So you are saying that even when the decision has a negative impact on the interests of another state, the people have no say in that action?
One, they were also walking away from fantastic resources in mining and agriculture.
Oh nonsense. Whatever resources they had within their borders they were taking with them. We're not talking about assets in other states, we're talking about obligations entered into by the nation as a whole while they were part of it, and of physical property owned by 'the people' in their status as citizens of the United States. Since the southern states were prepared to walk away from the debt and take what they wanted in terms of community property then why didn't the people of the remaining states have a say in the matter?
Two, there was a provisional attempt to begin negotiating these matters, which was blocked by Lincoln. He did not want to be seen to give the slightest recognition to the Southern States except on their bellies. Lincoln's policy was that there was to be no discussion with the Southern States.
Complete bullshit yet again. In the first place, those alleged offers came after the fact, after the south had walked away from its obligations and after they had appropriated what they wanted. The time for negotiations was before the split where everyone's concerns could be addressed. Having walked out and taken what they wanted what guarantee did the North have of good faith negotiations? And in the second place, those negotiators were there for one reason, to obtain recognition of confederate independence. Any other vague offer to discuss 'issues of concern' were predicated on recognition.
Well, they did, but only for each of their own States. They had no right or power to accept an amendment to the Constitution for another State, or to ratify the Constitution for another State, or to forbid another State to ratify or amend, or to secede.
So according to you they had the right to sit back and watch themselves be cut off from access to the ocean, for example, but no right to have a say in the action that cut them off? Once again, in your world only 'the people' of the southern states had rights. The other's had none.
The People of the other State don't, no, no more that any State has a say in the election of other States' officials. I don't steal from you and you don't steal from me, and I don't ratify for you and you don't ratify for me.
[You, quoting me] One, they were also walking away from fantastic resources in mining and agriculture.
[You, retorting] Oh nonsense. Whatever resources they had within their borders they were taking with them.
No, I made it perfectly clear that I was talking about the Territories and their undeveloped assets. Other than a lot of oil and some coal and a little bit of iron, lignite, and bauxite, the mineral resources of the South are exiguous. But be that as it may, of course the South was taking their own territory and resources with them -- they owned it.
You had made an equity point with reference to community property -- United States property -- in the South and the national debt. I replied clearly to that point, that it was negotiable, but Lincoln would not negotiate.
[You, shifting your ground] We're not talking about assets in other states, we're talking about obligations entered into by the nation as a whole while they were part of it, and of physical property owned by 'the people' in their status as citizens of the United States.
Yes, that's right, and my point was that Southern dollars as much as anyone's paid for the Louisiana Purchase, most of which was going to wind up in the hands of the Northern States. You seem to want to share the debt obligations, while ignoring the natural treasurehouse that the Territories represented.
All of that was subject to some sort of negotiation, mediation, and arbitration, eventually.
Since the southern states were prepared to walk away from the debt and take what they wanted in terms of community property then why didn't the people of the remaining states have a say in the matter?
One, they weren't necessarily walking away from the debt. They didn't "take what they wanted" in "community property", they conscribed the federal government facilities to the State governments. They didn't take over any federal facilities in Ohio, but gave up ownership interests in all federal property outside the South, which was absolutely massive holdings of land, timber, and so on.
You can't make the South's secession into a big federal bank robbery, so just give it up. Your characterization of it as such is just so much old Unionist rodomontade warmed over and served up as a fresh prosecution brief against free people's decision, freely taken, to leave the Union and do something else.
I get the impression that you are trying -- as the Unionists did in 1861 -- to work up a good head of indignant steam and use it to justify the national equivalent of going over to your ex-wife's house and shooting her because you found out she'd taken the family flatware.
The issue isn't the property, is it? It's the fact that they left. And now you have to justify beating them to a bloody pulp for having inconvenienced you by thinking they were free.
I take it that you construe the South's primary "obligation" to have been to remain in the Union as a good little meat-puppet for the Yankee merchant interest to gnaw on? To be dominated and smothered by the North? Yes, I thought so.
The time for negotiations was before the split where everyone's concerns could be addressed.
Poisonous advice, poisonously offered. The Southerners knew exactly what Lincoln would do if elected. If they didn't leave before he was inaugurated, they'd have all received the same treatment Maryland and Missouri got -- Northern troops in their cities, citizens shot down in the street, their leading men arrested on political charges and thrown into federal fortresses. The Southerners were educated men; they knew about the feeding habits of tyranny, and they were correct in their estimate of Lincoln, that he would attempt to crush them with menaces or with violence, no matter whether they stayed or left.
With the election of a factional tyrant acting by and for his faction, it was all over for the old Republic, as far as the South was concerned -- one way or another, they were going to be crushed, beaten down, dominated and colonized.
And I'm not just talking about fear-fantasies: that is exactly what happened to Maryland and Missouri, campaigns that Lincoln had in hand well before his inauguration, as shown by the activities of the Wide Awakes and the "Home Guards" in Missouri.
Having walked out and taken what they wanted what guarantee did the North have of good faith negotiations?
Well, they had title to all the Territories, for one thing, including New Mexico and Arizona, without which the Confederacy would never have had a chance to extend to the West Coast.
And in the second place, those negotiators were there for one reason, to obtain recognition of confederate independence.
If you say so. Lincoln sure was determined to deny them that, wasn't he?
Any other vague offer to discuss 'issues of concern' were predicated on recognition.
Of course. Because nonrecognition meant Lincoln intended war, in which case there would have been nothing to discuss, anyway.