Posted on 08/05/2010 6:01:30 AM PDT by Michael Zak
[by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine, CA), re-published with his permission]
For years I have admired Congressman Ron Paul’s principled stance on spending and the Constitution. That said, he really damaged himself when he blamed President Lincoln for the Civil War, saying, “Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war… [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic.”
This is historical revisionism of the worst order, and it must be addressed.
For Congressman Paul’s benefit – and for his supporters who may not know – seven states illegally declared their “independence” from the United States before Lincoln was sworn in as President. After South Carolina fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, four additional states declared independence...
(Excerpt) Read more at grandoldpartisan.typepad.com ...
>>”I’m sorry but it’s a ‘semi-foggy’ recollection and I cannot remember the reference or the author.”
>
>Well, if you can find me something to read about it. I surely would like to. I’m not just saying that. I try to be after the truth, not just here to win an argument
To tide you over try this legal conundrum I’ve found:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2560780/posts?page=93#93
Secession and Liberty
http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/secession-and-liberty-by-thomas-j-dilorenzo-2/
Your claim was that no state would have joined the union if it thought it could not later secede; a third of the states joined with the explicit understanding that secession would be all but impossible, which tends to undercut that argument.
“No state would have ever” is somewhat hard to reconcile with the fact that seventeen states did.
The organising principle of Southern society was the natural superiority of the white race over the black race. Nothing was going to interfere with that. If slavery was either outlawed or phased out that meant at the least the former slaves could start to outvote the white populace and who knows where that may have lead. At the most it would mean that whites and black were morally equal. Both outcomes were completely unacceptable to the white populace whether slave owner or not.
Had armed citizens in SC not attacked Federal property who knows what might have been worked out, ie exchanging Federal property for cash or renouncing claims on western territories or maybe some conitued relationship. But once Fort Sumpter was attacked, then it was war.
There is no “attitude” involved simply knowledge of our constitution’s origin and the beliefs of its chief proponents and writers. That is something you prefer to subordinate to ideology and false history.
BTW the CSA “government” was just as “statist” as Lincoln’s.
What I'm anxious to establish is the right to seccede because a Federal government which requires you to buy health insurance is most certainly acting "Ultra Vires" the powers granted to it by the states under the Constitution.
Your posts might benefit from "because I said so" at the end, as there is no way to validate your opinions with fact.
Slavery was immoral true but slavery was legal in ALL states North and South in the 18th, early 19th century. Racism didn't end above the Mason-Dixon, Lincoln himself was a racist to the nth degree. That is fact.
Your comment about NY’s ratification is utterly false. Madison’s letter to Hamilton on the question of conditional ratification put an end to that issue there. H was actually considering letting a conditional ratification go through until that letter declaring once in the union always in the Union. It was then voted down.
Virginia’s legislature had NOTHING to say on ratification. The process was deliberately and explicitly removed from the hands of the legislatures by Congress. The only question was Approved? or Disproved? by a convention not the legislature. Virginia’s legislature could have declared the sky was Pink and appended that to the vote of approval with equal validity and relevance.
It was in NO way “...ratified with that understanding.” The only understanding was that a BoRs would be added by amendment.
NE’s proposed secession was just as illegal as the South’s even though NE had far more valid reasons for it.
Bookmark
It is certainly an open question whether Obamacare is constitutional and hopefully those opposed will come up with a GOOD case to take to court. A bad case would be a disaster.
Arizona’s law is not in CONFLICT with federal law but actually suppliments it so the “Supremacy Clause” does not appear to truly apply contrary to de jedge’s allegation.
But the constitutionality of secession is not in question and never was if the greatest of our founders thoughts are considered.
You do know that the "slave export program" that Lincoln proposed was inspired by his mentor Thomas Jefferson? Only unlike Jefferson, his plan was entirely voluntary?
Otherwise yes, it would have been a preferable resolution.
...Hasdrubal, who was younger than Hannibal but older than Mago, died valiantly in battle against the Romans as he tried to bring a second invasion army to Italy to support Hannibal.
The Romans cut off his head. Then they marched it to the other end of Italy and catapulted it into Hannibal’s camp. Hannibal, who still did not even know that Hasdrubal had arrived in Italy, last saw his brother’s face …. as it rolled toward him.
Did you mean this bro?
There is definitely a Northern version and a Southern version of the Civil War, or as we in the South like to call it, The War of Northern Aggression. Mr. DeVore obviously buys into the Northern version.
He leaves out the Federal governments imposing tariffs on machinery imported from Europe to protect the Northern manufacturers but to the detriment of the agrarian South. The South traded cotton to Europe and bought machinery there. The Northern manufacturers wanted that deal, to buy cotton for making garments and to sell machinery to the South in return. So they imposed a tariff on machinery imported from Europe. Many consider that the true trigger for the war.
He ignores that the slavery issue was more a power struggle between politicians than a burning issue among the people. There were few slave holders and there were almost as many slaveholders in the North as in the South. Thus, the Missouri Compromise. That was all politics with slavery as the front issue, much like Global Warming is today. Harriet Beecher Stowe had just written Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle Hymn of the Republic to add fuel to the fire, very similar to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring which furthered the cause of the Left and banned DDT.
The plantation owners were beginning to learn that slavery was not a winning economic proposition with the upkeep and the original costs involved. Slaves sold for around $2,000 dollars each depending on age, health, gender, and the needs of the buyer. How much is that in today's dollars? A bunch! Add to that feeding them, clothing them, and taking care of their health. A certain number of slaves had to be diverted from the money crops just to grow food, make clothes, build houses, etc. Slavery was an expensive proposition.
The most labor intensive part of cotton farming was separating the seeds from the fiber. It was slow and it took lots of folks working on it. The invention of the cotton gin, by Eli Whitney, meant that one person could now do the work of many, further eroding the economics of slavery.
The colonization of this continent began in the early 1500's. Slavery began in Africa, made its way to England and from there to this continent. That was almost 300 years before there was a United States of America. The Civil War came 60 years after that. To me, that is all further evidence that slavery was a political issue manipulated by politicians rather than a citizens movement. Slavery was also a well established fact of life in the world, not some evil scheme by Southerners to subjugate the Negros.
DeVore also ignores that most of those Southern states only joined the union with the proviso that if it did not accrue to their benefit they could withdraw from the deal. Lincoln conveniently ignored that. Lincoln was a politician doing things for political purposes, not the saint that history has made him out to be.
That is my thumbnail view of the situation and you are right, the victors write the history.
The comments in the article are really a reflection of the poor quality of our current education system. The author makes the mistake of trying to understand historical events through modern lenses, instead of understanding them through the lenses of the time.
The “right of succession” was a hotly debated topic right from the intial enactment of the Constitution all the way through the Civil War, and it was not split along north/south lines.
Several New England states came within a hair of succeeding over the War of 1812.
Andrew Jackson (a southener & president from 1829-1837) believed the union could never be broken, and was very vocal about it. The fact that the quote on Jackson’s statue in New Orleans is: “The union must and shall be preserved.” shows how ardent Jackson was on this issue.
President Buchanan (A Pensylvanian, and Lincoln’s predecesor) believed the federal government didn’t have the constitutional authority to use military force to prevent a state from leaving the union (another topic that had been hotly debated for decades prior to the Civil War.)
Succession may have been settled by the Civil War, but it was anything but settled prior to that. For decades prior to that honest, intelligent people from every part of the country fell on both sides of the issue.
For someone today to make a blanket comment that succession in 1860 was universally viewed as an illegal activity in 1860 is to show a stunning lack of understanding of American history. Lord help us if this is the quality of education our schools are providing today.
Lincoln had little to do with the initiation of the war. Slavers were so determined to keep slavery that they started long BEFORE Lincoln was even elected to effect secession. Buchanan’s cabinet was filled with men who transferred arms to Southern depots and dispersed troops to keep them from easy use against the South.
A Federal fort was attacked. A fort that was CLEARLY US property.
The South was better prepared for war than the Union was and had been long working just for that end.
All the Barca brothers swore the same oath to their father. To never be “a friend to Rome”.
Never be a friend to Rome = Never surrender.
When you surrendered Rome made you promise to henceforth ‘be a friend to Rome’.
That having been done, I would have no problem with the North (either as government policy or via citizens' groups acting privately) encouraging "regime change" by the slaves against their masters just as we should be encouraging regime change in Iraq.
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