Posted on 02/26/2015 11:13:23 AM PST by C19fan
So we’re in late February, which means it’s the season for local Jefferson-Jackson Days, when local Democratic Parties hold potlucks to raise money and get people pumped for Get Out the Vote drives. It’s also shortly after President’s Day, which is, for me, always a day spent reminiscing about random presidential trivia and tweeting unpopular opinions.
And for once one of those unpopular opinions caught the attention of an editor and now I’m writing about how the “Jackson” in Jefferson-Jackson Day is an abomination. Indeed, I want to grab my fellow Democrats who say stupid, historically ignorant things about how George W. Bush was “the worst President ever” by the lapels and shove them at Andrew Jackson’s Wikipedia entry, rubbing their nose in it until they understand what they did.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
From wackypedia:
Antebellum New Orleans was the commercial heart of the Deep South, with cotton comprising fully half of the estimated $156,000,000 (in 1857 dollars) exports, followed by tobacco and sugar. Over half of all the cotton grown in the entire United States passed through the port of New Orleans (1.4 million bales), a full three times more than at the second leading port of Mobile, Alabama. The city also boasted a number of Federal buildings, including the New Orleans Mint (a branch of the United States Mint) and the U.S. Customs House.[5]
I noticed that from your posts.
I still have little doubt that Charleston Harbor was the most important one in the South for various reasons.
And those reason are?
New Orleans and Norfolk both had serious weaknesses.
Yet New Orleans was the busiest Southern port in terms of imports and exports, while Norfolk was one of the least busy in those terms.
Charleston held out to the very last.
Maybe because from a strategic standpoint it wasn't that important?
It was the South’s most important harbor.
So you keep saying.
No, they're being historically accurate.
Here is a listing of top US cities, by population, in 1860
The first thing you'll notice is that compared to such metropolises as New York (#1, with Brooklyn 1,080,000 people), Philadelphia (#2, 565,000) and Boston (#5, 178,000), Southern cities are all quite small -- with two exceptions: Baltimore (#4, 212,000) and New Orleans (#6, 167,000).
In the secessionist Deep South, in addition to New Orleans, there were three ports of note: Charleston (#22, 41,000), Mobile (#27, 29,000) and Savanah (#41, 22,000).
Also: a long list of smaller ports (Brunswick, Fernandina, Jacksonville, Cedar Key, St. Marks, Pensacola), all interconnected via railroads & telegraphs, which made it somewhat irrelevant as to which particular port a ship might land.
These small ports later became critical to Confederate blockade running ships.
Point is: there was nothing unique or special about Charleston Harbor, except, of course, that it was the heart & soul of the Slave Power's secessionism.
Plus, it was almost the only Federal property that Dough-faced Democrat President Buchanan had not already abandoned by the time Lincoln took office, on March 4, 1861.
So, for the Confederacy, the issue at Fort Sumter was their pride and honor.
For Lincoln, it was his oath of office, to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution:
This moron Chu dipped his toe in the #GamerGate waters a while back and came out without a foot ... total Millenialmoron ...
DoodleDawg: "No, they're being historically accurate."
A summary of historical facts:
All this happened before a single Confederate soldier was killed in battle with any Union force, and before any Union army invaded a single Confederate state.
In short: the Civil War began as a War of Confederate Aggression, an existential threat, against the United States.
So any argument alleging the Confederacy didn't want, and didn't start Civil War, has no validity.
First the right of secession had been commonly understood since the ratification of the Constitution.
Second the Confederacy had warned Lincoln not to resupply Fort Sumter. Any nation would consider the occupation of a foreign fort on their territory especially one located in a vital sea port to be an act of aggression.
If you believe as did most statesmen of the US up until at least the 1830s that the member states of the union were sovereign states and that those states had the right to secede from the union.
If the Confederate States had the right to secede then you must conclude that the Confederate States were a sovereign nation after having voted to secede.
If the Confederate States were a sovereign nation then the attack on Fort Sumter was a defensive act.
Even post-Civil War I still contend that any state can vote to secede from the United States. There is no provision in the Constitution stating otherwise.
In fact, there are a number of historical analogies to Fort Sumter:
The fact is that the Confederacy had no lawful claim -- none -- to Fort Sumter, and their military assault on it was an act of war as certainly as any other such attack.
One can argue that the founders believed there was a right to leave the Union. Madison himself said on several occasions that leaving the Union required the consent of the remaining states. Contrast that with the way the South chose to leave; without negotiation, repudiating responsibility for national obligations like treaties and the debt, and taking every bit of federal property they could get their hands on without compensation. In short, the South chose to leave in a manner guaranteed to provoke acrimony. Surely you can't believe that the Founding Fathers would have sanctioned that?
Second the Confederacy had warned Lincoln not to resupply Fort Sumter. Any nation would consider the occupation of a foreign fort on their territory especially one located in a vital sea port to be an act of aggression.
Except that the fort did not belong to them and the garrison had taken not a single hostile act against Charleston or the rebel forces. On the contrary, the rebel batteries had fired at everything in sight and were actively trying to starve the fort into surrender. So who where the aggressors in this picture? Certainly not Lincoln.
If you believe as did most statesmen of the US up until at least the 1830s that the member states of the union were sovereign states and that those states had the right to secede from the union.
I would disagree with the "most statesmen" and state again that there was no right to secede in the manner the South chose to pursue.
If the Confederate States were a sovereign nation then the attack on Fort Sumter was a defensive act.
Complete nonsense.
Even post-Civil War I still contend that any state can vote to secede from the United States. There is no provision in the Constitution stating otherwise.
Would you agree then that the states also have the right to expel a state from the Union against its will? There is nothing in the Constitution that states that they can't either.
Well Said.
If I am to hold to a strict adherence of the words and meanings of the constitution I would have to admit that, for better or worse, the Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions. Do you agree?
A landmark decision was rendered by SCOTUS in 1869 with Texas v. White. let me quote from the Texas v. White decision:
"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States...Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union."
But of course that decision wasn't posted until after the civil war ended. And if you were to say that the constitution is quiet on the topic of secession I would be the first to agree. But its absences doesn't necessarily mean an omission and definitely doesn't indicate an excuse. So we need to seek guidance from those who constructed the document that guides our union.
You claim "First the right of secession had been commonly understood since the ratification of the Constitution but every attempt at secession, north or south, has been quashed by the balance of the states. Sure you can find lofty oratory from the founders on the right of rebellion but only offered in the oratorical or theoretic sense. As a practical matter they all signed onto a perpetual agreement.
Second the Confederacy had warned Lincoln not to resupply Fort Sumter. Any nation would consider the occupation of a foreign fort on their territory especially one located in a vital sea port to be an act of aggression.
But it wasn't a foreign port and the confederacy never achieved the status of a sovereign nation. No other nation on Earth recognized them as anything other than rebel upstarts. Thus, the only "occupying" was done by rebel insurrectionists as an illegal action against the federal government.
If you believe as did most statesmen of the US up until at least the 1830s that the member states of the union were sovereign states and that those states had the right to secede from the union.
We are a system of sovereign states - we just happen to be members of a republic built around the concept of Dual Sovereignty. That concept defines who contains what powers and the power to control admission and expulsion of states is left to Congress - not the individual states. Congress, being the collective representative of the individual states holds the exclusive power to say who comes, who stays, and who goes. This fact invalidates your next three sentences. It is my understanding that states do have the option to secede from the union - just not unilaterally.
The attack on Sumter was simply a stupid act of ego. There was nothing to be gained, other than a poke in the eye, and we have seen exactly what could - and was lost.
The very occupation of the fort by the army of a foreign power is a provocation.
there was no right to secede in the manner the South chose to pursue.
Being that there is no provision in the Constitution for secession that leaves it in the purview of the tenth amendment as a right reserved to the state. There is no codified procedure for secession so the South was within their rights to separate as they saw fit. The North would have been better to seek redress for their grievances concerning the debt and property after abandoning the forts.
Complete nonsense.
That is not an argument
Would you agree then that the states also have the right to expel a state from the Union against its will? There is nothing in the Constitution that states that they can't either.
I don’t disagree. I would be willing to hear a motion to expel Massachusetts.
;)
Just for show. It was a political ploy. Patronage and all that.
Not at all. It was never intended to be. Marbury v. Madison was a power grab by the court. Jefferson disagreed with Marshall's reasoning in this case and I think he has proven prophetic.
‘You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”
Congress, being the collective representative of the individual states holds the exclusive power to say who comes, who stays, and who goes.
To say that this is true is to invalidate the entire premise that secession is possible for an individual or small group of states because the majority of states will always vote against the minority in order to preserve the tax income of the minority.
This is to say the right of secession is purely a fiction. The only reason the majority would agree to permit a state to leave is if that state became a burden to the whole in which case the burdensome state would never agree to sever the ties that support its burdensome populace.
A right that depends on the willingness of others to exercise is not a right.
But it was their fort. How can that be a provocation?
Being that there is no provision in the Constitution for secession that leaves it in the purview of the tenth amendment as a right reserved to the state.
No. It's clear from Article I and Article IV that approving the admission of states and approving any change in status once they have been allowed to join are powers reserved to Congress. By implication that includes leaving entirely.
The North would have been better to seek redress for their grievances concerning the debt and property after abandoning the forts.
How? Through a war? The South walked away from the debt and stolen everything they could get their hands on. What redress did the North have to compel them to pay up?
That is not an argument
But is an accurate description.
Spot on. Behind many of America’s most despicable acts you’ll find a Democrat (prog/lib/etc.).
I can see where Article 4 Section 3 could apply.
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.
But that presupposes that the state in question is a member of the union. If that state has seceded then it will no longer apply.
I see nothing in Articles 1 or 4 that restricts unilateral secession. I can only understand State Sovereignty in the context of voluntary membership in the union. Anything less is not statehood.
That is not an argument
But is an accurate description.
I assumed we were having a friendly debate. I believe I am making factual arguments. If I am wrong I will admit it if you show me factual rebuttal.
But it was their fort. How can that be a provocation?
Where territory or other property within the states boarders had been ceded to the Federal government by the state for its use it could be assumed that that territory or other property would revert to the state upon that state leaving the union.
This only makes sense because to assume otherwise would be to have an outpost potentially hostile foreign entity within your boarders.
All discussion about the merits of Jackson aside, what I find interesting is that this is yet another example of a Progressive lashing out at other Progressives for not being PC enough.
Which is now a building trend.
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