Posted on 06/12/2003 5:58:28 AM PDT by Aurelius
So your position is that the Supreme Court must be biased because of the preponderance of members from Northern states? Therefore it stands to reason that a court with a preponderance of members from southern states must also be biased except for secession, and there was no chance at all of an impartial decision. The idea that the court could have ruled based solely on an interpretation of the Constitution is impossible for you to conceive, regardless of the fact that this same court had ruled against other policies of the Lincoln administration enacted during the war.
By the way, I forgive you for wrongly saying that the southern standpoint was to protect their institution of domestic slavery rather than to exercise their right to self rule.)
I've done nothing to beg your forgiveness for. The southern actions were in defense of what they saw as a threat to their institution of slavery. The evidence for that is overwhelming.
Then a court made up of justices from other states would have been just as biased?
But you should. It shows humbleness when you've been proven wrong.
How have I been proven wrong? What have you offered except your own opinion?
So you honestly believe that the Supreme Court was incapable of making an impartial decision in this matter? A court heavy on Northern judges would automatically rule against the legality of secession while a court heavy on southern judges would automatically rule for it. I'm not sure how to refute 'irrefutable logic' like that. If you want to consider Texas v White to be hopelessly biased then that's your right. It still doesn't change the fact that it was a valid decision and remains one until a future court modifies the decision or until the Constitution is amended. Until that time secession as practiced by the southern states is illegal. That's irrefutable.
Benson's op/ed piece is a poorly researched expression of his opinion. In it he claims, "had the federal government had any possible chance to convict Davis and therefore declare secession unconstitutional they would have done so in a New York minute." Well, the Supreme Court did declare unilateral secession unconstitutional and they didn't need to convict Davis of anything in order to do it. The two issues were not related.
'Nuff said.
Some comment on the Prize Cases:
"By a slim five-to-four vote, the Supreme Court upheld Lincoln’s action. True, the Court said, "Congress alone has the power to declare a national or foreign war." In contrast, the president "has no power to initiate or declare a war either against a foreign nation or a domestic state." But by statute [the Militia Act] he is authorized to call out the militia and use American military forces to repel invasion or suppress insurrection. Then comes the critical language: "If a war be made by invasion of a foreign nation, the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force. He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative authority." Whether the hostile force is a foreign invader or a rebellious state, "it is none the less a war." When the rebellion burst out, the president "was bound to meet it in the shape it presented itself, without waiting for Congress t baptize it with a name; and no name given to it by him could change the fact."
The Court also clarified a key question: Did recognizing a state of war implicitly concede the legitimacy of the Confederacy? The answer was no. "It is not less a civil war, with belligerent parties in hostile array, because it may be called an insurrection' by one side, and the insurgents be considered as rebels or traitors." The independence of a rebelling province does not need to be recognized in order for it to qualify as a "party belligerent in a war according to the law of nations."
...The dissent agreed that if a civil war existed between the Confederacy and the United States, the blockade would be valid. They argued however, that only an action by Congress can "change the legal status of the Government....from that of a state of peace to a state of war." This did not mean, however, that the president was powerless to resist the rebellion until Congress met. Under the Constitution and by statute, the dissenters agreed, he was entitled to call forth the militia to suppress insurrection and execute the laws. He therefore "can meet the adversary upon land and water with all the forces of the government." But what he cannot do on his own is to invoke the laws of war, which "convert every citizen of the hostile State into a public enemy, and treat him accordingly, whatever may have been his previous conduct." For that purpose, "congress alone can determine whether war exists or should be declared." Hence, according to the dissent, a formal state of war did not exist until July 13, when Congress passed legislation endorsing the president's activities.
Thus, the Court was unanimous in holding that the president had the right to mobilize the nation to do battle after Sumter, and that an actual state of war existed by mid July at the latest.
...What was important was Lincoln's power, without specific approval by Congress, to engage in what was in fact a war. The Court's unanimity on this point is supported both by history and by common sense.
....Even under the most Congress-centered view of the war powers, the president has been accorded this power to defend the nation. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a powerful statement of Congress's claim to control the initiation of hostilities. Even this resolution, however, recognizes the president's authority to introduce the military into hostilities in " a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." The resolution calls for consultation with the congressional leadership and gives the president up to ninety days to get congressional authorization. Naturally, Lincoln did not comply to the letter of a statute that was not passed until over a century later. But he did in effect "comply" with the substance of the statute. He did receive full authorization from Congress by July 13, within ninety days after he called up the militia. Thus, even under a highly Congress-centered view of the war power, Lincoln acted appropriately. Indeed, given current laments about the ineffectiveness of the War Powers Resolution, it is somewhat ironic that Lincoln's record of "compliance" with the resolution is better than that of the modern president's at whom it was aimed."
-- Lincoln's Constitution" pp. 139-42 by Daniel Farber
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean much.
Walt
No it's not. That was the whole point of Benson's op/ed piece.
He's wrong.
Just because it's down on paper doesn't give it validity.
Walt
The Militia Act, as the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the Prize Cases, is an absolute bar to unilateral state secession.
Walt
You know very well that that has been exposed time and again for the nonsense that it is. Do you wonder why you are not taken seriously when you continue to post totally discredited nonsense like that?
You know very well that that has been exposed time and again for the nonsense that it is. Do you wonder why you are not taken seriously when you continue to post totally discredited nonsense like that?
Oh, I think I am taken plenty seriously.
"Thus, the Court was unanimous in holding that the president had the right to mobilize the nation to do battle after Sumter, and that an actual state of war existed by mid July at the latest."
-- Lincoln's Constitution, p. 142 by Daniel Farber.
Here is the thing.
All nine Supreme Court justices said that --under statute-- that is, by the Militia Act, the president has the right to call out the militia of the several states to suppress insurrection.
Further, the act leaves it to his sole discretion when insurrection exists.
You won't "prove" anything else by appeal to the record.
Walt
Jackson was not a founder. As for Jefferson's view on the matter:
"Besides, if it should become the great interest of those nations to separate from this, if their happiness should depend on it so strongly as to induce them to go through that convulsion, why should the Atlantic States dread it? But especially why should we, their present inhabitants, take side in such a question? When I view the Atlantic States, procuring for those on the Eastern waters of the Missipi friendly instead of hostile neighbors on it's Western waters, I do not view it as an Englishman would the procuring future blessings for the French nation, with whom he has no relations of blood or affection. The future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Missipi States will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. Events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Missipi descendants? It is the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, & keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better." - Jefferson, August 12, 1803
Like Lincoln, Jackson was wrong. What else needs to be said?
"By the principles of the American revolution, arbitrary power may and ought to be resisted even by arms if necessary-- The time may come when it shall be the duty of a State, in order to preserve itself from the oppression of the general government, to have recourse to the sword." - Luther Martin, 1788
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