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 ...
Haven’t read much real history, have you?
Enough to know the difference between fact and fancy.
;>)
Every hater has his excuses. Tell me, does all your food taste like bile?
Just what the Tenth Amendment means in practice isn't that unclear. It's like the 14th Amendment in that it's used to justify a wide and deep interpretation of the Constitution, rather than specific details of what government can and cannot do. As can happen with the 14th Amendment, the 10th Amendment is sometimes used to force an interpretation of the Constitution that ignores or distorts what the document actually says.
Some people act as though the amendment said "the powers expressly delegated" as some of the drafters originally wanted it to. That would have made the amendment meaningless, as people soon realized. It would have meant that the federal government could deliver the mails but not build post offices. Obviously, there are some powers that are necessary to execute the designated powers, and just where these end is hard to say.
There is also Article I, Section 8, Clause 15: "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions" authorizing the use of force against illegitimate rebellion.
Anyway, the idea that a Constitution that carefully balances powers and checks and balances contains a secret "Get Out of The Union Free" card in the "emanations and penumbras" of the 10th Amendment is indeed "mumbo jumbo," as many scholars in the 1860s recognized.
You're suggesting that, if a State ratified the Constitution, with the proviso that it accepted the odd numbered articles, but rejected the even numbered articles, the other parties to the compact would be magically forced to accept that State as a member of the union.
The question for the state convention was whether they ratified the constitution or not. And they did. If a state ratified declaring it wasn't going to abide by whole sections of the Constitution, either the ratification or the reservation would be invalid. But if it wanted to include some boilerplate about natural rights, nobody would object.
In those days everyone believed in a right to revolution against tyranny. And they believed that if a chaotic or anarchic state of nature returned that the people could recreate government along new, or old lines.
So nobody objected to a state convention's including language of that sort in its statement of ratification. It didn't mean that states were asserting a right to secede and the federal government was recognizing it. Just that revolution was always available as a last resort.
In fact, I suspect the other parties to the compact saw nothing objectionable, with regard to the reservation of the right of secession. After all, the union in question had been formed by the secession of the member States from a self-proclaimed "perpetual" union.
The Constitution was proposed by a convention representing the people of the country. Had such a convention representing people from every state been convened in 1860 or 1861 and decided to dissolve the Union, it's hard to see how the sitting government could have objected. Had Congress done so in one of several different ways, objections would have been minimal. But that wasn't unilateral secession -- nor was the process that led from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.
You're willing to insist that the federal government "can take appropriate action when the Constitution is violated," no specific violation of ANY written article, section, or clause necessary, but you insist that the remarks of Mr. Jefferson are irrelevant because he "wasn't around"
No specific violation? The constitution empowers the federal government to deliver the mails, to maintain federal courts, to collect taxes. If a group in one state or another tries to prevent it, the federal government has the right to see to it that the laws are upheld.
Jefferson was a party leader who often got carried away by his own rhetoric and the interests of his faction. I don't say that his opinions are of no value, just that they don't trump other opinions, like what Madison was writing in his later days, when he wasn't acting as Jefferson's lieutenant.
I'm used to dealing with people like you (and they all vote D@mocrat) - read Mr. Madison's Virginia Resolutions, and his Report on the Virginia Resolutions. Mr. Madison 'was around,' and his written, public statements are consistent with Mr. Jefferson's Kentucky Resolutions...
Again, read Madison's mature opinions, not those he wrote when he was Jefferson's second banana and concerned that the Federalists were overturning the Constitution.
And while we're at it, you should get out more. The Republican Party is a lot more than a few secessionist kooks. So is American conservatism. If you succeed in making the conservative movement about secession, it means the end of conservatism, the triumph of hypocrisy, and the ruination of the country.
I have not dealt with it, because your "original point" is idiotic - it is directly analogous to stating that 'the fact that a resident of Washington DC might possibly have gotten away with owning a handgun in the early years of the Republic doesn't mean that the Constitution allowed personal firearms ownership.' It has no bearing, whatsoever, on the constitutionality of the action.
You must win a lot of arguments by calling your opponents views "idiotic." It shows just how willing you are to engage in constructive argument.
But actually, you've got my point entirely wrong. I'm not talking about individual rights but about what governments do. Individual rights can be eroded over time, but government have force behind their actions that can make them precedents for the future.
If Congress had declared in 1790 that the right to bear arms was a collective, rather than an individual right, and they'd gotten away with that usurpation, we'd be more likely to think that the law of the land. Of course they wouldn't have gotten away with it, but the principle is not so different from what would have happened if a state had tried to secede in 1790. In those days, when the Constitution itself was shaky and interpretations uncertain, a usurpation like that was more likely to carry the day than it would have later, when Americans became used to living in union under the Constitution.
Obviously, you're stuck in your own learning phase - you insist that the written Constitution must conform to your "own will and interest."
A meaningless cheap shot.
If Mr. Adams and his political party had "refused to hold elections in 1800 or to turn over the White House to Jefferson," there would have been an armed response from the States (please see Federalist No. 46, which was fresh in the memories of the people of the several States, and which you have apparently never read).
That was one possibility. Or Congress or the courts or the military might have gotten involved. Or it might have come down to street fighting between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans.
But you are ignoring the point I was making: constitutions are fragile in their infancy. A willful President, a rogue general, a power-hungry faction, or a renegade state can all bring a young constitution down.
Adams didn't have the majority on his side in that case. Another President or Congress or party who did have a majority could have gotten away with usurpations in those days that wouldn't have been allowed later. In the same way, a faction in a state that asserted its independence from the union may have prevailed. But that didn't mean that they were acting constitutionally. I'm getting tired of making the same point to someone who doesn't want to hear it, though.
What it would have meant, actually, was that the right to secede was reserved by the States as parties to the compact, and that the federal government had never been delegated the power to prevent it. That was true in 1789, as it was in 1860...
Okay, you're on the spot now. What text can you point to in the Constitution as it was before the Bill of Rights guarantees secession? Where's the passage that says that?
I don't think you'll find one. Your conclusion comes from the assumptions that you bring to the Constitution, not from what the letters and words actually say. That's also true for your reading of the 10th Amendment.
Really? I have not noticed you citing "many constitutional experts in 1861" in support of your views.
I've never claimed that there was unanimity regarding secession, or that everyone agreed with my views -- just that there certainly wasn't any widespread agreement the secession was constitution. But the presidents at the time, Buchanan and Lincoln, the Attorney General, Stanton, all believed unilateral secession to be unconstitutional. So had statesmen and thinkers as varied as Madison and Jackson, Webster and Story, Brownson and Lowell. You can find a contemporary study here: American Dis-union: Constitutional Or Unconstitutional?.
But, to repeat, I'm not saying that no one believed in state secession at will. I'm saying that the question was by no means as simple as defenders of the Confederacy like to pretend it was.
Years ago, when I was a young man, I realized that, if the Second Amendment actually meant what it said, then the rest of the Constitution did, too.
Not all propositions have the same degree of evidence behind them. Not all beliefs one may have are equally warranted.
Your problem is assuming that things that are unequivocally said in the Constitution and things that you infer from the text are equally warranted. But that's not the case. Treating your own hypotheses from the text as equivalent to the words themselves doesn't strengthen those hypotheses. On the contrary, over time it will make people less inclined to listen to you when you really are right.
Jefferson Davis had the same problem. He came to believe that his own interpretation of the Constitution was as certain as the theorems of geometry. He couldn't distinguish what was there to be read in the Constitution and what he read into it. His own will and interest convinced him that the matter was more certain than it possibly could be. You're going down the same path.
you are considered to be (according to the numerous PMs that i receive):
only semi-literate,
a south-HATER,
a BIGOT,
a MEAN-spirited IDIOT,
a VULGAR -talking little TWIT &
terminally SELF-impressed.
i, otoh, just consider you to be: GARBAGE in "semi-human form".
laughing AT you.
free dixie,sw
laughing AT you, LIAR.
free dixie,sw
It’s only confirmed in your mind, since you clearly believe that anyone who disagrees with you on any subject hates every group with which you self-identify. You play the poor oppressed victim card more than any Democrat ever dreams. But if you want to find some posts where I proclaim my hatred of the south, feel free to make your case.
Liar. You have no such “PM’s”. You are making it up just like you do everything else.
You are a liar Squat2pee.
You wrote three paragraphs without knowing a single assertion to be based on fact.
Federal revenues for imports were very valuable, but not for the reason you think.
The vast majority of consumed goods were imported into the South.
Large numbers of Northern manufacturers were dependent on their only source of raw materials....the South.
Large numbers of Northern manufacturers were dependent on their primary source of consumption, the Southern consumer.
You should look up the figures sometime.
Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane was moving about the harbor entrance and firing on civilian shipping.
I don't suppose you can actually point to what page of the OR shows the Harriet Lane firing on civilian shipping, can you? A shot across the bow of an unflagged ship to make her raise her colors is not the same thing as an act of war, or of "firing on civilian shipping".
What's interesting about the Osbon account is that he describes the Nashville as heading towards the Harriet Lane from the direction of the Charleston bar. This is consistent with a New York Sun article from 1897, based on an interview with a crewman on the Nashville, who describes attempting to enter Charleston Harbor and being fired on by a shore battery, turning about and heading back out, only to run into the Harriet Lane.
The Charleston Courier from that day says, "The steam ship Nashville was seen off the bar yesterday forenoon, also several sailing vessels, but the heavy firing in the harbor will probably induce them to go to Savannah."
But more on point is an article that appeared in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly's July, 1936 issue written by by Lt. Commander David P. Marvin, USCG (ret'd), a faculty member at the Coast Guard Academy:
Lying at the rendezvous off the bar, Captain Faunce observed a steamer approaching, and as she had no colors flying, the Lane fired a 32-pound shot from the bow gun, as an order to halt. This shot, at 11:20 a. m., April 12, 1861, was the first of the conflict to be fired from the deck of a Federal vessel.11:20 AM on April 12 would be eight hours after Beauregard informed Anderson that he would begin firing in one hour, and seven hours after firing commenced.
You were saying?
Well, let's look at what the man in charge had to say:
After being elected, but in December, three months before he took office, he sent this message to the Army commander:
“Please present my respects to the general, and tell him, confidentially, I shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either hold or retake the forts, as the case may require, at and after the inauguration.”
On February 15, 1861 Lincoln espoused his tariff views strongly in a speech in Pittsburgh given only weeks before his inauguration. It pertained to the Morrill tariff bill, which had long since passed the House and was up for debate in the Senate.
“Fellow citizens,... it seems a fitting time to indulge in a few remarks upon the important question of a tariff---a subject of great magnitude, and one which is attended with many difficulties, owing to the great variety of interests which it involves.
“... for the support of government..., a tariff is necessary. The tariff is to the government what a meal is to the family; but, while this is admitted, it still becomes necessary to modify and change its operations according to new interests and new circumstances. So far there is little difference of opinion among politicians, but the question as to how far imposts may be adjusted for the protection of home industry, gives rise to various views and objections.”
In the plainest of language and on the eve of his ascendancy to power, Lincoln told his audience that the tariff, which the South vehemently opposed, was a top priority
At his inauguration a few days later, he said:
“The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and impost...”.
April 4, 1861.........Lincoln's response to advice not to attack Charleston harbor:
“Well,” said he, “what about the revenue? What would I do about the collection of duties?"
So, it is shown that in Lincoln's own words and actions, it is apparent that "the North waged war against the South to protect its customs revenues."
The first real Union? Your opinion of what is real or not real is a matter of interpretation.
Of course the First Continental Congress was a modest, humble beginning. But even it took some important actions in the name of the united colonies:
Admittedly not much, but a start -- an embryo, so to speak, which in due time grew to be the United States.
The Second Continental Congress had a longer list of accomplishments, even before the Declaration of Independence, incluing:
Indeed, Lincoln's simple equation was that Congress equaled the Union -- however small and weak, such as it was -- it was the start.
Anyway, this is what Lincoln argued in effect, saying: "The Union, and not [the States] themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty."
So,
It was the Union which created the States, and visa versa. Without one there could not be the other.
WIJG: None of which refers to the formal withdrawal of a State from the union, under the Constitution as it existed in 1860."
Key point: the US Civil War was not caused by secession alone. Indeed, had there been no violence by the South against Federal facilities, ships and people, there may well have never been war.
Certainly President Buchanan was determined to avoid violence, and did so, even while he attempted to support Federal forces at Forts Pickens, Taylor, Jefferson and Sumter.
President Lincoln continued Buchanan's policies, while announcing publicly that "The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors".
President Jefferson obliged Lincoln by destroying Fort Sumter and forcing its surrender. Lincoln declared that an "insurrection" and Jefferson then declared war on the United States.
So it was not secession which caused the war, it was Southern insurrection and rebellion.
Once again, I'll state my opinion of secession. Secession, if peaceful, lawful, negotiated and approved by Congress is one thing. Violent insurrection, rebellion, "domestic violence" or invasion of the United States is something else entirely.
Whatever...
In practice, it is completely ignored. It is essentially irrelevant, when it comes to limiting the power of the federal government. Which suggests that the original meaning and intent are being completely ignored.
Anyway, the idea that a Constitution that carefully balances powers and checks and balances contains a secret "Get Out of The Union Free" card in the "emanations and penumbras" of the 10th Amendment is indeed "mumbo jumbo," as many scholars in the 1860s recognized.
There was absolutely nothing "secret" about it, at the time of the ratification. As Mr. Madison famously noted:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.
- James Madison, Federalist No. 45
The subject of the formal withdrawal of a State from the federal union quite obviously falls within the "numerous and indefinite" category, rather than the "few and defined" category, don't you think?
In other words, the Tenth Amendment meant precisely what it said - which is why it is part of the Bill of Rights. If it did not mean what it said, and if it was as unimportant to the States as you suggest, the States would have treated it exactly like the 27th Amendment (proposed 1789; ratified 1992).
The question for the state convention was whether they ratified the constitution or not. And they did. If a state ratified declaring it wasn't going to abide by whole sections of the Constitution, either the ratification or the reservation would be invalid.
So why would you assume that the reservation was invalid, rather than the ratification? Hmm? If the ratification was invalid (due to the specific,written reservation of the right of secession), then the union could hardly object to the departure of a legally 'non-ratifying' State.
And if the reservations were considered invalid by the other ratifying States, why did none object? Hmm? Did any of the other States, as parties to the constitutional compact, notify the States that reserved the right of secession, in writing, that their reservations were invalid?
In reality, the ratifications were accepted as submitted, including the reservations of the right of State secession, because the other States as parties had absolutely no objection to such a specific, written, and binding, reservation of rights.
The Constitution was proposed by a convention representing the people of the country.
Bull crap. The Constitution was proposed by a convention representing the people of the individual States. If you are at all unclear on the concept, please see Articles V and VII of the United States Constitution.
No specific violation? The constitution empowers the federal government to deliver the mails, to maintain federal courts, to collect taxes. If a group in one state or another tries to prevent it, the federal government has the right to see to it that the laws are upheld.
The federal government had no power or right "to deliver the mails, to maintain federal courts, [or] to collect taxes," outside of the union. Once a State had formally withdrawn from the union, those delegated federal rights were of no effect within the seceded State.
But I'm feeling generous: if you want to insist that the federal government used military force to conduct a war that killed nearly 700,000 Americans, because the federal government thought it had an obligation to deliver junk mail to the seceded States, you're certainly welcome to your (deranged) opinion...
Again, read Madison's mature opinions, not those he wrote when he was Jefferson's second banana and concerned that the Federalists were overturning the Constitution.
I have read "Madison's mature opinions:" I consider his arguments (regarding delegated powers) in the Report on the Virginia Resolutions to be as irrefutable as any I've ever seen. Care to refute those arguments - or just spew opinions?
;>)
And while we're at it, you should get out more. The Republican Party is a lot more than a few secessionist kooks.
While you're at it, you should make fewer 'kooky' assumptions. I visit more States in a given month than most people visit in years - and I'm a "republican" (as I understand Mr. Jefferson's meaning of the term), not a "Republican."
So is American conservatism. If you succeed in making the conservative movement about secession, it means the end of conservatism, the triumph of hypocrisy, and the ruination of the country.
Gosh - I didn't know you were a conspiracy theorist! But I guess you 'found me out' - my goal in life (/sarc), in intimate coordination with Dr. Evil, is "making the conservative movement about secession... the end of conservatism, the triumph of hypocrisy, and the ruination of the country." Too bad you caught me (OOPS - I meant us! Sorry, Dr. Evil!), just inches short of my (OUR!) goal!
;>)
You must win a lot of arguments by calling your opponents views "idiotic." It shows just how willing you are to engage in constructive argument.
I am perfectly willing to engage in "constructive argument." Being a professional scientist, I am also perfectly willing to describe an "idiotic" argument as (guess what?) "idiotic."
But actually, you've got my point entirely wrong. I'm not talking about individual rights but about what governments do. Individual rights can be eroded over time, but government have force behind their actions that can make them precedents for the future.
Actually, you've got your own argument wrong (no doubt because it is, basically, "idiotic"). You are talking about constitutional rights - and it matters not whether they are "individual rights" or States' rights. I am discussing the rule of law - specific, written, constitutional law, and I don't care whether it relates to individuals, the federal government, or the people of the States. You seem to be discussing some sort of theoretical, evolutionary process that somehow 'transmogrifies' a written Constitution into a 'Living Law of the Land'...
If Congress had declared in 1790 that the right to bear arms was a collective, rather than an individual right, and they'd gotten away with that usurpation, we'd be more likely to think that the law of the land.
Thank you for proving my point.
A meaningless cheap shot.
Please feel free to show us where you are NOT conforming your view of the Constitution to your "own will and interest." You seem to have precious little respect for the written words...
But you are ignoring the point I was making: constitutions are fragile in their infancy.
I would suggest the exact opposite, insofar as our own Constitution is concerned. In it's "infancy," it was actually considered to be "the supreme Law of the Land." Today, in it's "maturity," it is what Mr. Jefferson warned us of (courtesy of encroachments by the federal government, and disinterest by the people): it has been made "a blank paper by construction."
"Fragile?" Give me a break. A constitution that means whatever the government says it means is a long ways past "fragile" - it's 'dead & buried,' and absolutely meaningless...
Okay, you're on the spot now. What text can you point to in the Constitution as it was before the Bill of Rights guarantees secession? Where's the passage that says that?
Oh, so now you're insisting that a constitutional right can only exist, if its spelled out specifically, in writing? Or does that (in your opinion) only apply to the States, and the people of the States? While the federal government somehow (magically) possesses all rights & powers not forbidden it, in writing?
Please see Federalist No. 45 (cited above), and while we're at it, Federalist No. 32 (I love quoting Hamilton to 'big government' types ;>):
An entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty would imply an entire subordination of the parts; and whatever powers 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 or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States. This exclusive delegation, or rather this alienation, of State sovereignty, would only exist in three cases: where the Constitution in express terms granted an exclusive authority to the Union; where it granted in one instance an authority to the Union, and in another prohibited the States from exercising the like authority; and where it granted an authority to the Union, to which a similar authority in the States would be absolutely and totally CONTRADICTORY and REPUGNANT...
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 vigor, is not a theoretical consequence of that division, but is 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.
In other words, even Alexander Hamilton thought you were full of it...
I don't think you'll find one. Your conclusion comes from the assumptions that you bring to the Constitution, not from what the letters and words actually say. That's also true for your reading of the 10th Amendment.
Actually, my conclusion comes from a fair reading of the historical documents of the time (from the 1600's through the mid-1800's). Your "conclusion," on the other hand, appears to be a more modern fabrication...
But the presidents at the time, Buchanan and Lincoln, the Attorney General, Stanton, all believed unilateral secession to be unconstitutional. So had statesmen and thinkers as varied as Madison and Jackson...
Actually, both "Madison and Jackson" were presidents as well. I note that you included the term "unilateral" - while Mr. Madison may have suggested in his private correspondence that unilateral secession was not constitutional, he certainly did not suggest the same with regard to secession in response to an abuse of the compact:
A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact absolving the seceding party from the obligation imposed by it.
- James Madison, Letter to Alexander Rives, 1833
(Thank you, Non-Sequitur, for the citation! ;>) And, as we all know, Mr. Madison argued quite persuasively, in his public writings, that the individual States (as parties to the constitutional compact) reserved the right to determine whether the compact had been violated. As did, of course, Mr. Jefferson (see my previous citations). In other words, your "unilateral" secession argument is irrelevant.
But, to repeat, I'm not saying that no one believed in state secession at will. I'm saying that the question was by no means as simple as defenders of the Confederacy like to pretend it was.
Who's 'pretending?' Certainly not me. In my judgement, the First, Second - and Tenth - Amendments mean exactly what they say, or they mean nothing. That argument in no way contradicts the historical documentation I have cited (at length). It seems to me that it is the 'perpetual union' historical revisionists who are 'pretending'...
Your problem is assuming that things that are unequivocally said in the Constitution and things that you infer from the text are equally warranted. But that's not the case. Treating your own hypotheses from the text as equivalent to the words themselves doesn't strengthen those hypotheses. On the contrary, over time it will make people less inclined to listen to you when you really are right.
Perhaps you should retake English 100 - I am not 'inferring things' from the text. That is your forte. In many instances, the language is simple. When the Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law," I suggest that "Congress shall make no law." Where the Constitution states, "The powers not delegated... nor prohibited... are reserved," I suggest precisely the same thing. You, on the other hand, suggest (paraphrasing only your comments from the above post) that 'what the amendments mean... [is] used to justify a wide and deep interpretation of the Constitution, rather than specific details of what government can and cannot do... Individual rights can be eroded over time, but government[s] have force behind their [unconstitutional] actions that can make them [constitutional] precedents for the future. If Congress had declared in 1790 that the right to bear arms was a collective, rather than an individual right, and they'd gotten away with that usurpation, we'd be more likely to think that the law of the land...' I simply don't have time to go back to your numerous other references to 'fuzzy law,' in previous posts. Suffice to say, the difference between your reading of the Constitution, and mine, is obvious.
And, by the way, if I thought "people" were "inclined to listen to" me, I would be a politician, not a scientist, and I certainly wouldn't spend my time debating the constitutionality of State secession on Free Republic.
Jefferson Davis had the same problem. He came to believe that his own interpretation of the Constitution was as certain as the theorems of geometry. He couldn't distinguish what was there to be read in the Constitution and what he read into it. His own will and interest convinced him that the matter was more certain than it possibly could be. You're going down the same path.
Gosh - I've never been compared to Jefferson Davis before! (I've never even been to Mississippi - or Washington DC.) And if you honestly think I'm "going down the same path" as Jeff Davis, I would suggest one more thing: "you should get out more"...
Another irrational statement - if secession was constitutional, then the resulting hostilities were NOT "insurrection and rebellion." And you have failed to prove State secession circa 1860-1861 unconstitutional.
In fact, given that the Constitution nowhere prohibited State secession, the maintenance of federal forces within Fort Sumter following the withdrawal of South Carolina from the union, was an act of war on the part of the remaining United States...
It seems to me that Wikipedia was correct in this case. Some historians did indeed say that was the first shot of the war, as I showed above. Some historians probably agree with your source that shots fired at the Star of the West were the first shots of the war. However, I suspect that most historians and most of the public probably believe that the first shots of the war were fired at Fort Sumter.
The South began threatening & using force against Union facilities and people almost immediately after South Carolina seceded in December 1860. In most cases these were not opposed by Union force. We've discussed two exceptions -- Forts Pickens and Sumter -- but Lincoln mentioned two others: Forts Taylor and Jefferson in the Florida Keys.
Actually, there is another fort, Fort Kearney. From the New Orleans Daily Picayune of Feb 21, 1861:
It is reported on good authority that Forts Chadbourne and Belknap have been captured and are now in the hands of assailants.
Old Fort Kearney was taken possession of last night by disunionists. The seizure of the fort produced great excitement. An attempt was made to retake it this morning, and was successful. The Palmetto flag was torn down, and the stars and stripes raised in its place.
I don't know whether there were any troops/anyone in the fort to begin with, whether the taking and retaking was just done by local people, and whether any shots were fired.
Of course not. Breaking up the union is about as serious as things can get. Like matters of war and peace it isn't for a single state to decide on its own.
Let's say that the powers of the states vastly outnumber those of the federal government. It doesn't follow -- nor should it -- that the 10th Amendment gives the states some hidden Easter egg that allows them to bring the entire federal apparatus down at their own sweet will. If states have a preponderance of power within the union there's no necessary reason for them to have the power of walking out on the whole constitutional system, and a look at the way the Founders carefully crafted that system would suggest that they don't have that power.
Madison says: "The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." But secession -- breaking up the union -- involves more than the internal affairs of one state. This wasn't so clear in 1788. After the federal government had bought and surveyed and helped settle new territories and set them up as states, built forts and other installations, dredged ports and made other investments it would become even clearer that dissolution of the union was not the affair of one single state.
The federal government had no power or right "to deliver the mails, to maintain federal courts, [or] to collect taxes," outside of the union. Once a State had formally withdrawn from the union, those delegated federal rights were of no effect within the seceded State.
Where does it actually say that in the Constitution? The federal government is delegated those powers, and there's no provision for secession. So long as the union isn't dissolved to the satisfaction of the various parties involved, the federal government is authorized to carry out those functions.
In other words, even Alexander Hamilton thought you were full of it...
Note the words "CONTRADICTORY and REPUGNANT" in Hamilton's paper, and the example he gives: "The third will be found in that clause, which declares that Congress shall have power "to establish an UNIFORM RULE of naturalization throughout the United States." This must necessarily be exclusive; because if each State had power to prescribe a DISTINCT RULE there could be no UNIFORM RULE."
Breaking with the union would be far more serious than establishing a different rule of naturalization. So I don't think you can say that Hamilton would automatically agree with you. You are forever saying that the founders who disagreed with absolute state sovereignty within the constitutional system would accept the assertion of absolute sovereignty by a state if only it broke with the union and the Constitution, but the texts you offer don't support that conclusion. If Hamilton strained at sovereigntist gnats, why would he swallow a secessionist camel?
Actually, my conclusion comes from a fair reading of the historical documents of the time (from the 1600's through the mid-1800's). Your "conclusion," on the other hand, appears to be a more modern fabrication...
I'm looking at history and how it develops. You're ignoring that. You're not asking what the 10th Amendment meant in practice or in the context of the whole Constitution, you're simply assuming that it's your "Get Out of the Union Free" card.
Gosh - I didn't know you were a conspiracy theorist! But I guess you 'found me out' - my goal in life (/sarc), in intimate coordination with Dr. Evil, is "making the conservative movement about secession... the end of conservatism, the triumph of hypocrisy, and the ruination of the country." Too bad you caught me (OOPS - I meant us! Sorry, Dr. Evil!), just inches short of my (OUR!) goal! ;>)
My fault for actually taking you seriously. You certainly seem to take yourself seriously, but you take the out of claiming that your ideas aren't going to convince people anyway, so why bother with them. Why indeed?
A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact absolving the seceding party from the obligation imposed by it.
- James Madison, Letter to Alexander Rives, 1833
That's taking one of Madison's sentences out of context. Look further on in the letter:
It surely does not follow from the fact of the states, or rather the people embodied in them, having, as parties to the constitutional compact, no tribunal above them, that, in controverted meanings of the compact, a minority of the parties can rightfully decide against the majority, still less that a single party can decide against the rest, and as little that it can at will withdraw itself altogether from its compact with the rest.
The characteristic distinction between free Governments, and Governments not free is that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but among the parties creating the Government. Each of these being equal, neither can have more right to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved than every other has to deny the fact and to insist on the execution of the bargain. An inference from the doctrine that a single state has a right to secede at will from the rest is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late, have been palatable anywhere, and nowhere less so than where it is now most contended for.
That's a pretty clear rejection of secession at will. Of course, secessionists would want to argue that a breakdown of the Constitutional system justified states reassuming their sovereignty. I don't know whether Madison would have agreed that such a condition existed in 1860. But Madison definitely disagrees with the idea of secession as a reserved right of the states to be executed whenever they felt like, and says that in his letter.
The problem with that theory that the Constitution had broken down in 1860 is that you have to view slavery as a right and potential threats to slaveholders' rights as violations of the Constitution. Potential threats aren't actual ones, of course, and many post-war Southerners felt ill at ease asserting slave owning as a natural or constitutional right, so defenders of the Confederacy fell back on the belief that Madison clearly rejects in the letter.
Madison was in a tough place when he wrote this letter. He couldn't repudiate the Virginia Resolutions and his earlier defense of them. But in fact, he comes pretty close to doing so. He had learned something over time about what the Constitution was and how it worked. Now that's the problem with your approach. You can argue that what the Founders wrote in 1788 was authoritative, but what happens if one of those Founders lived longer and reconsidered, learned and changed his mind? Do you simply dismiss his later opinions?
Your citing a sentence from the letter to imply that Madison shared your view when he actually didn't indicates how fraudulent and farcical the arguments on these threads are. You believe what you want to believe and you drag out anything you can to support what you want to believe and simply dismiss opposing opinions out of hand. You're not really engaging my views and we're not really going anywhere, simply negating each other's opinions. So what's the point of continuing with this nonsense?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.