Well his "chagrin" certainly wasn't enough to prompt him to intervene! A captain is master of his ship and responsible for what those under him do.
Newspaper accounts to do not constitute "official records."
Nor did I say that they did. I did however note that one of the two houses does have an official record contrary to your claim (I informed you of it several months ago BTW, thus making your honesty suspect here). As to the other, the journal simply has not been found. That being the case you have absolutely no basis on which to categorically declare the absence of a quorum, especially considering that the papers reported one was present thus making it likely that the other journal would show the same thing.
There is no telling who attended ex-Gov. Jackson's road show.
There is on the Senate side at least. The journal survived and is displayed at the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield. We don't, at the present, know every house member who attended though we do know some based on individual documentation, and we know what the papers reported as a number. For example, we know the speaker of the house was there and several members who mentioned it individually in letters and the sort. Perhaps a journal will turn up one day and settle the matter, but as it stands you have no basis for arbitrarily declaring the absence of a quorum.
Nor is there a record that Jackson properly noticed the special session
The Senate is known to have properly called itself to order and the House clerks, secretaries, etc. are all known to have been there. John C. Moore, one of the first period historians to record the events in Missouri, also specifically contradicts your claim:
In every particular it [the Neosho session] complied with the forms of law. It was called together in extraordinary session by the proclamation of the governor. There was a quorum of each house present. The governor sent to the two houses his message recommending, among other things, the passage of an act "dissolving all political connection between the State of Missouri and the United States of America." The ordinance was passed strictly in accordance with law and parliamentary usage, was signed by the presiding officers of the two houses, attested by John T. Crisp, secretary of the senate, and Thomas M. Murray, clerk of the house, and approved by Claiborne F. Jackson, governor of the State.The reason you originally cited (diminished compensation for federal judges) borders on the ridiculous.
Nonsense. The taxing of income diminished their compensation, pure and simple. That tax was unconstitutional any way for a whole slew of other reasons, but the fact remains that it took the 16th amendment to get around the unconstitutionality problem, part of which was the compensation clause.
Nothing at all wrong with writing; however, to prepare opinions prior to hearing a case suggests the political motivation of someone uninterested in hearing arguments.
What you keep describing as "opinions" were in fact personal letters, research documents, and writings that Taney composed. On another note, for somebody who objects so vehemently to Taney's drafting of articles on legal topics before cases arose, you sure are quick to plaster forums like these with excerpts from Bill Rehnquist's now-invalidated speech at a law school. In short, it seems that you believe judges are only allowed to write up a position when that position agrees with your own.
No, you are simply in denial.
It's no matter of denial. The troops were there a month before Virgina seceded. To suggest otherwise is simply slothful.
By July, McDowell was able to muster about 30,000 men for the first battle at Bull Run. Fremont, in Missouri, had about 40,000 by July. McClellan and others had about 20,000 men for operations in loyal western Virgina. I would say more of the 75,000 90-day enlistees went somewhere else.
Really? Cause it looks to me as if Lincoln sent them around in comparably sized units. It also looks as if he filled Washington JUST as I said he did - with thousands and thousands of troops.
If, as you say, Virgina was still part of the Union in late April and May (although the government of the State in no way acted like it was), then Lincoln had every right to post soldiers or sailors there in its defense
Which, according to the Declaration, is the exact same argument used by King George. Thank you for proving my point for me.
It was a highly disputed political issue. There was no legal issue - they were federal armories and arsenals an their seizure by secessionists or state governments was criminal.
Then I'll ask you again. Was Sam Houston, who told state authorities to arrange the transfer of federal properties to the state of Texas, a criminal?
If the protesters in NYC begin to act violently like they acted in Seattle, and elsewhere, during similar protests, the local authorities should be able to handle it.
Which is what the founders said King George should've done in 1776. But instead he called in the army - he used the military to supplant the civil authority. Thank you for proving another of my points. You're on a roll at dismantling your own argument today!
If the wackos held a mass meeting in Central Park and declared that NYC was seceding from the Union, you would certainly support them, wouldn't you?
In all honesty, I'd say good riddance, wish them well, and gloat in the fact that New York State, absent its largest Democrat voter dumpster, would soon be sending two new Republicans to the U.S. Senate.
The founders maintained and documented oppression by the Crown. The South was unable, at least with a straight face, to make the same claim. Instead, they realized they were falling into the political minority for the first time, and tried to bolt from the national obligations.
You used to be a little faster on the uptake, but now you're just being, "slothful."
"The Senate is known to have properly called itself to order and the House clerks, secretaries, etc. are all known to have been there."
I am sure the Col. Moore, CSA, is an unbiased source for writing the Confederate history of Missouri. I seem to recall the you and your neo-reb buddies had all sorts of problems with the supposed bias of the author of the Union version of events. But I'll be glad to accept Moore's version for what it is; unsourced, unfootnoted, and undocumented.
Taney opposed something else the government was doing during this period. In order to help finance the war, the government resorted to an income tax of 3% on personal income. However, since the Constitution states that a federal judge's salary may not be diminished while he holds office Taney wrote a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Chase (soon to succeed Taney as Chief Justice) saying that it was illegal to deduct the income from federal judges' salaries. The letter was written on February 16, 1863, and on March 10th Taney had it entered into the Supreme Court's records. In 1872 Secretary of the Treasury Boutwell ordered all the tax refunded, agreeing completely with the then-departed Taney's opinion.
U.S. Supreme Court
POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U.S. 429 (1895)
Mr. Justice Field
The constitution of the United States provides in the first section of article 3 that 'the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.' The act of congress under discussion imposes, as said, a tax on $6,000 of this compensation, and therefore diminishes each year the compensation provided for every justice. How a similar law of congress was regarded 30 years ago may be shown by the following incident, in which the justices of this court were assessed at 3 per cent. upon their salaries. Against this Chief Justice Taney protested in a letter to Mr. Chase, then secretary of the treasury, appealing to the above article in the constitution, and adding: 'If it [ his salary] can be diminished to that extent by the means of a tax, it may, in the same way, be reduced from time to time, at the pleasure of the legislature.' He explained in his letter the object of the constitutional inhibition thus:
'The judiciary is one of the three great departments of the government created and established by the constitution. Its duties and powers are specifically set forth, and are of a character that require it to be perfectly independent of the other departments. And in order to place it beyond the reach, and above even the suspicion, of any such influence, the power to reduce their compensation is expressly withheld from congress, and excepted from their powers of legislation.'Language could not be more plain than that used in the constitution. It is, moreover, one of its most important and essential provisions. For the articles which limit the powers of the legislative and executive branches of the government, and those which provide safeguards for the protection of the citizen in his person and property, would be of little value without a judiciary to uphold and maintain them which was free from every influence, direct or indirect, that might by possibility, in times of political excitement, warp their judgment.
'Upon these grounds, I regard an act of congress retaining in the treasury a portion of the compensation of the judges as unconstitutional and void.'
This letter of Chief Justice Taney was addressed to Mr. Chase, then secretary of the treasury, and afterwards the successor of Mr. Taney as chief justice. It was dated February 16, 1863; but as no notice was taken of it, on the 10th of March following, at the request of the chief justice, the court ordered that his letter to the secretary of the treasury be entered on the records of the court, and it was so entered. And in the memoir of the chief justice it is stated that the letter was, by this order, preserved 'to testify to future ages that in war, no less than in peace, Chief Justice Taney strove to protect the constitution from violation.'
Subsequently, in 1869, and during the administration of President Grant, when Mr. Boutwell was secretary of the treasury, and Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, was attorney general, there were in several of the statutes of the United States, for the assessment and collection of internal revenue, provisions for taxing the salaries of all civil officers of the United States, which included, in their literal application, the salaries of the president and of the judges oft he United States. The question arose whether the law which imposed such a tax upon them was constitutional. The opinion of the attorney general thereon was requested by the secretary of the treasury. The attorney general, in reply, gave an elaborate opinion advising the secretary of the treasury that no income tax could be lawfully assessed and collected upon the salaries of those officers who were in office at the time the statute imposing the tax was passed, holding on this subject the views expressed by Chief Justice Taney. His opinion is published in volume 13 of the Opinions of the Attorney General, at page 161. I am informed that it has been followed ever since without question by the department supervising or directing the collection of the public revenue.