https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-2006-07-19-3689343-story.html
And here.
https://www.lib.niu.edu/2006/ih060934.html
Apparently Lincoln didn't think the idea was silly.
Posted on 12/22/2019 4:23:47 AM PST by 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.
If they voted to pass the amendment, that would have been proof that they were not. If slavery was all they were after, then that would have given it to them, would it not?
Your recollection is faulty then. It specifically protected slave imports.
So did the US Constitution until 1808.
It specifically mandated slavery in any territory the Confederacy might acquire.
Which is what all the slave states thought would be the norm when the US Constitution was ratified. That's exactly what they thought they were getting when they ratified it.
It specifically prohibited any laws that impaired the right in owning slaves.
Article IV, section II.
No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein...
Nullifies all state laws that would free escaped slaves.
If specifically prohibited states from passing laws preventing slaves from being brought in.
That's just a rewording of exactly the same thing.
By implication it prohibited any future amendment ending slavery.
Lincoln almost got that added to the US constitution by fact, not implication. He stated often that the constitution did in fact already mean that.
All those 'additions' protected slavery to an extent the Corwin amendment never dreamed of and far more than the U.S. Constitution did.
They only made the point more explicitly than did the US Constitution, but they added nothing in scope to what it already said. The drafters of the US Constitution tried to hide it's pro slavery components by couching them in euphemisms. The Confederate constitution simply stated the same thing more plainly.
They are the ones who claimed to be out of the Union. How could they be forced to vote to ratify the amendment?
They wouldn't have to be forced to vote for it if this amendment was giving them what you and others keep repeating that they wanted.
Why would they want Kansas as a slave state when it wouldn't have any significant number of slaves in it? Could it be that their desire to do so had nothing to do with actually having slaves in Kansas, and everything to do with securing more voting power in Congress?
And yes, they would have tried to get every new state admitted to be a "slave" state so that the would vote as a block against the larger north eastern power block that was then running everything.
Holding the numbers in congress is the only way you can protect your pocket book, and that's still true today.
I have a lot of silly conversations with you. I’m not going to entertain this silly one.
And why is it silly?
Ya think?
So you think they would have called off their secession and returned to vote on the Corwin Amendment? And you call my arguments silly?
So did the US Constitution until 1808.
No, protection was implied.
Nullifies all state laws that would free escaped slaves
But does not specifically prohibit Congress from passing laws impairing the right to own slaves.
That's just a rewording of exactly the same thing.
Nonsense.
Lincoln almost got that added to the US constitution by fact, not implication. He stated often that the constitution did in fact already mean that.
LOL! Hardly 'almost'. In any case the Confederacy already had it in their constitution.
They only made the point more explicitly than did the US Constitution, but they added nothing in scope to what it already said
Which makes me wonder if you have ever read the Corwin amendment, the Confederate constitution, or the U.S. Constitution.
They wouldn't have to be forced to vote for it if this amendment was giving them what you and others keep repeating that they wanted.
But it wouldn't. Their constitution would. So why cancel their secession?
Why don't we all save a lot of time and just find out what Abraham Lincoln thought?
Did he send the Southern governors the same letter he sent to the Northern states informing them of the passage of the amendment by Congress?
https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-2006-07-19-3689343-story.html
And here.
https://www.lib.niu.edu/2006/ih060934.html
Apparently Lincoln didn't think the idea was silly.
OIFVeteran wrote: “You calling anyone else a fool is rich.”
Quit acting like a fool, and you will be less likely to be called one.
Mr. Kalamata
What would give them they idea that all new territory would have slavery when the founding fathers outlawed slavery in the northwest territory?
I think the trouble with trying to understand the past is that there was not always a single motivation behind what was happening.
There are a lot of people who argue that slavery was on the wane, not only in the northern states, but everywhere. I think this contributed to the passage of that portion of the North West ordinance, but I think what also contributed to it was the belief that there would be no profit in slavery in any of those territories anyway.
Probably the Southern states were more accommodating of efforts to restrict or minimize slavery in those years because they saw at the time no great path to any significant profitability.
And then of course, Eli Whitney upended the whole game.
I also think some of the later concern about the "territories" had nothing to do with actually having slaves in them, but had more to do with both justifying it as acceptable and also acquiring more votes in congress.
Can congress override a constitutional right? When it didn't look like it mattered if the right was available or not, nobody cared. They started caring when they recognized it as potential future income or future political power.
In any case, an act of congress doesn't have the force or authority of an amendment, and they didn't do that, and I expect they could not have done that if they had tried.
An amendment speaks more to the will of the people than an act by their representatives and Senators.
Things got worse for the cronies under Jackson -- cronies such as Lincoln's hero, Henry Clay, and other big government types:
"Congress did respond favorably, however, to Clay's proposal to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States—only to have President Jackson veto the bill. Flouting a Supreme Court ruling that the government had a constitutional right to establish the bank, the President insisted the bank was unconstitutional. He called it an instrument designed to 'make the rich richer and the potent more powerful' while leaving 'the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers,' subject to government injustice. Clay lashed out at the President, saying he had been guilty of 'perversion of the veto power.... The veto is hardly reconcilable with the genius of representative government.... It is a feature of our government borrowed from a prerogative of the British king.... Ought the opinion of one man overrule that of a legislative body twice deliberately expressed?'"
[Harlow Giles Unger, "Henry Clay: America's Greatest Statesman." De Capo Press, 2015, p.163]
This historical narrative puts a different spin on it:
"The Bank veto of July 10 [1832] is the most important presidential veto in American history. It was a powerful and dramatic polemic, cleverly written to appeal to the great masses of people and to convince them of the truth of its arguments. The President claimed that the Bank enjoyed exclusive privileges that gave it a monopoly of foreign and domestic exchange. Worse, eight millions of its stock were held by foreigners. "By this act the American Republic proposes virtually to make them a present of some millions of dollars," said Jackson — and why should the few, particularly the foreign few, enjoy the special favor of the country? "If our Government," he continued, "must sell monopolies... it is but justice and good policy... to confine our favors to our own fellow citizens, and let each in his turn enjoy an opportunity to profit by our bounty." Over and over, like the intense nationalist he was, Jackson reiterated his concern over this foreign influence within the Bank.
"Then the President [Jackson] turned to the constitutional question involved in the recharter. He noted that [Marshall 's] Supreme Court in McCulloch v. Maryland had judged the Bank constitutional. "To this conclusion I cannot assent," he declared. Elaborating, he announced that the Congress and the President as well as the Court "must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision. The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve." Ever since the writing of this passage Jackson has been unfairly faulted for attempting to make himself co-equal with the courts in determining the constitutionality of Congressional legislation. What he actually said was that no member of the tripartite government can escape his responsibility to consider the constitutionality of all bills and to vote or act as his good judgment dictates. And, in the matter of the Bank now before him, Jackson did not agree with the Supreme Court. Since the Bank recharter was subject to legislative and executive action, he simply claimed the right to think and act as an independent member of the government."
"However, it was at the tail end of the message that Jackson detonated his political bombshell. In a calculated effort to intensify class antagonisms, he said: 'It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmer, mechanics, and laborers— who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.'
[Remini, Robert Vincent, "Andrew Jackson and the Bank War: a study in the growth of presidential power." W. W. Norton & Company, 1967, pp.82-83]
In another matter regarding Georgia and the Cherokees, President Jackson also thumbed his nose at the Marshall court:
"In a [Supreme Court] decision that left Georgians demanding secession, [Chief Justice] Marshall ruled the Cherokee Acts of the Georgia legislature"repugnant to the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States.
"The forcible seizure and abduction of [Samuel A. Worcester], who was residing... by authority of the President of the United States [as postmaster], is also a violation of the acts which authorize the chief magistrate to exercise his authority."
"With that, Marshall ordered Georgia's Cherokee Acts "reversed and annulled."
"All but ordering rebellion against the federal government, Georgia governor Wilson Lumpkin called Marshall's decision "usurpation" and said the state would respond with "the spirit of determined resistance."
"With no means of enforcing their decision, Marshall and the justices were helpless to prevent the collapse of the federal legal system. In Congress southerners voiced support for Georgia with shouts of defiance. Citing Jefferson's Kentucky Resolution, which stated that the Constitution was a compact between the states, South Carolina senator Robert Young Hayne called the Supreme Court decision "oppressive" and raised the banner of state sovereignty.
"The eloquent Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts fired back:
"It is, sir, the people's constitution, the people's government; made for the people, by the people and answerable to the people.... The people... have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law.... Who is to judge between the people and the government? ... Shall constitutional questions be left to four and twenty popular bodies, each at liberty to decide for itself, and none bound to respect the decisions of others?"
"Webster ended his defense of the Supreme Court and the Constitution with the stirring words that became a rallying cry across the North and parts of the West:"
"Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."
"As northern senators cheered, southern senators cried for armed resistance. Facing reelection in a matter of months, President Andrew Jackson declared allegiance to the South by telling New York journalist Horace Greeley, "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it."
"The controversy set Henry Clay's political blood aboil, and he set out on a series of public appearances, assailing the Jackson administration for its "injustice" toward the Cherokees and the "deep wound" it inflicted on "the character of the American Republic." He used his attacks on the President to renew his advocacy of the American System, with higher tariffs to protect American-made products from imports and internal improvements to unite the nation with a modern transportation system.
"With public opinion turning against the President in some parts of the country, Congress responded to Clay's appeals by passing an internal improvements bill designed to insult the President. It appropriated federal funds to extend the National Road from Maysville, on the Ohio border in northeastern Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee— the President's hometown—via Lexington, Kentucky—Clay's home town. The President vetoed it, insisting that the extension did not qualify for federal funds without a constitutional amendment.
"The presidential veto so outraged Kentuckians that they pressured Clay to run again for the presidency. He agreed, convinced now that the Calhoun-Jackson feud and the defection of Jackson's cabinet and the vice president from the administration had undermined the President's political strength and created a perfect opportunity to topple him from power."
[Unger, pp.157-159]
[Note: I believe James Madison vetoed a similar crony spending bill.]
The problem with unelected lawyers, such as those on the federal courts, is that they, like Lincoln and Clay of old, can find federal powers in the Constitution that no one else can, and some that were specifically rejected during the Convention. That is a pretty neat trick!
It is possible that Jackson threats were misunderstood regarding South Carolina's earlier threats to nullify the tariff. These words are from Jackson's Bank Veto:
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me, there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles. Nor is our government to be maintained, or our Union preserved, by invasion of the rights and powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our general government strong, we make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States, as much as possible, to themselves; in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence, not in its control, but in its protection, not in binding the States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed in its proper orbit."
[The Bank Veto, July 10, 1832, in James Parton, "Life of Andrew Jackson Vol III." 1870, p.409]
It is obvious Jackson was a decentralized and limited government Jeffersonian, with high respect for state sovereignty. I believe he considered the tariff to be constitutional, as long as he didn't waste it on crony projects.
Mr. Kalamata
I don't like this kind of talk. It can only lead to hard feelings - and worse.
“More explicit, but not greatly different from what the US constitution and the common law indicated”
Greatly different in one way. Under the Confederate Constitution, slavery was mandated in all Confederate states and territories. In the United States Constitution, slavery is not mandated. A state could outlaw the practice if they so choose. By 1860 15 states had made the practice of chattel slavery illegal, and it was illegal in all Territories of the United States.
Taney struck that restriction down as part of his Dred Scott decision.
Did it work?
How about telling us what the Southern states thought? They are the ones you expected to give up their secession attempt and come back to the Union.
“If Lincoln fought the war to “free the slaves” then who went to war to “keep the slaves”?”
You have been trained well, little grasshopper. To that let’s add cogent and connected ideas.
The Confederate president fought to protect and defend his nation’s constitution and, arguably, President Lincoln did the same thing.
Both constitutions enshrined slavery.
“Taney struck that restriction down as part of his Dred Scott decision.”
Not just Taney. It was a 7-2 decision. Not even close.
But in one of those Constitutions it was legal for a state to end slavery. By 1860 15 states had done so. In the other Constitution, states did not have that right.
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