Posted on 11/13/2004 11:12:00 AM PST by LouAvul
The Constitution of 1787. Madison argued that the right of the states to re-assume delegated powers was implicit in the Constitution. Hamilton was forced to agree if he wanted the new government.
but saying None or no benefit or did not work at all would be much more definite.
Care to provide a quote or a reference? I can't find anything like that in Notes on the Convention, The Federalist Papers, or Ketchum's biography on Madison.
You're fibbing again, fakeit. Taussig did recognize that a state of protection (or to be more specific, virtual autarky) existed during the war, but he did NOT assert the protectionist tariffs that followed accomplished some sort of "maintenance." In fact he described their effects as virtually negligable toward achieving that end, meaning we would have been better off without them.
Were they similar to complete autarky? Yes. But equivalent to tariffs, which also impose price redistribution and rate government collection? Hardly. If anything, Taussig argues that Jefferson's wartime embargo for military purposes, with all its faults, did more for American industry than the next 30 years of protectionist crap from the Hamiltonians and Whigs. Considering that Jefferson's embargo is traditionally frowned upon from an economic perspective, that's saying quite a lot about how bad those tariffs were as policy.
Must've been a pretty big wall /sarcasm.
so there was not the great division between urban and rural which resulted from the cities' growth.
Actually, the first cities emerged as a place of market for nearby farmers to sell and trade their goods. They were dependent upon the agriculture, not the other way around.
Barring times of famine providing a society with food is not the greatest problem it faces.
Famines were commonplace in cities until the early 18th century and happened with far greater frequency than major wars, of which you'd get 2 or maybe 3 a century as opposed to a dozen or more famines.
What difference does that make? Permitting the possibility of future states seceding is no different from permitting the possibility of current ones doing the same, hence his explicit statement that leaving would involve a "separation" from the "union." Once again you are simply being slothful since you do not like what the quote says.
What difference does that make? Permitting the possibility of future states seceding is no different from permitting the possibility of current ones doing the same, hence his explicit statement that leaving would involve a "separation" from the "union." Once again you are simply being slothful since you do not like what the quote says.
That is because they are essentially anarchists.
They are really advocates of the French Revolution, not the American.
Agreed, but I'm not sure there's value in arguing the extent of failure.
There is a big difference between a President, who was (according to the Southern Cabal), acting tyrannically and not getting impeached by the Congress (its constitutional responsiblity) and trying a traitor who could no longer hurt the nation he had betrayed.
Charity towards all, Malice towards none
Brillant!
And what is the principle of Federalism but if not divided sovereignity?
I guess the South would have had a dictator instead of a President as its leader, after all, either one is sovereign or they are not, like being pregnant.
You really have a soft spot in your head don't you?
Did anyone from the Congress attempt to impeach Lincoln.
I did not say it had to succeed, but the House, terrified at this tyranny being wielded would have had some attempt to mount a movement to stop him.
Unless (drum roll) they supported what he was doing!
So we have come full circle once again, Congress supported Lincoln is in his general approach (not in every particular act)
No, Clinton was Impeached, just not convicted. ...hence my point that the Senate FAILED in its duty with Clinton for political reasons.
And my point that no one brought Lincoln up on any charges-period.
The Democrats make the same mistake, saying that Clinton was not impeached. Are you blind, stupid or both, ftD? I never said that Clinton was not impeached.
OK, so why do you keep bring it up, when Lincoln could have been impeached by the House but wasn't.
He was not convicted in the Senate even though he was indisputably guilty of the articles of impeachment and should have been convicted on them (do you dispute that?), thus proving that political considerations can overcome justice in matters of impeachment.
Yes, and we now have an historical record of the House being opposed to Clinton, unlike that of Lincoln.
Yea so.... A Civil War was going on. What part of that sentence do you not understand? ...and the Constitution holds firm in both times of war and peace. What part of that sentence do you not understand.
I understand that decisions have to be made that stretch the interpretations of the constitution.
I understand that Congress did not oppose Lincoln's use of his presidental powers, even if they might have been for Congress to use.
That was the original point of this discussion, Congress's lack of any real resistance to Lincoln, in fact, supporting him in his efforts to put down the greatest threat this nation had ever faced.
It is nice to sit in your den and pontificate about the purity of the Constitution when you are not facing the decisions that Lincoln faced.
And Davis violated no ones civil liberties? Quoth the ftD: "Squack! Tu quoque! Tu quoque! Davis did it too! Tu quoque!"
Well, where is the outrage?
I am not criticizing Davis for doing it, since he had to make hard decisions also.
The point is during crises, decisions have to be made that would not be made during quiet times.
The Courts have upheld the use of martial law, and they were critical of Lincoln in that he used the suspension when civilian courts were in operation.
Lincoln however, knew that many of those areas were heavily confederate supporters and the guilty would be found innocent.
Was he right in every case, probably not, but it certanly was not tyrannical.
I believe that Vallandighm was released to his beloved South wasn't he? The south didn't want him nor did he want to be there so he ended up in Canada till the end of the war.
Well, I can't blame the South do much, even traitors do not like traitors.
No one says that everything that Lincoln did would pass a strict consititutional test. ...and deporting, harassing, and imprisoning members of the opposition party for criticizing your politics doesn't pass much of any constitutional test.
When you are fighting a civil war, a fight for national survival, you cannot let the enemy use your virtues against you.
No different now in our war against terrorism.
No terrorist is entitled to one protection of the Consitution nor the Geneva Convention.
That is far from saying that he was guilty of being a tyrant. Lincoln deported his opponents, threw congressmen and state officials in jail, got a senator kicked out of office, overthrew the state government of Missouri, placed judges under house arrest and unconstitutionally suspended their salaries, used military thugs to prevent courts from meeting to hear cases against him, and shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers for being critical of his policy. If not acts of tyranny, exactly what were all those acts?
Those were acts to defend the Consitution from destruction by those who would use its law against it to destroy it.
It is very nice to live in a world of the abstract and pristine, but wars are about winning or losing.
Moreover, were there free elections in 62 in which the opposition party gained seats in Congress?
In 64 when Lincoln thought he was going to lose the election?
The marvel of the Civil War was not the abuses (which there were on both sides) but the amount of freedom that was preserved and how normal most of the nation behaved in this bloody war.
Well according to the dictionary meaning of the word tyrant is means an absolute ruler, cruel, oppressive ruler.
You know, like the slave owners.
Lincoln had checks and balances on his power.
He had a Congress that could impeach him.
And a population that could throw him out of office in the next election.
That was not my question.
The question was, if secession is a right of the states, can a majority of states elect to secede from the minority of states?
How about the Red states seceding from the Blue states?
A major compromise over slavery in the Constitution (the return of fugitive slaves) was being disobeyed by the North.
Well, that is a false statement.
The South did not like the fact that the Northern States balked at returning the slaves and went crying to the federal gov't to make those same sovereign states abide by the Constitution.
Lincoln told the South that the law was in the Constitution and would be upheld.
If that was important and fundamental to the South, why should they stay in a confederation whose governing document was not being obeyed?
It was being obeyed.
But ofcourse, the South did not like the idea that the North was opposing its efforts in retrieving slaves, even slaves who had lived as free men for years and had families.
Still the law was being upheld and Federal troops were being used to enforce it.
Republicans were coming into power saying there were higher laws than the Constitution. In other words, we're going to interpret it any way we like, much like liberal judges today. Despite Lincoln's assurances over slavery after he was elected, he previously had said, "this government cannot endure permanently, half slave, and half free." In Lincoln-speak, we're not going to continue the arrangement set up by the founding fathers. Which Lincoln should you believe, the one who made assurances over slavery or the one who threatened its existence?
Lincoln had no power to just do what he wanted.
He was not omnipotent.
He had a Congress and a Supreme Court to contend with and in peacetime, he would have had alot less power.
He had strong opposition, both from the Northern Democrats and Southerners.
Moreover, the South did not even allow Lincoln's name to be put on the ballots in the South, so much for your freedom loving people.
Then there was the tariff. Through the tariff, the South was being treated as a colony by the North. Basically, it operated as a transfer of money from the South to the North.
The Tarriffs of the 50's were fairly low.
had the South not left in 1860 they could have blocked the tarriff that was passed when 14 Southern Senators left.
The South had no moral justification for secession.
They had the rights of representation, even using the slaves 3/4 rule to be overrepresented.
The first gun control laws were enacted in the ante-bellum South forbidding blacks, whether free or slave, to possess arms, in order to maintain blacks in their servile status. After the Civil War, the South continued to pass restrictive firearms laws in order to deprive the newly freed blacks from exercising their rights of citizenship. During the later part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, gun control laws were passed in the South in order to disarm agrarian reformers and in the North to disarm union organizers. In the North, a strong xenophobic reaction to recent waves of immigrants added further fuel for gun control laws which were used to disarm such persons. Other firearms ownership restrictions were adopted in order to repress the incipient black civil rights movement. http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Tahmassebi1.html
Don't know. A few of them like Vallandigham openly denounced his crimes on the constitution, but we all know how Saint Abe responded to exercises of free speech that didn't shower him in praises.
I did not say it had to succeed, but the House, terrified at this tyranny being wielded would have had some attempt to mount a movement to stop him.
They did - by defeating his bill. He kept on arresting people as if nothing had changed though.
Unless (drum roll) they supported what he was doing!
Then why did they kill his bill?
So we have come full circle once again
Circular arguments of the sort you employ tend to do that.
And my point that no one brought Lincoln up on any charges-period.
At least one federal court charged him with arresting the process of the judiciary and several ruled against him on cases.
OK, so why do you keep bring it up If you could read you would know that I mention it as evidence that the Senate failed to do its duty since the impeachment process is fundamentally political.
Yes, and we now have an historical record of the House being opposed to Clinton, unlike that of Lincoln.
The last I checked the Congressional record said that they killed his habeas corpus bill.
I understand that decisions have to be made that stretch the interpretations of the constitution.
You may think you understand that but the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise and I'll take their word over yours.
I understand that Congress did not oppose Lincoln's use of his presidental powers
Then why did they kill his bill?
Lincoln however, knew that many of those areas were heavily confederate supporters and the guilty would be found innocent.
So New York (Ex Parte Benedict, federal district court striking down Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus - he ignored the ruling) and Boston (In Re Winder, federal circuit court striking down Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus - he ignored the ruling) were secessionist hotbeds in 1862?
Well, I can't blame the South do much, even traitors do not like traitors.
Yet again I give you a factual response and yet again you have nothing to offer beyond a venomous cheap shot. Go figure.
When you are fighting a civil war, a fight for national survival, you cannot let the enemy use your virtues against you.
That's a nice lofty sounding generalization. It still does not explain or justify how anybody could harass, imprison, or deport any member of the opposition party who spoke out against him and NOT be a tyrant by any honest and reasonable definition of the word. Then again, you are neither honest nor reasonable, hence your insistence that I somehow show that the opposition members in Congress attempted to impeach Lincoln simultaneous to your sanction of political persecutions against any member of that very same opposition who so much as spoke out against Lincoln, much less tried to impeach him. What a strange, bizarre, illogical world you Lincoln cultists live in...
Then why did they send an army in that direction? Had they not been driven back, they would have taken it, and probably kept it.
Gee, a President who gets criticized, what a shock!
Ofcourse, the fact that Vallandigham was activily opposing Lincoln's war efforts is a little more serious then just being in opposition.
The opposition Party was allowed to operate, just not hinder war operations with actions that could have led to Union deaths on the battlefield.
Davis did no less.
I did not say it had to succeed, but the House, terrified at this tyranny being wielded would have had some attempt to mount a movement to stop him. They did - by defeating his bill. He kept on arresting people as if nothing had changed though.
No, defeating a bill is not the same as activily opposing him.
Bill get defeated by Congress all the time, even when the President own party is in charge.
That does not mean the Congress is opposing him, just in disagreement on some particulars of that bill.
If Lincoln was the tyrant you claim, the Congress would have had to bring up charges against him, which they did not.
Unless (drum roll) they supported what he was doing! Then why did they kill his bill?
Because they did not support that bill.
If they had that he was not acting in the correct role of President, they would have charged him as such, like Clinton was.
Looking at a bill that doesn't get passed as a sign that Congress was opposing Lincoln is beyond a stretch.
You are maintaining Lincoln was a tyrant, and if he was, then we have means in the Constitution to deal with it, to impeach
So we have come full circle once again Circular arguments of the sort you employ tend to do that.
Not a circular argument, such come back to the beginning, after you have failed to show that Lincoln was a tyrant and that Congress opposed him as such.
And my point that no one brought Lincoln up on any charges-period. At least one federal court charged him with arresting the process of the judiciary and several ruled against him on cases.
And was that Congress?
No doubt that Courts had problems with some of his acts, but the Courts today being full of liberals are also fighting against our war on terror, no doubt acts you support also.
OK, so why do you keep bring it up If you could read you would know that I mention it as evidence that the Senate failed to do its duty since the impeachment process is fundamentally political. Yes, and we now have an historical record of the House being opposed to Clinton, unlike that of Lincoln. The last I checked the Congressional record said that they killed his habeas corpus bill.
And the last time I checked there was no bill of Impeachment.
That is the recourse that Congress makes against Tyrants, not defeating a bill the President sent up.
I understand that decisions have to be made that stretch the interpretations of the constitution. You may think you understand that but the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise and I'll take their word over yours.
The Supreme Court had had many bad rulings, Dred Scott, Roe vs Wade, so they are not always the final say in what is right and what is wrong.
Jefferson warned of a judical tyranny that would be worse then any political one.
I understand that Congress did not oppose Lincoln's use of his presidental powers Then why did they kill his bill?
Because they did not like that particular bill, but they did not impeach him for sending the bill to them now did they?
Lincoln however, knew that many of those areas were heavily confederate supporters and the guilty would be found innocent. So New York (Ex Parte Benedict, federal district court striking down Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus - he ignored the ruling) and Boston (In Re Winder, federal circuit court striking down Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus - he ignored the ruling) were secessionist hotbeds in 1862?
Again, the courts were in large part hostile to Lincoln, as they are today against Bush.
The question was was Congress, representing the people hostile to Lincoln.
The answer was no, Lincoln had their support.
Well, I can't blame the South do much, even traitors do not like traitors. Yet again I give you a factual response and yet again you have nothing to offer beyond a venomous cheap shot. Go figure.
Again, an overreaction to a tongue in cheek reply.
When you are fighting a civil war, a fight for national survival, you cannot let the enemy use your virtues against you. That's a nice lofty sounding generalization. It still does not explain or justify how anybody could harass, imprison, or deport any member of the opposition party who spoke out against him and NOT be a tyrant by any honest and reasonable definition of the word. Then again, you are neither honest nor reasonable, hence your insistence that I somehow show that the opposition members in Congress attempted to impeach Lincoln simultaneous to your sanction of political persecutions against any member of that very same opposition who so much as spoke out against Lincoln, much less tried to impeach him. What a strange, bizarre, illogical world you Lincoln cultists live in...
Lincoln allowed a great deal of opposition, including some from his own generals.
Now, all you would have to show was that a large group of men who were planning to impeach were prevented from doing so by arrests.
You live in a fantasy world that wants to ignore the same abuses in the South, while blowing Lincoln up to Stalin status.
Threats are sometimes so great that actions must be taken to protect those very laws that protect freedom.
Most Americans did not live in any fear of the gov't and elections were held and live went on normally.
Lincoln used his power sparingly and what abuses there were were few in comparsion to the threat facing the nation.
I trust this finishes our discussion?
I really do not need to hear again how a defeated bill translates into opposition by Congress to a tyrannical President and then whining that the Impeachment standard is too high to meet to prove Lincoln a tyrant in the eyes of Congress.
Impeachment, not defeat of a bill, is what Congress uses to protect the Constitution from Presidents who abuse their power.
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