Posted on 06/12/2003 5:58:28 AM PDT by Aurelius
Over the years I've heard many rail at the South for seceding from the 'glorious Union.' They claim that Jeff Davis and all Southerners were really nothing but traitors - and some of these people were born and raised in the South and should know better, but don't, thanks to their government school 'education.'
Frank Conner, in his excellent book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 deals in some detail with the question of Davis' alleged 'treason.' In referring to the Northern leaders he noted: "They believed the most logical means of justifying the North's war would be to have the federal government convict Davis of treason against the United States. Such a conviction must presuppose that the Confederate States could not have seceded from the Union; so convicting Davis would validate the war and make it morally legitimate."
Although this was the way the federal government planned to proceed, that prolific South-hater, Thaddeus Stevens, couldn't keep his mouth shut and he let the cat out of the bag. Stevens said: "The Southerners should be treated as a conquered alien enemy...This can be done without violence to the established principles only on the theory that the Southern states were severed from the Union and were an independent government de facto and an alien enemy to be dealt with according to the laws of war...No reform can be effected in the Southern States if they have never left the Union..." And, although he did not plainly say it, what Stevens really desired was that the Christian culture of the Old South be 'reformed' into something more compatible with his beliefs. No matter how you look at it, the feds tried to have it both ways - they claimed the South was in rebellion and had never been out of the Union, but then it had to do certain things to 'get back' into the Union it had never been out of. Strange, is it not, that the 'history' books never seem to pick up on this?
At any rate, the Northern government prepared to try President Davis for treason while it had him in prison. Mr. Conner has observed that: "The War Department presented its evidence for a treason trial against Davis to a famed jurist, Francis Lieber, for his analysis. Lieber pronounced 'Davis will not be found guilty and we shall stand there completely beaten'." According to Mr. Conner, U.S. Attorney General James Speed appointed a renowned attorney, John J. Clifford, as his chief prosecutor. Clifford, after studying the government's evidence against Davis, withdrew from the case. He said he had 'grave doubts' about it. Not to be undone, Speed then appointed Richard Henry Dana, a prominent maritime lawyer, to the case. Mr. Dana also withdrew. He said basically, that as long as the North had won a military victory over the South, they should just be satisfied with that. In other words - "you won the war, boys, so don't push your luck beyond that."
Mr. Conner tells us that: "In 1866 President Johnson appointed a new U.S. attorney general, Henry Stanburg. But Stanburg wouldn't touch the case either. Thus had spoken the North's best and brightest jurists re the legitimacy of the War of Northern Aggression - even though the Jefferson Davis case offered blinding fame to the prosecutor who could prove that the South had seceded unconstitutionally." None of these bright lights from the North would touch this case with a ten-foot pole. It's not that they were dumb, in fact the reverse is true. These men knew a dead horse when they saw it and were not about to climb aboard and attempt to ride it across the treacherous stream of illegal secession. They knew better. In fact, a Northerner from New York, Charles O'Connor, became the legal counsel for Jeff Davis - without charge. That, plus the celebrity jurists from the North that refused to touch the case, told the federal government that they really had no case against Davis or secession and that Davis was merely being held as a political prisoner.
Author Richard Street, writing in The Civil War back in the 1950s said exactly the same thing. Referring to Jeff Davis, Street wrote: "He was imprisoned after the war, was never brought to trial. The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and that the South had got a raw deal." At one point the government intimated that it would be willing to offer Davis a pardon, should he ask for one. Davis refused that and he demanded that the government either give him a pardon or give him a trial, or admit that they had dealt unjustly with him. Mr. Street said: "He died 'unpardoned' by a government that was leery of giving him a public hearing." If Davis was as guilty as they claimed, why no trial???
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. The fact that they diddled around and finally released him without benefit of the trial he wanted proves that the North had no real case against secession. Over 600,000 boys, both North and South, were killed or maimed so the North could fight a war of conquest over something that the South did that was neither illegal or wrong. Yet they claim the moral high ground because the 'freed' the slaves, a farce at best.
Charles Sumner.
"Upon yourself, and others like you, professed friends of freedom, who, instead of promulgating what you believed to be the truth, have, for selfish purposes, denied it, and thus conceded to the slaveholders the benefit of an argument to which they had no claim, - upon your heads, more even, if possible, than upon the slaveholders themselves, (who have acted only in accordance with their associations, interests, and avowed principles as slaveholders.) rests the blood of this horrible, unnecessary, and therefore guilty, war. Your concessions, as to the pro-slavery character of the constitution, have been such as, if true, would prove the constitution unworthy of having one drop of blood shed in its support. They have been such as to withhold from the North all the benefit of the argument, that a war for the constitution was a war for liberty. You have thus, to the extent of your ability, placed the North wholly in the wrong, and the South wholly in the right. And the effect of these false positions in which the North and the South have respectively been placed, not only with your consent, but, in part, by your exertions, has been to fill the land with blood." - Lysander Spooner to Charles Sumner, 1864
Hey, I'm just seeking your position on it now that you have asserted the territories are not part of the union.
I also see that you once again avoided Jefferson's quote, which explicitly refers to them as states in the future when he believes a split is permissible.
The quote, by its very nature, is a reference to a future event that had not yet happened. He anticipated at the time of that future event, if it was to happen, that its participants would be states. Live with it.
Having them become states and leave the Union was never Jefferson's wish.
Apparently it was.
"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."
He also apparently saw any split to be an exit from the union and explicitly used that term as well.
They were not in the UNION in 1803 thus, it was not a reference to splitting the UNION.
Your inductions are continually slothful. Jefferson EXPLICITLY stated that at the future anticipated time in which the split may occur, those territories would be both STATES and in the UNION. That is why he said "keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better." It takes a person of either apalling dishonesty or utter stupidity to claim that a quote saying "keep them in union, if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better" is "not a reference to splitting the UNION." You are evidently such a person.
They could have become separate countries had Congress allowed that but not by unilateral declarations without the consent of Congress. Jefferson did not maintain otherwise
Jefferson maintained that it was their call to make: "[I]f they see their interest in separation"
Oh ho ho!
Why would you tell a big fib like that?
Several cases were cited in that excerpt from "Lincoln's Constitution".
The power to do so “is essential to the existence of every government, essential to the preservation of order and free institutions, and is necessary to the State of this Union as to any other government.”
That's old Taney himself being quoted.
--Your-- charge is to check the source material and see if Dr. Farber is using it out of context.
Walt
These were not states in 1803 and there was no indication that Jefferson thought, except in your fevered brain, that they would enter, then leave the UNION.
Read it and weep.
"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's quote explicitly refers to their anticipated condition as STATES, explicitly refers to those states as part of the UNION, and explicitly refers to the possibility that they will leave that union. To deny this is to deny the text of the quote itself. But go ahead and make yourself look like an even bigger idiot. And why don't you tell everyone that "war is peace" and what the meaning of "is" is while you are at it.
Not one of them was cited beyond a line or two and none of those quotes contained the words "habeas" or "corpus." You claimed to have knowledge of a court case that explicitly said the president could suspend habeas corpus. If you have such knowledge, Walt, quote the case. Otherwise don't shoot your mouth off with claims that you cannot support.
Ha.
Show that old Taney didn't mean exactly what he said in Luther v. Borden.
This is all done. You are only going to look more and more ridiculous.
Walt
After all, those claims are no less absurd that the statements you have made in this debate. According to you:
1. Jefferson did not really mean what he said when he said it.
2. Jefferson really meant the territories when he explicitly said states.
3. Jefferson really meant posessions when he explicitly said union.
Congratulations are in order to you though. You've made yourself a laughing stock of Wlat caliber.
Just a few posts ago, you indicated that none were quoted at all. Can't you -ever- be honest?
Walt
YOU didn't quote any line from the court whatsoever that said even so much as a single word about habeas corpus. All you provided was a loosely relevant passage from an historian who provided a couple of one line quotes from decisions, not one of which mentioned habeas corpus either.
My original request to you was to quote the opinions themselves in which, per your own words, "The Court has ruled, in several cases, that the president -can- suspend the Writ."
In light of all this it is evident that (1) you did not answer my original request and (2) what you did post was not a passage from ANY decision but rather from an historian who includes a few brief excerpts, not one of which contains either the word "habeas" or the word "corpus."
Since you still refuse to post any decision itself that supports your previous claim, I will take that as a concession that you cannot support it with facts.
"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."
To date FAKEit has claimed that (1) Jefferson did not really mean it when he said this, (2) Jefferson was not really referring to states when he used the word states, (3) Jefferson was not really referring to the union when he used the word union, and (4) that I am somehow "distorting" the meaning of these words in Jefferson's quote for simply saying that they mean what they say in a direct, clear as day face value reading of them. It gets better though - now he is claiming that "[i]t is not clear WHAT Jefferson was referring to since his statement was so imprecise and obscure as to not really mean anything."
Go back and read his earlier exchanges to see it all in his own words. The absurdity of it all is hilarious! I think we have a challenger to Wlat for the most willfully obtuse display of idiocy around here.
I will not be dragged kicking and screaming into your harsh "reality" no matter how hard you try.
Why refute Jefferson at all, if he's an innefective idiot as was originally claimed?
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