Posted on 01/23/2003 6:06:25 PM PST by one2many
<!-- a{text-decoration:none} //-->
CONTENT="">
|
|
|
||||
|
||||||
|
|
|||||
|
||||||
|
|
|
||||
|
||||||
|
|
|||||
|
||||||
|
|
|
||||
|
The -people- preserved the Union.
Walt
That would depend on whether he is acting on the instructions of the President or if he's gone off on his own and making policy on his own.
According to Toombs that conversation took place when the cabinet issued the orders to take Sumter. By your timeline that decision was made when Davis 'knew' that an invasion 'would happen.'
And where exactly does it say that? And if it did then who decides what is prejudicial? Why would forbidding slavery, as the majority of the states did, be considered favoring those states over the minority of the states that did allow slavery? Shouldn't the territories be administered in keeping with the wishes of the majority?
No, just the opposite. See Amendment V, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." And Amendment IX as well, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Nonsense. The government was not depriving anyone of anything. If slave owner A in Alabama wishes to keep his slaves then he may, in Alabama. If he wished to move to a territory that prevented slavery then he was free to do so but without his chattle. He could leave them behind in Alabama, sell them, give them away, whatever. The government was not taking them away from him, it was not denying him of his life or liberty or his ownership in slaves. But Congress was within its power to tell him that he could not take them into a territory.
Nonsense. Nowhere in the Constitution is that right outlined. Some of the states may have assumed that they had that right because of their ratification documents but they were wrong.
BTW, secession was never ruled to be illegal before or during the war. Also, BTW, any decision declaring it illegal would be the same as declaring the original agreement void as fraudulent since some states joined with the purposely stated understanding they could withdraw and reassume those powers. Either secession was legal, or there was no union.
Yes and no. In his decision in Texas v. White the Chief Justice indicates that secession is permitted when he writes "When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States." So then we need to examine the method that the southern states chose for their acts of secession. By unilaterally declaring that they were no longer in the Union they violated the Constitutional powers granted to Congress to determine the status of states and the constitutional restrictions against actions where the interests of the other states may be impacted unless they have the consent of Congress. So is secession possible? More than likely it is. Were the unilateral acts of secession on the part of the southern states legal? They most certainly were not and the Supreme Court ruled on that in 1868.
The election of Abraham Lincoln showed the slave power that its many decades of controlling the national government were coming to an end. That is what caused the war as much as anything.
Far from a peaceful letting go of slavery, slave owners were ready to fight in the last ditch to protect it.
"The Southern States now stand in the same relation toward the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation, that our ancestors stood toward the people of Great Britain. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress is useless to protect them against unjust taxation, and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British Parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue -- to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures."
R.B. Rhett, 1860
"Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left."
A. Lincoln, 1861
Rhett, of course, is lying about taxes prior to the war, but his comments still make an interesting contrast with Lincoln's.
Walt
Exactly what are you smoking, Walt? I quoted him directly in my previous post. Here it is again.
"The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Missipi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Missipi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better." - Jefferson, August 12, 1803
You don't quote Jefferson on legal secession. You can't. He was no more in favor of a dissolution of the Union than Washington, Madison, Jackson or Lincoln.
"It is hoped that by a due poise and partition of powers between the General and particular governments, we have found the secret of extending the benign blessings of republicanism over still greater tracts of country than we possess, and that a subdivision may be avoided for ages, if not forever." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1791
"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our persons, our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801.
"The preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801.
"It is of immense consequence that the States retain as complete authority as possible over their own citizens. The withdrawing themselves under the shelter of a foreign jurisdiction is so subversive of order and so pregnant of abuse, that it may not be amiss to consider how far a law of praemunire [a punishable offense against government] should be revised and modified, against all citizens who attempt to carry their causes before any other than the State courts, in cases where those other courts have no right to their cognizance." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:424
It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our State governments are superior to the Federal or the Federal to the States. The people, to whom all authority belongs, have divided the powers of government into two distinct departments, the leading characters of which are foreign and domestic; and they have appointed for each a distinct set of functionaries. These they have made coordinate, checking and balancing each other like the three cardinal departments in the individual States; each equally supreme as to the powers delegated to itself, and neither authorized ultimately to decide what belongs to itself or to its coparcener in government. As independent, in fact, as different nations." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821. ME 15:328
"The spirit of concord [amongst] sister States... alone carried us successfully through the revolutionary war, and finally placed us under that national government, which constitutes the safety of every part, by uniting for its protection the powers of the whole." --Thomas Jefferson to William Eustis, 1809. ME 12:227
"The interests of the States... ought to be made joint in every possible instance in order to cultivate the idea of our being one nation, and to multiply the instances in which the people shall look up to Congress as their head." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1785. ME 5:14, Papers 8:229
"By [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties." --Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1060.htm
You've seen all this before. And you still post your unsupported crap.
Walt
The concept of legal, peaceful, secession belonged to Calhoun's generation. A canny observer noted:
"It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether the present movement at the South be called "secession'' or "rebellion.'' The movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning, they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude, by any name which implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, and as much pride in, and reverence for, the history, and government, of their common country, as any other civilized, and patriotic people. They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented an ingenious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is, that any state of the Union may, consistently with the national Constitution, and therefore lawfully, and peacefully, withdraw from the Union, without the consent of the Union, or of any other state. The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judge of its justice, is too thin to merit any notice.
With rebellion thus sugar-coated, they have been drugging the public mind of their section for more than thirty years; and, until at length, they have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms against the government the day after some assemblage of men have enacted the farcical pretence of taking their State out of the Union, who could have been brought to no such thing the day before."
...The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession. They have assumed to make a National Constitution of their own, in which, of necessity, they have either discarded, or retained, the right of secession, as they insist, it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, they thereby admit that, on principle, it ought not to be in ours. If they have retained it, by their own construction of ours they show that to be consistent they must secede from one another, whenever they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts, or effecting any other selfish, or unjust object. The principle itself is one of disintegration, and upon which no government can possibly endure."
A. Lincoln 7/4/61
Walt
Whoop ti doo. Chew, "a War Department clerk", versus an associate Justice of THE US Supreme Court. Who would any rational person believe over the other?
I would be the first to say that if you are in charge, you are responsible. So in that sense, Lincoln was responsible for what Seward said to the rebel commissioners. I'm not sure, but I don't think Lincoln knew Seward was meeting with them at all.
But there is no doubt that Lincoln made no secret of his intentions. He said in his first inaurgural that the government would maintain the forts and other places. --He-- never said anything else. All the rebels had to do was ask him.
As I said the other day, Seward tried to "play" Lincoln, but Lincoln played Seward. Seward's proposed course of action was to precipitate a war with Great Britain. He figured the southern states would then rally 'round the flag. He offered to surrender the forts on that basis.
This is all so ridiculous. Whatshisname tried to suggest that Lincoln's actions regarding Fort Sumter were as duplicitous as the well known story of the Jap plan to deliver an ultimatum 1 hour before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. That is completely wrong.
Lincoln, as I say, made plain that the government WOULD constitutionally maintain itself, and WOULD maintain the forts and stations and continue the mails. Nothing he did in communicating with the rebels showed anything else.
If you want to say Lincoln was responsible for not holding Seward in check, fine. We can start down that line.
But Lincoln never said anything publicly or privately other than the forts would be maintained and occupied.
Bruce Catton says in "the Coming Fury" that the Illinois State Journal was basically speaking for Lincoln in November, 1860:
"The laws of the United States must be executed-- the President has no discretionary power on the subject -- his duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Mr. Lincoln will perform that duty. Disunion by armed force is treason, and treason must and will be put down at all hazards. The Union is not, and cannot be dissolved until this government is overthrown by the traitors who have raised the disunion flag. Can they overthrow it? We think not."
The rebels DID apparently think that Lincoln wouldn't or couldn't fight; they soon learned othewise.
Now this is another of those incredibly pedantic, "mine is bigger than yours" seques that the intermnible ACW rant on FR often falls into.
A Supreme Court justice is more credible that Chew!
Who cares? That's not the issue.
Lincoln never wavered in what he said to the rebels. That is the real issue. Unfortunately for them, they weren't listening.
To correlate what Lincoln said in 1860-61 with what the Japs did in 1941 is just completely ludicrous and nonsensical. But attacking Lincoln is important to some. He MUST be discredited. After all, he said he wished that all men everywhere could be free. Can't have that.
Who was it whining about how the slave owners were being denied their rights?
That is certainly worth a big boo-hoo.
Walt
Actually, they fired on the US flag under the circumstance that it flew over a hostile army attempting to maintain its presence inside their borders.
John C. Calhoun was SecWar when Fort Sumter was contracted. It was nothing but home state pork. The money that flowed into South Carolina for the building and garrisoning the fort wasn't "hostile".
Your position is straight from "1984".
"Hostile Army".
What a joke.
Walt
And so he may have.
Oh he did, all right. And he acted on it. Two people were convicted of treason against the United States during his administration.
It is so funny that the neo-rebs always have to discount George Washington to put forward their bogus interpretation of these events.
Walt
That wasn't tripe, was it?
So now you believe that northern newspapers hold the deciding argument.
Why would you say something as ridiculous as that?
As I said a few days ago, the ISJ was speaking for Lincoln.
In any case, the "deciding argument" was provided by loyal Union men.
Walt
One of my favorite quotes is from a Washington DC paper, the Washington States and Union:
"Vermont, New York, and Virginia, upon entering the Union, were wise enough to distinctly enunciate this principle in setting forth the independent sovereignty of a State, when they reserved the right to "resume the powers delegated to the federal government" whenever they were found to be used in an oppressive manner - a right which is as pure and as sacred as any political heritage under heaven" - March 22, 1861
That's not an editorialist's mere opinion, it's a statement of fact, and of history.
Obviously not, as none of the states was better able to sever its ties with the government than Bonnie and Clyde were.
And there is nothing in this paper you quote to suggest that secession was -legal- under U.S. law.
I'd be glad for you to quote any newspaper that unilateral state secession was -legal- under U.S. law. Gee whiz, even the quote you provide implies natural law, not U.S. law.
Walt
What clause in the Constitution attests to it's perpetuity?
Every clause, and every word.
"Whoever considers, in a combined and comprehensive view, the general texture of the constitution, wil be satisfied that the people of the United States intended to form themselves into a nation for national purposes. They instituted, for such purposes, a national government complete in all its parts, with powers legislative, executive and judiiciary, ad in all those powers extending over the whole nation. "
Justice James Wilson, opinion in Chisholm v. Georgia, 1793.
No one challenged what Wilson said.
It was for a later generation to spout the treason of independent states, co-equal in a compact.
Walt
Like so many "Southern Gentlemen" on these boards, your first argument is to throw gratuitous insults. I suppose that makes you feel all manly knowing that one Reb can out insult any 10 Yanks, but this "damnYankee knobhead" is completely immune to your hyper-bluster. In fact, I find it comical.
Let's go back to the question. From primary sources, please give the class one example of "self-determination" from the 1860 secession crisis that did not revolve around the issue of slavery.
Ever read the DISENTING opinion in the Prize Cases?
Ever see a dissenting opinion that decided a case?
Here's the crux of the -majority- opinion:
"By the Constitution, Congress alone has the power to declare a national or foreign war. It cannot declare was against a State, or any number of States, by virtue of any clause in the Constitution. The Constitution confers on the President the whole Executive power. He is bound to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. He is Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States. He has no power to initiate or declare a war either against a foreign nation or a domestic State. But by the Acts of Congress of February 28th, 1795, and 3d of March, 1807, he is authorized to called out the militia and use the military and naval forces of the United States in case of invasion by foreign nations, and to suppress insurrection against the government of a State or of the United States."
One of those laws is the Militia Act of 1792, which requires that U.S. law operate in all the states.
Secession is possible alright, but could only be morally justified in the case of intolerable abuse, as Madison said.
The beam in the eye of the neo-reb interpretation is that southerners had controlled the government for decades prior to 1860. There was no abuse to report. What was seen with the election of Lincoln is that this would change at some indefinite point in the future. Their ponzi scheme in human flash might come crashing down, and they would fight against that in the last ditch.
Walt
LOL - That's not a defense of your false statement, Wlat. You said, and I quote: "There were no illusions in 1788-90 as to the permanence of Union under law".
Your statement was completely false, and if the above is your response to the evidence I presented that proved it, then you are admitting your error. They would not have deliberately included statements that they could reassume those powers if they thought the union "permanent".
None of these ratification documents suggest any resumption of complete state sovereignty was in keeping with United States law.
The assumption at all the ratification conventions was that the Constitution was both binding and perpetual except for intolerable abuse.
These people were all familiar with the incompetence of the national government under the Articles.
"It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its origins in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection, or its benefits. It has to us all a copious foundation of national and personal happiness.
I have not allowed myself, Sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might be hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard his as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this Government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may best be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken or destroyed. While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day at least that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision may never be open on what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonoured fragments of a once glorious Union; on states disservered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil fueds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance be rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known, and honoured throughout the earth, still ful high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards,' but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart--Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseperable!"
-- Daniel Webster
It's just as true now as when Webster said it.
What the rebs and neo-rebs both want is some nirvana not based in human experience.
Walt
How was Congress within its power telling people they couldn't take slaves into the northern part of the Louisiana Territory? See my post 170.
I thought treaties, such as the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, become the law of the land, and that Congress's action to limit slavery in the Louisiana Territory was declared unconstitutional in the Dred Scott decision. Am I correct in this? I don't know Dred Scott very well.
By your definition none of the states carved out of the Louisiana purchase would have had the ability to outlaw slavery within their borders because of the Lousiana purchase treaty. I don't believe that it limited the ability of Congress and the states to make further rules and regulations governing the territories.
Dred Scott was a different matter. In his opinion Chief Justice Taney did express his belief that Congress did not have the right to outlaw slavery in the territories, using the somewhat tortured reasoning that 'rules and regulations' are not the same as laws. Following the decision and the uproar that followed many up North viewed the Chief Justice's comments in that area as outside the scope of the original case and therefore should be classified as an obiter dictum. I'm not sure that they were right since part of the Dred Scott case involved his living in the Minnesota territory, but I have no doubt that futher cases seeking to clarify the Dred Scott decision would have been forthcoming if not for the rebellion.
Yes. I've seen this mentioned frequently as the legal mechanism for secession.
So how hard would it have been for some state(s) to bring this case to the US Supreme court, and get a legal ruling on the matter?
After all, The three branches of power were the servants of the People , weren't they?
Why fire on the US flag instead?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.