They have faith - In Lincoln......
Posted on 02/17/2010 3:43:05 PM PST by Constitutionalist Conservative
Prior to the American Civil War, it was popularly assumed that states which had freely chosen to enter the Union could just as freely withdraw from said union at their own discretion. Indeed, from time to time individual states or groups of states had threatened to do just that, but until 1860 no state had actually followed through on the threat.
Since then, it has been considered axiomatic that the War “settled the question” of whether or not states had the right to secede. The central government, backed by force of arms, says the answer is No. As long as no state or group of states tests the central government’s resolve, we can consider the question to be “settled” from a practical viewpoint.
This assertion has long troubled me from a philosophical and moral viewpoint. We are supposedly a nation of laws, and the central government is supposedly subservient to the laws that established and empower it.
In a nation of laws, when someone asks, “Do states have a right to secede from the Union?”, a proper answer would have one of two forms:
Here, x would be an explanation of the laws that supported the Yes or No answer.
With the secession issue, though, we are given the following as a complete and sufficient answer:
“No, because if any state tries to secede, the central government will use force of arms to keep it from succeeding.”
There is no appeal to law in this answer – just brute force.
Based on this premise, the central government can amass to itself whatever right or power it chooses, simply by asserting it. After all, who has the power to say otherwise?
Come to think of it, that’s exactly how the central government has behaved more often than not since the Civil War.
This issue came to mind today because of an item posted today on a trial lawyer’s blog (found via Politico). The lawyer’s brother had written to each of the Supreme Court justices, asking for their input on a screenplay he was writing. In the screenplay, Maine decides to secede from the US and join Canada. The writer asked for comments regarding how such an issue would play out if it ever reached the Supreme Court.
Justice Antonin Scalia actually replied to the screenwriter’s query. I have a lot of respect for Scalia regarding constitutional issues, but his answer here is beyond absurd.
I am afraid I cannot be of much help with your problem, principally because I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, "one Nation, indivisible.")
He actually said that a constitutional issue was settled by military action. Oh, and by including the word “indivisible” in the Pledge of Allegiance, the issue became even more settled.
What if the president were to send out the troops to prevent the news media from publishing or broadcasting anything critical of his administration? This is clearly an unconstitutional action, but by Scalia’s logic, if the president succeeds, we must then say that the military action “settled the question” of free speech.
If these scenarios are not comparable, I’d like to hear why.
So, the pious yankees one goal in life was to free the slaves?
Do you really believe that the very same men who had suffered greatly to free themselves from a dictator would turn right around and create a government that was allowed to determine it's own limits?
I think the founders were intelligent enough to know that the central government as well as the states needed the third branch to act as a check on all of them. Congress and the executive should not have the power to decide on their own if their laws are constitutional or their actions are constitutional. The states as well were free to run their own show within their own borders, much as you may disagree, so long as their acts did not impact their neighbor. So the third branch of government, the judiciary, had the power to rule over their actions as well.
Now your turn.
The ONLY powers the federal government has is those specifically delegated to it by the plain language of the Constitution!
Then where did the power to create NASA and the Air Force come from? The Constitution explicitly allows only for an army and a navy.
The states are, each one individually, free and independent period and can do whatever they wish with the exception of those things expressly prohibited them by the plain language of the Constitution!
Then where does the Constitution expressly prohibits them from expelling another state against its will?
Are you sure it isn't all that thinking that's making your head hurt and causing the nausea?
Hope springs eternal in you Southroners I guess.
I assumed since you were a damnyankee that you were an athiest.
Are you sure that's the reason?
Feel free to deny your athiesm.
And I'm sure you will believe me if I do. </sarcasm>
What does it matter what I believe?
Your faith or lack of is between you and the Lord Almighty.
Like I said, I assumed that since you are a diehard member of the damnyankee coven that you were an athiest.
Quit pretending that you know anything about thinking.
You know, one time is a typo. Three times and it’s clear you don’t know how to spell “atheist.”
“No, it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their white people to buy and sell their black people like cattle.”
See our present condition-—the country engaged in war! Our White men cutting one another’s throats! And then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or another. Why should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated.”
— Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862, from COLLECTED WORKS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Vol 5, page 371
They have faith - In Lincoln......
OK! But you don't get to pick the question.
When you answer the questions I posed in #325 then I will answer your question.
BTW: I’m letting you know ahead of time that I won’t be on for most of tomorrow but will be back on Friday.
That doesn’t dispute what Lurking Libertarian said.
First it was the question in #327. Now it's #325. Admit it, you cannot and will not answer any of the questions I've posted.
You selected the question in 327 to answer not I but you seem to have a habit of trying to put words in other people's mouths!
I can and will answer your questions but only after you answer the questions I posted in #325.
There are a number of others I posted on this thread that you have completely ignored as well but I'll settle for those in #325.
Just so you know, this ground has been thoroughly gone over before on FR.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1110046/posts?q=1&;page=1
Well all people have to do is look at your reply #354 to see I'm not putting words in your mouth at all. Apparently you are incapable of remembering what you post. A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
I can and will answer your questions but only after you answer the questions I posted in #325.
And the horse might talk, too.
Just answer the questions in 325 and I’ll answer your questions. It’s really that simple!
Just waiting on one of you athiest spelling nazis to show up...........
Thanks.
This does.......
Colonel Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia:
“Twenty eight years have passed since the close of our civil war. Time,
I trust has healed the wounds of war, but with the revolving years the causes
and events of that terrible struggle seem to be forgotten, or if not
forgotten, considered as unimportant events of history. And even the history
of those events, and the causes that led to that struggle, are not set forth
fairly and truthfully. It is stated in books and papers that Southern
children read and study that all the blood-shedding and destruction of
property of that conflict was because the South rebelled without cause
against the best government the world ever saw; that although Southern
soldiers were heroes in the field, skillfully massed and led, they and their
leaders were rebels and traitors who fought to overthrow the Union, and to
preserve human slavery, and that their defeat was necessary for free
government and the welfare of the human family.
As a Confederate soldier and as a citizen of Virginia, I deny the
charge, and denounce it as a calumny. We were not rebels; we did not fight to
perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under
government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes.”
“Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late... It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision... It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”
Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne
Northern Prospective - By King Lincoln Himself
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the Negro should be denied everything.”
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause.”
Ah yes. And the Davis regime really, really would have paid for the stolen property if only Lincoln had recognized them. It was really that simple. </sarcasm>
Your reputation preceeds you as far as I am concerned. I could answer 325 and any other lame question you would care to ask and the chances of you answering one of the questions of mine that you have been avoiding for days now would still hover somwhere between zilch point sh*t and none. So go try and sucker some of your Lost Cause buddies. The rest of us realize you can't fix stupid and don't plan on trying.
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