Posted on 02/12/2018 3:57:10 AM PST by harpygoddess
It has long been a grave question whether any government, not too strong for the liberties of the people, can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies.
~ Lincoln
February 12 is the anniversary of the birth of the 16th - and arguably the greatest - president of these United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Born in Kentucky and raised in Illinois, Lincoln was largely self-educated and became a country lawyer in 1836, having been elected to the state legislature two years earlier. He had one term in the U.S. Congress (1847-1849) but failed (against Stephen A. Douglas) to gain election to the Senate in 1856. Nominated by the Republican party for the presidency in 1860, he prevailed against the divided Democrats, triggering the secession of the southern states and the beginning of the Civil War. As the course of the war turned more favorably for the preservation of the Union, Lincoln was elected to a second term in 1864, but was assassinated in April 1865, only a week after the final victory.
(Excerpt) Read more at vaviper.blogspot.com ...
The US was founded on mutual consent and our Founders considered that only mutual consent or necessity should break us apart.
Neither mutual consent nor necessity existed in 1860.
So Confederates seceded "at pleasure" and soon declared war on the United States, both actions illegitimate in our Founders' eyes.
We would have remained at peace with Canada? I don't think you need the First World War to come to that conclusion.
The USA and the CSA could have remained at peace, and possibly eventually reunited had Lincoln simply forbore from starting a bloody war.
I'm not sure if that is true or not. The Fifth Amendment would probably forbid them from doing it, but barring that, I can see where it is possible for a state to legally prohibit it's own citizens from owning slaves.
In some cases like New York or Pennsylvania, it’s citizens were give several years to free or sell the slaves out of state that they owed.
This is true, and many if not most, were sold to states in the South so that their owners wouldn't lose money. I think at peak, a slave was worth the modern equivalent of $100,000.00 .
Which dealt with fugitives slaves.
Which is any slave trying to gain their freedom, isn't it? Article IV says that no state law can free a slave. So how does that work in practice?
It did not mandate slavery, it made it very clear that it could not be banned by a vote of the state.
Correct. Which is what I meant when I said that so long as a slave is held by the laws of another state, a "free state" couldn't free him.
Only in your way-too vivid imagination.
In the years before 1860 slave-states received roughly half of Federal spending (forts, lighthouses, internal improvements, hospitalization) despite having only 1/4 of the US voting population.
But the key fact to remember about antebellum Southerners is Texas Senator Wigfall's self-description:
You get my point. Obviously nobody would want to take their slaves to a "free" state, because nobody would want to go through the hassle of litigating it in court. "Free States" were defacto free states, even if they weren't exactly legal in their methods of accomplishing it.
As much as Sessions thinks he can come into MA and ban pot, he has to realize that every other garden this year will have plants growing. We can have up to tweleve plants—that would give the average person is going to smoke in a few years.
More or less the same situation regarding the enforcement of Article IV. An article that won't be enforced is just as relevant as if it had been repealed. It had been effectively repealed by a form of "Irish Democracy."
What was bizarre about it is that it took till 1857 before someone in Authority finally put their foot down against states ignoring Article IV, Section 2.
Before that everyone understood that slavery was a matter for individual states themselves and for the US Congress to rule over territories.
Well they understood incorrectly. Article IV section 2 would have to apply wherever the US Constitution held jurisdiction, and since it had jurisdiction over the territories, it would have had to apply there too, despite some people thinking to the contrary.
Before Dred-Scott that was not even controversial.
Before Trump pointed out that Sanctuary Cities were a defiance of Federal law, they weren't controversial either.
Before Jeff Sessions pointed out that "Marijuana dispensaries" were a violation of Federal law, they weren't controversial either.
The fact that some people have ignored violations of federal laws because they don't like them is only controversial when people point out that they are violating Federal law.
God. It says so right in the document.
Yeah they were rebels, and they also lost the war that they themselves initiated.
I'm going to correct you on a couple of points. They weren't rebels, and Lincoln initiated the war by sending a war fleet to attack them.
If you don't care enough about your cause to win then maybe it wasn't much of a cause to begin with?
You have a funny way of looking at a fight where one side has a four to one advantage over the other just in people, let alone in material and logistics.
If we applied your reasoning to slaves wanting freedom, I guess they didn't want it bad enough to overcome the horrific odds against them.
No, sometimes you can be in the right, and still be defeated by a stronger force.
Again (sigh) Lincoln was referring to the divine right of people to rebel against tyranny. The context was the Hungarian War of Independence of 1848. He made no claim about any right to independence (guaranteed outcome) but said that they had the right to try and that we - and the Russians - needed to stay out of it.
How you get from there to some sort of right of independence is your own problem.
This is wrongheaded on the face of it. The Founders did not obtain "mutual consent" from the British, nor did they think "mutual consent" was necessary.
They believe they had a right to be free and independent even if the United Kingdom did not agree.
They said it was a right from God for people to rule themselves if they chose.
Not at all true.
No it doesn't.
Well if they were paying for 72% of it, they were still getting a raw deal if they were only getting back half. :)
But I don't think you are correct about that. I've read several articles that detail how much was spent subsidizing railroads and other infrastructure products in the North.
But the key fact to remember about antebellum Southerners is Texas Senator Wigfall's self-description:
A lot of that sounds tongue in cheek, but even if it isn't, he can speak for himself, but he can't speak for everyone else.
Amen.
FIFY
First of all, the word "tyranny" isn't in there. Second of all, "tyranny" is a matter of perspective. The Philippines considered us tyrants when we were running that country.
Lincoln had previously supported the right of Texas to become independent of Mexico. Apparently he was against the right of Texas to be independent of him.
...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...
Possibly but first you have to prove the point that different standards are appropriate. Otherwise, you've open to accusations of hypocrisy.
You've just made your task more difficult with the phrase "prevent their destruction." Lincoln felt that the union must be preserved. In other words, by the standards you're implying, Lincoln would be okay taking desperate measures because he was trying to prevent the destruction of the union.
They articulated a right to independence before they had won, not after.
Don’t think a 5th amendment issue. The Court in the Dred Scott decision often mentions “free” and “slave” states.
They recognized the right of a state to make owning slaves in that state illegal. They affirmed that thought, when in that decision, they ruled that the Federal Government had no Constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in any state “where slavery was legal”.
“Article IV says that no state law can free a slave. So how does that work in practice?” A part of the article says
“but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due”. The operative words are “claim of the party”. The article and the 1850 Fugitive Act do not require an individual or a state seek out the owner of a fugitive slave. With out a claim of ownership, the state may assume they are free and allow them to proceed on their way. At that point no law has been broken, since not claim has been presented.
FIFY
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