Posted on 06/28/2017 11:20:43 AM PDT by Sopater
But the Constitution of the United States is supreme over any State constitution. Where did the United States Constitution “enshrining slavery”, as you put it,grant the states the right to outlaw slavery?
big difference between buying a joint on the street and keeping a human being as a piece of property like a horse or a mule. If a person chose not to buy drugs, there are those that would go somewhere else to sell them. If no chose to buy a slave, those people that profit from selling slave would go somewhere else to sell them.
Would you?
Thank you. This is one of my favorite parts of the Constitution. It explains why the U.S. Department of Education and so much more of our bloated, corrupt feral government is unconstitutional.
Note well: “which shall be made in Pursuance thereof”. If something - DOE for example - is not granted to the federal government within the enumerated powers of the constitution, it is not constitutional. Period.
Any feral law, or theory, prohibiting secession is not constitutional (under the original constitution) because the states did not give the federal government the power to prohibit it.
But the prohibition against secession is part of the synthetic constitution now.
Author Garry Wills explains how that came about: Lincoln, at Gettysburg, “performed one of the most daring acts of open-air sleight-of-hand ever witnessed by the unsuspecting. Everyone in that vast throng of thousands was having his or her intellectual pocket picked. The crowd departed with a new thing in its ideological luggage, that new constitution Lincoln had substituted for the one they brought there with them. They walked off, from those curving graves on the hillside, under a changed sky, into a different America. Lincoln had revolutionized the Revolution, giving people a new past to live with that would change their future indefinitely.”
It's illogical to think that among the powers a state retains is the power to nullify all federal laws through secession.
That would make the Constitution a mere scrap of paper that a state could throw away whenever it wanted to.
Author Garry Wills explains how that came about: Lincoln, at Gettysburg, “performed one of the most daring acts of open-air sleight-of-hand ever witnessed by the unsuspecting. Everyone in that vast throng of thousands was having his or her intellectual pocket picked. The crowd departed with a new thing in its ideological luggage, that new constitution Lincoln had substituted for the one they brought there with them. They walked off, from those curving graves on the hillside, under a changed sky, into a different America. Lincoln had revolutionized the Revolution, giving people a new past to live with that would change their future indefinitely.”
Garry Wills sure loves to hear himself talk. Maybe the idea that Lincoln was a rhetorical trickster comes naturally to him because he is just that himself.
In 1812 and 1846 we went to war as a country. The idea that we were only a loose league of independent states before Lincoln came around just doesn't fly. Americans increasingly thought of themselves as citizens of one country until agitation over slavery got them thinking differently.
Again, opinion. One could just as easily say that South Carolina's firing on the Star of the West was the first act of aggression and evidence that the South was not interested in a peaceful solution.
As for the Crittenden Compromise they were voted down in Congress. And when a later convention was held in Virginia to try and bring them back again none of the deep South states participated. So the simple fact is that neither side saw them as a solution.
Why? The Texas v. White decision made it clear that secession as legal if done correctly.
You claim that everyone says Lincoln fought the war to end slavery. You claim that secession is illegal. Have you not done any research on the subject at all?
Add two additional clauses.
Article 4, section 1, clause 1: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired." This guaranteed that states could not end slavery within their borders because they could not legally prevent citizens from other states from bringing them in or leasing their slaves to citizens of the state.
And section 3, clause 3 stated: "The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States." This guaranteed any state admitted to the Confederacy would begin as a slave state.
This was done to give negotiations for peace a chance by enabling the Governors to present to the people and politicians of South Carolina and Florida tangible proof of the peaceful intentions of the government.
That "armistice" was a verbal agreement of sorts. Buchanan didn't want to put anything in writing. The agreement was regarded by Gist as a temporary measure. Buchanan regarded it as a statement of his present intentions that was not intended to be permanently binding.
Neither side was primarily focused on negotiations. For Gist, the "armistice" or "truce" was a tactical measure. South Carolina was certainly prepared to demand the forts and use force to get them once the secessionists' position was stronger. Buchanan wasn't committed to negotiations either.
In and around all that you ignore acts of aggression on the part of the Confederacy in South Carolina. Like seizing Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinkney, the Charleston Arsenal, and all other federal property in the area. Like firing on the Star of the West. There was no interest in a peaceful solution on the part of the South.
Be my guest.
thanks. Was going to cite these clause, but decided to keep it short.
Victor's Justice.
I always wondered why Lincoln didn't go to court and get an order requiring the southern states to return to the union and then, if necessary, enforce the court order. It possibly could have avoided war.
Maybe because at the time he was threatening to have the chief justice of the Supreme Court arrested?
Maybe Lincoln didn't want a ruling on the constitutionality of secession until 300,000 or so Southerners were safely buried.
For that Lincoln needed a pretext for war, which he found using the navy in the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Err, I meant to say in the Fort Sumter incident.
“The idea that we were only a loose league of independent states before Lincoln came around just doesn’t fly.”
Right. Southerners loved the union created by southerners George Washington (Father of the Country); Thomas Jefferson (Author Declaration of Independence); James Madison (Father of the Constitution); George Mason (Father of the Bill of Rights). Southerners wanted to preserve the original union and compromised their own best interest at times in order to keep the union intact. There were limits.
Indeed... And think about this: Why on Earth would the North want to associate with the South in the first place? It makes no sense. One party says, “Hey, you think we suck, we don’t want to live here anymore, so we’re going to do our own thing.” The other party says, “NO! You ain’t going anywhere you racist sack of shite!’ It... is... ALWAYS... about power.
Hey genius, the North could have said, “It’s a free country, go in peace.”
Arguably, the votes of the states of New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Delaware and Maryland to enshrine slavery into the U.S. constitution was the most embarrassing chapter.
Many of the people in these states - we are told - believed slavery was morally wrong but voted to include it in the U.S. constitution anyway because they concluded it was in their state's economic and political best interests.
“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”
The formation of the country was about the formation of the country.... Imagine that you and I wanted to form a corporation tomorrow. Would we start by talking about family medical leave? And then if we disagree on that decide that we weren’t going to form the new company at all? Thank God you weren’t around to cause chaos at the founding.
Two likely reasons. The first is that the Supreme Court was not in session and the president does not have the authority to call them into session. And two, the Confederacy started their war within five weeks of the inauguration so there really wasn't any time.
Maybe because at the time he was threatening to have the chief justice of the Supreme Court arrested?
Total nonsense. As I have pointed out before on this forum, Roger Taney has been the subject of a number of biographies. And in not a single one has any of the biographers mentioned anything about Lincoln's plan or attempt to arrest him. Not a single one. So there are three possible reasons for this. One, all these men are incompetent. Two, and no doubt this is the reason you will sign on to, all these men conspired to hide the truth to make Lincoln look good. Or three, it never happened.
Maybe Lincoln didn't want a ruling on the constitutionality of secession until 300,000 or so Southerners were safely buried.
Several decisions handed down during the period referred to the Southern war as a rebellion so that can't be it.
For that Lincoln needed a pretext for war, which he found using the navy in the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Err, I meant to say in the Fort Sumter incident.
Lincoln fought the war that Davis started.
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