Kalamata's post #547, continued #2...
Kalamata: "...Lincoln made it crystal clear in his inaugural that he rejected the constitutional authority of the states to secede, thus craftily reframing any resistance by them into “insurrection” and “rebellion,” rather than recognizing them as sovereign states.
I cannot say this enough: Lincoln was a tyrant."
You can say that all you want -- like any Democrat propagandist you believe that repeating your lies often enough will somehow make them true -- but your lies are still lies regardless.
Because, not only Lincoln, but also Democrat President Buchanan rejected secession's claim to constitutional legitimacy, as did many others in states outside the original Deep South Seven.
Further, armed resistance to lawful authority is the very definition of "insurrection" and "rebellion".
So Lincoln invented nothing new.
The only question in 1861 was: had such armed resistance happened?
Before Fort Sumter most Unionists said, "no", afterwards most said, "yes".
Kalamata: "The point is, Montgomery considered Sumter to be more secure than Moultrie, so he secretly relocated his troops there, committing an act of war."
I see your one-time "senior moment" has now evolved into "stuck on stupid" -- unless by "Montgomery" you refer to Davis' capital in Alabama, you meant to say: Union Maj. Anderson.
As for the alleged "act of war", that's just you insane Democrats going berserk as usual.
Kalamata on collecting tariffs off-shore: "That would also be an act of war."
In the minds of insane Democrats, the same people who now tell us asking for investigations of crooked Democrats is impeachable!
Kalamata: "Lincoln considered free trade going through the ports of Charleston to be a serious threat to his crony Whig agenda."
Some Northerners, not Lincoln, expressed such fears, but it was a fantasy since Confederates never even considered adopting "free trade".
Their original tariffs were basically the old Union tariffs of 1857 -- nothing "free trade" about that.
Kalamata: "Lincoln knew exactly what he was doing.
He was a greedy, power-hungry crony capitalist for his entire professional and political life."
Only according to the same insane Democrats who tell us the same sort of things about every real Republican president, including our current one!
Kalamata: "Again, Lincoln considered free trade going through the ports of Charleston to be a serious threat to his Whig agenda.
This is a part of conversation between Lincoln and Colonel Baldwin, a Virginia delegate, prior to Virginia's secession:"
Once again, that post-war quote from Confederate Congressman & Col. Baldwin is totally bogus, made-up long after the fact and corroborated by nobody at the time.
And now my time is up again, will return later... ![]()
>>Kalamata wrote: "Lincoln made it crystal clear in his inaugural that he rejected the constitutional authority of the states to secede, thus craftily reframing any resistance by them into “insurrection” and “rebellion,” rather than recognizing them as sovereign states. I cannot say this enough: Lincoln was a tyrant."
>>BroJoeK wrote: "You can say that all you want -- like any Democrat propagandist you believe that repeating your lies often enough will somehow make them true -- but your lies are still lies regardless."
I am limited-government conservative, Joey. Lincolnites are the big-government progressives, unless they are LINO's (Lincolnites In Name Only,) which I used to be when I didn't know that Lincoln was a crony-capitalist.
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>>BroJoeK wrote: "Because, not only Lincoln, but also Democrat President Buchanan rejected secession's claim to constitutional legitimacy, as did many others in states outside the original Deep South Seven."
I am glad you brought that up, Joey. Have you ever heard of John Quincy Adams? He seemed to believe that peaceful secession was the right thing to do when there were unreconcilable differences.
"[T]he indissoluble link of union between the people of the several states of this confederated nation, is after all, not in the right, but in the heart. If the day should ever come, (may Heaven avert it,) when the affections of the people of these states shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give away to cold indifference, or collisions of interest shall fester into hatred, the bands of political association will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited states, to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect union, by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the centre." [Adams, John Quincy, "The Jubilee of the Constitution." Samuel Colman, 1839, p.69]
How about Abraham Lincoln and this masterful statement in support of the right to secede?
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,—a most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit." [Speech in United States House of Representatives: The War with Mexico, January 12, 1848, in Basler, Roy P., "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln Vol 1." Rutgers University Press, 1953, p.438]
How about Timothy Pickering, who served as Secretary of State under Washington and John Adams, in this letter to George Cabot, who served in the 1791 U.S. Senate:
"The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy, —a separation. That this can be accomplished, and without spilling one drop of blood, I have little doubt… The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West." [Letter from Timothy Pickering to George Cabot, City of Washington, Jan. 29, 1804, in Adams, Henry, "Documents Relating to New-England Federalism, 1800-1815." Little, Brown & Company, 1905, 339]
Pickering not only recognized the right to secede, he was all for it!
How about this letter by Pickering to Richard Peters, who served in the Continental Congress:
"Although the end of all our Revolutionary labors and expectations is disappointment, and our fond hopes of republican happiness are vanity, and the real patriots of '76 are overwhelmed by the modern pretenders to that character, I will not yet despair: I will rather anticipate a new confederacy, exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and oppression of the aristocratic Democrats of the South. There will be — and our children at farthest will see it— a separation. The white and black population will mark the boundary. The British Provinces, even with the assent of Britain, will become members of the Northern confederacy. A continued tyranny of the present ruling sect will precipitate that event. The patience of good citizens is now nearly exhausted. By open violations and pretended amendments they are shattering our political bark, which, with a few more similar repairs, must founder. Efforts, however, and laudable ones, are and will continue to be made to keep the timbers together." [Letter from Timothy Pickering to Richard Peters, City of Washington, Dec. 24, 1803, in Adams, Henry, p.338]
How about Roger Griswold, who served in the 4th U.S. Congress and as the 22nd Governor of Connecticut, in this letter to, Oliver Wolcott, was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation:
"I have no hesitation myself in saying, that there can be no safety to the Northern States without a separation from the confederacy. The balance of power under the present government is decidedly in favor of the Southern States; nor can that balance be changed or destroyed. The extent and increasing population of those States must for ever secure to them the preponderance which they now possess. Whatever changes, therefore, take place, they cannot permanently restore to the Northern States their influence in the government; and a temporary relief can be of no importance." [Letter from Roger Griswold to Oliver Wolcott, March 11, 1804, in Adams, Henry, p.356]
On another note, concerning state sovereignty, this is John Marshall at the Virginia Ratification Convention:
"With respect to disputes between a state and the citizens of another state, its jurisdiction has been decried with unusual vehemence. I hope that no gentleman will think that a state will be called at the bar of the federal court. Is there no such case at present? Are there not many cases in which the legislature of Virginia is a party, and yet the state is not sued? It is not rational to suppose that the sovereign power should be dragged before a court." [John Marshall, Virginia Ratification Debates, June 20, 1788, in Elliot, Jonathan, "The Debates in the Several State Conventions Vol III." 1888, p.555]
Of course, that may have occurred prior to Marshall converting to a big-government Hamiltonite.
This is Thomas Jefferson in 1801:
"[E]very difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We are all republicans – we are federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." [First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801, in Appleby & Ball, "Thomas Jefferson: Political Writings." Cambridge University Press, 1999, p.174]
Jefferson again in 1816:
"If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation with the first alternative, to a continuance in union without it, I have no hesitation in saying,"let us separate." [Letter To William H. Crawford from Monticello, June 20, 1816 , in Jefferson, Thomas, "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Vol 15." Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903, p.29]
During the 1787 Convention, a resolution was proposed that would give the federal government a power of force over the states -- a power to coerce them to obey the laws of the Union. The resolution was rejected, as explained by Madison:
"The last of the proposed Legislative powers was "to call forth the force of the Union agst. any member failing to fulfil its duty under the Articles of Union" The evident object of this provision was not to enlarge the powers of the proposed Govt. but to secure their efficiency. It was doubtless suggested by the inefficiency of the Confederate system, from the want of such a sanction; none such being expressed in its Articles; and if as Mr. Jefferson argued, necessarily implied, having never been actually employed. The proposition as offered by Mr. R. was in general terms. It might have been taken into Consideration, as a substitute for, or as a supplement to the ordinary mode of enforcing the laws by Civil process; or it might have been referred to cases of territorial or other controversies between States and a refusal of the defeated party to abide by the decision; leaving the alternative of a Coercive interposition by the Govt. of the Union, or a war between its members, and within its bowels. Neither of these readings nor any other, which the language wd. bear, could countenance a just charge on the Deputation or on Mr. Randolph, of contemplating a consolidated Govt. with unlimited powers." [Letter by James Madison to John Tyler, 1833, in Farrand, Max, "The Records Of The Federal Convention Of 1787 Vol 03." 1937, pp.527-528]
Earlier in the convention, during a debate on the resolution, Madison asked for a postponement:
"Mr. (Madison), observed that the more he reflected on the use of force, the more he doubted the practicability, the justice and the efficacy of it when applied to people collectively and not individually. — , A Union of the States (containing such an ingredient) seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force agst. a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound. He hoped that such a system would be framed as might render this recourse unnecessary, and moved that the clause be postponed. This motion was agreed to nem. con." [Debates of May 31, 1787, in Farrand Vol 01." 1911, pp. 21, 52, 54]
Perhaps the Northerners, including Lincoln, were simply too historically-challenged to understand the concept of secession as understood by the Founding Fathers and other early Statesmen. Or, perhaps they were trying to forget.
Mr. Kalamata