Posted on 12/02/2008 6:57:32 AM PST by prplhze2000
came across an article from an old issue of U.S. News & World Report commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Civil War. What was interesting was that it compared the treatment of the South for decades after the war's end to the millions of dollars and additional support given to Germany and other European countries through the Marshall plan and concluded the South's fate was a drag on the rest of the country as it remained the poorest section of America by far.....
U.S Treasury agents streamed through the South in 1865 grabbing cotton, land, anything that they claimed to have been the property of the Confederacy. They took cotton valued at $30 million. Behind them came hordes of carpetbaggers (With the Wall Street Journal's blessing I'm sure. They'll invent some economic theory to justify it while professing to hate the looters in Atlas Shrugged) from the North to drain away any Southern Capital they could lay hands on..."
The Southern steel industry, doing a booming business in 1900, was virtually stopped in its track, Southerners said, by a rate structure imposed by the North. The rates required payment of price differentials so sharp that it became cheaper for an industry in New Orleans to buy steel from Pittsburgh than from Birmingham. Not until World War II were changes made in this system."
Such policies created a region so poor and under-educated that FDR called the South the "nations number one economic problem" in 1938...
(Excerpt) Read more at kingfish1935.blogspot.com ...
Finally! Something I can admit you are correct on!
They might, by the same authority & by the same process have converted the Confederacy into a mere league or treaty; or continued it with enlarged or abridged powers; or have imbodied the people of their respective States into one people, nation or sovereignty; or as they did by a mixed form make them one people, nation, or sovereignty, for certain purposes, and not so for others.
It's true enough that the Constitution could have made the government into any form the People would accept, but Madison here should have been more explicit about the "national" character of the federal government, which if you read Federalist 39 right through, is limited for the most part to the fact that the Constitution was written to operate not on the States, as an explicitly confederal constitution would have done, but directly on the People and on individuals, so that federal law applies to persons. This one point Madison, in No. 39, says is explicitly "national" in the way it gives traction to the federal government.
Hamilton addresses the same general topic of operation of the federal government on individuals, and the subject of revolution and insurrection, in Federalist 16.
Madison in No. 39 does not say, and it does not appear from my reading of the letter that he intended to say (as Webster might perhaps have found congenial), that therefore, the federal government being national in one aspect, the States are forbidden to leave the Union, or that they have (as Andrew Jackson said they had) capitulated their People to a national government and given up every residue of their sovereignty forever. Neither does Hamilton say it in No. 16.
The People in their States had not surrendered sovereignty to the federal government, and the Tenth Amendment was their witness; but it suited Jackson (as later Lincoln) to say so, in order to impose his political will on the Carolinians and rescue his vision of a unified transcontinental empire, and in so doing, pass over the fundamental Lockean threshold of political legitimacy, from the social compact achieved by consent, to the kind formed by force.
It was not a "national union", and he never called it one. The "national" feature, as I just pointed out -- as Madison pointed out (see my quote of him above) -- is the operation of federal law on individuals.
The Union is a federal, not a national one. Read the thread.
The point about secession is that Hamilton and Madison and the rest of the Philadelphia Convention delegates did not at any time, either in deliberation on the Constitution or in writing about it for the Federalist afterward, or even during the ratification conventions, forbid, embargo, rule out, or point to some feature of the Constitution prohibiting secession.
And that is overlooking Hamilton's mischievous circulation of the rumor that if New York didn't ratify (Gov. George Clinton stood at the head of a numerous and strong contingent of Antifederalists), the Federalists in New York City would lead southern New York in seceding from the rest of the State, and ratifying the Constitution themselves. Naughty Mr. Hamilton. Tut, tut.
Madison was a delegate to the Virginia ratification convention, and Hamilton to the New York convention. Both States, in their ratification resolutions, specifically reserved the right to secede if they were not happy with the Constitution later, or if they found the federal government onerous or abusive. And they wrote these reservation clauses with Hamilton and Madison sitting among them.
Get around that.
1. The Northern party, led by Lincoln, proposed to shut Southerners and their slaves out of the Territories, and reserving the Territories basically to their own constituents.
2. The Congress refused to appropriate adequate funds to defend the Texas frontier.
3. The Northern party proposed to bring back the Tariff of Abominations in a much more elaborate and systematic form, in what later became a clear example of rent-seeking by Northern industrialists.
4. Northern Abolitionists wanted to destroy the South's economy by uncompensated emancipation -- and then shut the freed blacks out of their own States, penning the social problem up in the South. Lincoln had ideas about colonization, but the rest of them would just as soon have the South go up in a pillar of smoke, to which end
5. Northern intellectuals supported the idea of a violent slave rising, and some of them actively supported both Abolitionist causes and John Brown's raid in particular; while others sent Wideawakes to Texas to start campaigns of arson and slave rebellion, and to Missouri to overthrow the State's government while it was still in the Union.
6. Lincoln included virulent Abolitionists in his cabinet (Wm. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edwin Stanton).
7. Lincoln initiated a naval blockade of North Carolina and Virginia before their people (or in North Carolina's case, its secession convention) had voted on their secession ordinances, and their States were still members of the Union.
8. The Northern States uniformly refused to administer, and instead obstructed, the laws on fugitive slaves, and passed laws obstructing execution of the laws of the Union on same.
9. Lincoln suppressed and arrested the state government of Maryland because he didn't like their politics and because they might pass a secession ordinance.
That all said, the Southern States had no obligation to jump through the hoops you hold up for me. They had the right to withdraw from the Union, period.
John Quincy Adams put it this way (quoted in the Politically Incorrect Guide to American History):
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 way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bands of political associations 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 why was Washington undisturbed? He had troops right across the river before Lincoln sent Irvin McDowell with 40,000 men across the river to kill that innkeeper.
... tried to smuggle arms into disputed states
You're thinking of Lincoln, not yet in office in January, getting the governor of Illinois to arm the Wideawakes and slip them across the Mississippi to Lyons in Missouri. Jeff Davis didn't do that. Sorry, you'll have to brush up a bit.
..... and called up an army for offensive purposes.
The one Lincoln sent across the Potomac? That army? Which army crossed the Potomac, again? I'm confused, every time I read you. You just keep saying things that are so different from what I read even in Northern history books.
You must be reading those Columbia University Red professors.
OK, I'll go with that. On that point, the definition of federal is instructive. For example, "2 a: formed by a compact between political units that surrender their individual sovereignty to a central authority but retain limited residuary powers of government."
The idea that States could voluntarily surrender their individual sovereignty (which they assuredly did) by ratifying the Constitution, does not permit those same states to assert a right to "redeem" their individual sovereignty at their later whim -- to do so would be to subvert the meaning of "Federal."
Both States, in their ratification resolutions, specifically reserved the right to secede if they were not happy with the Constitution later, or if they found the federal government onerous or abusive. And they wrote these reservation clauses with Hamilton and Madison sitting among them. Get around that.
Even granting for the sake of argument that such clauses are valid (which is highly questionable) -- that goes for only two of the states in question. The others, which had no such clauses, could have claimed no such right.
And, using that line of argument, Virginia's sin was that it placed itself in league with those states which had engaged in insurrection against the Federal Government. Virginia joined the insurrection in its own right, and thereby earned the right to be dealt with as the Constitution provided.
Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate, by Gregory J. Wawro and Eric Schickler. Google Books has extensive excerpts.
Ah, a little blackshirted definition of "federal". Well, this is a good example of why we use contemporary sources and documents to try to get at Original Intent. But if your interest in the subject extends only as far as dressing in a snappy uniform and marching over the prostrate forms of other people, I can see why constitutionalism and various recondite legitimist researches would hold no charm for you.
If you had read the thread, you would see that I just made the case that there was no wholesale surrender or transfer of sovereignty from the People to the federal government when the Constitution was ratified. That was a political fiction that arose 40 years later, during the Nullification Crisis.
States could voluntarily surrender their individual sovereignty (which they assuredly did)
The hell they did. Show me the black letters on white paper in the Constitution that say they did.
But first, save yourself a lot of trouble and read the thread.
Or at least the last 100 posts.
Virginia's sin was that .... Virginia joined the insurrection ... thereby earned the right to be dealt with as the Constitution provided.
You really love that selfrighteous jackbooted stuff, don't you?
I was referring to Davis's attempts to start the war by shooting at anything that moved.
You're thinking of Lincoln, not yet in office in January, getting the governor of Illinois to arm the Wideawakes and slip them across the Mississippi to Lyons in Missouri. Jeff Davis didn't do that. Sorry, you'll have to brush up a bit.
I suggest you need to brush up on your history. Delegations had been sent to Davis for arms as early as March. Link.
The one Lincoln sent across the Potomac? That army? Which army crossed the Potomac, again? I'm confused, every time I read you. You just keep saying things that are so different from what I read even in Northern history books.
No army went anywhere until weeks after the South had started the war by firing on Sumter.
But wait a minute. Don't you claim that only 5% of Southerners owned slaves? That means that 95% of Southerners did not own slaves... right? They were perfectly free to go to the territories with everything they owned. In fact, the other 5% could go too and they could even take their slaves with them. It's just that they would not be slaves anymore. That is hardly 'intolerable oppression.'
2. The Congress refused to appropriate adequate funds to defend the Texas frontier.
That would have been a congress before Lincoln was even inaugurated who did appropriate enough funds to send the man recognized as the top military man in the US... a fellow named Lee... to command troops in Texas to fight the Comanche. But what did that have to do with South Carolina and if was so bad an 'oppression, why did the Governor (and founder) of Texas oppose secession?
3. The Northern party proposed to bring back the Tariff of Abominations in a much more elaborate and systematic form, in what later became a clear example of rent-seeking by Northern industrialists.
Is this "pre-empitive" revolution based on what might be as opposed to 'intolerable oppression?'
5. Northern intellectuals supported the idea of a violent slave rising, and some of them actively supported both Abolitionist causes and John Brown's raid in particular; while others sent Wideawakes to Texas to start campaigns of arson and slave rebellion, and to Missouri to overthrow the State's government while it was still in the Union.
So should we claim 'intolerable oppression' now because of ass clowns like Michael Moore supporting Obama?
6. Lincoln included virulent Abolitionists in his cabinet (Wm. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edwin Stanton).
Before the election, the Deep South declared their intention to secede if any Republican won. In fact, they engineered the division of the Democrat party to ensure that any Republican who got the nomination would win. Secession was their intention from the start. They needed no excuse.
7. Lincoln initiated a naval blockade of North Carolina and Virginia before their people (or in North Carolina's case, its secession convention) had voted on their secession ordinances, and their States were still members of the Union.
Both states already had invited insurrectionists into their states "before" their people had decided on secession.
8. The Northern States uniformly refused to administer, and instead obstructed, the laws on fugitive slaves, and passed laws obstructing execution of the laws of the Union on same.
False statement. In the first place, the Fugitive Slave Act was not administered by the states. It was Federal Law, and the Federal courts administered it, and they did, including sending federal marshals and in several cases, even federal troops into Northern states in order to retrieve run aways. As a side question, do you think the Fugitive Slave Act was a measure of 'limited federal government' so 'admired' by the confederacy? < /s >
9. Lincoln suppressed and arrested the state government of Maryland because he didn't like their politics and because they might pass a secession ordinance.
Lincoln declared martial law, exactly what the Militia Act allowed him to do after the Pratt Street riot and the intentional destruction of rail lines through Maryland by insurrectionists. He was perfectly justified.
That all said, the Southern States had no obligation to jump through the hoops you hold up for me.
Aside from that "faith solemnly pledged' thing that Madison spoke of. As a corollary, the Northern states did not have an obligation to jump through the mythical hoops the the Slave Power and continue to compromise on their beliefs and ignore the evil that slavery was. And after Ft. Sumter, they decided, no more jumping.
John Quincy Adams put it this way ...
So now you rely on the Last Federalist for your justification?
--------------------------------------------------------
You are stretching beyond embarrassment to justify something that was not justifiable. Just admit that it was a rebellion, and I will agree and even support you with the rational as to why powerful interests in the South saw that rebellion as necessary. But under the Constitution, it was neither legal or justifiable.
True, but if the states have no representation, can they be said to be part of the Union? The entities that broke away from the Union were states that had freely joined, and then exercised their right to secede from, the Union. When the individual states elected to secede, they were in fact ‘out of the union’ and for more than one minute.
Are you arguing that states have no recourse at all once they have entered into a union? That it is for eternity?
When the southern states seceded, they did so peacefully, via acts of their individual legislative bodies.
What would you have had them do, if was no longer to their advantage to remain in the Union? In you opinion, was it also wrong for the colonies to break from England?
“And yet for the majority of the time between the ratification of the Constitution and the outbreak of the rebellion, the government was in the hands of Southerners.”
Also true, and the shift in population density, and therefore political power in a representative gov’t, was also a major reason for the secession of the states. No one likes to be dictated to. Effectively the southern were gradually coming under control of the northern states, to their detriment. — Very similar to what is happening today.
This is nothing more than history written by the victor. History is full of examples of victorious entities justifying their actions for posterity. Also note that it was a ‘5–3 decision.’
Certainly. Joining or leaving the Union are legislative acts. No law was passed expelling the states. No law was passed readmitting them. Just because their delegations were not seated doesn't change that. The Southern congressional delegations were expelled because among other reasons, Congress did not approve of the fact that the very men who had spent 4 years trying to tear the country appart were not rejoining the House and Senate.
Are you arguing that states have no recourse at all once they have entered into a union? That it is for eternity?
Absolutely not. While a lot of the leaders at the time did not believe secession of any kind was feasible, I agree with James Madison who believed that states could leave through the same means that they joined - with the consent of a majority of the other states. I've always believed that.
When the southern states seceded, they did so peacefully, via acts of their individual legislative bodies.
They also did so illegally.
What would you have had them do, if was no longer to their advantage to remain in the Union? In you opinion, was it also wrong for the colonies to break from England?
If I was English then I would believe so. But the difference is that the colonists won their rebellion while the Southerners lost theirs.
Also true, and the shift in population density, and therefore political power in a representative gov’t, was also a major reason for the secession of the states.
So political domination of the North by the South was OK, but political domination of the South by the North was grounds for rebellion? Where does the Constitution support that?
And if history is written by the victors then it's also true that the losers write the myths. And nowhere is that more evident than when dealing with the Southern rebellion.
Also note that it was a ‘5–3 decision.’
So what? Bush v. Gore was a 5 to 4 decision, does that make it less legitimate than Texas v. White? Roe v. Wade was a 7 to 2 decision. That one must be more legitimate than either of the two. Right?
“And if history is written by the victors then it’s also true that the losers write the myths.”
Cute saying. Is that recommended as a blanket approach to history? Should we always blindly believe the victors? When I was going to school (admittedly a long time ago), from early on I was taught to not take anything for granted. Examine all available sides of any argument. Now it’s become habit I guess. It was always hardest when we were assigned to take the opposite side of an argument, and debate it for a grade.
“So what? Bush v. Gore was a 5 to 4 decision, does that make it less legitimate than Texas v. White? Roe v. Wade was a 7 to 2 decision. That one must be more legitimate than either of the two. Right?”
That was meant to serve as a lead-in. It’s actually more involved than that. If it had been any other time, the Chief Justice would have had to recuse himself as a former cabinet member under Lincoln. But since it was the victor dictating to the loser, it’s just fine. BTW, the Texas v. White case had to do with whether or not the SCOTUS even had jurisdiction in a bond issue. The number of times the SCOTUS has voted against it’s own power are precious few. :)
True. I believe I stated the the states in question seceded, not that they were expelled.
“Just because their delegations were not seated doesn't change that.”
How can you have representative gov’t, without representation?
Justice Grier, in a dissent in which Justices Swayne and Miller joined, denied that Texas remained a state. Grier cited precedent that a state is defined as an entity with representation in the United States Congress.
“I agree with James Madison who believed that states could leave through the same means that they joined - with the consent of a majority of the other states.”
Believing something is fine, but where is that stated as a requirement in the US Constitution? Also, one of the factors that led to the civil war was that the balance in the number of “free” vs “slave” states was being threatened by potential new states, and a series of “compromises” then in effect. Not all in the north were in agreement regarding the southern states seceding. If I recall correctly, Lincoln even imprisoned journalists in the north that were speaking out against his actions.
“If I was English then I would believe so. But the difference is that the colonists won their rebellion while the Southerners lost theirs.”
My point, exactly. Not much more to it, is there?
“So political domination of the North by the South was OK, but political domination of the South by the North was grounds for rebellion?”
The south did not ‘dominate’ the north, it was more like staving off northern domination. Look at the result of the many acts, compromises, etc. leading up to the war.
LOL! So Webster's Dictionary is a "blackshirt" organization?
You're a friggin' fruit loop.
The Northern party, led by Lincoln, proposed to shut Southerners and their slaves out of the Territories, and reserving the Territories basically to their own constituents.
Again, where's the oppression? Northerners couldn't take their slaves into the territories either. :) And besides, y'all are always quick to point out that most southerners were poor and had no slaves. But when y'all are talking about justifications, then every southerner, including most of the ones who would have to fight and die, becomes Ashley Wilkes with dozens of slaves that he cannot survive without.
Northern Abolitionists wanted to destroy the South's economy by uncompensated emancipation
But Lincoln pushed compensated emancipation and it was Lincoln's election which sparked secession.
Northern intellectuals supported the idea of a violent slave rising, and some of them actively supported both Abolitionist causes and John Brown's raid in particular; while others sent Wideawakes to Texas to start campaigns of arson and slave rebellion, and to Missouri to overthrow the State's government while it was still in the Union.
After four years of bitter war, the North could have done anything they wanted, yet they gave the old regime a chance under Johnson's presidential reconstruction. It was only after the south power structure proved unworthy that Congress stepping in with "harsher" reconstruction. If a bitter victorious North did not bring about a bloodbath, a mere Republican administration would not have.
The slaveowning class had a great system. Their slaves made them money in the fields and the owners could manipulate public fear of their "property" to enlist the community in helping with labor control. It reminds me of how some employers today let the public pick up the tab for their illegal immigrant labor.
Lincoln included virulent Abolitionists in his cabinet (Wm. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edwin Stanton).
Stanton, who was not even in the cabinet at secession, had been in Buchanan's cabinet. Seward was the conciliating moderate. Even his wife chided him for his moderation. Chase was more than balanced by people like Bates and Blair.
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