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 ...
Non-Sensicle: “Of course you are.”
Me thinks ‘Ole Virginia’ is correct!
According a law signed into effect yesterday by Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal, any agent of the U.S. who “enforces or attempts to enforce” federal gun rules on a “personal firearm” in Wyoming faces a felony conviction and a penalty of up to two years in prison and up to $2,000 in fines.
[snip]
“Laws of the federal government are to be supreme in all matters pursuant to the delegated powers of U.S. Constitution. When D.C. enacts laws outside those powers, state laws trump. And, as Thomas Jefferson would say, when the federal government assumes powers not delegated to it, those acts are ‘unauthoritative, void, and of no force’ from the outset,” Boldin wrote.
“When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned. Implied in such legislation is that the state apparatus will enforce the act against all violations – in order to protect the liberty of the state's citizens,” he continued.
[snip]
State Rep. Alan Jaggi, R-Lyman, told the newspaper there could be confrontations.
“I think it could be a possibility if we had some overzealous – do I want to say bureaucrat? – that would just say, ‘Hey, we're going to show these states we have all the authority,’” Jaggi said. “States’ rights – I'm willing to say that's important enough to us to do it.”
[snip]
Marbut argues that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states and the people, and it is time for the states to begin drawing boundaries for the federal government and its agencies.
I'm going to link to previous posts here to save bandwidth for our kind host and to save us from going through the same arguments yet again. Those who are interested can go to the links.
To answer your question above: Invasion from the guy who was trying to instigate a shooting war. Guess who that was. For an answer about who that was and his several attempts at instigating war see one of my posts in one of the two recent Cleburne threads: [Link to post 54]
"The aggressor in war is not the first who uses force, but the first who renders force necessary," isn't that what you posted before? In the face of the rebel buildup then wouldn't the actions Lincoln took to preserve federal facilities and property be justified?
The Confederate buildup was to protect themselves from invasion, etc., as they said. Besides, the North was building up their own forces as well. See our old running battle about that in [Posts 401-425].
Post 416 in that string of posts listed the total number of Southern troops that I was able to find that had been called up prior to Sumter. The total was far under the 100,000 authorized. There is also information in those posts about Federal buildup and actions before the Sumter attack and Federal forces that quickly moved to Washington.
IMO, the first aggressor in all of this was Anderson. See my post 58 on that Cleburne thread [Link to post 68]. Anderson made a move that might have made sense militarily but was horrible from a political standpoint.
PS, Luckenbach was fun as always.
I remember a difficult time I had correcting him about an incorrect date he posted. See: [Link to posts 45 through 50]. Enjoy.
Typo. “58” should have been “68”
The fact is that a revolution requires a declaration to gain public support. 1776 required a Declaration and so did the attempted revolution of 1860-61.
“The fact is that a revolution requires a declaration to gain public support. 1776 required a Declaration and so did the attempted revolution of 1860-61.”
What is your point?
Articles of Secession are not a declaration?
I don't recall her name. She was an army officer's wife, and Hamilton put her name in the papers when he began to be questioned closely about his intendency of the public accounts, and he had to explain himself. It's a fairly famous (notorious?) incident.
He opened himself up to those sorts of suspicions, I think, because he was an active gold speculator; he and some associates were very busy in the arbitrage markets, selling gold against silver and vice versa, playing price swings in European markets and buying a lot of the output of the US Mint for delivery to European arbitrageurs.
Hamilton's ring was the main reason the U.S. economy, and particularly frontier areas like Texas, were perpetually cash-starved, leading to rampant land speculation (as land became a medium of exchange). It's also the reason that U.S. coins dated before 1838 are hard to find and trade at a super-premium; so many of them were melted down by Hamilton's European counterparties.
Congress in 1838 altered the monetary standards to suppress the arbitrage trade. It worked. The dollar was reduced in weight and purity, from .77xxx oz. of silver struck at sterling's 92.5% fineness (the old Roman standard for the denarius -- the "penny" of the Bible), down to .75 oz. at 90% (.900 fine), i.e. "coinsilver", which became the New World standard side by side with the old Spanish/Hapsburg/Roman/sterling standard, which continued to be followed by Mexico, Spain, the Austrian Empire, and Great Britain.
Austria invented the "dollar" as the Thaler, named for the Joachimsthal (~"Joachim's Dale") mining district, where silver "cartwheels" began to be struck in the 1400's or 1500's as a convenient high-value coin merchants could carry instead of bags of smaller coin. The Austrian Thaler became the Polish talara and Spanish dolar .... the latter identical with the Mexican dolar peso or "Cap-and-Ray peso". Spanish and Mexican currency circulated freely in the U.S. until the middle of the 19th century and in east Asia into the 20th, where the peso inspired competing "trade dollars" struck by Great Britain, the U.S., and Japan on the heavier standard The last "trade dollars" were demonetized by Great Britain in 1937. Britain also struck numbers of thaler coins from the Austro-Hungarian dies of 1780 during the 1920's for the Middle Eastern trade, after the U.K. debased its own currency after World War I. These coins still show up in American coin shops as bullion coins, minted on the old Joachimsthal standard.
It took 140 years, but Hamilton and his shifty associates and other bankers (but I repeat myself) finally drove out good money with their invisibly-shrinking, constantly-renegotiated substitutes (a.k.a. "bad money").
Corrupt? A deal negotiated in a fishbowl and agreed to by all parties? How is that corrupt, South-hater?
"Not entitled?" Sez you. Don't like the deal? Don't do the deal. And when the States you hate anyway decide to split the sheets, just let them walk away -- if you don't like the deal, or have buyer's remorse.
So tell us how you're entitled to have things all ways, your way, washed down with buckets of blood, while bad-mouthing other people who were party to the original deal.
Yeah that argument really went over in 1832, didn't it?
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." (Emphasis supplied)Now we're getting down to it.
Yes, to make those Southerners and Westerners eat the Tariff of Abominations, it would be good to have some system to control the people.
Enter the Civil War.
Doesn't get any plainer than that...................
THE BIGGEST CROCK OF S*** is the fact that New England has 12 SENATORS!!!!!I say we make New England one state with 2 Senators. Who is with me?
This is "Claremonster" propaganda and John Quincy Adams's poppycock.
The Claremont "Declarationist" crowd, students of Harry Jaffa, an ardent Lincoln partisan, have always hewed closely to Lincolnian propaganda and justified it by citing the Declaration of Independence. Which is awkward, since constitutional questions always recur to the Constitution itself, and to the terms of its framing and ratification debates, and the commentary of the Federalist Papers and Madison's notes and letters.
Adams's "compound people", ie. his amalgamated and massified "people of the Union" is falsified by Madison's explication of the nature of the Union in Federalist No. 39 and 40, and by the decision of the Philadelphia Convention to submit the Constitution to the People in each State.
The Philadelphia Convention explicitly and publicly rejected the idea of submitting the Constitution for ratification to a massified "people of the Union" or a mass, all-Union ratification convention. One was proposed, but the motion failed even to find a second. Or, to put it in language everyone will understand, the idea of a lumpen "people of the Union" was
reeeee-JECTED!!
There is no mass People of the Union. The "People" are always the People of each State.
John Quincy Adams's formulation, shifty as it is, serves one purpose only, which is to bend over the populations of the smaller, more rural States in favor of the more populous big States of the eastern seaboard, which created the Tariff of Abominations to enrich themselves under color of top-level, high-concept policy-supportive gobbledygook such as Adams spouts here.
Like Spanish pilgrims, Pilgrim. Like penitentes flogging themselves on their knees all the way to the communion rail.
You mean like prison guards? Ooops.
Where the heck did you come up with that bromide?
You cannot find me an authority in the Constitution or the ratification debates that offers you a peg for that one.
That's just a bootless assertion out of thin air. It's pure feelgood propaganda.
But first I had to pull you out.
Glad to see you're having a nice day, too.
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Ah yes, back to the old "The aggressor in war is not the first who uses force, but the first who renders force necessary" quote. So since it's deja vu all over again, what was the act of aggression Lincoln committed that rendered force necessary?
. Besides, the North was building up their own forces as well. See our old running battle about that in [Posts 401-425].
Those quotes are from April, a month after the rebel government issued their call for 100,000 troops. It could more properly be said that the call for troops in the U.S. were a response to the threat issued by the confederate government. The size of their army and the fact that they cut off what few supplies were allowed to Sumter made their hostile intentions clear.
Post 416 in that string of posts listed the total number of Southern troops that I was able to find that had been called up prior to Sumter. The total was far under the 100,000 authorized.
But still easily twice the size of the U.S. army at the time. And more were coming.
IMO, the first aggressor in all of this was Anderson. See my post 58 on that Cleburne thread [Link to post 68]. Anderson made a move that might have made sense militarily but was horrible from a political standpoint.
An opinion built of very shaky ground. Anderson's decision to move, while perhaps not politically expedient, was in keeping with the orders given him by Buell and were required for the safety of his command. Therefore his actions were perfectly legal and a 'aggressive act' only for those looking for any excuse to start a war.
A. So what? You in the habit of telling other countries how big an army they (don't) need?
B. There was no rebellion, but you knew that. Insurrection is certified to the Congress or the President by the legislature or the governor of the affected State. Lincoln knew that when he solicited Sam Houston with a presidential junk-mail letter, asking Gov. Houston to certify insurrection in Texas so Lincoln could send him federal troops.
Nobody in the departing States certified insurrection, for the very good reason that there was no rebellion. Entire States acting on their reserved rights and powers do not a "rebellion" make. But you knew that.
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