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 ...
They cannot dissolve their Republican form of government (which is guaranteed) and form a new State without..... forming a new State made up of one or more States.
They are, were, and shall remain subject to the Constitution. Enforced by force of arms if need be.
After the fact. That was my point.
We are speaking in the hypothetical. But if you want to be technical - None of them allow you to remove yourself and you immobile property from thier jurisdiction - being forced to leave behind your property is NOT a valid remedy for injustices!
Again - why the insistance that I must delegate a power I reserve to myself and my fellow citizens?
Basler, Vol. II, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), p. 115.
On January 12, 1848, Lincoln, in an address before the United States House of Representatives, stated:
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable — a most sacred right — a right, [p270] which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
Dorr was part of a group that wanted things the way they wanted things. They were frustrated because they repeatedly encountered a government that wasn’t persuaded by their proposal. So they resorted to illegally attempting to seat their own government.
If I were Tyler I would have supported the state as well. On this he said: “If resistance is made to the execution of the laws of Rhode-Island, by such force as the civil peace shall be unable to overcome, it will be the duty of this Government to enforce the constitutional guarantee — a guarantee given and adopted mutually by all the original States.”
Dorr was convicted for his complicity in the insurrection (although later had his sentence commuted).
Are you unfamiliar of either the teaching-style or the debate-style wherein a point is led to by asking questions?
Let me put it this way then: either a Constitution is a legally binding document or it is not. If it is, then at what point does blatant violations thereof invalidate the very government which it sets up? If it is not legally binding then by what authority do the various branches of government operate upon?
Horseshit. I used the terms I used colloquially, rather than waste bandwidth explaining the process. You jump on this like the damned spelling Nazis. Who are the Legislators? Who are the convention attendees? Where did they come from? Are you remotely familiar with the history of the United States between 1840 and 1861? To say that the Feds did nothing to spark the war is ignorant in the extreme. You really need to do some research.
Did they "dissolve" the republican form of goverment? Or did they simply decide to constitute thier OWN republican form of government instead of being subject to the already existing one?
So you’re willing to state that the state of South Carolina lacked the authority to deny passage of a warship [by carrying war-supplies it fit the definition; it was the correct reason the Germans sunk an American ship in WWI] into its waters?
On whose authority was the ship dispatched?
If it was not requested by the legislature or executive of SC, then is it not overstepping the bounds of the Federal government according to the Constitution?
They don't get a “we don't want to be anymore, so we are not” vote. They don't have that power, either legally or (as things were actually decided) militarily.
Glad to see all your arguments supporting you position!
I already stated that they did so AFTER they had seceeded - so that in an of itself can not be used as justification. Instead you must argue that the secession itself was invalid.
There seems to be a lot of disagreement over whether states had/have this “right” - repeating your “were, are and shall remain” does not make it more correct. I’ll gladly discuss this with you if your willing to actually bring some arguments to the table ...
The ordinances of secession were the actual legal language by which the seceded states severed their connection with the Federal Union. The declarations of causes, given elsewhere on this Web site, are where they tended to disclose their reasons for doing so, although only four states issued separate declarations of causes.
The political theory of the time among secessionists required that the act of secession be carried out by a specially elected convention or by referendum. In this sense the "secessions" of both Missouri and Kentucky were flawed, as neither was carried out in this manner. The Missouri secession ordinance was passed by a rump legislature and never approved by the people at large. The Kentucky secession ordinance was adopted by a convention of 200 participants representing 65 counties, held in Russellville.
Being forced to give up your property is NOT a remedy for tyrany.
The Southern states did not put the vote to the people.
Are you claiming that the state governments did not represent the will of the people? Did these governments allow the people to vote on other matters of a constitutional nature (admitting new states, ammendments, etc?)?
If that is the case, Dr. McWhiney taught you some very bad history. Ft. Sumter was never a customs collection point. In fact, Ft. Sumter was never really an operating military base. It was sill under construction when Major Anderson evacuated his small garrison from an indefensable position at Fort Moultrie.
The Customs House was in downtown Charleston, and was already siezed by the Confederates.
Right.
It is undeniable that the South had legal options they chose to make no attempt to exercise. Instead they chose to “appeal to arms,” largely because they assumed the success of their revolt would be swift and relatively painless.
This turned out to be a mistaken assumption. But it was not unreasonable. Most informed foreign political and military observers thought the CSA would succeed.
The reason for this gap between perception and reality is probably that the world was changing rapidly, and political/military perception was lagging behind. Industry and the railroad made it possible for the Union to field, supply and move an army large enough to conquer the South.
In 1850 or earlier southern secession would have probably succeeded relatively quickly and bloodlessly. The difference between population and wealth was not nearly as great as in 1860, and in particular the railroad network would probably not have been able to support the Union war effort.
OTOH, in 1870 the Union would have probably won relatively quickly, since the population, wealth, industry and railroad disproportion would have been even greater than a decade before.
IOW, the South chose to secede at the only time in our history when a long bloody war was possible.
Thanks, guys.
Ahh, more modern Yankee fairy tales. So sweet.
Nope. The legislatures set up special conventions, elected by the people, on the no-blacks, no-women suffrage of the time, to consider secession. At least some of the states, I believe at least VA and TX, also submitted the convention's resolution of secession to popular referendum.
Thanks for that - I was not aware of this.
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