Posted on 06/09/2009 8:47:35 AM PDT by Davy Buck
My oh my, what would the critics, the Civil War publications, publishers, and bloggers do if it weren't for the bad boys of the Confederacy and those who study them and also those who wish to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy?
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
My sympathies.
... which says, first: that the Constitution does not mention secession because it did not in any way contemplate it.
If the Constitution had meant that then clearly several states, if not more, would not have ratified the Constitution, and the Union as we know it would not have been formed. As I pointed out, three states, Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island said in their ratification documents that they could resume their own governance. Other states urged the passage of an amendment that said the powers not delegated to the central government under the Constitution would remain with the states or the people (which later became the Tenth Amendment).
Jefferson Davis made the following argument in the Senate on January 10, 1861, a few days before he resigned his seat because Mississippi had seceded:
...the tenth amendment of the Constitution declared that all which had not been delegated was reserved to the States or to the people. Now, I ask where among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any power to coerce a state; where among the provisions of the Constitution do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and if you find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository, the reserved rights of the States? How was it ever taken out of that source of all power to the Federal Government? It was not delegated to the Federal Government; it was not prohibited to the States; it necessarily remains, then, among the reserved powers of the States.
Second: that a reasonable requirement for secession would be that it is approved by the same majorities in Congress who approved the states' admission to the Union.
A requirement that states could only leave with the permission of most or all of the other states would not have been ratified. The vote to ratify was close in some states, and only the promise of the passage of amendments to further limit the power of the central government allowed ratification to pass. And, as I think I pointed out before, some Republicans tried to pass an amendment to the Constitution that states could only leave with the permission of the other states. They obviously didn't subscribe to the theory that this was already somehow implied in the Constitution.
Consider the statement of de Tocqueville [Source: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter 19]:
If it be supposed that among the states that are united by the federal tie there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity entirely depends on the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to support the central government in enforcing the obedience of the others. But the government would then be exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle contrary to its nature.
Why would states ever put themselves in the position of not being able to leave if other states were not living up to their part of the Constitutional bargain or taking advantage of them. Do you think they would have agreed to have to fight their way out in such a case like they had just done to leave Great Britain? I think not. I think that is why NY, VA, and RI said in essence that they understood that under the Constitution they could resume their own governance if it comported to their happiness.
Did you ever find any documents of the time of the ratification of the Constitution and the passage of the first ten amendments that said those three states were wrong, like I asked you before?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778.
I see you are quoting Lincoln's preposterous theory that the Union created the states. I think he made this argument because he did not want to admit the fact that the states were ever sovereign. I suspect he was thinking that if they were not sovereign, then they could not secede.
One of the members of the Virginia ratification convention, John Taylor of Caroline, argued the following:
In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed.
The sovereignties which imposed the limitations upon the federal government, far from supposing that they perished by the exercise of a part of their faculties, were vindicated, by reserving powers in which their deputy, the federal government, could not participate; and the usual right of sovereigns to alter or revoke its commissions.
The original states seceded from the perpetual Union of the Articles of Confederation. In fact when North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified the Constitution but the others had, the new government taxed imports from those two states as though they were foreign countries. Washington himself argued at the time that those two states were not part of the new Union.
In the last few years, the United States government recognized the unilateral secession of Kosovo. In fact, I think we might have urged it. I would guess they didn't check with you first.
In 1862 or 1863 Congress indemnified Lincoln for his earlier habeas corpus suspensions that were unconstitutional in the opinion of many. They later authorized Lincoln to suspend habeas corpus in the future. If Lincoln had the constitutional power to suspend habeas corpus, why then did Congress authorize him to do it in the future?
Historically, habeas corpus had been used to prevent an executive or king from jailing his opponents without charges. The power to suspend it was placed in Parliament or, in our case, Congress.
Congress did not have the power to absolve Lincoln of some of his other unconstitutional actions. Consider the following words from Ex Parte Merryman [Link; my bold and underline below]:
The constitution provides, as I have before said, that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.' It declares that 'the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.' It provides that the party accused shall be entitled to a speedy trial in a court of justice.
These great and fundamental laws, which congress itself could not suspend, have been disregarded and suspended, like the writ of habeas corpus, by a military order, supported by force of arms. Such is the case now before me, and I can only say that if the authority which the constitution has confided to the judiciary department and judicial officers, may thus, upon any pretext or under any circumstances, be usurped by the military power, at its discretion, the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws, but every citizen holds life, liberty and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found.
You (and your friend N-S ;>) have got things @ss-backwards, my friend. As St. George Tucker noted:
"In the new instrument of union [i.e., the Constitution], there is no express reservation, as in the former [i.e., the Articles of Confederation], of the sovereignty of the several states; a subject of considerable alarm, and discussion, among those who were opposed to every thing that resembled, or might hazard, a consolidation of them. The advocates of the constitution answered, that "an entire consolidation of the states into one complete national sovereignty, would imply a complete subordination of all the parts; and whatever power might remain in them would be altogether dependent on the general will. But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union, the state governments will clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty, which they had before, and which are not by that act exclusively delegated to the United States. That this exclusive delegation, or rather this alienation of state sovereignty, would only exist in three cases; where the constitution in express terms grants an exclusive authority to the union; where it grants in one instance an authority to the union, and in another prohibits the states from exercising the like authority; and where it grants an authority to the union, to which a similar authority in the states, would be absolutely, and totally contradictory, and repugnant [Hamilton, Federalist No. 32]." The same writer elsewhere adds, "that it is not a mere possibility of inconvenience in the exercise of some powers, but an immediate and constitutional repugnancy that can by implication alienate and extinguish a pre-existing right of sovereignty." And further, that "the necessity of a concurrent jurisdiction in certain cases, results from the division of the sovereign power; and the rule that all authorities of which the states are not explicitly divested in favor of the union, remain with them in full vigour, is not only a theoretical consequence of that division, but is clearly admitted by the whole tenor of the instrument." [Hamilton, continuing - "...clearly admitted by the whole tenor of the instrument which contains the articles of the proposed Constitution. We there find that, notwithstanding the affirmative grants of general authorities, there has been the most pointed care in those cases where it was deemed improper that the like authorities should reside in the States, to insert negative clauses prohibiting the exercise of them by the States. The tenth section of the first article consists altogether of such provisions. This circumstance is a clear indication of the sense of the convention, and furnishes a rule of interpretation out of the body of the act, which justifies the position I have advanced and refutes every hypothesis to the contrary."] And this constitution, as we have already had occasion to remark, is now confirmed by the subsequent amendments to the constitution, Art. 12 [i.e., the Tenth Amendment]. The right of sovereignty, therefore, in all cases not expressly ceded to the United States by the constitution, or prohibited by it to the several states, remains inviolably, with the states; respectively."
- St George Tucker, Blacktone's Commentaries, 1803
In short, the fact that the Constitution "does not mention secession," actually suggests that such power remains with the States, respectively, or their people. It in no way suggests that such power magically devolved upon the creature of the new Constitution - the federal government.
Second: that a reasonable requirement for secession would be that it is approved by the same majorities in Congress who approved the states' admission to the Union.
Neither your personal view of what is "reasonable," nor that of N-S, was relevant in 1860-61...
Not with money not authorized for the expenditure. Even the President cannot spend money one way (to pay for ships to invade Charleston Harbor) with money already authorized by Congress for a completely different purpose (for the State Department)
You said: "But there was no invasion, secret or otherwise. You invade other countries. Lincoln was ordering federal supplies to a federal post.
Of course it was secret: that has already been demonstrated to you through Lincoln's own words to his staff.
Lincoln was moving troops to occupy installations on foreign soil.
Very good, and I think you are now understanding the coastal trade a bit more.
But, what if you are an importer of goods landing in New York that are sent specifically to you, but that you plan to resell South.
Where is that tariff paid?
They were delivered to them. If the consumers could be served by the Mississippi, then goods were direct shipped there from Europe.
If the nearest port could not accommodate deep draft ships, then the goods went North to be re-shipped south.
The importers made decisions not just on shipping efficiency but financial efficiency.
The Warehousing Act encouraged importers to drop their goods off at a single point by providing economic incentives to warehouse. An importer could delay payment on the tariff until he had a buyer for his goods by storing them tax-free in a warehouse. Since NYC had lots of warehouses to be used for this purpose it became the drop off place for goods that were later reexported to buyers in the South..
1829? A little late to be authoritative on Founders' intentions.
I would challenge you to find quotes from the period of 1787, where our Founding Fathers use such terms as "secession," or "wholly withdraw from the Union."
I'm not aware of any, and so conclude that they intended their new Constitution to be just as "perpetual" as the old Articles of Confederation.
Article 1, Section 8: Congress shall have the power to:
"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;...
"...To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;"
Article 2, section 2: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States..."
Seems pretty clear, right? So perhaps you can locate for us quotes from Founders or anyone else of 1787 saying someone other than Congress can define just what exactly is an "insurrection," or "invasion."
And if not, then perhaps you can find for us Acts of Congress in 1861 which disapproved of President Lincoln's actions to preserve the Union?
Of course, I don't agree. The South expressed its earnest desire for war every time it illegally seized Federal property, instead of negotiating peaceful resolutions to its demands. The fact that President Buchanan did not oppose these seizures by force did not make them legal.
President Lincoln's resupply and reinforcement of two Federal forts did not mean he wanted war, only his intention to protect Federal property and forces against Southern aggression.
Of course the data is different. You quoted data from one year, and Kettell quoted from a prior year.
You said: "But which does conform with the evidence.
You say that but you did not give any evidence, other than your own opinion.
You try to rearrange history to suit your needs.
You said: "If all those goods were destined for Southern consumers then why weren't they landed at the port closest to where those consumers were?
Are you speaking of European shipping to Southern consumers? In what port would Charleston bound goods arrive?
Importer taking possession pays tariffs. Federal law. You said: Why would you assume that financial burden?
It was the structure of doing business involving coastal trade.
" If you are the customer, why would you pay the tax in New York when you're not going to see your goods until they arrive in Charleston? Why would you assume that risk?
You are going off subject and trying to create red herrings.
You said: "Yes, as you claim. But you have not provided a breakdown. If $35 million in tariff revenue is collected at New York and $50 in Nashville then how does that support your claims?
You misrepresent the point. The data shows that tariffs were collected in ports other than New York and paid by the consumer located there.
That was to demonstrate that point of arrival and point of consumption are different data bases, and not a construct for assumptions about who paid the tariff and where.
Same ship, my misspelling, sorry.
March 4: "The Navy Department, which currently operates 42 warships, recalls all but three from foreign stations to assist in the impending crisis.
Marh 20: "The sloop USS Isabella, stocked with supplies for the garrison at Pensacola, is seized by state forces at Mobile, Alabama.
April 5: "A squadron consisting of USS Pawnee, Pocahontas, and the US revenue cutter Harriet Lane are assembled under the command of Captain Samuelo Mercer. Meanwhile, Powhattan continues toward Fort Pickens, Florida."
April 6: "Lieutenant John L. Worden is ordered overland to Fort Pickens; he carries secret orders for the squadron to land reinforcements."
April 7: General Braxton Bragg, commanding Confederate forces in Pensacola, requests and receives permission to fire on any reinforcements being landed at Fort Pickens from the squadron offshore."
April 8: "Federal troops onboard the US revenue cutter Harriet Lane land to bolster the garrison of Fort Pickens, Florida."
April 10: "Lieutenant John L. Worden arrives at Pensacola, Florida, on official business and receives permission from General Braxton Bragg to visit Fort Pickens."
April 12: "The USS Pawnee, the US revenue cutter Harriet Lane, and the steamship Baltic, commanded by Gustavus V. Fox, arrive in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, with supplies for Fort Sumter. Having appeared too late to reinforce the garrison they remain helpless spectators as the fort is bombarded.
April 12: "The naval squadron consisting of the USS Sabine, Brooklyn, St. Louis and Wymandotte begins to land reinforcements at Fort Pickens, Florida."
April 13: "Relief ships under Gustavus V. Fox continue loitering outside Charlston Harbor, South Carolina, unwilling to approach closer in the face of hostile fire.
April 13: "His mission completed, Navy lieutenant John L. Worden returns to Washington, DC from Fort Pickens, Florida. En route, he is arrested by Confederate authorities near Montgomery, Alabama, and is imprisoned.
(We next hear of Lt. Worden in February 1862, now in command of the revolutionhary Union ironclad, USS Monitor).
I take this all to say that the Harriet Lane landed troops at Fort Pickens on April 8, then arrived at Fort Sumter on April 12, triggering the Southern bombardment.
RB:"If the Lane fired after firing on Fort Sumter began, then the honor of the first naval shot might belong to the Confederate floating battery that was firing at Sumter during the bombardment."
The South committed numerous acts of war against the US Navy prior to April 12. For just one example, see March 20 above.
Here is a portion of a speech given in Congress that may shed some light on the relationship. This is Senator Robert Hunter speaking about the Morrill Tariff legislation
"There is a proposition in it for the virtual repeal of the warehousing law – that law under which New York has prospered so largely – that law to which England owes so much of that centralization of commerce which she has enjoyed in her cities and in her docks for years past. It was said that their warehousing system was originated by Sir Robert Walpole, who, for commercial intelligence, seemed, in this and other respects, to have been far, far ahead of his time....
"The British Government introduced the system, and they allow goods to be warehoused not merely three years, but five years; and then, after five years, the importer may come in and take an account of his goods, pay the duties on those which have been taken and lost or consumed, and re-house the residue again for another five years. I venture to say that there is not a man in the whole United Kingdom who has any character for financial ability or commercial intelligence, who would think of proposing a repeal of that system.
"Why should we do it here? Has it not been eminently beneficial since we extended the system to three years? Why, sir, let us look to the history of its operation.
" I have had a statement made of the goods that were imported and re-exported from this country from the years 1833 to 1846, before the system was established, and for a corresponding period of years from 1848 to 1860. In the first period of thirteen years, the entire re-exportation of merchandize was $79,767,000; and from 1848 to 1860, the re-exportation of goods imported was $146,095,073, nearly double.
"Of this latter amount of goods re-exported, $92,200,000 worth were re-exported from the warehouses. Thus our ship-owners have derived the profit of freights on this increased trade which we have given to New York. Thus our merchants have derived the profits on these exchanges. Thus the owners of real estate have derived the profits upon storages.
"Thus New York has been able to become rapidly – and it is since the passage of the warehouse bill that her progress has been most, most rapid – a great emporium and center of commerce.
"Why is it? It is because, owing to the warehousing system, a great amount of the goods of the world are stored there, and a merchant or a shipowner can go there and make out an assorted cargo for any part of the globe. If the merchants have not the goods in their stores, they have them in the warehouses. When a man carries a bill to New York, he is sure that he can not only convert it into money, but into any species of commodity or merchandize which he may desire; and that is one reason why the banks have been enabled to stand there, when they were breaking and falling everywhere else. That is the reason that a bill upon New York is worth more than a bill upon other places. That is one thing which has served to make her a great center of commerce.
Nor is that all, sir. Owing to this system, the small dealer, the man of small capital, is able to deal in imported goods. He does not have to pay his duties of forty, fifty, or sixty per cent., or whatever they are, and lie out of the interest of his money, and borrow it a long time before it can be returned to him; but, when he finds he can sell his goods, he goes to the warehouse, pays the duties, disposes of his merchandize, and obtains so speedy a return that he, too, is enabled to deal in imported goods. Thus, the business is not confined to those immense capitalists who are able to advance the money, and wait for the interest and the duty to be returned to them for months, or perhaps years." - Congressional Globe, 36th congress, 2nd session (speech starts on p. 898)
You will note that the last paragraph describes in detail the very same result of the warehousing act that you seem to deny as a possibility.
As stated in full accuracy, the warehousing act boosted NYC as the central port because (a) it permitted merchants to import goods without a cash advance to pay the tariffs upon docking and (b) it facilitated wider re exportation among warehoused goods in trade with the rest of the world. The act's advocates and defenders, among them Hunter, openly advocated it upon these two grounds and the speech above is conclusive testimony to that fact.
None of these people suggested the "logic" you think governed the shipment of goods.
Nonsense, from here
"...Within a few days,...Seward's handpicked army and naval officers had followed Fox to New York with $10,000 that Seward had procured from the secret service budget....the embattled Secretary of State had passed far beyond the jurisdiction of his department, and he was acting so much in isolation that no one in the administration even knew of the expedition but Lincoln."
You said: "Obviously the cabinet knew about it.
Well, obviously they did not.
Are you ignorant or just making up stuff as you go along?
None of those windy "signing statements" used terms like "secession" or "wholly withdraw" from the Union. Nor did any of the Founders in such documents as the Federalist Papers. So whatever later generations may have WISHED the Founders said, secession was not on their minds in 1787.
"A requirement that states could only leave with the permission of most or all of the other states would not have been ratified. "
No mention at all is made of secession in any of the founding documents. It was simply not contemplated.
"that is why NY, VA, and RI said in essence that they understood that under the Constitution they could resume their own governance if it comported to their happiness. "
None of their windy statements used the words "secession" or "withdrawal from the Union," nor were these terms offered as part of the Constitution's contract. The deal was: take it or leave it. They all took it.
And even if we were to grant NY, RI & VA their "reservations," how do those apply to the other seceding Southern states?
"Did you ever find any documents of the time of the ratification of the Constitution and the passage of the first ten amendments that said those three states were wrong, like I asked you before? "
Did you ever find a document of Congress or any other Federal branch acknowledging legitimacy for those three states' "reservations"?
"I see you are quoting Lincoln's preposterous theory that the Union created the states."
Bull cr*p. What Lincoln argued is exactly what he SAID:
" The Union is much older than the Constitution.
"One of the members of the Virginia ratification convention, John Taylor of Caroline, argued the following:"
Taylor does not use the words "secession" or "withdrawal from the Union." Nor are his arguments necessarily binding on the Constitution itself.
"The original states seceded from the perpetual Union of the Articles of Confederation. In fact when North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified the Constitution but the others had, the new government taxed imports from those two states as though they were foreign countries. Washington himself argued at the time that those two states were not part of the new Union."
Extraordinarily important point: they did it legally, peacefully and democratically. No force or threat of force was used by any state -- no seizures of properties, no firing on ships or forts. Instead, a new contract was offered to replace the old one, it was fully debated, voted on and ratified.
None of this describes Southern states' secession in 1860 & '61.
I'll say it again: the South obviously wanted a War of Independence, to match the Revolutionary War. If peace had been their goal, there would have been no seizures or firings on Federal forts, ships, arsenals, etc.
Clearly the Constitution allows suspension of habeas corpus when "in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
For precedent, I found only the Sedition act of 1798, showing priority of national security over individual rights -- though nothing to do with habeas corpus.
So no US history of suspending habeas corpus -- prior to Lincoln's actions in 1861. There was no precedent for Lincoln to follow. But Congress's subsequent approval and extension clearly says Congress agreed he'd done the right thing.
Neither the Constitution nor any of the Founders in 1787 addressed the question of secession or withdrawal from the Union. It was not mentioned. Further, the Articles of Confederation were expressly "perpetual," and no notice was given (that I'm aware of) to the lack of such term in the Constitution.
And the Constitution does expressly empower the Federal government to deal with such threats as invasion, rebellion, insurrection and "domestic violence."
Now, I'm going to ask you to think hard, "John Galt." Use your gray matter for the purpose God gave it to you, and answer this question:
Our Founding Fathers left us with two shining examples of how to establish a new nation. Which example did the South INTEND to follow:
First example: a Revolutionary War, with a Declaration of Independence, much sound and fury, the clash of great armies and bloodshed throughout the land. During the war a new government is established which then carries on after victory.
Second example: a peaceful Constitutional Convention, wherein delegates are sent by all states to engineer a new contract, which is then presented, fully debated, voted on and approved. No force or coercion is threatened or used, and the NEW Constitution is effective when 3/4 of states of the OLD Union ratify.
Seems obvious to me, the South wanted a War of Independence, since they followed no examples from the Constitutional Convention. No effort to develop a new national constitution, no thought to persuade the country at large. Instead, there were declarations of independence, and immediate resorts to threats and uses of force against dozens of Federal installations, ships, etc.
To the rest of the Union these clearly fell into the Constitutional categories of "rebellion," "insurrection," "domestic violence" and even "invasion" of Federal property. The South behaved like it expected and wanted a War of Independence. And eventually, it got one.
Indeed the South made no bones about it: They called it the War for Southern Independence, they called themselves "rebels," and their war cry a "rebel yell."
Do our revisionists want to scrub all those inconvenient terms and replace them with something less revealing of historical truth?
Sorry pal, but I think your argument here is entirely dishonest if you intend to imply that Federal revenues for imports to the South were vastly more important, or even just as important as revenues from imports to the North.
The reason is simple and basic: the Northern population outnumbered the South by a factor around two to one, and per capita income by another two or more to one. So the economic activity in the North -- by simple mathematics -- must have been at least four times greater than the South.
And all that is without taking the time to look up any precise numbers. So sure, if someone wants to argue 80% versus 90%, then go to it. But if you are suggesting anything like a majority of goods went South, then I'd have to ask what kind of leaf you've been smoking?
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