On this date in 1864 President Lincoln receives a Christmas gift.

[Bull Snipe]

"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" was over. During the campaign General Sherman had made good on his promise d “to make Georgia howl”. Atlanta was a smoldering ruin, Savannah was in Union hands, closing one of the last large ports to Confederate blockade runners. Sherman’s Army wrecked 300 miles of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. In all, about 100 million dollars of damage was done to Georgia and the Confederate war effort.

[DiogenesLamp]

One thing I want to touch on here, if unilateral secession was something the founders wanted states to be able to do, wouldn't they have devised a procedure and put it in the constitution?

The procedure they put forth in the Declaration of Independence didn't say everything needing to be said on the topic?

Why reiterate the exact same thing over again? The Constitution was written only 11 years after the Declaration. Nobody had forgotten what it said in only 11 years.

So if there is no process for states to leave the union it is not legal under the constitution. It is outside the law, i.e. rebellion.

All powers not enumerated are reserved to the states.

The Declaration was a separate and preceding document that had already enumerated this power.

[BroJoeK]

Continuing on Kalamata's post #547, #3.

Kalamata: "The bottom line is, the South was for peace, but Lincoln was for war.
That reminds me of this scripture:"

Confederates began provoking war in December 1860, eventually seizing dozens of Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. -- threatening Union officials and firing on Union ships.
At the same time they began preparing to start war at Fort Sumter, in the event Maj. Anderson didn't surrender soon enough.
Simultaneously, Jefferson Davis ordered Confederate General Bragg to start war at Fort Pickens, Pensacola.

Kalamata: "Blah, blah, blah . . ."

Right, just as you Democrats think you can impeach our President by throwing words at him like "Quid Pro Quo" and "personal benefit", so our old-time Pro-Confederate Democrats hope to re-assassinate President Lincoln with words like "tyrant" and "crony capitalist".

Kalamata: "Name-dropping Jefferson is a political trick typically used by progressives, like Joey."

Our Danny-child is unashamed to hijack Jefferson for his own nefarious purposes, but goes all postal when Jefferson is shown to oppose pro-Confederates.

Kalamata: "The legal document called the Constitution states, by omission, that when states exercise their constitutional authority to secede, they are no longer States or Territories of the Union, but sovereign states – or sovereign nations."

And by that same spirit of "omission" the Constitution clearly states that Danny-child Kalamata and his fellow pro-Confederates are absolute blithering idiots!
See... anybody can play that "omission" game, fool.

Kalamata: "If the constructors of the Constitution had intended the states to lose their sovereignty upon ratification, it would have explicitly said so within the powers authorized to the general government in Article I, Section 8, or, negatively, in the prohibited powers of Article I, Section 9. "

Rubbish.
Our Founders in 1776 considered their Union "perpetual" and nothing in the 1787 Constitution changed that.
So every Founder believed disunion could only come through mutual consent (as in 1787) or through necessity (as in 1776).
No Founder ever supported unilateral declaration of secession at pleasure.
The recognized Father of the Constitution, James Madison, explained exactly why, here.

Kalamata: "Jefferson not only understood that fact, but enshrined the right of the states to secede from the Union in his legacy works and writings, many times."

Every Founding President, including Jefferson, faced threats of rebellion, insurrection, secession & treason.
In President Jefferson's case, he had the secessionist (Aaron Burr) hunted down & arrested by the US Army and tried for treason.
No Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved secession, at pleasure.

Kalamata on the term "Lost Causers": "The term would be accurate if it were renamed to "Lost Constitutioners"."

I prefer the term "Lost & Confused Fantasizers", but "Lost Cause" is OK for short.

Kalamata: "You cannot hide Lincoln words by pretending they don't say what they say."

Danny-child, you cannot change Lincoln's words by pretending they say something he never intended.

Kalamata: "You are confused, Joey.
Raw cotton was an export.
The constitution disallowed duties on exports:"

Sorry, Danny-child, but you are the one lost & confused here because cotton was not just the US's #1 export, it was also our #3 tariffed import!
Cotton import revenues ranked behind only Woolens and Brown Sugar in dollar volumes and was imported to supply New England cotton mills, clothiers & garment makers.

So imported cotton was tariffed, as was sugar, tobacco and every other Southern export.
It's why the political issue was: some Southerners wanted to maintain high tariffs on their own exports, while reducing tariffs on foreign products they wanted to import.
Here is a listing of the 1860 top ten import tariff items:

Commodity	1860 tariff $
Woolens	8,155,000
Brown Sugar	7,430,000
Cotton	6,500,000
Silks	5,589,000
Iron & Iron mfg	4,458,000
Coffee	3,962,000
Molasses	1,800,000
Flax & Hemp	1,728,000
Tea	1,339,000
Wines	1,134,000

Kalamata: "You must be thinking of duties on finished cotton goods, such as shirts, dresses, etc.., which would cause everyone to pay more.
Cotton growers were hurt mostly by: 1) reciprocal tariffs placed by foreign trading partners, which lowered their incomes, and 2) higher prices for imported items.
It is simple economics, Joey."

First, notice 1860 Southern textile manufacturers in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia & Maryland.

So obviously such economics are not simple enough for your mind, Danny-child.
But this should be simple enough: every item exported by Southerners was protected by tariffs on imports of such products from foreign countries.
The simple purpose of all such tariffs was to encourage Americans to buy American -- in our language, to make America great by putting Americans first.

Kalamata: "As aforementioned (several times,) free trade through southern ports would have destroyed the Lincoln's crony-capitalistic schemes."

But there was never "free trade" even contemplated by Confederates, so somebody was panic rapid-breathing over their own fantasms.

Kalamata quoting a Northern newspaper: "...The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than at New York...."

That's totally bogus, since importing through New Orleans would require paying two tariffs which, regardless of how much lower Confederates set theirs, would still be more than just the single tariff paid in, say, New York.

Kalamata: "The... [government] would be false to all its obligations, if this state of things were not provided against."

Right, like making sure there were customs houses along the Mississippi River and any railroads connecting North to South.
There is no suggestion here that war is the only solution to their economic concerns.

Kalamata: "Yeah, everyone who doesn't kiss Lincoln's ring is a liar. I get it . . ."

No, not every former Confederate official was a liar, some honest Confederates have been quoted in these threads.
But many former Confederates were big liars, as are all of our current Lost Causers.
Remember, Confederates were Democrats and Democrats are all about their Big Lies, Danny-child.

Kalamata: "I mentioned that in one of my earlier posts on this thread, but it didn't go over very well.
The secession was for economic reasons, no matter how it is spun."

Certainly, the economics of slavery, as secessionists themselves proudly proclaimed:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation.
There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove...."

Those old slavers were unashamed to tell the whole world who they were and why they seceded.
They would mock you modern-day Lost Causers as wimps & weaklings for your shameless pretenses otherwise.

Kalamata on slavery: "That is not all that was said, Joey.
Recall that Senator Toombs labeled the Morrill Tariff a "raid against the South":

"It is true... that the present tariff was sustained by an almost unanimous vote of the South; but it was a reduction — a reduction necessary from the plethora of the revenue..."

Notice first that Georgia Democrat Senator Toombs here admits that Southerners supported the 1857 Tariff, because it was a reduction from the 1846 Walker Tariff.
He does not say that Southerners also supported the 1846 Walker Tariff.

Kalamata quoting Toombs: "...but the policy of the North soon made it inadequate to meet the public expenditure, by an enormous and profligate increase of the public expenditure;"

It's true, as Toombs implies, that Federal revenues & spending doubled between, say 1850 and 1860.
And national debt, while being reduced by half from 1850 to 1856 then doubled again by 1860.
Now, if you ask, where did most of that Federal money go to, the answer is: most went into increased military spending, including the Mormon Rebellion in Utah, the 1858 Paraguay Naval Expedition and in support of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis' deployment of Col. Robert E. Lee & other luminaries to the Texas frontier to battle against "Indian Savages" and "Mexican Banditti".

What Georgia Democrat Senator Toombs doesn't say is that all of this spending was under the absolute iron-fisted control of his fellow Southern Democrats, not "Northerners" and certainly not Black Republicans.

What, you ask, did Democrats lie and blame-shift?
Of course, that's the core essence of what it means to be a Democrat.

Kalamata quoting Toombs: "...and at the last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty.
That bill now lies on the table of the Senate."

First, that Morrill Tariff was defeated by Southerners in 1860 and would have been defeated again in early 1861 had Southerners not seceded.
Second, possibly some rates did increase as much as Toombs claimed, but the major items simply returned to their levels of 1846, levels Southerners were happy to accept at the time and should never have been just-cause for secession in 1860.

Kalamata quoting Toombs: "It was a master stroke of abolition policy; it united cupidity to fanaticism, and thereby made a combination which has swept the country.
There were thousands of protectionists in Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and in New-England, who were not abolitionists.
There were thousands of abolitionists who were free traders.
The mongers brought them together upon a mutual surrender of their principles.
The free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists.
The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill — the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South."

Let's be honest -- it is very seldom in United States history when us stupid Republicans have outsmarted evil Democrats at their own political games, and whenever we do, Democrats howl like mad-dogs, squeal like stuck pigs, and threaten everything in the book, from secession & assassination to impeachment.
Democrats have always played for blood -- "fairly" if they can, but however unfairly if they must.

So here in November 1860 Toombs complains that Republicans got the better of Democrats, but paints it in terms of typical Democrat hyperboles.

Kalamata quoting Toombs: "Under its ordinary and most favorable action, bounties and protection to every interest and every pursuit in the North, to the extent of at least fifty millions per annum, besides the expenditure of at least sixty millions out of every seventy of the public expenditure among them, thus making the treasury a perpetual fertilizing stream to them and their industry, and a suction-pump to drain away our substance and parch up our lands."

That is total nonsense.
In fact, about half (i.e., $40 million of $80 million total) of Federal spending went to the Army & Navy which had nothing to do with sectional politics.
The rest has been shown to be spread roughly proportionately among all the regions -- North, South, East & West -- with "the South" getting its "fair share".

Of course, typical of Democrats, if you are under the delusion that the South deserved 75% or 85% of Federal spending, then you might have reason for complaint.
But such complaints had no factual merit.

Kalamata: "Actually, I believe the newspaper said that slavery was merely a "mask," and that trade was "the controlling motive."
You are aware that some Northern newspapers were calling for a blockade of the South to prevent free trade, are you not?"

No, that's not exactly what they said, and two other things: first, it's not established that all such were Lincoln supporting Republican newspapers.
Second, again: "free trade" was a fantasm, conjured up by who knows who, but having nothing to do with actual Confederate tariffs.
The Confederate congress never contemplated "free trade".

Finally, we should notice that Lincoln's response to Fort Sumter was 1) to call up militia troops and 2) to announce a blockade of Confederate ports -- Gen. Scott's old Anaconda Plan.
However both those actions were first planned decades earlier as part of standard Federal responses to any potential rebellion or insurrection.
They had nothing to do with newspaper editorials in the spring of 1861.

Kalamata on alleged Confederate "free trade": "No, that would have been an economic reality under a non-protective tariff authorized by the Confederate Constitution.
They were not arm-chair historians, Joey: they were living it."

Danny-child, that's complete hogwash -- there was nothing "free trade" about Confederate tariffs.
Indeed, they were essentially the same as the Union tariffs of 1857, tariffs intended to protect American producers North and South.
So any talk of Confederate "free trade" was strictly "boogie man" political scare tactics.

Kalamata: "That is stupendously simple-minded, Joey.
Duty-free (or duty-light) imports would come through Southern ports.
The South and Territories would no longer be subject to the high prices of protected Northern goods."

Sorry, Danny-child, but you are the "stupendous" simpleton here, you have no real clue what you're talking about.
The fact is that any imports landing in, say, New Orleans would pay the Confederate tariff which was basically the old Union 1857 tariff.
Then, if that import shipped by steamboat or railroad north to, say, Union St. Louis, it would pay a second Union tariff, the new Morrill tariff -- there would be two tariffs, not one, and certainly not "free trade".

Enough for now, more later...

[Bull Snipe]

“Land, horses, cattle”

Cite the orders where Lincoln exempted Southern land, horses and cattle from being destroyed, seized or eaten.

The war would have take a couple of weeks if the Confederate Government was party to the agreement. If not it would take considerably longer.

The Confederates decided they did not want to be Citizens of the United States. Therefore The article cited is irrelevant. It applies only to U.S. Citizens.

[OIFVeteran]

Get it through your thick f*&^ing head. WHAT THE FOUNDERS DID IN 1776 WASNT SECESSION!!! IT WAS REBELLION/REVOUTION!!! Don’t believe me, here’s what some of the founder themselves said.

“As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar perhaps singular. What do we mean by the revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.”
— John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 24, 1815

“Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, and measure in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations.” - John Adams Letter to William Cushing, June 9, 1776

“The times that tried men’s souls are over-and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.” - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 13, 1783

“Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States might, at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils, must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.” - James Madison, Federalist No. 14, November 20, 1787

This is why Benjamin Franklin so famously said; “We must all hang together, or we will, most assuredly, all hang apart.”

Now, if you want to finally admit that what the southern rebels did in 1860 was revolution, then you can say they did the same thing as the founding fathers.

[DiogenesLamp]

Get it through your thick f*&^ing head. WHAT THE FOUNDERS DID IN 1776 WASNT SECESSION!!! IT WAS REBELLION/REVOUTION!!!

YES, I KNOW THAT! BUT THEY JUSTIFIED IT AS A NATURAL RIGHT, MEANING IT CAN BE USED FOR SECESSION TOO!

When they did it, it was rebellion. They founded a nation on the right to independence. Thereafter seeking independence was not rebellion in this nation. It was in accordance with the fundamental principle upon which this same nation was founded.

[DiogenesLamp]

Cite the orders where Lincoln exempted Southern land, horses and cattle from being destroyed, seized or eaten.

I don't need to cite any such order. The fact that such still existed in the South after the war demonstrates they were not treated in the same manner as were the slaves.

Had they treated other assets as they did the slaves, there would be no land, cattle or horses left in the South.

That's why it is clear this was not about the "war effort" but was instead merely the will of the people running the war.

[DiogenesLamp]

The Confederates decided they did not want to be Citizens of the United States.

The official position of the Union is that they do not get to decide. The Union decided that they remained citizens of the United states, and so therefore the Union should have been forced to treat them like citizens of the United States.

If the Union acknowledged they were in fact citizens of another Nation, then what they did to them can be excused, because Constitutional law does not apply to the citizens of other nations on foreign soil.

But that is not the claim the Union made.

[OIFVeteran]

NO, there is a natural right of revolution there is no natural right to secession. The natural right to revolution is an appeal to arms, war. Secession is a legal process to withdraw from a union, a legal process that is nowhere in our constitution no matter what the southern rebels claimed.

[OIFVeteran]

Your batting 0 tonight. The official position of the United States was that they were insurrections/rebels, insurrections/rebels have little rights and can be hung.

[x]

Your legal opinions and a dollar can get you a cup of coffee at the Quick Mart.

Get back to us when you have made a serious study of the law of rebellion and insurrection.

[x]

The difference here is that the North had slaveowners too, but did not care to do anything about the beam in their own eye. Therefore I don't give much credibility to their protestations of immorality on the part of others.

If you demand absolute moral purity and political correctness on one side before you can condemn any evil on the other, you will be living with a lot of really bad things and no hope of remedying them. The best is the enemy of the good.

You are like a Stalinist who responded to talk of the Gulag by saying that we have prisons of our own in America, or like someone who wouldn't fight Germany or Japan because we have racists of our own over here.

This week you have already shown yourself to be a hypocrite, someone who condemns Lincoln for his beliefs and actions but would think and act in the same way if confronted with a secession situation today. So as a hypocrite yourself, it's hard for you to legitimately condemn anyone else for hypocrisy. But that's okay. Everybody is a hypocrite about one thing or another and to one degree or another. That's part of living in the real world.

The immorality was a post hoc excuse to justify what they did, and what they did was to invade other people because they wanted to protect their money streams.

Duh. Welcome to the real world. Impure people fight to defend what they believe in. As they fight or after they fight they come to realize that there are weaknesses or contradictions in their own positions and in their own society and they work to put things right. We fought the Nazis first and got rid of segregation later. If we'd waited to be morally pure first, we'd be under the Nazi boot even now. We also got rid of segregation because it made us unpopular in countries we wanted to win over. Self-interest, sure, but not simply narrow self interest. It was also an attempt to bring our practices into line with our professed beliefs.

Therefore they have no moral high ground from which to lecture the same Southern slaveholders they would have kept in business had they kept control of the money stream.

Who is "they"? At least a million people bought Uncle Tom's Cabin. At least a hundred thousand belonged to anti-slavery societies. I doubt they were all willing to keep slavers in business. As for the rest of the country, you are blaming them for being "nice" and wanting to please Southerners and not make waves. So whether Northerners oppose slavery or accept it, they can't win and are condemned by you.

Because you constantly focus on "slavery" as some significant point, you inherently assert that some other reason would have been justifiable.

Your only moral position is this: Disunion is illegal for any reason.

By making it only about slavery, you are instead arguing, "Disunion is only wrong when we don't like the reason."

All these years and you don't have a clue. Withdrawal from the union is possible by negotiated, mutual consent. I think most legal experts would agree with that now. But that doesn't mean that we have to love any particular secessionist movement.

You referred to unionists as "monsters" and implied that therefore the slaveowners you thought were "monsters" apparently weren't. Where is the logic in that? Why does the war make slaveowners innocent victims of "monsters"? And do you seriously think that when you make talk that way about monsters that nobody's going to bring up slavery?

That seems to be a trick of yours. You excuse slavery and slaveowners and then when somebody points out what you are doing you accuse them of always bringing up slavery and not having other arguments. It's your problem if you don't want to read or think.

Weaker how? Unable to defend itself from foreign encroachment? I don't think it would have made any difference at all. When it comes to defense, the nation would have been as strong as it ever needed to be. The only difference is that the gargantuan federal government would serve only those purposes for which it was created rather than become some vast piggy bank for crony capitalists to raid, and for the rest of us to pay for.

What have you been smoking? Breaking the nation up into two or more countries would mean making the continent a playground for foreign interests. I can see that you don't have a problem with that, but some people do. And breaking the country up into two or more nations would mean higher military budgets and more tariffs. It would also mean much more control over borders and the rest of society in your beloved Slave-onia. There probably would be less wealth, but more social instability and more government throughout the continent.

[DiogenesLamp]

NO, there is a natural right of revolution there is no natural right to secession.

The founders disagree with you. They articulate that our own legitimacy is built on this natural right to be free.

Secession is a legal process to withdraw from a union, a legal process that is nowhere in our constitution no matter what the southern rebels claimed.

We've already covered this. There was no need to put it into the Constitution because it was already very well covered in the Declaration. Again, it was only 11 years later, and they would not have forgotten they wrote this.

[DiogenesLamp]

Your batting 0 tonight. The official position of the United States was that they were insurrections/rebels, insurrections/rebels have little rights and can be hung.

"Rebels" are citizens. Not Foreigners. Also which ones were Rebels? All of them? Were there no loyal citizens trapped among them?

[OIFVeteran]

Excellent post. I use to think he was principled, that principle being that anyone anywhere has a right to form their own government if they wish and no one should be able to stop them. Though I thought this view was too idealistic, it appeared to come from good intent.

However, after asking him several hypothetical questions about groups(Muslims) or states(California) leaving, he was less than supportive of this ideal of freedom. There seems to be something, shall we say peculiar, about the southern rebellion that makes him believe they should have been allowed to just walk away.

He also has the erroneous opinion that the right to revolution is the same thing as secession.

[OIFVeteran]

No, your wrong. I have already provided four quotes that clearly show the founding fathers called it a revolution or rebellion. If you can provide quotes from the founding fathers using the word secession to describe their revolt from England I would be very happy to look at them.

[DiogenesLamp]

Your legal opinions and a dollar can get you a cup of coffee at the Quick Mart.

The truth stands on it's own merits even if no one else supports it.

When guns decide the law, then truth doesn't really matter.

Get back to us when you have made a serious study of the law of rebellion and insurrection.

It can't be rebellion when you have a legal right to do it.

The entire accusation of "rebellion" is false, and the entire matter hinges on whether or not states had a legal right to separate from the Union.

The actual legal and historical evidence says "yes they do." Very little in the way of evidence says they don't.

If they have the right, it can't be "rebellion" even though a master manipulator proclaimed it so.

[DiogenesLamp]

If you demand absolute moral purity and political correctness on one side before you can condemn any evil on the other, you will be living with a lot of really bad things and no hope of remedying them.

I demand that one side cannot proclaim they are fighting to end slavery when they are in fact condoning it in their own land. This clearly makes the fight about something other than slavery.

This week you have already shown yourself to be a hypocrite, someone who condemns Lincoln for his beliefs and actions but would think and act in the same way if confronted with a secession situation today.

That's as much of a stretch as comparing this:

To This:

As they fight or after they fight they come to realize that there are weaknesses or contradictions in their own positions and in their own society and they work to put things right.

What was right in their minds was that they would control the money and government policy, and everyone else would just do as they were told. Who in the North was getting protected? The very wealthy and powerful men who got congressmen elected. That's who.

We also got rid of segregation because it made us unpopular in countries we wanted to win over.

I thought we got rid of it because the majority came to see it as morally wrong. I didn't know there was an ulterior motive for doing it.

Who is "they"?

The same they I'm always talking about. The elite politically connected wealthy plutocrats who mostly live between Washington DC and Boston, and who control massive amounts of industry and economics in this nation. The "they" that is still in control of the media and the "deep state", and who is even now trying to defeat Trump because he offers the normal people of this nation hope for their own futures rather then servitude to the elite "cloud people" aristocracy.

I'm referring to the 1860 version of these people.

At least a million people bought Uncle Tom's Cabin.

That would be about 4% of that population.

At least a hundred thousand belonged to anti-slavery societies.

That would be less than half of 1%.

I doubt they were all willing to keep slavers in business.

They were apparently willing to keep in business the slave holders that remained loyal to the Union.

As for the rest of the country, you are blaming them for being "nice" and wanting to please Southerners and not make waves. So whether Northerners oppose slavery or accept it, they can't win and are condemned by you.

I don't even understand what you are trying to say here.

Withdrawal from the union is possible by negotiated, mutual consent.

I argue often with people who claim there is no constitutional provisions for withdrawing from the Union, and now you are trying to claim that there is a process of negotiated mutual consent? What happened to the Union is forever position?

And why should a person have to ask a group of people for permission to no longer associate with them? The association was joined voluntarily, and so it should be voluntary to remain.

I think most legal experts would agree with that now.

I have never accepted "Argumentum ad Populum" as a valid proof of anything. Too often a mass of people will believe something stupid or ridiculous, so the fact that a bunch of some group or other believes something, is not actual proof of the something being true. Global warming for example. "Russian interference in the election", for another.

You referred to unionists as "monsters" and implied that therefore the slaveowners you thought were "monsters" apparently weren't.

They were both slaveholders, but the larger, more massive nation of slave holders, beat the much smaller nation of slaveholders, and as a consequence of the power they had amassed, they grew the government to massively intrude in everyone's lives.

Why does the war make slaveowners innocent victims of "monsters"?

Didn't say they were innocent. Said the people who defeated them were just as bad, but ended up creating another evil with which we are still dealing. And excessive, overbearing government that rams F@ggot marriage down our throats, along with Abortion, illegal immigration, welfare, attacks on our religion, and excessive taxation, among other abuses.

You excuse slavery and slaveowners and then when somebody points out what you are doing you accuse them of always bringing up slavery and not having other arguments.

I do nothing of the sort. I simply point out that the reasons the aggressor invaded had nothing to do with slavery, and everything to do with power and control. I point out that slavery is a red herring to cover up the real reason why the Northern states joined their men together to fight other states which simply wanted to be separated from Washington DC's control.

It is hypocritical to complain about a practice which you condoned so long as you controlled the money stream it produced.

Breaking the nation up into two or more countries would mean making the continent a playground for foreign interests.

And why would that be? We've had Canada and Mexico along side our borders for centuries, and apart from some relatively minor conflicts with them, everyone has gotten along okay. They still rule their territory, and we still rule ours, and we make no efforts to seize theirs, and they make no efforts to seize ours.

So Europe would suddenly be a prospect for a takeover? I think if the US and the CS had managed to coexist peacefully together, each would come to the aid of the other when necessary.

In fact, I think they would have merged again at some point in the future.

[DiogenesLamp]

No, your wrong. I have already provided four quotes that clearly show the founding fathers called it a revolution or rebellion.

Years ago when California voters passed proposition 8, "gay" activists immediately filed a lawsuit to stop it's implementation. One witty fellow said "why don't we save a lot of time and just ask Justice Kennedy what he thinks?"

Well you seem to believe that the opinions of four men have more legal force than the will of entire legislatures of states. I disagree. The people elect the legislatures, and the legislatures speak for the will of the people.

Men, speak for themselves, and for whatever office they hold, but few have greater authority than do the elected representatives of the people all voting in unison.

If you can provide quotes from the founding fathers using the word secession to describe their revolt from England I would be very happy to look at them.

"Secession" only applies to a nation that recognizes a right to separate. England was not such a nation. The US, by it's own Declaration, is such a nation.

[rockrr]

Well he’s certainly shined that turd to a high gloss. Somehow he forgets that his “right” to independence doesn’t come at our expense. And that his “right” to rebel does not obviate my right to security and should he start an armed rebellion that affects me & mine I have a right to shoot back.

That’s why we have compacts, treaties, and laws. And why there are invariably gonna be people forcing you back in line if you start trampling other people’s rights.

[Bull Snipe]

What court decisions support your proposal?