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If Secession Was Illegal - then How Come...?
The Patriotist ^
| 2003
| Al Benson, Jr.
Posted on 06/12/2003 5:58:28 AM PDT by Aurelius
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To: Poohbah
I take it, then, that you support slavery reparations to African-Americans. No, I am not asking to be compensated for the loss of a family home. I would not have inherited it anyway. What I'm asking for is that some Northerners who are obsessed with hatred for the South, even after all these years, should understand how Southerners might feel saddened by not only the fact of the War itself, but by the loss of our heritage. This is particularly true when we come from families that did not own slaves or manumitted their slaves long before the War. I ask them to understand that hundreds of thousands of ordinary Southerners fought not because they passionately longed to keep black men in chains but because their homeland was being invaded and their economy throttled.
161
posted on
06/12/2003 8:30:15 PM PDT
by
Capriole
(Foi vainquera)
To: conservativemusician
"Do you have another answer?"Yes I do.
"A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever."
Jefferson Davis
"Governor, if I had foreseen the use these people desired to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox, no, sir, not by me. Had I seen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in this right hand."
Robert E. Lee
as told to Texas ex-governor F. W. Stockdale
"I would have never surrendered the army if I had known how the South would have been treated."
"Well, General, you have only to blow the bugle."
"It is too late now."
exchange between Lee and Colonel T. M. R. Talcott Robert E. Lee
To: Poohbah
More perfect is not perpetual. More perfect insinuates that the holding bonds of perpetualness are broken and that the states would want to remain together voluntarily. However it does not insinuate that if the union between the states ever came to a point that they could no longer be together, that force would be used in making them remain
163
posted on
06/12/2003 8:57:57 PM PDT
by
billbears
(Deo Vindice)
To: justshutupandtakeit
I am posting this late tonight, in the hope born of Christian charity that you are already passed out and will not see it until early morning when your mental powers will perhaps have a brief respite from your Alzheimers. Presumably you have a care-taker who can read and who has a sixth grade education (as hard as it may be for you to imagine someone reaching that level of education). Have them read a post of the article: If Secession Was Illegal - then How Come...?" and have them try to explain it to you. If that fails, please get back to me and I will try to formulate the main thesis, at least, in terms which might be conprehensible even to you.
Best Wishes. Incomprehensible.
To: justshutupandtakeit
I am posting this late tonight, in the hope born of Christian charity that you are already passed out and will not see it until early morning when your mental powers will perhaps have a brief respite from your Alzheimers. Presumably you have a care-taker who can read and who has a sixth grade education (as hard as it may be for you to imagine someone reaching that level of education). Have them read a post of the article: If Secession Was Illegal - then How Come...?" and have them try to explain it to you. If that fails, please get back to me and I will try to formulate the main thesis, at least, in terms which might be conprehensible even to you.
Best Wishes. Incomprehensible.
To: justshutupandtakeit; rcofdayton
That is false. There was no secession from the Union when the government was changed. The Articles stated in many places that the Union was PERPETUAL. It never claimed the government was perpetual.Those attempting to deceive the unaware conveniently forget there is a difference between a nation and a government. Wonder why?
The Articles of Confederation, at Article 13, states:
"Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State....".
Representatives of 12 of the 13 members of said perpetual union got together in Philadelphia (Rhode Island refused to send a representative), proposed an entirely new government, and The Constitution, at Article 7 states:
"The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same."
June 21, 1788: New Hampshire (57-46) was the ninth state to ratify
June 26, 1788: Virginia (89-79) ratified.
July 26, 1788: New York (30-27) ratified.
Eleven states had ratified.
March 1788: Rhode Island (232-2,708) rejected the Constitution.
August 1, 1788: North Carolina (88-188) rejected the Constitution.
30 Apr 1789 - George Washington inaugurated
After 30 Apr 1789, 11 states had formed a new nation. George Washington was the first president of that new nation. Clearly, North Carolina and Rhode Island could not then have been states under the Constitution. They voted to reject it. It was some considerable time after Washington's inauguration before those two states ratified.
21 Nov 1789 - North Carolina (193-75) ratified
29 May 1790 - Rhode Island (34-32) ratified
The Articles of Confederation establish that they could not be changed except upon approval of the legislatures of all 13 states. Clearly, that had not happened.
While the Constitution asserts that it is effective upon the ratification of 9 states, it does not assert that the Articles of Confederation are abolished by that action.
If the union formed by the Articles of Confederation was perpetual and unbreakable, what union existed immediately after Washington was inaugurated?
Rhode Island and North Carolina had already voted not to accept the Constitution.
If the 11 states lawfully seceded, (subsequently followed by the last 2), then certainly they could lawfully form any new government they desired, in any manner desired.
However, if they did not secede, how did they lawfully change so much as one word of the Articles of Confederation while two states had voted to reject the change?
To: Consort
The Constitution is pretty much whatever the majority of any given US Supreme Court determines it to be based on their ideology. I'll take that as a left-handed agreement that the Constitution gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction over issue like this.
To: Aurelius
Why am I not surprised.
Unsettled forever? So, all violent conflict should be maintained in perpetuity? I guess the British, Mexicans, Spanish, Germans, Japanese, Taliban, and Saddam should all feel the same way. Man, we got an awful lot wars to continue fighting.
Lee supposedly said " if I had foreseen " , "if I had known ". Alot of ifs do not change the fact that he SURRENDERED, thereby ENDING the war.
Nice try, though.
To: billbears
More perfect is not perpetualUh, billbears...that was NOT the question asked. I can understand your reluctance to answer it.
The Constitution was ordained and established to form a "more perfect union." What union was it supposed to be more perfect than?
169
posted on
06/13/2003 5:07:03 AM PDT
by
Poohbah
(I must be all here, because I'm not all there!)
To: Aurelius
A better analogy in this particular case would be that the husband's primary motive in forcing his wife back was to retain control over her paycheck.
We have a winner. It all boils down to tariff laws. Seems like the South were free traders way before the idea got popular in the North.
170
posted on
06/13/2003 5:13:22 AM PDT
by
steve50
(I don't know about being with "us", but I'm with the Constitution)
To: mdmathis6
"We would have been a nuclear pile of ash long before now or enslaved under the most diabolical ISM's known to man!"
Again, you rely on clairvoyance to justify mass slaughter. Nuclear weapons were the result of a government program that sprung from a Red-Brown administration of FDR. The secrets to the bomb were then delivered to Stalin.
If the states had separated, there would have been no Spanish American War, which left the United States with obligations in the Pacific. There would have been no American entry into the First World War, thus the French and British would have sued for peace and the Hapsburg Empire and Kaiser Whilhelm would still have been in power.
With peace, the Germans would not have sent Lenin from Berlin to cause trouble and there would have been no Soviet revolution, and no Stalin. The 20th Century was the most brutal century in the history of man and your thought process, used to justify the state that unleashed the slaughter comes up with the simple explanation that 'things would have been much worse.'
I am not sure how anyone can look at the 100s of millions dead and make such a claim other than to rely on clairvoyance.
171
posted on
06/13/2003 5:45:40 AM PDT
by
JohnGalt
(They're All Lying)
To: justshutupandtakeit
"NONE of the founders agreed with those contentions. Not Washington, not Jefferson, not Madison, not Adams, not Hamilton, not Jackson. ALL abhorred the idea of splitting the Union. EVERY SINGLE ONE."
Absolutely NOT true! While the Founders were all for a strong union, they also recognized that there might come a time when that union was no longer supportable or useful. Good grief, the Declaration of Independence itself was testimony to how they felt about unions and when such unions should be dissolved. Jefferson, particularly, said on many occasions that people (and states) had the right to disassociate from a union if that union no longer served the purposes for which it was created.
To: Non-Sequitur
I'll take that as a left-handed agreement that the Constitution gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction over issue like this.Try to take my statement for what it says; not for what it doesn't say. Try to read what I wrote; not what I didn't write. What I said was a fact as I see it whether or not I (or you) agree with it and whether or not the Constitution gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction over such issues.
173
posted on
06/13/2003 6:15:40 AM PDT
by
Consort
To: NovemberCharlie
Interesting. Elaborate.
vaudine
174
posted on
06/13/2003 6:19:22 AM PDT
by
vaudine
To: Poohbah
More perfect than the one under the Articles, one that was voluntary instead of mandatory. Sheesh Poohbah how more perfect will a union be when members of the union know they have the right to leave when their concerns aren't being met? At least that's how northerners saw it in 1814. Or are we not supposed to compare Southerners to the all but out in the open northern secessionist states of 1814?
175
posted on
06/13/2003 6:39:56 AM PDT
by
billbears
(Deo Vindice)
To: Aurelius
Secession is clearly outside U.S. Law.
The Militia Act of 1792 as amended in 1795 gives the president sole discretion as to when insurrection or rebellion exists. The Act further allows him to call out the militia of the several states to suppress such rebellion or insurrection.
Walt
176
posted on
06/13/2003 7:39:18 AM PDT
by
WhiskeyPapa
(Virtue is the uncontested prize.)
To: justshutupandtakeit
That is false. There was no secession from the Union when the government was changed. The Articles stated in many places that the Union was PERPETUAL. It never claimed the government was perpetual. Good point.
E PLURIBUS UNUM was adopted in 1782, and so it has remained unbroken since that time.
Walt
177
posted on
06/13/2003 7:50:17 AM PDT
by
WhiskeyPapa
(Virtue is the uncontested prize.)
To: WhiskeyPapa
"Secession is clearly outside U.S. Law."That is correct in the sense that the U.S. Constitution makes no mention of secession. Thus, under the Anglo-Saxon legal principle that "all is permitted which is not explicitely prohibited", secession is permitted under the Constitution.
I and others on numerous occasions have carefully and patiently explained to you why the Militia Act of 1792 or its amended version of 1795 does not apply in the case of states that have seceded from the Union. It would apppear to be pointless to go through that again.
To: Aurelius
I and others on numerous occasions have carefully and patiently explained to you why the Militia Act of 1792 or its amended version of 1795 does not apply in the case of states that have seceded from the Union.Laws are enforced by power, in this case military power. No state can get out of the Union unless it can fight its way out. No state has been able to do that.
No state has ever been out of the Union for single second.
You should be glad that President Lincoln always took this as a starting point. As soon as the so-called seceded states published their secession documents, many in the north (including Frederick Douglass) lobbied to have them branded as traitors who had forfeited their rights as citizens; further, according to this reasoning, their property could be seized.
Later in the war, it was proposed in Congress that the insurgent area be broken up into military districts. President Lincoln also resisted this initiative.
Walt
179
posted on
06/13/2003 8:01:12 AM PDT
by
WhiskeyPapa
(Virtue is the uncontested prize.)
To: WhiskeyPapa
Force was used to reverse secession; no law was being enforced.
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