Happy Secession day!

July 4, 2023 | Me.

[DiogenesLamp]

Today we celebrate the 13 original states seceding from the Union and forming a confederacy. (Articles of Confederation.)

[BroJoeK]

Ultra Sonic 007: "But it does: the context and the primary evidence available makes it absolutely clear that the Supreme Court in question was for Indiana, not the United States."

Only "absolutely clear" to you because it's what you want to believe.
And you do make a reasonable argument.
But the full reality here includes the fact that, at least according to Wikipedia, the US Supreme Court confirmed Indiana's ruling, and thus we can reasonably infer that Wiki's words here, "supreme court", could apply either way.

At least, that's how I interpret it, and the fact that you and woodpusher won't let it go, and keep harping back on it sort of tells me there's something else going on here, something unspoken but important, to you guys at least.

And I think it's this: Lost Causers want to maintain the fiction that states like Indiana and New Jersey were, actually, de facto "slave states" and therefore, the US Civil War was not, could not have been, "all about slavery".

I suspect, if it weren't for some larger issue like that, this is a minor matter of zero significance and easily clarified.

Ultra Sonic 007: "Who cares about Wikipedia?
It says the SCOTUS was involved, but the sources it provides either do not support or outright contradict that claim.
That's the issue: Wikipedia is not gospel."

And yet... and yet... you yourself cite Wikipedia whenever you think it supports your argument, and I'm OK with that, it's not a problem for me.
In this particular case, I'm only saying that the Wiki entry, right or wrong, can be read to mean either the State or the US supreme court.
And the fact that you won't accept that simple explanation, but keep harping back on it, suggests to me there's something more going on for you.

Ultra Sonic 007: "If an appeal never made it to the SCOTUS, it's erroneous to say that "the SCOTUS in effect confirmed them", because the SCOTUS didn't do anything."

And yet, we don't really know what happened to Laselle's July 27, 1820 appeal -- some sources say it was denied by SCOTUS.
What's certain is, Indiana vs Laselle was not overturned and therefore remained constitutional law in Indiana.

Ultra Sonic 007: "I don't think anyone's questioning that particular bottom line. "

I think this entire discussion is Lost Causers' lawyerly efforts to blow enough smoke to obscure abolition in Northern states like Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey and others, hoping to make them "morally equivalent" to Southern states where slavery was unrestricted and growing rapidly.

Ultra Sonic 007: "What has been questioned is why you apparently feel the need to play fast and loose with the factual data when there's no need to."

Your utter inability to accept reasonable explanations in this matter tells me there's something more going on, something much more important to you than simply distinguishing between a State Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court.

Ultra Sonic 007: "When you are convinced of the moral superiority of your own position, to still fudge with the hard facts of actual historical events is downright bizarre."

What's "bizarre" is this -- I haven't "fudged" anything and have reasonably explained everything, and yet you & yours won't let it go at that.
So the real question here is: why not?

[jmacusa]

Why won’t they let it go Joe?

Because they’re a bunch of bloody Copperheads, that’s why.

[jmacusa]

These characters have been coming here time and again ostensibly identifying as conservatives, i.e. Republicans, all the while carrying the torch and bending at the knee for a bunch of treasonous Southern Democrats.

That makes them modern day Copperheads as I see it.

[jmacusa]

The North, who else? If they weren’t they’d have been on your side, wouldn’t they?

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "It is a slippery slope, Brother Joe, when you argue that someone else’s truth is irrelevant but your lack of knowledge, or lack of being correct, in some way strengthens your own argument."

It is 100% irrelevant if all he's doing is endlessly quibbling over minor details for the purpose of obscuring a larger truth.
In this particular case, a Wiki item mentioned the "supreme court" without specifying which, and I took it to mean the US Supreme Court.
Arguably, that was wrong, since the decision itself came from a state supreme court.
However, Wiki also tells us (rightly or wrongly) that the US Supreme Court confirmed Indiana's ruling by refusing to hear Laselle's appeal, and therefore, "supreme court" could also refer to SCOTUS.
Seems to me a simple matter, easily explained, and yet our Lost Causers are all over it like flies on fecal matter, they can't let it go, and the real question then is why?

jeffersondem: "That is pretty close to what you are doing here.
I recommend you extricate yourself.
It is not the worst thing in the world to admit you got it wrong; we've all had to do that."

Sure, in a happy marriage we are sometimes required to falsely admit being wrong, just to keep peace in the familiy.
But outside that context, it's almost never appropriate to claim to be wrong when in fact that's not the case.

jeffersondem: "You always have the high moral ground argument that Lincoln was commanded by a higher authority to use the military to attack and destroy the South and overthrow the U.S. Constitution; "

Well... a lot to unpack there:

1. No nation needs "the high moral ground" to defend itself against military attacks, invasions and declaration of war against it.

2. The US Constitution was not "overthrown" by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, which simply accomplished our Founders ideals, beginning with:
   "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, "

3. "The South" was not destroyed, far from it.
   Slavery was destroyed, the South was liberated, at least temporarily, from its insane Democratic slaveocracy.
   The South's economy continued to grow -- i.e., railroad miles tripled between 1860 and 1890, as did the value of cotton goods produced, in constant dollars.
   What changed was the position of cotton in the overall US economy -- from number one in 1860 down to number seven in 1900.

But the bottom line here is: all these are very important historical matters, being totally 100% unaffected by which supreme court ruled or confirmed on abolition in 1820, in Indiana.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem quoting Grant: "We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico should commence it.
It was very doubtful whether Congress would declare war; but if Mexico should attack our troops, the Executive could announce, “Whereas, war exists by the acts of, etc.,” and prosecute the contest with vigor... "

Just so we're clear on this -- Grant, like Lincoln, was a Northern Whig and Whig's opposed "Mr. Polk's war", Pres. Polk being a Southern Democrat who provoked & fought the Mexican war to largely benefit partisan Democrat political interests.

So, Democrats provoked and started war against Mexico in 1846, just as they did against the United States in 1861.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "It looks like General Grant’s quote (my post 143) kind of froze you into position.
I think this is the first time I’ve ever put an opponent into checkmate with one post."

I'd say you are trying to enjoy a meal you haven't even cooked yet.
Indeed, the fixings for that meal aren't even in your pantry.
All you're really doing is fantasizing about a meal you would eat, if you'd cooked it, if you had something to cook.

Enjoy!

[BroJoeK]

woodpusher: "In addition to the fact that the Opinion makes exquisitely clear that the constitution invoked and spoken of is the Indana state constitution, citation to the Federal Constitution is a legal absurdity.
Had the Federal Constitution made slavery illegal in one state, it would have made it illegal in all states, and would have struck down any conflicting state law.
That such was not the case in 1820 is notorious."

Now you're just babbling absurd nonsense.
No claim was ever made that the US Supreme Court did anything other than confirm Indiana's Supreme Court ruling by refusing to hear Laselle's appeal.
All you're doing here is setting up fake monsters to slay.
They are figments of your warped imagination, nothing else.

Whether the alleged 1820 appeal was ever really made or not is, in the end, irrelevant to the fact that Indiana's supreme court rulings were not overturned and so remained in effect confirmed.

woodpusher: "It is fun to see how the Northern Yankee Slaver Democrats, emulated by jmacusa and BroJoeK, and their usual unreliable sources, transformed an Assignment of Errors document, an attachment to a document addressed to the Indiana State Supreme Court into the fiction of a document transmitted to the United States Supreme Court."

And here we see an ultimate defender of Slaver Democrats doing what Democrats often do -- using a little trick they learned from the Old Soviets, if not from Goebbels himself -- they accuse opponents of what they themselves are most guilty.

woodpusher: "There is no evidence that a ROT was produced, or certified, nor that anything was sent to the U.S. Supreme Court, or anybody."

Still 100% irrelevant to anybody outside a law classroom.

[BroJoeK]

woodpusher quoting: "Strong appealed to Indiana Supreme Court in Corydon which ruled in State v. Lasselle, July 22, 1820: 'slavery can have no existence' in Indiana.
This decision did not free remaining slaves in Indiana; it did establish 1816 Indiana Constitution as the authority for decisions in Indiana courts regarding slavery and involuntary servitude, including 1821 Mary Clark case."

woodpusher: "The U.S. Supreme Court played no role whatever in the case.
According to the Indiana Historical Bureau, the decision in LaSelle did not free remaining slaves in Indiana either."

woodpusher: "Who are we to believe?
Numbnuts with Wikipedia and unnamed sources, or the Indiana Historical Bureau?"

I would believe the US census which reported a reduction in Indiana's slaves from 190 in 1820 to 3 in 1830.
Does our "numbnuts" woodpusher imagine that happened by accident, or magic, and not as a result to Indiana's Supreme Court 1820 ruling?

woodpusher: "The U.S. Supreme Court played no role whatever in the case.
According to the Indiana Historical Bureau, the decision in LaSelle did not free remaining slaves in Indiana either."

It appears that Laselle prepared an appeal to SCOTUS, but it's not clear what happened to that.
We know for certain the Indiana supreme court's ruling was not overturned and that slavery in Indian was reduced 98% by 1830, 100% by 1850.

Our FRiend woodpusher is determined, at all costs, to deny Indiana v Laselle credit for that, or even to acknowledge it happened.
Instead, he insanely wants us to think that Indiana remained a Northern slave state.

[BroJoeK]

woodpusher: "Those infected like to claim that, in his Opinion of the Court in Scott, Taney offered his opinion that Blacks had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.
There is no evidence that Taney held such opinion, and he certainly did not state that he did."

And yet... that argument is key to Crazy Roger's own opinion that, in effect, Dred Scott had no rights the US Supreme Court was bound to respect.

[jeffersondem]

“It looks like General Grant's quote (my post 143) kind of froze you into position. I think this is the first time I've ever put an opponent into checkmate with one post. *** I'd say you are trying to enjoy a meal you haven't even cooked yet. Indeed, the fixings for that meal aren't even in your pantry. All you're really doing is fantasizing about a meal you would eat, if you'd cooked it, if you had something to cook.”

Your mixing metaphors with mine brings to mind the words in the Wheeling Intelligencer after circumstances forced McNeill’s Confederate Raiders to allow a federal train to pass unmolested:

“The grapes were beyond their reach, and consequently were sour, and they returned to their corn bread with about the same relish with which a man would enjoy the parings after having disposed of the apple, or kiss a lady's gloved hand after feasting upon the rosebud lips of a blond.”

I'm pondering whether to give you, or the faithful chronicler, a literary award. It is about all I can do now that you and the horse left the barn door open without closing it.

[jeffersondem]

“The North (was fighting against slavery), who else?”

That is not what Lincoln said at his first inauguration - or in his call for 75,000 volunteers to attack the South. But as others have suggested, Lincoln's claim that he was fighting to collect taxes due, or to save the union, could have been a pretext for war.

For the sake of this post let's stipulate you are correct: Lincoln and the North were “fighting to free the slaves.”

Let's set aside for a moment no slave owners were attacked by Union forces to "free the slaves" in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky or other Union slave states.

Slavery was constitutional in the United States because it was enshrined into the United States Constitution. At the founding the states ensured that - although only 13 of the original 13 slave states voted to include it into the constitution.

If Lincoln was “fighting to free the slaves” then he was fighting to overthrow the U.S. Constitution. As president, Lincoln was not supposed to take up arms and levy war against the states for the purpose of violently overthrowing the pro-slavery constitution.

What Lincoln could have done was to offer a constitutional amendment to peacefully and legally abolish slavery. It could have been done without firing a shot. Lincoln and the North could have proposed such an amendment decades earlier if they wanted; and they probably would have if it had been in their own economic and political best self-interest.

You are eager to claim Lincoln took up arms against the U.S. Constitution. Maybe he did.

[jeffersondem]

“No, it is a reference to the Copperheads, Northerners who supported the Confederacy.”

This is progress.

In your post 149 you contended the long paragraph I quoted from Chapter 4 was about the Mexican War. In fact, Grant’s quote referenced both the Mexican War and the USA-CSA War.

As you have noted, Grant opposed the Mexican War. But he did fight in it. He fought for the “wrong side.”

Why?

In the long paragraph Grant provides the explanation:

“Once initiated there were but few public men who would have the courage to oppose it.”

That paragraph, inadvertently perhaps, makes several points that advocates of the Won Cause Myth will want to deny.

[x]

It’s clear that Grant makes reference to both wars, but you are twisting what he says to make it mean what you want to to mean. Grant and his readers understood their position in the Civil War to have been justified. That war was constantly on their minds, as WWII was on the minds of “the Greatest Generation” in the years after the war, so it entered into their thinking and writing. If a reired General disagreed with our Vietnam policy, and mentioned WWII in an article, it wouldn’t mean that he thought the war against Hitler unjustified.

[jmacusa]

Listen Reb, stop with the bs about The Mexican War and all your other pettifogging here and stick to the issue at hand.

The South went to war to defend slavery and lost.

That's what secession was about so cut the crap.

[jmacusa]

No the South could have ended it simply by declaring it null and void.

Lincoln personally abhorred slavery but felt he did not have the constitutional authority as it pertained to war measures and he felt he would lose the loyalty and support of those in the border states were it was still legal. Secession and the South's opening fire on Ft. Sumter decided the issue. The South went to war to preserve slavery so stop the bs, Copperhead.

[woodpusher]

No claim was ever made that the US Supreme Court did anything other than confirm Indiana's Supreme Court ruling by refusing to hear Laselle's appeal. ll you're doing here is setting up fake monsters to slay.

This absurd claim requires several miracles to have occurred.

It requires LaSelle to have somehow bypassed the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Circuit Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court requires a Petition for Writ of Cert, the record of which must have been lost in the U.S. Supreme Court, the office of counsel, and the office of opposing counsel. In any case, a Petition for Writ of Cert "is a request that the Supreme Court order a lower court to send up the record of the case for review."

It requires that the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order denying the Petition for Writ of Cert and lost all records of having done so.

It requires that the denial of a Petition for Writ of Cert, for the only time in history, signified anything more than that the Court declined the Petition. In all other cases in history, a denial of cert "simply means that fewer than four justices determined that the circumstances of the decision of the lower court warrant a review by the Supreme Court."

It required the clerk of Supreme Court of Indiana to take direction from counsel, assemble the complete recpord of the case certified by the Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, and together with various documents provided counsel, forward all this by mail, paying all expenses upon a statement by counsel that he would reimburse later. And then it required copies of the record of the case and other documents to be lost by he U.S. Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Indiana, counsel and opposing counsel.

The only purported evidence for any transmittal at all to the U.S. Supreme Court is a document called An Assignment of Errors captioned In the Supreme Court of the United States, which is no evidence at all. This was assuredly not transmitted by LaSelle to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is an attachment to another document which instructs the Clerk of the Indiana Supreme Court to forward it with other material. There is zero evidence that the Clerk received LaSelle's letter, assembled the record of the case, had the record of the case certified, or forwarded anything to the U.S. Supreme Court.

woodpusher: "There is no evidence that a ROT was produced, or certified, nor that anything was sent to the U.S. Supreme Court, or anybody."

Still 100% irrelevant to anybody outside a law classroom.

And it is miracle time again. For the only time in historty, BroJoeK assumes the clerks processed an imaginary Petition for Writ of Cert in the absence of the record of the case for the proceedings below. Presumably the clerks reviewed the case below, and briefed he justices, using Wikipedia.

To BroJoeK it is irrelevent if the record of the case was produced by the Indiana Supreme Court, or sent to, or received by the U.S. Supeme Court. At the Court, nothing will happen without it. It is impossible that anything about the case was even presented to the justices without the clerks having received and reviewed the record of the case. No appeal would be accepted and acted upon without the record of the case (the record of proceedings in the courts below).

The available evidence is that LaSelle never transmitted his letter, with its attachments, to the clerk of the Indiana Supreme Court. It never went anywhere. Lawsuits brought to the U.S. Supreme Court leave a paper trail. There is none.

https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/supreme-1

Parties who are not satisfied with the decision of a lower court must petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case. The primary means to petition the court for review is to ask it to grant a writ of certiorari. This is a request that the Supreme Court order a lower court to send up the record of the case for review.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/certiorari

Certiorari is generally associated with the writ that the Supreme Court of the United States issues to review a lower court's judgment. A case cannot, as a matter of right, be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. As such, a party seeking to appeal to the Supreme Court from a lower court decision must file a writ of certiorari. …

Rule 10 of the Supreme Court Rules lists the criteria for granting certiorari and explains that the decision to grant or deny certiorari is discretionary.

[woodpusher]

woodpusher: "This decision did not free remaining slaves in Indiana; it did establish 1816 Indiana Constitution as the authority for decisions in Indiana courts regarding slavery and involuntary servitude, including 1821 Mary Clark case."

woodpusher: "The U.S. Supreme Court played no role whatever in the case. According to the Indiana Historical Bureau, the decision in LaSelle did not free remaining slaves in Indiana either."

I would believe the US census....

I would not like to shake your faith in the census, but it says nothing about the LaSelle case freeing slaves, whereas, the Indiana Historical Bureau clearly states that the LaSelle case did not have that effect.

The census says nothing whatever about the LaSelle case having been at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Your claim that the LaSelle case was the cause of slave reduction by 1830 is without support. Perhaps you would care to try The Case of Mary Clark, 1 Blackf. 122 (1821). Maybe that decision affected other cases.

Our FRiend woodpusher is determined, at all costs, to deny Indiana v Laselle credit for that, or even to acknowledge it happened.

Our FRiend BroJoeK is determined, at all costs, to assert that which did not happen, and which is documented as having not happened. The Indiana Historical Bureau went out of their way to make known to the public that it did not happen. The census says slavery went down by 1830. It does not say the LaSelle case was the cause.

300 N. Capitol Ave., Corydon, between the Harrison County Courthouse and the First State Capitol building (Harrison County, Indiana). Installed 2016 Indiana Historical Bureau, Harrison County Committee for the Indiana Bicentennial, and Leora Brown School.

"THIS DECISION DID NOT FREE REMAINING SLAVES IN INDIANA."

https://www.in.gov/history/state-historical-markers/find-a-marker/find-historical-markers-by-county/indiana-historical-markers-by-county/polly-strong-slavery-case/

Strong appealed to Indiana Supreme Court in Corydon which ruled in State v. Lasselle, July 22, 1820: “slavery can have no existence” in Indiana. This decision did not free remaining slaves in Indiana; it did establish 1816 Indiana Constitution as the authority for decisions in Indiana courts regarding slavery and involuntary servitude, including 1821 Mary Clark case.

In denying that LaSelle freed the remaining slaves, the Indiana Historical Bureau notes that it did provide authority for the decision in The Mary Clark Case (1821). Until you look at the court opinions, you will never know if the opinion in Mary Clark may have been more broadly written than the opinion in LaSelle. I posted an image and quote of the IHB Memorial to you three times. Apparently you are too thick to attach any importance to the reference to the Mary Clark case, and too lazy to look.

That same Indiana Historical Bureau noted:

Clark’s case can be viewed in a larger context concerning the development of free labor in the United States. According to Robert J. Steinfeld, “the case marked the moment in American legal culture when the category indentured service began finally to collapse into the category slavery, both now classified merely as forms of involuntary servitude.” “At the heart of the new understanding was the idea, first fully articulated in Mary Clark’s case, that labor became involuntary the moment a laborer decided to depart and was not permitted to do so—whatever previous agreement she may have made.” Robert J. Steinfeld, The Invention of Free Labor: The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture, 1350-1870, (Chapel Hill N.C., 1991), 147 (B071253).

[woodpusher]

woodpusher: "Those infected like to claim that, in his Opinion of the Court in Scott, Taney offered his opinion that Blacks had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.

There is no evidence that Taney held such opinion, and he certainly did not state that he did."

And yet... that argument is key to Crazy Roger's own opinion that, in effect, Dred Scott had no rights the US Supreme Court was bound to respect.

And yet, your vacuous response includes no link or cite, or any quote of Taney saying anything. Obviously you know that the famous quote, if linked or cited, proves beyond a reasonable doubt, that the quote was ripped from context to create an insupportable claim.

You have only established that you cannot or will not defend the claim that Taney offered his opinion that Blacks had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. Harumphh is not a defence, but it is all you got.

[woodpusher]

If Lincoln was “fighting to free the slaves” then he was fighting to overthrow the U.S. Constitution.

Lincoln never claimed the power to free slaves other than as a war power as Commander-in Chief of the army and navy, and then only when absolutely necessary. As late as May 1862, Lincoln counter-mandered miliary proclamations freeing slaves taken by the Union army, rendering such proclamations null and void. Had the Union won the war in 1861, or in early 1862, this documents the lack of authority on the part of the Union to abolish slavery in the South.

The war to abolish slavery was apparently fought for over a year while acknowledging there was no existing lawful authority to abolish slavery, even using military power under martial law.

It is notorious that the initial reason fiven for the war was to preserve the Union. It was not until that fell from favor, and a draft was to become necessary, that the justification changed to a war to abolish slavery.

It is logical nonsense to purport that a Union war to abolish slavery, after four years, had not abolished slavery in the Union states.

It is perfectly explained by the fact that there was no legal authority to end slavery in the Union states other than by constitutional amendment. Slaves in the Confederate states were declared free under a wartime military power under martial law and as a military necessity. That could not be done in the Union states as the Union was not at war with itself.

The War to Abolish Slavery was a marketing campaign, akin to the War to Abolish WMD in Iraq.