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
I don't see why not, at least not in the days when this was a confederation of voluntary states. Now days you'd probably go apoplectic over such a thought. Sorry, I don't mean to harm you.
[rb] A major compromise over slavery in the Constitution (the return of fugitive slaves) was being disobeyed by the North.
[ftD] Well, that is a false statement.
Oh? From the 1855 Massachusetts Personal Liberty Law:
Sec. 11. Any person who shall act as counsel or attorney for any claimant of any alleged fugitive from service or labor, under or by virtue of the acts of congress mentioned in the ninth section of this act, shall be deemed to have resigned any commission from the Commonwealth that he may possess, and he shall be thereafter incapacitated from appearing as counsel or attorney in the courts of this Commonwealth...
Sec. 15. Any sheriff, deputy sheriff, jailer, coroner, constable, or other officer of this Commonwealth, or the police of any city or town, or any district, county, city or town officer, or any officer or other member of the volunteer militia of this Commonwealth, who shall hereafter arrest...any person for the reason that he is claimed or adjudged to be a fugitive from service or labor, shall be punished by fine...and by imprisonment...
Sec. 19. No jail, prison, or other place of confinement belonging to, or used by, either the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or any county therein, shall be used for the detention or imprisonment of any person accused or convicted of any offence created by [the Federal Fugitive Slave Acts]...or accused or convicted of obstructing or resisting any process, warrant, or order issued under either of said acts, or of rescuing, or attempting to rescue, any person arrested or detained under any of the provisions of either of the said acts.
Lincoln told the South that the law was in the Constitution and would be upheld.
I think the South knew what was in the Constitution and didn't need Lincoln telling them. It was the North that needed the reminder. Personally, I think the South would have been wiser to let Lincoln enforce the law (or not).
From The Daily Mississippian newspaper of January 16, 1861:
Washington, Jan. 12. Hon. Wm H. Seward, of New York, addressed the Senate to-day, on the President's message. He said Congress ought, if it can, redress any real grievances of the offended States, and then supply the President with all the means necessary to maintain the Union. He argued that the laws contravening the constitution, in regard to the escape of slaves, ought to be repealed. He was willing to vote for an amendment to the constitution, that Congress should never have the power to abolish or interfere with slavery within the States.
What did Seward know that you don't?
[Lincoln] had strong opposition, both from the Northern Democrats and Southerners.
Others on this thread have documented the leanings of the House and Senate. Senator Wigfall from Texas did the count, I think. Lincoln's opposition could have been outvoted.
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.
Like I said, others have demonstrated otherwise. And yes, the tariffs adopted by the Confederate States were low. Here is what the Cincinnatti Enquirer said in March 1861:
The seceded States invite imports under the tariff of 1857, at least ten per cent. lower than that which the Federal Government has just adopted. As a matter of course, foreign trade will seek southern ports, because it will be driven there by the Morrill tariff.
As I remember, as soon as the Morrill tariff was passed Congress voted to float another big loan to the Federal Government.
The South had no moral justification for secession.
Ah, the pious moral scold from Fort Bend has spoken! Actually, they could leave whenever and for whatever reason they chose, be it moral, immoral, or simply because they didn't like Lincoln's deoderant.
They had the rights of representation, even using the slaves 3/4 rule to be overrepresented.
I forget who proposed that, someone from the North perhaps (I may be wrong) to counter a demand that slaves be counted as whole people. Without the compromise, a Union including the South would not have come to be, and I would not have the pleasure of discussing the WBTS with you.