Posted on 06/29/2023 4:16:36 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp
The late Great Walter Williams makes it quite clear that he believed the South had a right to secede.
Bledsoe spent the entire CW in London pouring over the only other of the Constitution because Davis suspected that the North would try to show the South was wrong in a court of law. Chase feared Bledsoe in a court of law (Bledsoe was the chancellor and teacher at Ole’ Miss Law School) and knew that the North was wrong to invade the South and feared reparations to the South. A later case from Texas came up but the SCOTUS was packed with Northerners and didn’t have a chance. Bledsoe shows how in the Federalist papers even the preamble described asession into the Union but was changed for brevity. A recent study at Harvard (of all places unexpectedly) came to the conclusion that the Constitution was changed at the point of a bayonet and secession has not been proved to be unconstitutional. Many are not informed of the topic and parrot what is briefly written in many inadequate history books.
Lincoln had Union troops attack and take Pensacola a month before Sumter. Lincoln was dishonest in his talks with the Confederate emissaries that were in D.C. He told them he wouldn’t reinforce Sumter at the same time he was sending a fleet to reinforce Sumter. This ruse was ferreted out by the Confederacy and the reason Beauregard was ordered to fire on Maj Anderson’s garrison.
The Constitution is binding upon both states and the federal government. Do you think the Constitution and the AoC still apply if the federal government has thrown off its Constitutional restraints? If the Federal government declares war upon a state, does the Constitution still apply at that point?
If Joe Bidon sends the corrupted military door-to-door to collect your guns and you can’t stop them, is your state still binded to the AoC?
The AoC can only work if all parties stick to the agreement. WHen they don’t the agreement is voided.
Fake argument. The South did secede. Right or wrong. Everybody knows that. Just read the Cornerstone Speech. According to the Vice President of the Confederacy everything was going along swimmingly. They had successfully formed their own separate government and were looking forward to their future. The problem arose when the Confederacy fired on the flag of the Union flying over Fort Sumter.
Don’t be afraid of the dissolution of the United States. Be more afraid of not being faithful to the foundation of the United States.
I knew you would finally go there. That was written by men who created the UNITED STATES. Men Divinely inspired . And, they codified GOD given Rights into the Constitution. The CSA NEVER had that, Government could do whatever it wanted to you.Only one was GOD ordained, in fact, only the USA declares that rights come from GOD, which is why Satan hates it so much.
No, we must not let the left destroy either.
If the left has destroyed it, what are you trying to preserve?
Land?
As I have repeated, it is the final step when all else has been taken. Otherwise, you’ve turned the US into a slave country.
I agree with everything you say.
I was only addressing whether a state had the right to secede or not. I wasn’t addressing anything else, or intending to.
Ok
It is not the design of this book to open the subject of secession. The subjugation of the Southern States, and their acceptance of the terms dictated by the North, may, if the reader please, be considered as having shifted the Federal Government from the basis of compact to that of conquest; and thereby extinguished every claim to the right of secession for the future. Not one word in the following pages will at least be found to clash with that supposition or opinion.
The 14th Amendment defeats state claims of being sovereign and independent states. It reversed the relationship of the states and the federal government. It dictates to the states who are its citizens. Self-determination of state citizenship was extinguished.
The book was later republished by his daughter Sophia under the title, "The War Between the States; or Was Secession a Constittional Roight Previous to the War of 1861-65?" This reprint edition included an explanatory preface which may be of interest.
EXPLANATORY PREFACEAlbert Taylor Bledsoe had been graduated at West Point in 1830. He was there with both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, though not a classmate of either. While professor of mathematics in the University of Mississippi his relations with Davis were maintained with great cordiality.
He was not in favor of sesession, but with the call for her quota of 75,000 men from Virginia, to enter the Federal Army, like Lee and other Virginians he felt that he could not ally himself with the enemies of his State, so he entered the Confederate Army, receiving the title of Colonel; but he was preeminently a student and a scholar, not a soldier. Later President Davis gave him a position in the Confederate Cabinet; his title was Chief of the Bureau of War, his duties those of Assistant Secretary of War. Later on in a consultation between Davis and Lee it was decided that the greatest service he could render to the seceded States was to write a constitutional history which should, if the facts were made clear, justify the South in the right to secede.
In order to do this it was necessary for him to have access to the debates in the formation of the constitution, of the United States as well as of the individual States, then constituting the Union.
The necessary documents were not to be found south of Mason and Dixon’s Line. He was therefore obliged to go to England to study there in the British Museum.
My mother, who was born in New Jersey, but for many years had lived in the South, was an ardent Southerner. She, out of a very limited inheritance, paid all of the expenses of the trip, of my father’s stay of several years in England, and of the family while he was gone, as well as of the publication of the book after his return in 1866.
He had intended to give it the title almost exactly like the' subtitle of the published volume; but on his return to America, Jefferson Davis was a prisoner in Fortress Monroe, and in peril of his life. He, therefore, gave the volume when it was issued the title, “IS DAVIS A TRAITOR?”
Charles O’Connor, Mr. Davis’s advocate in the trial for treason, told my father that without the facts brought to light in his book, he could not have saved Mr. Davis’s life.
My mother never received any compensation for what she had expended, and she always rejoiced that she had been able to aid in justifying her beloved South.
These few words of explanation seem necessary in issuing this volume again, as a book of reference for the schools of the South.
Sophia Bledsoe Herrick.
Another lawyer sent to Britain during the war was Benjamin Janin Sage who, under the name P.C. Centz, produced a book entitled "Republic of Republics; or American Federal Liberty.
he appears to take the treaty with Britain in 1783 as our founding document instead of the Declaration of Independence.He states that “these states came together as principals in 1787 and they created the federal government as their agent”
This ignores our first constitution, The Articles of Confederation which was ratified by 1781.
The Articles did not really create a federal government. There was nothing but a legislature with no power of taxation. There were a bunch of presidents nobody knows, such as John Hanson. It self-identified what it created as a "firm league of friendship." There were 13 free and independent states who entered a league of friendship to present a united front for defense and foreign affairs.
The Confederate states declared independence and a war ensued. Had they won, their independence would have been legally recognized as dating from their declaration. Having lost, they were never legally recognized as having achieved independence.
The original states declared independence and a war ensued. They won and their independence was legally recognized to date from July 4, 1776. The Paris Peace treaty established their independence retroactively to 1776.
Washington was inaugurated with eleven (11) states having ratified the Constitution. The eleven left the league of friendship and formed a new government, leaving NC and RI behind. The remaining two dissolved the league of friendship and went their own way. North Carolina held out for about six months before ratifying. Rhode Island held out for more than a year.
In between that, Vermont seceded in 1777 and established itself as a free and independent state by waging a successful revolution. It joined the constitutional union in 1791 as a free and independent state with self-appointed borders.
I on the other hand absolutely do NOT agree with everything you say:
> Men Divinely inspired...
Where exactly does God say he divinely inspired these men? Which scripture is that?
Does the Constitution declare itself to be divinely inspired? Did the authors of the constitution declare themselves to be inspired of God?
Proverbs 30
5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Good point. NEVER on par with the Word. But I do belive that the LORD guided the Founding and the Documents written . And, we ARE the ONLY COUNTRY to codify GOD given rights.
I would be interested if you had any such James Madison quote. I can't say i'm familiar with this notion coming from him.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/99-02-02-2655
James Madison to A Friend of Union & State Rights [Alexander Rives], 1 January 1833Confidential
I have rec. the letter signed "A friend of Union & State rights" inclosing two printed Essays under the same signature.
It is not usual to answer communications without the proper names to them. But the ability & motives disclosed in the Essays induce me to say in compliance with the wish expressed, that I do not consider the proceedings of Virginia in 98-99 as countenancing the doctrine that a State may at will secede from its constitutional compact with the other States. A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact, absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it
In order to understand the reasoning on one side of a question it is necessary to keep in view the precise state of the question, and the positions and arguments on the other side. This is particularly necessary in questions arising under our novel & compound System, of Govt and much error and confusion have grown out of a neglect of this precaution.
The case of the Alien & Sedition acts was a question between the Govt. of the U. S. and the Constituent Body; Virga. making an appeal to the latter agst. the assumption of power by the former.
The case of a claim in a State to secede from its union with the others, resolves itself into question among the States themselves as parties to a Compact.
In the former case it was asserted agst. Virga. that the States had no right to interpose a legislative declarations of opinion, on a Constitutional point; nor a right to interpose at all agst. a decision of the Supreme Court of the U. S. which was to be regarded as a Tribunal from which there could be no appeal.
The object of Virga. was to vindicate legislative declarations of opinion, to designate the several constitutional modes of interposition by the States agst. abuses of power; and to establish the ultimate authority of the States as parties to & members of the Constitution, to interpose agst. the decisions of the Judicial as well as other branches, of the Govt: the authority of the Judicial being in no sense ultimate out of the purview & forms of the Constitution.
Much use has been made of the term "respective" in the 3d. Resolution of Virga. which asserts the right of the States in cases of sufficient magnitude to interpose for maintaining within their respective limits the authorities &c appertaining to them; the term "respective" being construed to mean a constitutional right in each State separately to decide on & to resist by force encroachments within its limits. But, to say nothing of the distinction between ordinary & extreme cases, it is observable in this as in other instances throughout the Resolutions, the plural number "States", is used in referring to them; that a concurrence & co-operation of all might well be contemplated, in interpositions for effecting the objects within each; and that the language of the closing Resolution corresponds with this view of the 3d. The course of reasoning in the Report on the Resolutions required the distinction between a State & States. It surely does not follow from the fact, of the States or rather people embodied in them, having as parties to the compact, no tribunal above them, that in controverted meanings of the Compact, a minority of the parties can rightfully decide against the majority; still less that a single party can decide against the rest, and as little that it can at will withdraw itself altogether, from a compact with the rest.
The characteristic distinction between free Govts. and Govts. not free is that the former are founded on compact, not between the Govt & those for whom it acts, but among the parties creating the Govt. Each of these being equal, neither can have more right to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargain. An inference from the doctrine that a single State has a right to secede, at its will from the rest is that the rest wd. have an equal right to secede from it, in other words to turn it, against its will out of its Union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late, have been palatable any where, and no where less so than where it is now most contended for.
A careless view of the subject might find an analogy between State secession, and personal individual expatriation. But the distinction is obvious and essential. Even in the latter case, whether regarded as a right impliedly reserved in the original Social compact, or as a reasonable indulgence, it is not exempt from certain condition It must be used without injustice or injury to the Community from which the expatriating party separates himself. Assuredly he could not withdraw his portion of territory from the common domain. In the case of a State seceding from the Union its domain would be dismembered, & other consequences brought on not less obvious than pernicious.
I ought not to omit my regret, that in the remark on Mr Jefferson & myself, the names had not been transposed
Having many reasons for marking this letter Confidential I must request that its publicity may not be permitted in any mode or thro’ any channel. Among the reasons is the risk of misapprehensions or misconstructions, so common without more attention & more development, than I could conveniently bestow on what is said.
J. M.
Wishing to be assured that the letter has not miscarried, a single line, acknowledging its receipt will be acceptable.
Madison was also a co-author of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/virginia-and-kentucky-resolutions
[excerpt - Virginia Resolution - Madison]
That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.
[excerpt - Kentucky Resolution - Jefferson]
RESOLVED, That this commonwealth considers the federal union, upon the terms and for the purposes specified in the late compact, as conducive to the liberty and happiness of the several states: That it does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to that compact, agreeable to its obvious and real intention, and will be among the last to seek its dissolution: That if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who adminster the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy:
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch3s14.html
James Madison to Daniel Webster
15 Mar. 1833Writings 9:604--5I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy.
[...]
The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution; it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States; the powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective & responsible Governments, under the controul of its Constituents, the people & legislatures of the States, and subject to the Revolutionary Rights of the people in extreme cases.
[...]
The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism.
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