Posted on 08/20/2004 5:43:21 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
Imagine that America had a Chief Justice of the United States who actually believed in enforcing the Constitution and, accordingly, issued an opinion that the war in Iraq was unconstitutional because Congress did not fulfill its constitutional duty in declaring war. Imagine also that the neocon media, think tanks, magazines, radio talk shows, and television talking heads then waged a vicious, months-long smear campaign against the chief justice, insinuating that he was guilty of treason and should face the punishment for it. Imagine that he is so demonized that President Bush is emboldened to issue an arrest warrant for the chief justice, effectively destroying the constitutional separation of powers and declaring himself dictator.
An event such as this happened in the first months of the Lincoln administration when Abraham Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Roger B. Taney after the 84-year-old judge issued an opinion that only Congress, not the president, can suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Lincoln had declared the writ null and void and ordered the military to begin imprisoning thousands of political dissenters. Taney’s opinion, issued as part of his duties as a circuit court judge in Maryland, had to do with the case of Ex Parte Merryman (May 1861). The essence of his opinion was not that habeas corpus could not be suspended, only that the Constitution requires Congress to do it, not the president. In other words, if it was truly in "the public interest" to suspend the writ, the representatives of the people should have no problem doing so and, in fact, it is their constitutional prerogative.
As Charles Adams wrote in his LRC article, "Lincoln’s Presidential Warrant to Arrest Chief Justice Roger B. Taney," there were, at the time of his writing, three corroborating sources for the story that Lincoln actually issued an arrest warrant for the chief justice. It was never served for lack of a federal marshal who would perform the duty of dragging the elderly chief justice out of his chambers and throwing him into the dungeon-like military prison at Fort McHenry. (I present even further evidence below).
All of this infuriates the Lincoln Cult, for such behavior is unquestionably an atrocious act of tyranny and despotism. But it is true. It happened. And it was only one of many similar constitutional atrocities committed by the Lincoln administration in the name of "saving the Constitution."
The first source of the story is a history of the U.S. Marshal’s Service written by Frederick S. Calhoun, chief historian for the Service, entitled The Lawmen: United States Marshals and their Deputies, 1789–1989. Calhoun recounts the words of Lincoln’s former law partner Ward Hill Laman, who also worked in the Lincoln administration.
Upon hearing of Laman’s history of Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the mass arrest of Northern political opponents, Lincoln cultists immediately sought to discredit Laman by calling him a drunk. (Ulysses S. Grant was also an infamous drunk, but no such discrediting is ever perpetrated on him by the Lincoln "scholars".)
But Adams comes up with two more very reliable accounts of the same story. One is an 1887 book by George W. Brown, the mayor of Baltimore, entitled Baltimore and the Nineteenth of April, 1861: A Study of War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1887). In it is the transcript of a conversation Mayor Brown had with Taney in which Taney talks of his knowledge that Lincoln had issued an arrest warrant for him.
Yet another source is A Memoir of Benjamin Robbins Curtis, a former U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Judge Curtis represented President Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate; wrote the dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott case; and resigned from the court over a dispute with Judge Taney over that case. Nevertheless, in his memoirs he praises the propriety of Justice Taney in upholding the Constitution by opposing Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus. He refers to Lincoln’s arrest warrant as a "great crime."
I recently discovered yet additional corroboration of Lincoln’s "great crime." Mr. Phil Magness sent me information suggesting that the intimidation of federal judges was a common practice in the early days of the Lincoln administration (and the later days as well). In October of 1861 Lincoln ordered the District of Columbia Provost Marshal to place armed sentries around the home of a Washington, D.C. Circuit Court judge and place him under house arrest. The reason was that the judge had issued a writ of habeas corpus to a young man being detained by the Provost Marshal, allowing the man to have due process. By placing the judge under house arrest Lincoln prevented the judge from attending the hearing of the case. The documentation of this is found in Murphy v. Porter (1861) and in United States ex re John Murphy v. Andrew Porter, Provost Marshal District of Columbia (2 Hay. & Haz. 395; 1861).
The second ruling contained a letter from Judge W.M. Merrick, the judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, explaining how, after issuing the writ of habeas corpus to the young man, he was placed under house arrest. Here is the final paragraph of the letter:
After dinner I visited my brother Judges in Georgetown, and returning home between half past seven and eight o’clock found an armed sentinel stationed at my door by order of the Provost-Marshal. I learned that this guard had been placed at my door as early as five o’clock. Armed sentries from that time continuously until now have been stationed in front of my house. Thus it appears that a military officer against whom a writ in the appointed form of law has first threatened with and afterwards arrested and imprisoned the attorney who rightfully served the writ upon him. He continued, and still continues, in contempt and disregard of the mandate of the law, and has ignominiously placed an armed guard to insult and intimidate by its presence the Judge who ordered the writ to issue, and still keeps up this armed array at his door, in defiance and contempt of the justice of the land. Under the circumstances I respectfully request the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court to cause this memorandum to be read in open Court, to show the reasons for my absence from my place upon the bench, and that he will cause this paper to be entered at length on the minutes of the Court . . . W.M. Merrick Assistant Judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia
As Adams writes, the Lincoln Cult is terrified that this truth will become public knowledge, for it if does, it means that Lincoln "destroyed the separation of powers; destroyed the place of the Supreme Court in the Constitutional scheme of government. It would have made the executive power supreme, over all others, and put the president, the military, and the executive branch of government, in total control of American society. The Constitution would have been at an end."
Exactly right.
August 19, 2004
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is the author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, (Three Rivers Press/Random House). His latest book is How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold Story of Our Country’s History, from the Pilgrims to the Present (Crown Forum/Random House, August 2004).
Copyright © 2004 LewRockwell.com
Portraits of Lincoln men, with WhiskeyPapa serving as the Brigade leader (or is that ring leader?) and setting the example of what a Lincoln man should look like and how a Lincoln man should comport himself.
#3Fan, Brigade prayer leader.
Just think, if for his syphilis, Lincoln had not taken the blue pill with the mercury, but had taken the red pill, he might have discovered the Matrix.
I'd imagine that they would be relatively scarce in a desert community some 500 miles from civilization. That said, whether they did or not isn't the issue. Of greater significance is that even in August, after two months of healing in El Paso, there were sufficient numbers of wounded persons who could not make the journey to San Antonio on their own feet. That they did so by cart was instigated by the fact that the yankees arrived and created an option where they would either be sent to san antonio or prison in Illinois. Given the alternative of the yankees not arriving, absolutely no reason at all exists as to why they should have prematurely attempted a journey to san antonio when they could just as easily heal for that journey in el paso.
Impeachment?
None of those are legislative acts, similar to creating a state.
You seriously need to work on context. Try again.
Shock! Lincoln with syphilis? From a young girl?
But, but. I thought he was gay!
You've been reading Gore vidal again, haven't you?
How did Rhode Island become a state?
The October high temperature you cite seems strange to me. Here is what I found for San Antonio from Fodors:
June 72-91°F
July 74-95°F
August 74-96°F
September 70-91°F
October 60-82°F
Yesterday's high in San Antonio was 77°F. The average high for Jeff Davis County (the location of Fort Davis) in July is 90°F. The mornings can be cool and dry. When I've hiked in desert country during the summer, I hole up in the shade in the afternoon and walk when it is cooler.
"When I've hiked in desert country during the summer, I hole up in the shade in the afternoon and walk when it is cooler."
An appropriate thing to do - not unlike what we geology students did in the Mohave Desert while learning to map in the field (late spring to early summer). You know what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen ...
I've spent many an October weekend outdoors in the Hill Country north and west of San Antonio. That's what made me suspicious of your October temperature number. The average daily low and average daily high temperatures I cited for October are about right, based on my experience. It generally begins to cool off in the second half of September.
The sick and wounded were probably in better shape in September than they were in June when the main body of troops left.
[cr #2644 desperately changing what he said] None of those are legislative acts, similar to creating a state.
[cr #2644] You seriously need to work on context. Try again.
What you said was, "What Congress can do, Congress can undo." You seriously need to work on context.
What Article 4, Section 3, Clause 1 says is "New States may be admitted by the Congress into the Union...."
It does not say Congress may create a state. You seriously need to work on context.
While you are seriously working on cleaning up your misbegotten context, you may make a desperate search for any legal authority who so much as mentions your cockamamie theory of Constitutional law.
"When I was in Greencastle in 1887, I said to you that Lincoln had, when a mere boy, the syphilis, and now let me explain the matter in full, which I have never done before. About the year 1835-36, Mr. Lincoln went to Beardstown and during a devilish passion had connection with a girl and caught the disease. Lincoln told me this and in a moment of folly I made note of it in my mind and afterwards I transferred it, as it were, to a little memorandum book which I loaned to Lamon, not, as I should have done, erasing that note. About the year 1836-37 Lincoln moved to Springfield and took up quarter with [Joshua] Speed; they became very intimate. At this time I suppose that the disease hung to him, and not wanting to trust our physicians, wrote a note to Doctor Drake."
"The sick and wounded were probably in better shape in September than they were in June when the main body of troops left."
That is not an unreasonable supposition, and GOPc made that point. But some were certainly in poor enough shape to require transport by wagon. If the Union troops can transport them by wagon, it seems to me the confederate troops could have also transported them by wagon. If they were well enough to walk or ride, they could have joined up with the stragglers who were passing through El Paso after Sibley retreated. So I therefore assume that all or most of the 25+/- sick and wounded confederate soldiers were simply abandoned.
The Official Records also note a group of nearly 100 confederates making the same journey about two weeks later. Aurora Hunt writes (pg 127):
"Another group of prisoners, numbering 93, were supplied with US arms for their protection and were ordered to keep moving toward San Antonio. They were instructed to surrender the waepons to Lt. French who had already left for Texas with another group of prisoners of war. Surgeon E. N. Covey of the Confederate army accompanied the second group and Carleton warned his officers to prevent the surgeon from learning the size of the force from California."
Note here: Carleton's California Column numbered slightly over 1500, with a number of those detailed to posts or reported as ineffective due to injury or illness. Sibley likely retreated from a numerically inferior force.
That would be unconstitutional as a usurpation of executive power.
See Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926)
"The power of removal is incident to the power of appointment, not to the power of advising and consenting to appointment, and when the grant of the executive power is enforced by the express mandate to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, it emphasizes the necessity for including within the executive power as conferred the exclusive power of removal."
Or tuning controls for his whip antenna.
"New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress."
"It is an "express" power of Congress to create (evolve) new states. When new states are organized from within the boundaries of a state, or multiple states, then those states must also agree."
"Likewise, it is implied that what Congress can do, Congress can undo. Suppose that the states North and South Dakota, formed from the former Dakota Territory, desired to combine and and form "Greater Dakota." With the consent of the two states and by an act of Congress the new state of "Greater Dakota" would be created, and the former entities of North and South Dakota would be devolved."
So we see the context was concerning the creation of states by the Congress, because they do not exist as an state prior to that time. There was no mention of "adjournment" - a stupid retort. There was no mention of anything like impeachment, a process where the House prosecutes and the Senates sits in judgment - another stupid retort. There is no mention of anything like advice and consent - yet another stupid retort. The context is clear. It is about organizing and forming new states. And how does Congress do that? Through the legislative process.
"While you are seriously working on cleaning up your misbegotten context, you may make a desperate search for any legal authority who so much as mentions your cockamamie theory of Constitutional law."
The only question now is, "Is nolu chan ignorant or just a jerk?" The correct answer is ... both.
Before the Revolution there were thirteen colonies, which later became the thirteen states. Some of these were known as Proprietary colonies, some as Provincial, and some as Charter colonies; but all were under Great Britain's sovereignty. These colonies were separate and distinct, and had no political relation to each other. As early as 1643 some of the New England colonies joined together for their mutual good and protection; but England ended this relationship by abrogating the charters of the colonies which formed it. In 1754 and in 1765 there was an attempt on the part of certain colonies to form a union for defense against the Indians, and to resist the growing aggressions of England. In 1774 something more definite was done toward a union, and this is the union to which Lincoln first referred in his Inaugural as being the beginning of the union idea. At this time the British Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill, and enacted still another law which changed the charter of Massachusetts. This state was from the first always doing something against someone or requiring something to be done for it. Now, because the charter had been taken from Massachusetts, all the colonies bristled with resentment. Virginia, where Jefferson and Washington lived, sent up the battle cry, and appealed to all the colonies to send delegates to a general convention or congress, in order that there might be joint consultation on the crisis. Twelve colonies responded to Virginia's call whose delegates met at Philadelphia on September 5, 1774. It was determined at the outset that the congress should be one of separate political organizations, that is separate colonies, or geographical units; and every colony was allocated but one vote, with no reference to the number of delegates which it had sent. The object of this congress is shown by the powers which were conferred upon the delegates. Virginia empowered her representatives "To consider of the most proper and effectual manner of so operating on the commercial connection of the colonies with the mother country, as to procure redress for the much injured province of Massachusetts." Maryland and South Carolina similarly empowered their delegates. [Elliot's Debates, I, 42] All this congress did was to declare what the rights of the colonies were in the premises, and to make certain recommendations. Then the congress dissolved; recommending that the colonies send deputies again to meet in Congress on May 10, 1775.Whatever union was created in 1774, was thus ended. However, delegates came again, and now what was called a permanent union was formed between the colonies. Words like permanent, perpetual, indissoluble are used by men who well know that time and circumstances make all things impermanent and transitory. They are the expressions of human nature trying to mold the future, they are bonds given to Fate while intending to avoid the bond if the consideration for it fails. This congress of May 10, 1775, was the one which, on July 4, 1776, adopted the Declaration of Independence.
With the adoption of the Declaration, the colonies became states. "We . . . solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states . . . and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other things which independent states may of right do," are the words of the Declaration. By the treaty of peace between the states and Great Britain, at the close of the Revolution, the separate sovereignty of the states was acknowledged: "His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to be free, sovereign and independent states; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claim to the government, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."
Meanwhile, after the Declaration in which the colonies had asserted their rights as sovereign states, this same congress formulated the Articles of Confederation. This was in 1777; and into this union eleven states entered in 1778; one in 1779 and one in 1781. These were articles of "confederation and perpetual union" between the states. Curtis, in his work on the Constitution, wrote: "The parties to this instrument were free, sovereign, political communities, each possessing within itself all the powers of legislation and government over its citizens which any political society can possess." Marshall, to whose school Lincoln belonged, held in deciding one of the landmark cases of American jurisprudence, [Gibbons vs. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824)] that the states before the adoption of the Constitution were sovereign. "It has been said," he declared, "that they [the states] were sovereign, were completely independent, and were connected with each other only by a league. This is true." These affirmations as to the sovereignty of the states, before the Articles of Confederation, could be multiplied out of the mouths of Webster, Calhoun and many others, but the point is not debatable enough to need further authority.
By the second article of this instrument which created the confederation, it was provided: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in congress assembled." In preserving the character of the confederation as a league of states, each state had one vote in Congress. And finally the Xlllth Article was written to read: "The Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual." Here to refer to Lincoln's Inaugural, the government formed by the Articles had no "provision in its organic law for its own termination;" but on the contrary had express words that it should be perpetual. And yet this union was dissolved and another one created under the Constitution.
Before we come to this, some notice must be taken of the movements which were made to amend the Articles of Confederation. On February 3, 1781, a resolution was adopted by Congress, looking to a tariff on imports, that power not having been given in the Articles. The resolution was rejected by the states. In April, 1783, the same movement was renewed; but the states would not accede to it. In 1784, Congress asked of the states power for fifteen years to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Not enough states agreed to this to make it effective. In 1785 Monroe, in Congress, moved that Congress be empowered to regulate trade. This proposal was ignored. Madison went to the legislature of his state, Virginia, and initiated there a program for investing Congress with the powers so previously rejected. This failed. But in January, 1786, the Virginia legislature passed a resolution, and by it appointed eight commissioners to meet like commissioners from the other states to consider a uniform system of commercial regulations for the states. This resolution was sent out; and New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware responded, by appointing commissioners. These, from the several states mentioned, met at Annapolis in September, 1786. They accomplished nothing beyond recommending the holding of a general convention of all the states to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday of May in 1787, there to take into consideration the situation of the United States, and to "devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Here it is to be noted, these men, such as Madison and Edmund Randolph, lawyers and scholars, spoke of the Articles as a Constitution. Yet later there were to be infinite dialetics by Webster to show, if he could, that the Articles were a compact, while the Constitution was only the result of a compact. This convention of May, 1787, was the one that formulated the Constitution, by which the inviolable and perpetual union of the Articles was dissolved, and a new government created.
It may be well to observe here the two theories respecting the origin of the government under the Constitution: whether it proceeded from the American people in mass, or whether from the states as sovereign bodies. The historian Motley wrote: "The Constitution was not drawn up by states, it was not promulgated in the name of states, it was not ratified by states. The states never acceded to it, and possess no power to secede from it. It was ordained and established over the states by a power superior to the states, by the people of the whole land, in their aggregate capacity, acting through conventions of delegates, etc."
This is the false historical doctrine which Lincoln imbibed, and upon which he waged war against the South. Even Marshall, who knew the whole course which led to the calling of the Constitutional Convention, and what was done in it, and what his own state did, both in sending delegates to it, and in ratifying the Constitution when it was submitted to Virginia, uttered strange words when passing upon the genesis of the government under the Constitution. In 1819, when holding that the charter of the United States Bank was constitutional, he said: "Counsel for the state of Maryland have deemed it of some importance, in the construction of the Constitution to consider the instrument not as emanating from the people, but as the act of sovereign and independent states, who alone are truly sovereign; and must be exercised in subordination to the states, which alone possess supreme dominion. It would be difficult to sustain this proposition. The convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected by the state legislatures. But the instrument when it came from their hands was a mere proposal without obligation. ... It was reported to the then existing congress of the United States, with a request that it might be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof under recommendation of its legislature for their assent and ratification. This mode of proceeding was adopted, and by the Convention, by Congress, and by the state legislatures, the instrument was submitted to the people. They acted upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, effectively and wisely, on such a subject, by assembling in convention. It is true they assembled in their several states-and where else should they assemble? No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate states, and of compounding the American people into one common mass. Of consequence, when they act, they act in their states. The government of the Union is emphatically and truly a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit." [McCullough vs. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)]
By such sophistry was the Bank held constitutional, in the face of the fact well known to Marshall that the proposal in the Constitutional Convention to empower Congress to charter a bank of corporations had been considered several times and was finally voted down by eight states out of eleven, though his own state, Virginia, voted for it. He further disregarded the action of his own state, as well as the action of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Rhode Island, which expressly qualified their ratification of the Constitution by requesting amendments to the Constitution which should expressly reserve to the states all power not granted; and that Congress should be expressly prohibited from chartering corporations. Articles IX and X resulted from this, and these went into force in November, 1791. "It is true they assembled in their several states-and where else should they assemble?" They could have assembled in Philadelphia, if the American people were acting in mass. But on the other hand they could have gone to Bermuda without in the least changing their character as delegates of states and acting for such states. But there is no need to spend any more time on empty subtleties of this sort. The historical facts are too clear and too numerous for any such verbal follies as these are to prevail. An army of men who proclaim the falsity of these arguments may be killed and overcome by a superior army which asserts their truth; but otherwise they cannot prevail.
Before showing that the Constitution proceeded from the states, that it was made by states and ratified by states, each in their sovereign capacity, a subject requires brief attention, since it is one around which Webster exercised his thunderous rhetoric, in addition to being of the very character which would and did in fact intrigue the peculiar analysis of Lincoln and minds like his. If anyone will look at the Articles of Confederation, he will see that they are prefaced with the words: "To all to whom these presents shall come, we the undersigned delegates of the states affixed to our names did," and then follows the recital that they had formulated the Articles. The Articles then follow. Then at the last is the statement that the legislatures had approved of the Articles and had authorized the delegates to ratify and confirm them; and lastly are the signatures of the delegates signing on the part of and in behalf of the respective states serially set forth. When, however, we turn to the Constitution, we find that the preamble is: "We the people of the United States ... do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America." So it was that Webster found in these words material for his arguments that the United States were a nation, above the states, and had a supreme sovereignty of their own as an entity standing upon its own feet. In like manner Motley justified his historical interpretation partly upon the basis of these words; and Story in his commentaries looked up to them as strong proof for his constitutional theories, while Lincoln, with his doctrine of the Union being older than the Constitution, and his mystical conception of the nature of the Union, could justify his dialectics upon these simple and easily explainable words.
When the preamble to the Constitution was first drawn, it read, "We, the people of the states of New Hampshire," and then followed the naming of all the states, "do ordain and declare, and establish the following Constitution, . . . for the government of ourselves and our posterity." The committee on revision, and on style too, changed these words to read: "We the people of the United States ... do ordain and establish this constitution"-not "for the government of ourselves and our posterity"-but for "the United States of America." Instead, therefore, of the Constitution finally providing for a government of the people of the United States, it provided a Constitution for the States as United States, but of course in their relation to the people. It was thus made a Constitution for states, and to form a more perfect Union of states, already imperfectly operating under the Articles of Confederation. The whole history of the events leading up to the Constitutional Convention, from the time one was proposed, on through the selection of delegates, and in connection with the powers given by the states to their delegates, shows that the convention was called and sat not to change the character of the government as it was under the Articles, but to revise them with reference to matters of commerce and trade, revenue and taxation.
And how was the Constitution to be adopted? The instrument itself provided for that. "The ratification of the conventions of nine states shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the states so ratifying." The states which ratified thus seceded from the perpetual union under the Articles, and in fact left out in the cold those four states which would not join the new union, alike made perpetual and eternal. Finally, after the Constitution was drawn, and had been filed by the stylists, the delegates signing for their several states affixed their names to this postlude: "Done in convention, by the unanimous consent of the states present etc." That is done in Philadelphia, which answers Marshall's question, where should they have ratified it, except in their own states? Thus far it is incontrovertible that the Constitution was formulated by the delegates of states, and so drawn as to be for the government of states; its powers were granted to states, that is, to Congress, composed of senators, the direct ambassadors of states, and to members of the House, the representatives of the people of each state; it was to be binding between states. In all these particulars it differed in nothing from the Articles of Confederation, under which each state was sovereign. As no grant is ever implied against a sovereign, the states, by ratifying the Constitution, parted with no power except those expressed. No police power passed, no right of eminent domain; nothing in brief except what was specified. The Constitution having been drafted, it was signed by George Washington, president of the convention and deputy from Virginia, then by the deputies or delegates, not in mass, but in the name of the state for which each signed; and, being attested by the secretary of the convention, as its work, it was sent to Congress.
Was the Constitution then adopted by states, each for itself, or by the American people in mass? The Convention sent the Constitution to Congress with the suggestion that "it should afterward be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof, under the recommendation of its legislature for their assent and ratification; and that each convention assenting to and ratifying the same should give notice thereof to the United States in Congress assembled." But no sooner was the Constitution by printed copies circulated through the states than a storm arose against it. The Convention had not been called into being to formulate a new instrument of government, but to revise an old one, to formulate amendments in certain specified particulars. "What they [the convention] actually did, stripped of all fiction and verbiage, was to assume constituent powers, ordain a constitution of government and of liberty, and demand a plebiscite thereon over the heads of all existing legally organized powers. Had Julius or Napoleon committed these acts they would have been pronounced coups d'etat." ["Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law," Vol. I, 123, Burgess.] In other words, the existing government, the existing congress was to have nothing to say about their own perpetuity; the Union under the Articles, declared to be permanent, was to be dissolved by a vote of the people, or by the legislatures of the states. For at first some of the sponsors of the new Constitution in the states wanted it ratified by the legislatures; but the more far sighted men insisted upon ratification by delegates in conventions, who had been elected by the people. In terms of legalism the constitution was ratified by the states not by the people in mass. A more realistic examination shows just how much the people had to say about the adoption of the Constitution, which formed Lincoln's Union, much older than the states, and Webster's Union, which, with liberty, should be one and inseparable "now and forever," and again Lincoln's Union with its "mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave," but not from the graves of disinherited and disfranchised men.
Many of the ablest men of the time fought the Constitution with all their power, and drew after them great followings against it, not only because the Convention had departed from its authorized power, but because it was an economic instrument intended to give the moneyed classes, the owners of securities, trade, shipping, banking, and manufactures, the control of the resources of the land. The result was that men divided into parties. Those favoring the Constitution called themselves Federalists, that is, friends and partisans of the federal system, embodied in the Constitution; the other party was the Anti-Federalists who saw consolidation and centralism in the new scheme. The politicians who demanded that the Constitution be ratified by a convention in each state, composed of delegates elected by the people of the state, had their way. Their secret fear was that if the Constitution was ratified by a legislature, a succeeding legislature would repeal the ratification. A convention, having ratified the Constitution or rejected it, as the case might be, was at an end. There was hurry to get the ratification effected, so much was at stake. The slavocracy, so-called, was as nothing in these anxious and clandestine celerities compared to the banks, the manufactures and the owners of securities, just as, later, the slavocracy was without great power, save as it clung to the doctrine of state sovereignty in the name of Jefferson, against the mercantile interests of New England and the North, which wanted loose construction and more and more centralization in order to effect their privileges and monopolies. And in truth slavery was only the occasion of the War between the States; the cause was the conflict between these old forces of a confederated republic on the one hand, and an imperial nation on the other, which began as soon as the Constitution was printed and broadcasted over the states. The legal postulate that the Constitution was ratified by states is not impugned by a realistic examination of what actually occurred in that ratification, and it will show where sovereignty begins. For Lincoln, when speaking against territorial sovereignty or squatter sovereignty, whittled the question down to a point, as he was accustomed to whittling a stick with a penknife until he brought it to a point. How many does it take to start the principle of sovereignty? How and where is sovereignty bred? This history of the Constitution proves that sovereignty was not bred in the heart, but rather in the head and the enteric coils.
New Hampshire led off on December 14, 1787, when its legislature adopted a resolution calling upon the selectmen of the several towns to notify the duly qualified voters of the election to be held for the choosing of delegates to a convention which should pass upon the Constitution. The election was held about the middle of January, 1788, and many delegates were chosen who opposed the Constitution. A bitter contest ensued when the state convention met, so much so that the strong talent of the convention, Federalists all, adjourned the convention. A few months later the convention reassembled, and upon a vote the Constitution was ratified by a vote of 57 to 47.
Massachusetts' senate on October 20, 1787, passed a resolution, and secured soon the concurrence of the house. This resolution provided that the delegates to the convention should be elected by those inhabitants "qualified by law to vote in the election of representatives." The delegates being elected, they met in convention January 9, 1788. Here again was a bitter fight. The charge was freely made at the time that delegates were bought by New York money to vote for the Constitution. Charges such as this are nearly always impossible of proof. We do know that the Constitution was contested with all possible power in Massachusetts' convention, and that the Federalists won.
In Connecticut the election of delegates was held November 12, 1787, the convention met January 3, 1788, and ratified the Constitution by a vote of 128 to 40.
New York, by its legislature, issued a call for an election of delegates to be held the last Tuesday in April of 1788. When the convention met it was found that two thirds of the 64 delegates were against the Constitution. Finally, upon vote, the Constitution was carried by 30 to 27; but this was upon condition that a convention should be called to revise the Constitution.
On November 1, 1787, New Jersey's legislature called a convention, ordering the people to elect delegates to a convention, and providing that those might vote for delegates who were "entitled to vote for representatives in General Assembly." On December 18, 1787, the delegates met in convention, and unanimously ratified the Constitution.
Delaware's legislature adopted a resolution on November 10, 1787, calling for the election of delegates on November 26. On December 3, the delegates so elected met and after four days' argument ratified the Constitution by a unanimous vote.
Pennsylvania had the stormiest time of any of the states. Before the Constitution had been reported, before it was known officially what method was to be devised for the ratification of the Constitution, an attempt was made in the legislature then sitting to pass a resolution for the calling of an election for the choosing of delegates to a convention, the same to be chosen in the same manner as members of the general assembly. This resolution passed, but the time of the election and the date of the convention were not settled; and in this state of affairs the legislature adjourned from its morning to its afternoon session. The enemies of the Constitution determined, therefore, to prevent action by staying away from the session, so that there would not be a quorum. But the Federalists sent officers after the obstructing assemblymen, who were assisted by a Federalist mob; and these entered the rooms of the hiding members, and brought them to the legislative halls by force, with torn clothes, and in towering rages. Thereupon a resolution was passed fixing the time of election for delegates and the time of the convention. On November 6, 1787, the convention met and ratified the Constitution by a vote of 46 to 23.
Maryland's legislature, in November, 1787, by a majority of one vote fixed the first Monday in April, 1788, for the holding of the election for delegates. The convention met on April 21, and after a week's session, in which such men as Luther Martin fought the Constitution with great legal ability, the convention ratified the Constitution by a vote of 63 to 11.
Virginia by her legislature called a convention to be elected in March, 1788. The delegates met in convention and debated the Constitution from June 2 to June 25. On the latter day the Constitution was ratified by the convention by a vote of 89 to 79. The cities voted for it; the country of the southern border counties and near Kentucky voted against it.
North Carolina by its legislature called a convention on December 6, 1787; the election of delegates was set for the last Friday and Saturday of March, 1788, the convention met July 21, 1788. They canvassed the Constitution until August 2, then they postponed ratification by a vote of 184 to 84, and adjourned sine die. The Constitution went into force without North Carolina's membership in the Union. Economic pressure brought that state in on November 21, 1789, after amendments to the Constitution were assured. The same thing would have happened with the seceding states of 1861. Economic pressure would have brought them back, without the shedding of a drop of blood.
South Carolina, on January 18, 1788, through its legislature, called a convention whose delegates were elected in April. The convention met in Charleston in May, where an acrimonious struggle ensued. However, on May 23 the Constitution was ratified by a vote of 149 to 73.
Georgia's legislature, on October 26, 1787, called a state convention to be elected "in the same manner as representatives are elected," at an election to be held on December 4, 1787. The delegates were thus elected; they met at Augusta on December 25, and after four days of discussion ratified the Constitution on January 2, 1788.
Rhode Island was stubborn to the last. She sent no delegates to the convention which framed the Constitution. She did not ratify the Constitution until May 29, 1790, and she did so then because the general government was about to coerce her, and the city of Providence threatened to join other powerful Rhode Island cities and bring about a secession from the state, and apply to the Federal Government for protection.
There is no answer to these facts. The Constitution was ratified by states, by sovereign states, not by the American people in mass.
SOURCE: Edgar Lee Masters, Lincoln, The Man, Copr. 1931, Reprint 1997, pp. 320-332.
Words mean things. The word "express" means something particular. It is not definitively stated or "expressed" that Congress has the power to "create" states. It has the power to "admit" new states.
Your ignorant statement remains for all to see: [cr #2608] "What Congress can do, Congress can undo." Do you doubt this statement?
That statement is as void of logic and veracity as most of what you post.
Is capitan_refugio a clone of the Brigade Commander? Obviously.
It was a great challenge to create a voting machine for the Brigadeers, but Fisher-Price had met the challenge and promises that, with proper and sufficient training, including refresher training, even Brigadeers can be trained to use this voting machine.
According to lentulusgracchus King George made 'em one.
I agree that I was wrong, but not for the nonsense that you just trotted out. Impeaching a cabinet member is not appropriate because they can be brought to trial without violating the separation of powers.
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