On Confederate Memorial Day, an honest annotation of the Mississippi Declaration of Secession

Mississippi Today ^ | 04/29/2024 | Michael Guidry

[TexasKamaAina]

The Declaration of Secession was the result of a convention of the Mississippi Legislature in January of 1861. The convention adopted a formal Ordinance of Secession written by former Congressman Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. While the ordinance served an official purpose, the declaration laid out the grievances Mississippi’s ruling class held against the federal government under the leadership of President-elect Abraham Lincoln...The convention really couldn’t be any more straightforward:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest in the world.

[DiogenesLamp]

Naw, my point is not at all silly, and the fact that you refuse to recognize its importance tells us something about your own thinking.

That I don't approve of playing word games with laws? Yeah, that's the domain of liberals who somehow find rights to abortion and gay marriage in the 14th amendment.

The constitution clearly is referring to slaves. It is clearly authorizing the capture and return of escaped slaves.

Don't beat around the bush. Speak forthrightly.

[DiogenesLamp]

Why focus on the Massachusetts representative? He did not chose to take the case.

He most certainly did! He could have freed Dred Scott any time he pleased, but he *CHOSE* to test the laws of Missouri.

This wasn't about the slave. This was about him stirring up a political propaganda tool. He clearly didn't give a sh*t about the slave or he would have freed him without going through all that other nonsense.

So did you learn the history of this case incorrectly? How could you say that *LIBERAL* Massachusetts representative didn't chose this case? He absolutely *DID* choose this case.

[DiogenesLamp]

So, it turns out, there was a Dred Scott conspiracy, but it was not hatched in Massachusetts...

Incorrect. The *OWNER* of that slave was that *LIBERAL* representative of trouble making Massachusetts. (Still making trouble today.)

Even Wikipedia tells a teeny bit of the truth on this matter.

"In 1850, Irene Emerson remarried and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts. Her new husband, Calvin C. Chaffee, was an abolitionist. He was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1854 and fiercely attacked by pro-slavery newspapers for his apparent hypocrisy in owning slaves. "

Chaffee could have freed him at any time, but chose not to do so because he expected the case to better serve as a propaganda tool, or a judicial activism tool.

[BroJoeK]

x to FLT-bird: "Slave states weren't happy about free states blocking the return of runaways.
When they had the upper hand they weren't opposed to federal overreach, as in Taney's Dred Scott opinion.
But you repeat it as a dogma that they were all about state sovereignty."

Among the far-reaching anti-states' rights affects of Crazy Roger's Dred Scott opinions were:

1. Crazy Roger not only invalidated the 1820 Missouri Compromise, by which Congress outlawed slavery in territories north of the 36d 30s parallel (except Missouri), but he also overturned territories' rights to outlaw slavery.

2. Crazy Roger outlawed states-rights to make African Americans citizens, with associated citizens' rights of voting and bearing arms, etc.

   

3. Crazy Roger not only confirmed the Compromise of 1850 federal authority over states' rights in the return of fugitive slaves, he also

4. Extended "slaveholder rights" into Northern free states.
   "Slaveholder rights" included legal slave codes and slaveholder authorities to impose punishments as enforcements.
   In other words, Crazy Roger effectively outlawed the Northern states-rights to prevent slaveholders from committing assault, battery, false imprisonment, domestic violence and other abuses, including sexual against slaves.

Bottom line: Southern concerns for "states' rights" never extended north of the Mason-Dixon line.

The tan colored areas below are US territories in which Crazy Roger declared that neither they nor Congress could outlaw slavery.
Notice that Kansas is blue in 1861, but prior to 1860, Kansas was ruled by Crazy Roger's opinion that territories could not legally abolish slavery.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "It seems to me you are attempting to distance the original 13 slave states from their unanimous vote to adopt the pro-slavery United States Constitution."

It seems to me that your nature is to always twist and turn words away from their plain meanings in order to support your own ridiculous conclusions.

So, first you proposed your word "enshrined" for slavery in the 1787 US Constitution, to which I argued effectively your "enshrined" should be replaced by "buried", "entombed" and/or "embalmed".

But instead, you now wish to replace "enshrined" with "pro-slavery", which is nearly the same and so my response is also pretty much the same -- our Founders were not "pro-slavery", but rather, to use the DOI's language, they were willing to say, "We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity..." of slavery, while also planning for its long term restrictions and abolition.

jeffersondem: "President Lincoln could find slavery in the United States Constitution, something you claim you can't find.
But I guess Lincoln was not playing a little game that day."

Naw... the only one playing little word-games here is you, FRiend, because that's what you love to do.

Our Founders clearly believed that slavery was wrong and disgraceful, so it should not be mentioned by name in their new Constitution and should also be restricted or abolished wherever possible.

See my post #99 above -- that's how they felt about exposing words like "slave" in their Constitution.

[BroJoeK]

x: "The Corwin Amendment appeased many in the Upper South, but it wasn’t enough to calm those fears in the Deep South states that had already succeeded.
It was never going to bring them back into the union."

Right.
Corwin simply tried to match one protection for slavery that was already in the new Confederate constitution.

"Article I Section 9(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.[13]"

The 1861 Confederate constitution included several other protections for slavery which neither Corwin nor the existing 1787 Constitution could ever match.

[DiogenesLamp]

1. Crazy Roger ...

2. Crazy Roger ...

3. Crazy Roger ...

How do you take someone seriously when their tendency is to just call names rather than grant any credibility to their opponent's arguments?

I don't think Roger Taney was crazy, I think he just operated under a different set of premises than other people at the time wanted to accept.

Our modern era is somewhat similar. Nowadays in the Liberal circles, if you don't accept that a biological male can become a "woman", they consider you crazy.

The same people who thought Taney was crazy then, were the very same liberals, living in the liberal parts of the country, and pushing social boundaries, just as they are doing today.

[x]

By that point, the case had been going through the courts for some years, financed by the children of one of Scott’s earlier owners who had turned against slavery. They lived in Missouri. So no, the case wasn’t hatched in Massachusetts, and Chaffee wasn’t any kind of mastermind.

Chaffee (or his wife) could have stopped the case by freeing Dred Scott, but arguably they would have faced more flak for making the case moot than they would have for owning a slave. After the decision, they did turn over the Scotts to the Blows who had financed the case and Henry Taylor Blow freed them.

[jeffersondem]

“Especially considering that 1861 secessionists had no problems with inserting words like “slave” when that's what they meant, why didn't our Founders? . . . it's because our Founders well understood that slavery was both wrong and disgraceful, and so could not be called by its real name, but instead had to be referred to indirectly and euphemistically.”

You may have a point about slaveowner Benjamin Franklin but I don't think slaveowner Charles Pinckney would have shied away from acknowledging slavery existed.

Thomas Jefferson in his notes supports your notion. In writing about the long philippic removed from the DOI he says: “The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

There is that disgraceful northern hypocrisy you referenced.

Northern states owned relatively few slaves; they made their fortunes building and outfitting ships for the slave-catching expeditions; also by insuring slave cargoes; also by financing the slave-catching expeditions; and also by buying and shipping slave-grown cotton at a price allowing them to make profits. Also the northern states manufactured and sold goods from slave-grown cotton; more profits. Northern states also had Congress impose high import tariffs on European goods purchased from proceeds of slave-grown cotton; more money that Congress could direct to Northern interests.

I agree with what you wrote: “The important point here is that our (northern) Founders went to great lengths to not just avoid words like “slave”, they also tried to obscure slave references under language a casual reader might well not even understand.”

So, yes, northern Founders had guilty consciences and for million$ of reasons.

Now that you, Thomas Jefferson, and I all agree, I can't help but wonder if you will next repudiate your own words which acknowledge the north's long, evil, and disgraceful role in building the slave business?

One thing you could point out: by 1847 Pennsylvania had completely ended slavery in that state. By that time all their slaves had died or been sold down the river.

[DiogenesLamp]

Chaffee (or his wife) could have stopped the case by freeing Dred Scott, but arguably they would have faced more flak for making the case moot than they would have for owning a slave.

This is my point. A political propaganda coup is more important than the actual life of the slave.

[DiogenesLamp]

+1.

:)

[woodpusher]

[Mark Twain] To understand what was going on in the Dred Scott decision, I highly recommend "Dred Scott, The Inside story" by David T. Hardy. Here is a link to a review I wrote about it.

[DiogenesLamp] Yes, Dred Scott was owned by a Republican representative in Massachusetts, one of the most trouble stirring states in the history of the nation.

To understand what was going on in the Dred Scott decision or judgment, one MUST read the MANDATE of the Court which expresses the Decision of the Court as opposed to the opinions of the justices, or at least read Taney's opinion to its end.

This explains the failure to understand that the decision of the Court was to find that the Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, therefore the Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, and therefore the Supreme Court remanded the case to the Circuit Court, with instructions for that Court to dismiss for want of jurisdiction.

Conclusion of Dred Scott opinion by Taney:

Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

The MANDATE is an official mode of communicating the judgment of the appellate court to the lower court.

As the mandate issued to the Circuit Court in the case of Scott v. Sandford shows, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case, and remanded the case to that court with instructions to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.

Missouri, C.C.U.S.

No. 7

Dred Scott, Ptff. in Er.
vs.
John F.A. Sandford

Filed 30th December 1854.

Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

March 6th, 1857. —

- - - - - - - - - -

No. 7

Ptff. in Er.

Dred Scott
vs.
John F.A. Sandford

In error to the Circuit Court of the United Stated for the District of Missouri.

This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Missouri and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered and adjudged by this court that the judgment of the said Circuit Court in this cause be and the same is hereby reversed for the want of jurisdiction in that court and that this cause be and the same is hereby remanded to the said Circuit Court with directions to dismiss the case for the want of jurisdiction in that court. —

Ch. Jus. Taney
6th March 1857

Writing the Opinion of the Court was originally assigned to Justice Nelson of New York. Nelson's opinion was short and reads like an opinion of the court. Nine opinions were filed. Justice Curtis wrote a very lengthy opinion and leaked it to the press and had it published before any official opinion had been published. Taney reassigned writing the Opinion of the Court to himself, and he wrote a long opinion, mostly a response to the even longer opinion of Curtis. No point of law raised by Taney was an opinion of the Court unless it gathered the support of five of the nine justices. Very little was agreed to by five justices. Almost all of the subsequent controversy was over dicta of CJ Taney, not an opinion or holding of the Court.

Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case, Its Significance in American Law and Politics, 2001, p. 324, provides a box score of results as follows:

1. Four justices held that the plea in abatement was properly before the Court (Taney, Wayne, Daniel, and Curtis).

2. Three justices held that a Negro could not be a citizen of the United States (Taney, Wayne, and Daniel).

3. Six justices held that the Missouri Compromise restriction was invalid (Taney, Wayne, Grier, Daniel, Campbell, and Catron).

4. Seven justices held that the laws of Missouri determined Scott's status as a slave after his return to that state from Illinois (Taney, Wayne, Nelson, Grier, Daniel, Campbell,, and Catron).

5. Seven justices held that Scott was still a slave, though there were differences of what the final judgment of the Court should be (same as in number 4).

Only a majority of justices form an Opinion of the Court. There was neither a holding of the Court that a Negro could not be a citizen, nor a holding of the Court that the plea in abatement was properly before the Court. As these were never adopted as Opinions of the Court, discussing them as such is fantasy land. That Taney’s opinion was captioned Opinion of the Court does not make everything in it an opinion of the Court.

In Scott v. Sandford, counsel for both parties jointly filed an agreed statement of facts to include the following:

Before the commencement of this suit, said Dr. Emerson sold and conveyed the plaintiff, said Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, to the defendant, as slaves, and the defendant has ever since claimed to hold them and each of them as slaves.

At the times mentioned in the plaintiff's declaration, the defendant, claiming to be owner as aforesaid, laid his hands upon said plaintiff, Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzie, and imprisoned them, doing in this respect, however, no more than what he might lawfully do if they were of right his slaves at such times.

The widow Emerson was the Defendant in the Missouri case which held that Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri. The case dragged on for about ten years.

Dr. Emerson died on December 29, 1843. The Scotts filed a petition for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court on April 6, 1846, naming the widow Emerson as their owner and defendant.

Unless the corpse of Dr. Emerson did the alleged selling, the selling had to take place not later than December 29, 1843. But the case of Scott v. Emerson established the widow Emerson as the owner of Scott in 1846. The widow Emerson was known to have been renting out Dred Scott during this time, after her husband's death. Dred Scott went with Dr. Emerson to Illinois and returned to Missouri, but there is no evidence Dred Scott ever set foot in New York.

The McArthur DEMOCRAT, Vinton Ohio, 26 March 1857, PAGE 2

Dred Scott Owned by a Republican Member of Congress

From the following article, which we copy from the Springfield Argus, it appears that Dred Scott and his family become by, the recent decision of the Supreme Court, the property of the wife of Dr. Chaffee, the Republican member of Congress from Springfield (Mass.) District:

It may perhaps astonish some of our rabid Fremonters, to know that the late decision in the Supreme Court, remanding to slavery Dred Scott and his family, declaring the un­constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, and establishing the right of slaveholders to carry their chattels into Northern States without affecting their security in them, was ob­tained in behalf of the family of our present honorable member of Con­gress. The facts are simply these:— Some years since, Dr. Chaffee, then a widower, married the widow of Dr. Emerson, of Misiouri, who had died, leaving to his wife and only daughter a considerable slave property. Among these slaves were Dred Scott and his family; and as Dr. Emerson, in the performance of his duties as a surgeon in the United States Army, had car­ried this family into Illinois, they, on his death, claimed their freedom, and brought a suit to enforce it. This suit, thus brought, was defended by the administrator of the estate on be­half and with the consent of the wife of Dr. Chaffee and her daughter, who were the heirs at law. The decison of the Bench that Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States, and could not sue in the U.S. Court, has remanded him and his famlily to the chattlehood of Mrs. Chaffee. What does the Doctor propose to do with the interesting property? Does he consent to the prosecution, and under cover of his wife's crinoline, propose to keep good friends with the Black-Republicans, by saying that has nothing to do with her estate, and at the same time enjoying with her the benefit of that estate, which does not stop with unfortunate Dred and his family? These questions are open, and naturally suggest themselves to use, as they doubtless will to all who know the facts.

The widow Emerson married Dr. Calvin Chaffee in 1850, before he had entered politics. Pursuant to the law of femes covert, married women could not own property, something the Springfield Argus overlooked. Upon marriage the husband and wife were legally considered to be one, and effectively, for legal purposes, that one was the husband. And thus Dr. Chaffee became the owner of Dred Scott, and the rest of the Scott family, in 1850; and it was Dr. Chaffee who executed the quitclaim deed.

Of course, had Dr. John Emerson sold Scott to Sanford prior to his death, ownership would not have passed to Chaffee. But then Chaffee could not have legally executed the quitclaim deed.

The time between when Sanford died in an insane asylum and when Chaffee executed the quitclaim deed was too short to allow for Sanford's will to have been probated.

Moreover, during the time when the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford was proceeding, he was held in custody of a sheriff who rented him out, with the wages earned going into an escrow account pending the final decision. His wages amounted to about $750. Irene Emerson Chaffee claimed the wages.

http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=dre;cc=dre;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=dre1857.0108.111;node=dre1857.0108.111%3A1

26 Saint Louis Circuit Court Record 267

Wednesday May 27th 1857
Dred Scott.
vs. )
Irene Emerson. )

On motion of defendants attorney it is ordered that the Sheriff of St. Louis County do render his account to the court of the wages that have come to his hands of the earnings of the above named plaintiff and that the said sheriff do pay to the defendant all such wages that now remain in his hands, excepting all commissions and expenses to which the said Sheriff may be legally entitled.

Note how the petition refers to the defendant (Irene Emerson) and so artfully avoids any inclusion of the name Chaffee in the claim of wages. This was done the day after the quitclaim deed was executed by Dr. Chaffee.

Only if Dr. Emerson sold Dred Scott to John Sanford before he died in 1843 did Sanford ever obtain ownership as claimed. If Sanford obtained ownership in 1843 or before, neither the widow Emerson nor her second husband Chaffee ever obtained ownership.

The appellate courts do not rule on the facts of a case. The facts are determined at the trial court level. The appellate courts determine if the correct law was properly applied. The lower court in the sham case accepted a false agreed statement of facts. The two sides were really one, working together to concoct a case.

The case that went to Scotus began in 1854. Federal jurisdiction in Scott v. Sandford was based upon a specious claim of diversity of state citizenship, falsely claiming Scott was a citizen of Missouri, and falsely claiming Sanford of New York was the owner of Scott pursuant to a fictitious sale of Scott which could not have taken place later than 1843.

They could not name a married woman as the owner because married women could not own property. They sure did not want to name her husband, the Republican Abolitionist Congressman from Massachusetts as the owner. They could not name any citizen of Missouri as the owner, or there would be no diversity of state citizenship. And so they made up a fictitious sale and a fictitious strawman owner from a state other than Missouri.

The Courts, all the way through Scotus, made no mention of Calvin Chaffee as owner. There was an agreed statement of facts, accepted by the lower court, that John Sanford of New York was the owner. The two parties conspired together to frame and bring the case, and neither side questioned the statement which they jointly stipulated as facts.

Letter of Calvin Chaffee to Montgomery Blair, April 1, 1857, Blair Family Papers, Dred Scott Folder, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

CONFIDENTIAL

Since the decision of the case Dred Scott vs. J.F.A. Sandford has so profoundly stirred the public mind and some of the pro slavery newspapers have attributed to me an interest in the persons claimed as slaves, my wife, as the widow of the last doct. Emerson, and the sole legatee of the will, desires to know whether she has the legal power and right to emancipate the Dred Scott family ...

If she has this right [illlegible] if you [illegible: would forward?] the necessary papers, she will cheerfully execute them.

Had Dr. Emerson sold Scott to Sanford as claimed, the fact of the widow Emerson being the sole legatee of his will would make no difference. It would only matter had Dr. Emerson died as owner of Dred Scott.

Mrs. Emerson Chaffee could not emancipate Scott or execute a quitclaim deed for Scott. Neither could Calvin Chaffee emancipate Scott. It had to be done in Missouri, by a citizen of Missouri. And so the quitclaim deed was executed by the Republican Abolitionist Massachusetts Congressman Calvin Chaffee in favor of Taylor Blow, a citizen of Missouri.

After the quitclaim deed was executed, Dr. Chaffee wrote to his St. Louis attorney Roswell Field on May 14, 1857, "I desire now, in conclusion of the case, to be privately informed of the act of emancipation, but there should be no publicity given the subject beyond strict legal necessity."

Dr. Chaffee tried to run for reelection in 1858, but he failed to win the Republican nomination. His explanations offered to the Argus had met with refutation and ridicule.

Taylor Blow, born near Huntsville, Alabama, March 26, 1820, (not to be confused with his elder brother Henry Taylor Blow born 1817), was the son of Peter Blow and Elizabeth Blow, nee Taylor, and the brother of Peter Ethelred Blow (b. 1811). Travel documents reflected the first name of Dred Scott was Etheldred. As the child of the then owner of Dred Scott, Taylor Blow grew up with Dred Scott and they played together as young children. The quitclaim deed of Republican Abolitionist Congressman Chaffee from Massachusetts named Taylor Blow as the receiving owner.

Both sides of the concocted case conspired to present false claimed facts to the Court to establish a phony claim of jurisdiction. As the two sides were working together, there was no actual controversy between the parties. John Sanford was falsely claimed as the owner of Dred Scott to establish a false claim of jurisdiction, and to hide the actual ownership (Calvin Chaffee of Massachusetts would have worked fine to establish an owner not a citizen of Missouri). A fraudulent statement of facts could be grounds to dismiss the case and sanction the attorneys.

Calvin Chaffee promoting the case as the abolitionist owner of Dred Scott makes a difference as the named defendant was only used to effect a false claim of federal jurisdiction, and had Representative Chaffee been named as the defendant owner, it would have been viewed very differently. In response to the claim that no Republican ever owned a slave, ownership by Republican Representative Calvin Chaffee of the most famous slave in American history seems a clear refutation. Chaffee owned the entire Scott family for about seven years. He could have effected Scott's emancipation in 1850 as easily as 1857.

In the decision of the case itself, the Supreme Court decided that the lower court had lacked jurisdiction to hear the case because Scott was not a citizen of Missouri and, therefore, the Supreme Court also lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The mandate was issued to remand the case to the lower court with instructions to that court to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction.

It comes as a surprise to many that the actual judgment in Scott was to dismiss the case for want of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of Missouri had found that Scott was not a citizen of that state. In interpreting state law, the highest court of the state is the ultimate authority. That Missouri finding was binding on the Supreme Court. As Scott was found not to be a citizen of Missouri, Scott's claim of jurisdiction based on his claimed Missouri state citizenship, failed. There was no showing of the requisite diversity of state citizenship between the named parties.

As for the burning question of why slaves could not become citizens, they had a problem which essentially aligns with illegal aliens today. To be eligible for naturalization, one must be an alien, lawfully present in the United States. The ilegal alien of today has a problem becoming lawfully present in the United States. Twenty years of being unlawfully present does not make one lawfully present. The slave could be manumitted, set free, by his owner pursuant to State law. Freedom did not make one a citizen. Slaves were typically born in the United States, or had no birth record. The freedman was not an alien, but neither was he a citizen. Thus, the Constitution was amended to confer citizenship where the statute law did not.

CJ Taney was correct on the law and was never judicially overturned on this point. The amending of the constitution overturned the statute law.

[FLT-bird]

The 1861 Confederate constitution specified an exception which is not present in the 1787 US Constitution.

Which was?

Corwin helped keep Border Slave States in the Union:

The North was willing to protect slavery explicitly in the constitution and effectively forever.

Your word "orchestrated" can apply to NY Sen. Seward, but not to Lincoln.

No. It applies to Lincoln. He was the de facto party leader, not Seward.

And the fact remains, all your handwaving notwithstanding, that Corwin was supported by 100% of Democrats, while opposed by a majority of Republicans, and was even signed by Democrat Pres. Buchanan.

The fact also remains despite all your handwaving that it was introduced in each house of Congress by a Republican, was supported publicly by the Republican president elect and that same president elect got it passed in multiple Northern states. Seward guaranteed its passage in New York if the Southern states agreed to it.

Further, Corwin simply matched language already found in the new Confederate constitution, and so could have no effect whatever on any already seceded states.

The fact remains that the Southern states could have had explicit protections of slavery effectively forever in the US. So there was no need to insist on independence which was fraught with risk had the continuance of slavery been their real concern.

Oh, and you have the timing wrong. The Corwin Amendment came BEFORE and not after the Confederate Constitution.

It did have a strong effect on keeping Border Slave States in the Union.

It was the North making it clear to one and all that they were perfectly prepared to explicitly protect slavery in the Constitution effectively forever. There was no need to secede over any concerns about the continuance of slavery or to keep to the path of independence over any concerns about the continuance of slavery. They were quite prepared to concede that point.

What is your source for this claim about Sen. Seward?

It was in Team of Rivals though I don't recall the page number offhand. Is that so difficult to believe? William Seward is the one who introduced the Corwin Amendment to the Senate. He was the most influential politician from New York after all.

I know that no Founder ever agreed with Crazy Roger Taney's insane Dred Scott rulings because there are no quotes from any of them which remotely resemble Crazy Roger's alleged "logic".

You can hurl epithets at chief justice Taney all you like. The fact remains that this was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS.

100% of those who concurred in Crazy Roger's Dred Scott insane rulings were Democrats and of those seven, five were Southern Democrats while the other two were Northern Doughface Democrats.

This was the opinion of the majority of the SCOTUS. Did you know that the majority of justices on the SCOTUS at the time of Texas V White were appointed by Lincoln? So by your logic, that would invalidate that opinion too since those justices were also partisan actors. They all voted for Texas V White by the way while the justices not appointed by Lincoln voted against it. Two can play at this game.

Nooooo... but obviously, the Southern slavocracy was deliriously happy with Crazy Roger's insane opinions, and so repeated them in their new 1861 Confederate constitution.

Yessssssssssssssss....there is simply no denying it. The protections of slavery were no more in the Confederate Constitution than existed in the US Constitution at the time of secession. The only differences were that they explicitly used the word "slavery" and they had a provision which said the Confederate government could not force a state to abolish slavery....but then again, that too was the same under the US constitution.

In the North, the reaction was quite different: blah blah blah

The right of transit in the Confederate Constitution was no different from the situation in the US after Dred Scott.

Our FRiend, jeffersondem, loves the word "enshrined" regarding slavery in the US Constitution. In reality, the 1861 Confederate constitution did "enshrine" several important ideas that were not even hinted at in the 1787 US Constitution, but only very recently imposed on it through the insanities of Crazy Roger and against the strong objections of Northern Republicans.

No matter how much you try to hysterically screech TANEY TANEY TANEY!!!!! The fact remains that this was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS and the Confederate Constitution did not provide additional protections of slavery or rights to slave owners that were different from those that existed in the US prior to secession.

With the one curious exception of the Fugitive Slave clause, in which Confederates repeated the 1787 Constitution's euphemistic language, word for word. In fact, the 1861 Confederate constitution did "enshrine" many protections for slavery which were in no way spelled out in the 1787 US Constitution, Crazy Roger's lunacies notwithstanding.

What protections did the Confederate constitution provide that were not provided after the majority SCOTUS decision in Dred Scott - specifically?

Sorry, but that is a lie which you can only maintain by claiming that somehow Crazy Roger's insane opinions had anything to do with our 1787 Founding Fathers' Original Intentions. They didn't, and in your heart of hearts, I think you well know that, as do your pro-Confederate FRiends here.

Sorry but my statement was accurate. There were no protections provided for slavery nor rights to slave owners in the Confederate Constitution than existed in the US after the majority SCOTUS opinion in Dred Scott. You know this is true. If you want to say otherwise you will have to name those protections and rights specifically to prove your case.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "I don't think Roger Taney was crazy, I think he just operated under a different set of premises than other people at the time wanted to accept."

Believe me, DL, I do understand your argument here.
It's the same one Polonius made to his king and queen regarding Hamlet's inexplicable behavior:

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't."
Act II, Scene 2

Sure, I "get" that, and therefore: once we figure out the logic behind such seemingly crazy behavior, it might not seem so "mad" after all, isn't that right?

But here, precisely, is your problem: what if the alleged "logic" behind it is all a Big Lie?
What if there's nothing true about it?

Then, I say, it's still madness, it's still crazy -- if your whole argument is built on lies and nonsense, then you are still nuts, not just "different premises" -- lies make you a lunatic.

That's why SCOTUS Chief Justice Taney can only ever legitimately be Crazy Roger.

DiogenesLamp: "Our modern era is somewhat similar.
Nowadays in the Liberal circles, if you don't accept that a biological male can become a "woman", they consider you crazy."

And why? Why? Why? Why do they do that?????

It's because, just like Crazy Roger Taney, they are DEMOCRATS!!

Democrats are all about the Big Lie -- it's who they are, it's what they do, it's how they make their livings, and always have!

Today's Democrats are nothing more than Crazy Roger Taney dressed up in drag!

How possibly can you not see that?
What's it going to take to open up your self-blinded eyes, FRiend?

The common thread through all of US history is one word: Democrats -- they have dominated and abused this country since the election of 1800, and are today as abusive as they ever were, including the 1850s and 1860s.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "You may have a point about slaveowner Benjamin Franklin but I don't think slaveowner Charles Pinckney would have shied away from acknowledging slavery existed."

We're not talking about whether slavery existed, but rather about the question: why didn't our Founders use words like "slave" in their 1787 Constitution?
Why did they replace "slave" with euphemisms or indirect language?

The obvious answer is, our Founders well understood that slavery was both wrong and disgraceful, and so could not be called by its real name in their most polite of documents, the 1787 US Constitution.

As for Charles Pinckney, he was directly involved in the Constitution's Fugitive Slave Clause, and so obviously participated in obscuring direct references to slaves, which are there called a "Person held to service or labor".

So, it looks to me like even SC's Charles Pinckney understood the 1787 American squeamishness about words like "slave", "slavery" or "enslaved".

A squeamishness which was totally abandoned in the South by 1860.

[FLT-bird]

Unlike the Confederate constitution -- framed in Montgomery, Alabama starting on February 7, 1861 -- the US 1787 Constitution never mentions slaves or slavery by name. Our Founders went to great lengths to avoid saying directly what they intended, suggesting they knew full well slavery was so wrong it must not be called by its proper name. So, they wanted to bury the corpse of slavery under a matting of obfuscatory words.

The Confederate Constitution adopted on March 11, 9 days after the Corwin Amendment, does explicitly use the word "slavery" while the US constitution tap dances around it while referring to it several times. So what?

Unlike the 1861 Confederate constitution, the US 1787 Constitution does not allow exceptions in laws abolishing imports of slaves from other countries.,

All the Confederate constitution allowed was importation from the very same states...ie from the US....from which slaves had been able to be traded prior to secession. It was no different from the situation that existed prior to secession. You know what one key difference was? The Confederate Constitution banned the importation of slaves from the rest of the world immediately. The US Constitution allowed for the importation of slaves for another 20 years after ratification. The Confederate Constitution was stricter in its ban on the slave trade.

Unlike the 1861 Confederate constitution, the US 1787 Constitution does not prohibit outlawing slavery.

This only applied to the Confederate Government not to the state governments. Once again, this was an explicit spelling out of the situation that existed in the US prior to secession. The US Federal government also had no power provided to it in the US Constitution to force a state to abolish slavery.

Now, to a normal person reading this, it seems pretty clear that the Confederate constitution outlaws abolishing slavery,

Oh that seems far from clear. The Confederate Constitution applied to the central government, not to the states. That was the same understanding everyone had about the US Constitution. It only contained restrictions on the power of the federal government.

but our pro-Confederates here respond with two arguments: This provision only prohibits the Confederate Federal government from abolishing slavery, it does not prohibit states from abolishing slavery. States, our pro-Confederates claim, were still free to abolish slavery if they wished. Corwin, Corwin, Corwin, Corwin, Corwin! The CSA constitution, they claim, only says exactly what Corwin said: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.[2][3]" Northern Doughfaced Democrat Pres. Buchanan, signed Corwin Amendment after unanimous Democrat votes for it. However, we should notice the historical timeline here: February 7, 1861 -- the Confederate Secession Convention in Montgomery, Alabama, began work on their new Confederate constitution. It was completed on March 11, 1861. February 28, 1861 -- Ohio Republican Congressman Corwin submitted his proposed amendment. It barely passed with 100% Democrat support and majority Republican opposition and was signed by Democrat Pres. Buchanan on March 4. So it appears to me that the Confederate constitution came first and Corwin was simply hoping to match what Confederates were already guaranteeing. Corwin was ratified by just two of five Union slave states and three of 18 Union free states -- nowhere near the 3/4 required. In 1864 Ohio rescinded its ratification and Maryland voted to abolish slavery on its own.

Here are some other facts: Republicans introduced the Corwin Amendment to each house of Congress. Plenty of Republicans voted for the passage of it - which it did pass with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority. It could not have passed without substantial Republican support.

Its drafting was orchestrated....yes that is the correct word....ORCHESTRATED as Doris Kearns Goodwin went to considerable pains to point out in Team of Rivals...by Lincoln himself.

It was ratified by multiple Northern states even after the war started.

It was introduced on March 2 while the Confederate Constitution was not approved until March 11. So the Corwin Amendment came first. The timeline is indeed important

Unlike the 1861 CSA constitution, the 1787 USA Constitution makes no guarantees of a "right of sojourn" with slaves. In contrast, the CSA constitution says: "Article IV Section 2(1) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.[31]" Crazy Roger Taney's insane 1857 misinterpretations of our Founders' Original Intentions: To which our pro-Confederates respond: that's just what the SCOTUS 1857 Dred Scot ruling provided. However, the fact is that no Founder in 1787 would have interpreted their new US Constitution the way Crazy Roger Taney did in 1857.

The fact remains that this was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS, not just the opinion of Chief Justice Taney.

The fact also remains that there is no way you can show that no Founding Father would have agreed with the SCOTUS' opinion in Dred Scott. None of the Founders said anything about the issue - unless you can provide us a quote from each of the Founding Fathers showing otherwise.

Unlike the 1861 CSA constitution, the 1787 US Constitution did not forbid Congress from outlawing slavery in US territories. Indeed, the US Congress had outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territories in 1787, so that was clearly intended by our Founders. The CSA constitution says, regarding territories: "Article IV Section 3(3) -- In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states.[32]" Again, this was Crazy Roger's ruling in Dred Scott, but it had nothing to do with our Founders' original intentions. The three-fifths clauses of both constitutions are almost identical, except for Confederates' use of the words, "three-fifths of all slaves".

And as the SCOTUS ruled in Dred Scott, the US Federal government could not outlaw slavery in US territories either. So any such law was in fact unconstitutional in the US. You are free to disagree with the SCOTUS but that was the law of the land. Furthermore, there is no way you can prove that was not the Founding Fathers' intent.

The fugitive slave clauses of both constitutions are identical, because for once Confederates decided to use our Southern Founders' euphemistic language instead of their own more blunt words regarding fugitive slaves.

It is identical because the Confederate Constitution is in many parts identical just as the US Constitution was in many parts identical to the Articles of Confederation. The Confederate Constitution did not treat slavery differently than how the US Constitution did prior to secession.

Bottom line: your favorite word, "enshrined", is indeed the proper word for slavery in the 1861 CSA constitution, but not in the 1787 US Constitution.

Bottom line: The Confederate Constitution was more honest in explicitly using the word "slavery" while both protected it equally.

Instead, our Founders in 1787 hoped to "bury", "entomb" and/or "embalm" slavery, as best they could at that time.

The 1787 Constitution tap danced around/obfuscated when referring to slaves instead of explicitly saying the word while providing protections for slavery that were identical to those in the Confederate Constitution - expect the 1787 Constitution allowed 20 more years of the African Slave Trade while the Confederate Constitution banned it immeditately.

[FLT-bird]

Twentieth century "libertarians" created an imaginary Confederacy that was only concerned about freedom and not about slavery. For them it was all about economics and somehow the massive wealth invested in slaves didn't count as economics. That ignores the important role of slavery in the Deep South states. It was central to their economy and their society. Fear of emancipation and of slave revolt were present to a degree that late 20th century economists couldn't (and didn't want to) imagine.

Late 20th century PC Revisionists who were 1960s Leftists engaged in the long march through the institutions came up with the revisionist school of thought in the 1980s that was really just a revival of Northern wartime propaganda - to wit: the all about slavery myth.

They tried to focus obsessively about slavery and pretend both secession and the war were really a morality play which in the end showed that states rights/decentralized power was morally evil and that the local yokels could not be trusted while federal/centralized power was enlightened, humanitarian and for the best. They had to ignore the North's very mercantile and financial reasons for going against the values the Founding Fathers espoused such as government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed and the traditional American support for secession as even Lincoln called "a principle to liberate the world" in 1848. They also had to ignore the Corwin Amendment in which the North offered to explicitly protect slavery in the US Constitution effectively forever as well as the Congressional resolution made which explicitly stated that they were not fighting over slavery. They also had to ignore the repeated statements of both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis saying that they were not fighting over slavery.

These were all inconvenient for the Leftist "all about slavery" narrative.

The Confederacy was no more committed to slavery than the US was. The US Constitution refused to mention slavery. The Confederate Constitution did refer to slaves. Thus it was more committed to slavery. Few honest, unbiased and thoughtful people would have denied that in 1861.

The Confederate Constitution was more honest in explicitly saying "slave and slavery" but provided no additional rights or protections that had existed for slavery in the US prior to secession. In fact, it arguably provided less in that it banned the African slave trade immediately while the US Constitution allowed for it for 20 more years. Few unbiased or thoughtful people would deny this.

Just because the people of one state had chosen to get rid of slavery it does not necessarily follow that they would then try to force their choice on others. Most Southerners saw it as a matter for each sovereign state to decide. "The people of one state" is a variegated group. "The people" of a Northern state would include abolitionists. Southerners had done all they could to drive abolitionists out. Clearly, admitting free states would mean admitting abolitionists. They would be fewer in some states than others, but most Southern politicians wouldn't really want any. Barring free states from joining the Confederacy would have been bad public relations. It would have alienated foreigners and others who might sympathize with the CSA, but that didn't mean that the CSA could realistically expect to admit Northern states or that it would want them.

Voted down was a proposal to bar the admission of states that did not allow slavery - in reference to the Confederate Constitution's drafting in Montgomery, Alabama. The Confederacy was perfectly willing to leave the matter of slavery up to each state - just as had been the case under the US Constitution. There were several reforms in the Confederate Constitution such as outlawing riders, giving the president a line item veto, requiring a balanced budget, setting a maximum tariff rate of 10%, more explicitly recognizing the sovereignty of each state and giving each state more influence in terms of removing Confederate officials and much tighter restrictions on the general welfare clause. These were the things they altered - not protections of slavery.

What the Confederacy was really committed to was respecting the sovereignty of each state. Yet slaveowners didn't want more free states to be admitted to the union, and Missourians were filling up Kansas to make it a slave state. Why would they change now?

There had been a power struggle in the US over the tariff and over government expenditures as well as an underlying struggle to prevent further usurpation of powers not expressly delegated to it under the US Constitution by the federal government. That power struggle was what was driving the debate over the admission of slave vs non slave states. Once the Southern states were no longer part of the US, that power struggle was over. They no longer needed concern themselves with obtaining more states that allowed slavery. Thus they were willing to secede with only their own sovereign territory and without making claim to any of the Western territories of the US they had paid with their blood and treasure too in order to acquire when they were part of the US. They were willing to admit states that did not allow slavery into the Confederacy.

Slave states weren't happy about free states blocking the return of runaways. When they had the upper hand they weren't opposed to federal overreach, as in Taney's Dred Scott opinion. But you repeat it as a dogma that they were all about state sovereignty.

Then as now, if you want to find hypocrisy on the federal vs states rights issue, you can easily find it on both sides. Each side was only too happy to go against what they had previously supported if it meant an immediate political victory for their team. Sound familiar? It should. Politics today is no different. Witness the push by some Republicans now to enact a federal ban on abortion after the argument since Roe V Wade had been that this was an issue for the states to decide and not the federal government. As soon as they get the upper hand or perceive that they've gained the upper hand, some on that side will then turn 180 degrees and do exactly what they fought against for years.

Lincoln worked closely with Corwin and Seward to draft it, get it passed with a supermajority in both houses of Congress and then lobby state governments to pass it. That just isn't true. Buchanan had called for such an amendment. The House went through 57 drafts of the amendment. Early on, John Crittenden played a major role in drafting proposals that were unacceptable to Republicans, so Seward and Corwin jumped in to come up with an alternative. Lincoln submitted possible versions of an amendment. So did a lot of other people. It had to be hammered out in the House and the Senate. Corwin and Seward were there on the scene. Lincoln didn't arrive in Washington until about 10 days before his inauguration.

No. That just IS true. Seward submitted it to the Senate and Corwin the House. Lincoln had a central role in drafting the Corwin Amendment as Doris Kearns Goodwin lays out in Team of Rivals. One would hardly expect such an important piece of legislation to not involve the president elect - the defacto leader - of a political party. The Crittendon Compromise was something else entirely.

Seward was more experienced than Lincoln. He thought he was the better man and that in the new administration he would play the role of prime minister and head of government to Lincoln's more passive role as head of state. He wasn't going to take direction from Lincoln.

Seward recognized that Lincoln, not he, had been elected president.

Corwin was giving advice to Lincoln, rather than getting direction from him. Corwin was active in hammering out the compromise. He was an experienced parliamentarian capable of handling all of the maneuvering himself.

False. Lincoln, not Corwin was the party leader. Corwin was taking direction from Lincoln, not the other way around.

Lincoln played a peripheral role in getting the amendment passed. He could sweeten the pot by offering appointments to the supporters of politicians that Seward needed to vote for the amendment or abstain from voting. That apparently happened in one case. Lincoln was far from any kind of mastermind, though. Seward and Corwin were in charge. After the amendment was passed Lincoln sent letters to governors informing them that the amendment had passed Congress, but he wasn't energetically lobbying them. If you have any evidence of that, please provide it now or stop repeating that claim.

This is just patently false. Lincoln was instrumental in the drafting of the Corwin amendment as well as the political horse trading and arm twisting needed to whip the votes in Congress for its passage. Similarly, he played a key role in getting it passed in multiple Northern States using his influence with politicians, Newspapers, etc to see to it. You really need to read Team of Rivals on this subject. She goes over it in great detail - though she is hardly the first.

Politicians lied then just as they do today. Yes, politicians lie. People lie. After the Civil War some of them helped give the lie that it was all about tariffs a start.

Some today are attempting to promulgate the lie that it was all about slavery and that the tariffs were not a much more important issue to both sides.

Lincoln had more of a role in the origin of the Corwin Amendment than he claimed, but less of a role in its origin and promotion than modern day conspiracy theorists claim.

Lincoln had an absolutely essential role in both the drafting as well as the passage of the Corwin Amendment.

[FLT-bird]

That is the dogma. But it’s clear that militants further South viewed the weakening of slavery in the Border States as a threat and feared that it would spread.

The dogma is that the big concern was over the continuance of slavery when slavery simply was not threatened in the US.

In “The Disruption of American Democracy,” Roy Nichols describes Southern fears in the Summer and Fall of 1860. This fear was not the fear of property loss, of slave uprising, or of the destruction of white supremacy; these might be felt by the voters, but among the leaders there was the fear of loss of power. They would lose their preferred position in Washington; that was bad enough, but it was not their greatest dread. Their very real and often overlooked fear was loss of power at home. The victory of Abraham Lincoln, one time Kentucky poor white, might have consequences little related to the much talked-of abolition. It might stir up the submerged whites to whom Helper had appealed.

All politicians fear loss of power. What most of the Southern voters feared was not for the continuance of slavery. It was not threatened in the US and the vast majority of Southerners did not own any slaves to begin with. What they feared was the reimposition of the equivalent of the Tariff of Abominations which would crush their economy just as the original had a generation earlier prior to the Nullification Crisis. That was the obvious threat given the Morrill Tariff had already passed the House, was sure to pass the Senate and sky high tariffs was one of the key planks of the Republican platform.

If elected, Lincoln would have the federal patronage at his command. He would be appointing a postmaster in every community. Where would he find the men. Not among the aristocracy, not among the fire eaters, not among the Democrats. Might they not be men of his own humble origin? Already that idea was stirring in the minds of some of the ambitious. One Indiana Republican alone, by election day, had received six hundred applications for office from men in the South.

LOL! The Post Office was about all the federal government had in most states. In fact, for the majority of people in the country, the Post Office was their only encounter with the US Federal government. The federal Leviathan that currently extends its tentacles into nearly every corner of our lives did not exist then. The power to appoint postmasters was an insignificant one in terms of exercising any real influence in the Southern states. There weren't enough postal jobs by a factor of at least 1000 to give Lincoln any real influence in the Southern states.

Worse still, Lincoln might appoint free Negroes

There's no way that would have happened. The entire country - indeed the entire world - was flamingly racist at that time. Lincoln was no less a public exemplar of racism and White Supremacy than anybody else. He certainly wasn't going to give appointments to free Negroes. Its laughable to even suggest it.

Undoubtedly, the Republicans would endeavor to use the federal patronage to build up their party. The new postmasters would not censor the mails, would not burn abolition papers. They would preach to the poor against the rule of the rich and would stir up a class struggle to create a new order in the name of democracy. They might even be abolitionists.

This is pretty funny. There were incredibly few postal jobs to offer. There were certainly nowhere near enough for Lincoln to have any real influence in the Southern States.

This fear already had been voiced in the Senate during the last two sessions. When a North Carolina member heard of the breakup at Baltimore and reflected upon the character of the times, and “the dirty influences which in this day prompt action,” he confessed that he was not surprised. “The democratic proclivities of the age pervade our whole country — nothing can arrest our downward tendency to absolute Government — the idea of a Republic is cherished by but few. What a season for Demagogues and Charlatans!”

Southerners were very much opposed to centralized power and the federal government's usurpation of ever more power for itself that the sovereign states never expressly delegated to it in the US Constitution. That was true in 1787 and its still true today. Then and now New England supports ever more centralized power and the South opposes it.

The fear of a shift of power to the poorer farmers and artisans was contributing to local political contests in a fashion big with danger. In several of the southern states the Democratic machines had to deal with this election under local conditions which had nothing directly to do with it. The crisis of 1860 illustrates very well a fundamental characteristic of American politics; namely, that federal issues are frequently used in state politics in an artificial and opportunistic fashion. This local use of federal issues is not always apparent and is difficult to understand if too constant focus is kept on the federal angle. Such local use was particularly marked in South Carolina during this fateful summer.

There were political power struggles that went on in each state. Obviously social class was a major issue then just as it is now. Support for secession however was widespread in the Southern states and was not confined to just the rich or just slaveowners - indeed they were a very small minority of the total White population in the Southern states yet those states voted either directly or indirectly for secession overwhelmingly.

I think Nichols sees things too much through the prism of class. A large number of Southerners, elite or not, feared that Republicans would build up a party in the Border States and the South that would support an eventual end to slavery and possibly to White Supremacy.

I don't think this was a real concern among any but a tiny handful. There was no real support for abolition. Abolitionists could not get more than single digit percentages of the vote even in the North. Even had there been support for Abolition, how would the federal government go about it? It did not have that power. In any case, it would have had to come up with a lot of money to compensate slave owners for emancipation just as had been done in other countries. That would take considerable time and even more considerable money. Northerners were fiercely opposed to diverting federal funds they were getting in order to compensate slave owners for their slaves.

The Corwin Amendment appeased many in the Upper South, but it wasn’t enough to calm those fears in the Deep South states that had already succeeded. It was never going to bring them back into the union.

the Corwin Amendment shows both that the North was not fighting over slavery - if anybody really doubted it. It also shows that the original 7 seceding states weren't seceding over slavery. Slavery wasn't threatened in the US as is and they could have obtained even more explicit protections of slavery by coming back in. Slaveowners were after all a relatively small minority of the total White population in the Southern states. Secession enjoyed widespread popular support.

Also the Upper South was content to stay in the union without the offer of the Corwin Amendment. Their only condition was that the federal government not try to impose a government the people in the 7 seceding states did not consent to by violence. They only seceded when the federal government made clear it intended to impose its rule by violence and without the consent of the governed in those states.

[FLT-bird]

But by leaving out the key words, "at pleasure", you've misquoted both me and our Founders' original intentions. Those Founders' intentions can be found in many quotes, most completely spelled out by our Father of the Constitution, James Madison in his now famous letter to Nicholas Trist, with which I'm certain you are familiar. I'm also certain you well understand that the entire Lost Cause ideology is built on a foundational claim that 1860 Fire Eating Secessionists were inheritors of our 1776 and 1787 Founders' Original Intentions. They weren't, and one way we can know that is to realize your compulsion to misquote and leave out Founders' key distinction between disunion for a just cause, as in 1776 versus secession "at pleasure" as in 1860.

Reading the Declaration of Independence:

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Hmm. I don't see the words "at pleasure". I do see consent of the governed and whenever the people of a state decide that the government becomes destructive of these ends (meaning consent) it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. So the power to decide what is "destructive of these ends" rests with the people of each state according to the Declaration of Independence.

"at pleasure" is a term you have invented which is nowhere to be found in the Declaration of Independence.

Also it is laughable to claim the 1860-61 secessionists were not inheritors of the 1776 secessionists original intentions. Of course they were. They were the children and grandchildren of those 1776 secessionists. Robert E. Lee's father was Light Horse Harry Lee - Washington's best cavalry commander. Jefferson Davis' father served in the Continental Army. My own Great Great Grandfather (Thomas Jefferson ....then the family name) who was born in 1815 in Petersburg, Virginia was the grandson of a man who served in the Virginia Militia and fought against the Redcoats in the War of Secession from the British Empire. His son, James Monroe (then the family name) who was the great grandson of that Virginia Militia man served in the Confederate Army in the War for Southern Independence. OF COURSE they were the inheritors of the Founding Fathers.

[FLT-bird]

Clearly, a key link in the chain of our Lost Causers' "logic" is the claim that Crazy Roger's Dred Scott opinions represented a valid interpretation of our Founders' Original Intentions. They didn't, certainly not our Northern Founders, nor have I ever seen quotes from Southern Founders which confirm that their views in any way matched Crazy Rogers' Dred Scott ruminations.

No matter how much you hate it and no matter how many insults you spew at Chief Justice Taney, the fact remains that like it or not, Dred Scott was the opinion of the majority of the SCOTUS and as such was the law of the land.