PeaRidge: “Until he was elected, everything had gone fine; but now—following the election—seven Southern states had seceded from the Union, essentially based on what he said in his inaugural, and nobody knew how many more might follow.”
Note the Big Lie here, “seven Southern status had seceded from the Union, essentially based on what he said in his inaugural.”
In fact, all seven Deep South states declared secession in the months before Lincoln ‘ s inaugural, so the inaugural had nothing to do with it.
Nor did Lincoln ‘ s campaign rhetoric, because like most presidential candidates in those days, Lincoln stayed home and did not give speaches.
The truth is: there was no specific reason for declaring secession, no “material breach of compact” the Fire Eaters could point to, except one: their generalized fear of a hostility in the North, and now in the Federal Government, to their “peculiar institution” of slavery.
So they seceded “at pleasure”.
PeaRidge’s analysis: “The South had been threatening to secede ever since the Tariff of Abominations of 1828, but the North thought that those threats were just so much hot air...”
Actually, that Tariff of Abominations was passed by the leadership of Tennessean Andrew Jackson’s supporters and South Carolinian Vice-president Calhoun.
Threats of Nullification came from South Carolina, to which now President Jackson said he would hang the leaders.
So that was not North versus South, but rather one group of Southern slave holders versus another.
And in the years following, the Southern slave power continued to dominate Federal Government, resulting in average tariffs reduced from their high of 35% in 1830 to 15% in 1860, same as in 1792 under President Washington.
So, as long as the South controlled Federal Government, it WAS NOT threatening to secede.
When they lost control in the 1860 election, the Deep South declared secession immediately, without waiting for any material cause - they seceded “at pleasure”.
And the rest of that “analysis” is also pure ball shut, ie, the claim that Lincoln was a Whig, not Republican.
The truth is that most Republicans in those days were former Whigs, and Lincoln soon won over loyal support of former rivals like Seward.
Anyway, there’s more to say on this but it will have to wait until later...
"I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes."
Compare that to this earlier in Amercan History statement by President Andrew Jackson's Attorney General:
"Whatever may be the force of the decision of the Supreme Court in binding the parties and settling their rights in the particular case before them, I am not prepared to admit that a construction given to the constitution by the Supreme Court in deciding any one or more cases fixes of itself irrevokably [sic] and permanently its constuction in that particular and binds the states and the Legislative and executive branches of the General government, forever afterwards to conform to it and adopt it in every other case as the true reading of the instrument although all of them may unite in believing it erroneous."
Those two statements more than rhyme. But that's not all. The author of the second statement was none other than Robert B. Taney (later to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and author the Dred Scott decision).
The Civil War was caused by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is our "tyrant" (to this day). Judicial Tyranny. All of the powers of the central government are derived from "courts". I rest my case.