Posted on 01/23/2003 6:06:25 PM PST by one2many
You are free to desire as much, but such is idle speculation of little value or meaning as it never happened and could not happen.
In most cases, they employed the mechanism of popularly elected and properly seated state governments, namely the legislatures. The legislatures then used various statutory methods to enact secession. Often this ammounted to doing it themselves, sanctioning a convention to do it, or authorizing a popular referendum that, upon passage, would enact secession by statute.
I'm not sure I understand your argument as it applies to Texas. Texas voters elected representatives to a secession convention endorsed by the state legislature. The elected delegates to the secession convention then voted to secede, subject to confirmation by the voters of the state themselves. The voters of the state then overwhelmingly voted to secede.
The Texas procedure used the same steps that the original states did to ratify the US Constitution and, in fact, went even further by submitting the secession question directly to the voters themselves.
We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the freeman of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the present month.
But perhaps you are quibbling with the words used in the Texas secession documents. Perhaps the words didn't say "withdraw from the Constitution". If that is your complaint, then you are quibbling and splitting hairs. The Texas documents said that the 1845 act of the people of Texas by which Texas joined the Union was repealed and annulled and that Texas sovereignty was resumed.
Texas would seem to be following the guidance of James Madison, father of the US Constitution, who said:
It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal, superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and, consequently, that, as the. parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.
No, not really. German submarine encounters, including some very near the coast of the United States, occured almost immediately. The air force was not the only means America used to fight the Germans, you know.
Yeah, I said that.
First large scale U.S. contact with German ground elements came in February, 1943. That's fourteen months after Pearl harbor.
Let's see...December 6, 1860 -- SC publishes secesh docs -- January 9, 1861, SC militia fires on U.S. flag on board the Star. Rebel gov't calls for troops in February, 1861, I think. Lincoln calls up the militia in April, first large battle at Manassas (forgetting fighting in what is now W. Virginia and elsewhere) in July. December -- July, call that 8 months.
I'd say the war was on from December 6 -- at least at the pace it was in WWII.
In fact, it was over 2 1/2 years before U.S. ground forces were in a real grapple with the Germans -- that came June 6, 1944. And also the 8th Air Force dropped in one WEEK in February, 1944 as many bombs over occupied Europe/Germany as it did in ALL of 1943.
The ACW was on from December, 1860, and as the timeline shows, at a pretty high tempo.
In fact, compare that tempo in 1861 to our war on Al Qaeda. We're dragging our feet compared to the secesh.
Walt
It came after many disloyal and traitorous acts by the so-called seceded states.
Walt
Sweet concoction, but it's covered with flies. The fact is that the small Union detachment at Ft. Sumter never made a single hostile action in the months that they were there. In fact, the Fort (or should I say the 35 year-old Federal boondoggle authorized by Sec of War J.C. Calhoon to pump-up the local economy,) was still not complete and it had no capability for effective offensive or defensive action. It never fired a shot at, or in any way impeded or even threatened shipping in Charleston harbor.
Major Anderson's only mission was to keep the Stars and Stripes flying over the birth-place of treason. It was an order given him by President Buchanan, and re-issued by President Lincoln.
Now you can say that US law did not apply, but the vast majority of Americans in 1861 disagreed with that notion. They rejected anarchy, and when the Charleston slave-power anarchy turned into outright rebellion, they rightfully united and crushed it.
In your mind. In reality, the south simply sought to separate itself from its previous political affiliation. The Lincoln acted to stop that separation and in doing so committed widescale acts of invasion and coercion per his own definitions of those two words.
No one is denying that.
They just aimed to do it at the point of a gun.
Walt
He never said anything else.
Walt
Your comparison is false. The existence of a state of warfare exists after the occurrence of several generally recognized actions and the events that -immediately- precipitate them. Among the most common examples are a formal declaration of war by a country or an equivalent act of declaration, such as a blockade. Others include a major sanctioned military encounter, the sanctioned invasion of one country by the military of another, or an event that immediately precipitates any of these. In the case of the civil war, the first such event is Fort Sumter and those events immediately involved with it. Sumter itself was the first major military encounter of sanctioned troops. It also precipitated the first declarations of formal war in the blockade, and was used by The Lincoln as an excuse to launch his invasion of the south. No event prior to the immediate vicinity of the battle at Sumter can be said to have had any such consequence or implication. Therefore the war started with Fort Sumter and the first shot fired in it came from a yankee ship.
Nonsense. The Star of the West was not an isolated incident, it was the first evidence that the south would go to war to take Sumter. It directly impacted Sumter in that it was a hostile act against an attempt to land supplies to a United States facility. The Harriet Lane, on the other hand, fired on an unidentified ship as she was tasked with doing. It took place after The Davis and his regime had issued orders to fire on Sumter so the two are not related.
The Lincoln was making war on the south only weeks out of Sumter by way of his blockade and soon issued his own call for an additional 75,000 to the yankee troop ranks. It is only common sense that the south would prepare for what was coming by having their own army assembled.
But the call for 100,000 troops came while The Davis and his regime were supposed to be negotiating peace and while the south supposedly believed that a peaceful evacuation of Sumter was not only possible but imminent. What were the troops for if The Davis really wanted a peaceful solution?
But their accompanying naval attachment, the Harriet Lane, certainly did. Immediately prior to the battle, the Lincoln was also planning to employ that same union attachment in military coordination with the arrival of his fleet for the purpose of fighting their way into the harbor and asserting control over it.
That's really the answer to any aspect of the neo-reb rant.
Walt
You're misdosing you meds or something. There were 65 troops in Sumter. There was some piddling number in the ships of the April relief expedition. General Scott had told Lincoln that 20,000 troops would be required to take Charleston.
Walt
No military offensive of any consequence immediately preceded or followed it. No state of war immediately followed from it or preceded it. Therefore it cannot be pinpointed as the start of the war, and instead falls into the category of incedental skirmishes prior to the war.
it was the first evidence that the south would go to war to take Sumter.
Perhaps, but evidence is not the same as warfare or warfare's initiation. On the same note, that the feds tried to sneak in troops with the Star of the West is evidence of their willingness to use military force over Sumter, but it is not the same thing as The Lincoln's invasion of the south.
The Harriet Lane, on the other hand, fired on an unidentified ship as she was tasked with doing. It took place after The Davis and his regime had issued orders to fire on Sumter so the two are not related.
History says otherwise. Beauregard recieved word of the incident, prompting him to expedite the orders to open fire. Additionally those orders came in direct response to The Lincoln's action of sending a naval fleet to Sumter for military operation, of which the Harriet Lane was to be a likely participant. The events were therefore intwined together to a degree that is likely beyond the scope of your mental capacity.
In your mind.
And on the calandar, poster boy for Orwellian logic.
The rebels began raising an army even before President Lincoln took office.
Walt
And that gun was held opposite of another in the hands of The Lincoln, who sought to deny any separation, peaceful or not, by any means necessary.
Then you admit that The Lincoln invaded the south and coerced his obedience. Fair enough. I simply make a point of this issue due to the fact that you were asserting otherwise a few days ago.
No military offensive of any consequence immediately preceded or followed it.
Well, I see you finally read the timeline.
What you call of no consequence included seizing federal installations and property worth millions, including a U.S. mint.
It's hard to imagine how you can post this crap.
Walt
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