union itself."
Throughout his public career Adams struggled with the seeming contradiction involved in maintaining a constitutional order that owed its existence to the right of revolution. At a high level of generality, and more explicitly than in any previous writing, Adams in Jubile advanced a theory of the right to revolution for Declarationist ends, couched in the language of secession or disunion. The timing and specific form that a division of the Union might take was a contingent matter, to be decided on prudential grounds. A few years later, Adams provoked the fury of Southerners by defending the constitutional right of Massachusetts abolitionists, in order to avert unjust domination by the slave power, to petition Congress for dissolution of the Union, without himself recommending exercise of the right to revolution on the merits. [snip]
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1207/article_detail.asp
Cordially,
You” Isn't that what Lincoln said in so many words in the quote that I cited?
“If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, 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?”
So what exactly is your complaint about what Lincoln said? You answer his question, “does it not require all to lawfully rescind it”? with “no”. Isn't a “breach” or a “violation” the antithesis of a lawful rescision?
Cordially,”
Shall we “Compare” the two competing arguments pertaining to the basic principals of why the war was waged?
Lincoln's Special Session Message to Congress, July 4, 1861
“Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of “State rights,” asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the “sovereignty” of the States, but the word even is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is a “sovereignty” in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it “a political community without a political superior”? Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas , ever was a sovereignty. .”
Jefferson Davis’ Speech at Washington, D.C.
City Hall grounds, July 9, 1860
“What is our Union? A bond of fraternity, by the mutual agreement of sovereign States; it is to be preserved by good faith—by strictly adhering to the obligations which exist between its friendly and confederate States. Otherwise we should transmit to our children the very evil under which our fathers groaned—a government hostile to the rights of the people, not resting upon their consent, trampling upon their privileges, and calling for their resistance.”
Which man is correct? Let's us take a peek...
Madison again:
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.
Lincoln was dead wrong and 600,000+ Americans died because of it.
How wrong Lincoln was:
“It is not immaterial to remark, that the Signers of the Declaration, though qualifying themselves as the Representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, yet issue the Declaration, in the name and by the authority of the good people of the Colonies - and that they declare, not each of the separate Colonies, but the United Colonies, free and independent States. The whole people declared the Colonies in their united condition, of RIGHT, free and independent States.
The dissolution of allegiance to the British crown, the severance of the Colonies from the British empire, and their actual existence as Independent States, thus declared of right, were definitively established in fact, by war and peace. The independence of each separate State had never been declared of right. It never existed in fact. Upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the dissolution of the ties of allegiance, the assumption of sovereign power, and the institution of civil government, are all acts of transcendent authority, which the people alone are competent to perform - and accordingly, it is in the name and by the authority of the people, that two of these acts - the dissolution of allegiance, with the severance from the British empire, and the declaration of the United Colonies, as free and independent States, were performed by that instrument.
snip
With these qualifications, we may admit the same right as vested in the people of every state in the Union, with reference to the General Government, which was exercised by the people of the United Colonies, with reference to the Supreme head of the British empire, of which they formed a part - and under these limitations, have the people of each state in the Union a right to secede from the confederated Union itself.
Thus stands the RIGHT. But the indissoluble link of union between the people of the several states of this confederated nation, is after all, not in the right, but in the heart. If the day should ever come, (may Heaven avert it,) when the affections of the people of these states shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give away to cold indifference, or collisions of interest shall fester into hatred, the bands of political association will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited states, to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect union, by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center.”
John Adams
BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES:
“In governments whose original foundations cannot be traced to the certain and undeniable criterion of an original written compact”
[snip]
“This memorable precedent was soon followed by the far greater number of the states in the union, and led the way to that instrument, by which the union of the confederated states has since been completed, and in which, as we shall hereafter endeavour to shew, the sovereignty of the people, and the responsibility of their servants are principles fundamentally, and unequivocally, established; in which the powers of the several branches of government are defined, and the excess of them, as well in the legislature, as in the other branches, finds limits, which cannot be transgressed without offending against that greater power from whom all authority, among us, is derived; to wit, the PEOPLE.”
[snip]
“These, and several others, are objects to which the power of the legislature does not extend; and should congress be so unwise as to pass an act contrary to these restrictions, the other powers of the state are not bound to obey the legislative power in the execution of their several functions, as our author expresses it: but the very reverse is their duty, being sworn to support the constitution, which unless they do in opposition to such encroachments, the constitution would indeed be at an end.
Here then we must resort to a distinction which the institution and nature of our government has introduced into the western hemisphere; which, however, can only obtain in governments where power is not usurped but delegated, and where authority is a trust and not a right .... nor can it ever be truly ascertained where there is not a written constitution to resort to. A distinction, nevertheless, which certainly does exist between the indefinite and unlimited power of the people, in whom the sovereignty of these states, ultimately, substantially, and unquestionably resides, and the definite powers of the congress and state legislatures, which are severally limited to certain and determinate objects, being no more than emanations from the former, where, and where only, that legislative essence which constitutes sovereignty can be found.”
What makes the State; to wit, the PEOPLE.!
Ditto!
The Mark II was a sweet rig, but I still have to go with Jefferson.
See Link
Kind of thin. Read his December 26, 1820 letter to Albert Gallatin sometime for Jefferson’s solution to the slavery issue.
“If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, 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?”
I wasn't aware of Lincoln claiming such. Other than his view of the States ( Therefore the people ) are nothing other than Piggy banks.
Madison again:
......it was constantly justified and recommended, on the ground, that the powers not given to the government, were withheld from it; and that, if any doubt could have existed on this subject, under the original text of the Constitution, it is removed, as far as words could remove it, by the 12th amendment, now a part of the Constitution, which expressly declares, “that the powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
[snip]
“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.”
and under these limitations, have the people of each state in the Union a right to secede from the confederated Union itself."
What limitations and qualifications? Perhaps it is as the Declaration of Independence argues:
The right to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another depends on three conditions:
a. Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends (securing unalienable rights). But not to be changed for light and transient Causes.
b. They can right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.
c. They declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
Neither Adams nor Jefferson would have argue that there is a right to separation the chief purpose of which was to perpetuate and expand chattel slavery.
or perhaps they were telling the king that rather than solving the question with civil unrest and strife they could eventually and peacefully end slavery when they could. For example, by later passing the Northwest Ordinance.
Why would the Continental Congress take that out if they felt that "all men are created equal" applied to slaves?
Because they needed to come up with language that all the States would agree upon. They felt the Declaration had to be unanimous if it was to be.
Jefferson very probably believed that "all men were created equal" should apply to slaves.
You make my argument for me.
It will be as soon as I get to Brussels tonight. I'll be drinking the Chimay Blue. Care to ride along?
The wording in the Ordinance about slavery was Jefferson's, wasn't it? Good for him.
You make my argument for me.
Um, not exactly. You weren't citing Jefferson's draft of the DOI or what Jefferson himself might have believed, but the DOI as issued. There is contradictory language in the DOI as issued as I pointed out. The DOI as issued complained about the British freeing slaves and took out the language in Jefferson's draft that condemned the king for promoting slavery.
To quote Lysander Spooner:
“If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle—but only in degree—between political and chattel slavery.”
Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains.” Samuel Adams
On that note: The power to prevent secession was voted down. During the Federal Convention and 1861 (see below ).
28 nays to 18 yeas
"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."
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsj&fileName=052/llsj052.db&recNum=378&itemLink=D?hlaw:3:./temp/~ammem_iHF8::%230520379&linkText=1
To 104 - Yes, I am aware of that. I was asking you to elaborate on how Jefferson was elected ‘due to the efforts of Hamilton’.
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.