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 ...
I'm not alleging anything. I'm complaining loudly that the Josh Eboch, the author, and the Tenth Amendment Center, are arguing that the Declaration of Independence justified southern secession. This demeans and obfuscates the principles in that great document, a document that is central and essential to our ongoing struggles for liberty. If we, as conservatives, can't get these principles correct, what hope is there for this country? This country survives or parishes based on those principles. We either pledge our lives, fortunes and sacred honor, or all is lost.
“I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization.”
Arrested in 1860 for petitioning the Supreme Court? That is absurd.
After they attacked Fort Sumter, of course the Supreme Court couldn’t have helped them.
And what, exactly, is the problem you had with voluntary colonization at that period in our nation's history? What were the alternatives? A lifetime of bondage as someone's property for them and their children and grandchildren? And if they were free then they faced horrendous racism in the North and even greater oppression in the South. Why is a chance to carve out a life for themselves free from all that such a band thing in the pre-rebellion U.S.?
What was it's purpose? As John Adams plainly said: " 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." Lincoln took a blow torch to that - didn't he?
Referring to the Judges
How many civilians did Lincoln have arrested? 20 or 30 thousand?
The Civil War decided nothing. Do you know why? It would have been easy to add an ammendment after the War of Northern Agression to do so. A simple ammendment stating " No states or states may secede from the United States and become autonomous at any time or for any reason".
I'll tell you why, because the North wants to be able to leave it they want to, if the South becomes to much of a burden...
Like I keep saying, F-ing Yankees couldn't even win correctly.
NATUAL RIGHT = NATURAL RIGHT
You demean this thread and I hope I never get on board an aircraft with you at the controls...
I live in Missouri. Missouri applied to the Federal government for Statehood in 1818. Missouri was admitted as a State by an Act of Congress in 1821. What do you mean by the assertion that a State may remove itself from the Union by seceding from it, by the same mechanism by which it entered the Union? If it were by "the same mechanism", would that not also require an Act of Congress to remove the Statehood of Missouri?
Cordially,
Slavery now or slavery then are both wrong. I have watched your rhetorical questions on this thread. FYI: Most of the pro Fed boot licking pansies have enough dignity to at least make themselves clear, please do the same. Your camp already has a cred problems as it is.
See post #79
Not even close!
Thomas Jefferson by a mile!
I was referring to the original States that formed the Union.
States organized by their inhabitants later on and admitted to the Union, under Article IV (q.v.), come into the same status as the original States by the act of admission. Therefore Missouri, although organized later and admitted by the Congress, becomes as a new State the peer and equal of every other State, with all the powers and sovereignty of the original 13, including the reserved powers that the original 13 retained at ratification.
Net-net, Missourians receive an accession of power and sovereignty that they didn't have before, as territorials and U.S. nationals living in a territory. That they receive it from the Union does not mean that they are creatures of, and subordinate to, the earlier States or the federal government. They enter the Union as new peers -- not on their knees as supplicants and clients.
Adolf Hitler was of the opinion that our States were creatures of the U.S. Government and therefore its thralls. But then he never did know or care much about the power that compassed his destruction.
Last time I polled the Lost Cause websites it was a million, billion, zillion. But that was just an estimate.
But if you're serious about it then keep looking. I'm sure the answer is in one of those 300 or 400 or 500 newspapers y'all claim Lincoln closed.
I'd be careful with invoking the Declaration of Independence against the South and making allegations of blazing ignorance if I were you.
The Declaration of Independence has the great statement, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ...," but it also contains the complaint against the king, "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us ..." The insurrections referred to the freeing of blacks (and indentured servants) who would escape and serve the king against the American colonists. (Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation wasn't original.)
Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, had issued a proclamation in 1775 freeing slaves of the rebels. This was what the DOI was referring to. Here's the 1775 proclamation:
And I hereby further declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty's Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty, to this Majesty's crown and dignity.
-- Lord Dunmore's Proclamation [Governor of Virginia, November 14, 1775]
In other words, the Declaration said all men are equal but leave our slaves alone. In that sense the Confederates were for the complete Declaration while the North was only for part of it and assumed the role of the king and his officer, Lord Dunmore.
Jefferson very probably believed that "all men were created equal" should apply to slaves. But the words in his draft of the DOI were changed by the Continental Congress.
The Continental Congress removed Jefferson's charges against the king that "He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens …" and replaced it with "He has excited domestic insurrection among us …" The Continental Congress probably didn't consider slaves as fellow citizens.
The Continental Congress also removed the charges against the king in Jefferson's draft that "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither." Why would the Continental Congress take that out if they felt that "all men are created equal" applied to slaves?
By the way, I'm all for those statements above as Jefferson originally penned them.
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.
Likewise, their later importunity notwithstanding, secession conventions, their acts of secession, and the voters' ratifications of same are all untouchable by the Supreme Court since they are transacted at the level of the People as Sovereign, acting under their supreme power to make and unmake constitutions and unions, to make new governments and unmake them again as the People see fit.
The pay grades decline, as it were, from the People to the People's Constitution to the officers of the U.S. Government; the Constitution is their creature and thing; they own it absolutely and outright and can do any thing that they please with it.
The Constitution in turn creates, and is supreme over, the Union. The Constitution controls every aspect of the Union, and the Union in turn, through the Congress, controls the United States Government, which is likewise a creature of the Union and controlled by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court, as an organ of the United States Government and a creature of the Constitution, is subordinate to the Union, which in turn is the servant -- slave! -- of the People.
Therefore the Supreme Court has no power to tell the People, their master, that the People may or may not ratify, amend, or unmake the Constitution.
Or secede from the Union, if it comes to that.
You can't run with the big dogs if you pee like a puppy. I guess you want to pick up your toys and run home.
Yes we're all going to start taking intellectual lessons from you. Right after you tell us where the "NATURAL RIGHT of secession" is outlined. I'm aware of the natural right to rebel against tyranny and to throw off an oppressive government, replacing it with something better suited to the populace. But a NATURAL RIGHT of secession? That's a new one on me.
The Civil War decided nothing. Do you know why? It would have been easy to add an ammendment after the War of Northern Agression to do so. A simple ammendment stating " No states or states may secede from the United States and become autonomous at any time or for any reason".
Why would I want to add an amendment taking away a right protected by the Constitution? Didn't prohibition teach you anything?
I'll tell you why, because the North wants to be able to leave it they want to, if the South becomes to much of a burden...
The North can leave at any time. So can the South. So long as it's done with the approval of a majority of the impacted parties.
Like I keep saying, F-ing Yankees couldn't even win correctly.
But the South sure did a good job of losing. And bitching about it for the next 145 years.
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