Posted on 03/31/2014 10:24:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
INTRODUCTION
On May 27, 1861, the army of the United States of America (the "Union")--a nation formed by consecutive secessions, first from Great Britain in 1776, and then from itself in 17881--invaded the State of Virginia,2 which had recently seceded from the Union, in an effort to negate that secession by violent force.
The historical result of the effort begun that day is well known and indisputable: after four years of brutal warfare, which killed 620,000 Americans, the United States negated the secession of the Confederate States of America, and forcibly re-enrolled them into the Union. The Civil War ended slavery, left the South in economic ruins, and set the stage for twelve years of military rule there.
Beyond its immediate effects, the Civil War made drastic changes in politics and law that continue to shape our world 130 years later. Arthur Ekirch writes: "Along with the terrible destruction of life and property suffered in four long years of fighting went tremendous changes in American life and thought, especially a decline in [classical] liberalism on all questions save that of slavery. * * * Through a policy of arbitrary arrests made possible by Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, persons were seized and confined on the suspicion of disloyalty or of sympathy with the southern cause. Thus, in the course of the Civil War, a total of thirteen thousand civilians was estimated to have been held as political prisoners, often without any sort of trial or after only cursory hearings before a military tribunal."3The Civil War caused and allowed a tremendous expansion of the size and power of the federal government. It gave us our first federal conscription law...
(Excerpt) Read more at apollo3.com ...
I dislike the term “civil war.” The South did not want to take over the government (example: English civil war), they wanted only to withdraw from the Union. I’d prefer the term “Second American Revolution.”
If they were still states in the Union then West Virginia should still be a part of Virginia.
The State ratified the agreement or Engagement whereby the State delegated its sovereign powers enumerated in the Constitution to a perpetual Union subject to the “consent of the Congress assembled.” This delegation of the State's powers included the power to alienate territories of the State with the consent of Congress and the State by treaties with foreign states and a variety of other powers not limited “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” To secede a State must obtain the consent of Congress assembled and the other States of the Union with whom there is a joinder in a mutual and perpetual Union to recover the sovereign powers previously delegated to the perpetual Union of the United States. Anything else constitutes a unilateral and unconstitutional rebellion against the perpetual Union that Prejudices the sovereign rights and duties previously delegated by agreement of the seceding State to the member States of the perpetual Union. The member States of the perpetual Union had the right and the obligation of the Constitution to “To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections.”
The mythical assertion that the seceding sovereign State has not previously delegated the Constitution's enumerated power to “dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States” until and unless the consent of Congress assembled has been obtained is without any shred of a valid basis, as the words written in the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution clearly attest.
Rally the troops. You know where this one is heading.
Um, wouldn't that be World War 2?
Why is that?
Through a policy of arbitrary arrests made possible by Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, persons were seized and confined on the suspicion of disloyalty or of sympathy with the southern cause.
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This also happened during the first civil war AKA as the American Revolution or the War of Independence..
Civilians, non-combatant men, grandmothers and children were arrested and imprisoned for suspicion of sympathy and loyalty to the king of England and the colonies...
Fort Dayton near Albany, NY was built to house dozens and hundreds of ordinary American civilians like grandmother Sarah Kast McGinnis aged in her 60s and her 10 yo granddaughter Hannah De Forest...
Mrs McGinnis never fired a shot at any of the rebels..
Why was she even arrested by men claiming to want freedom from tyranny ???
“If a state leaves the union it is no longer the territory of the United States.”
That is pure nonsense. You cannot just unilaterally, arbitrarily, and prejudicially abrogate the Engagement the State with its ratification entered into the joinder of territories with the other States in the perpetual Union. Proposing such a state of affairs involving unilateral secession of the State is nothing less than lawlessness, alienation of the State, and treasonous rebellion prejudicing the rights and duties of the member States of the perpetual Union. To regain or recover the sovereign powers the State previously delegated to the perpetual Union of the United States, the State must obtain the consent of the Congress assembled and the member States of the perpetual Union. Only when the State has lawfully recovered the sovereign power it delegated to the perpetual Union can the State lawfully withdraw from the Engagement it previously made and proceed on to secede as a sovereign state with all of its sovereign powers recovered from the former joinder with the other States of the perpetual Union. Until that occurs, the territory of the State is cojoined with the Territory of the perpetual Union of the United States as with any delegation of sovereign powers to the joint sovereign nation.
After the war President Davis asked for a trial but was not granted one because to put him on trial would put secession on trial and it was deemed a losing proposition.
That ratification of the Constitution made the States themselves property of the national government seems inconsistent with reference to the sovereignty of the States. There is no sovereignty under those circumstances, and if that is how the Constitution were understood and intended at the time, there would have been no reference to it. They would have understood that they were relinquishing all claim to it.
Perpetual union? I didn’t see that in the Constitution either. You must have a different copy than I am looking at.
“Why was she even arrested by men claiming to want freedom from tyranny ???”
She and her husband were closely associated with the Mohawk Indians on the frontier during the Franch and Indian wars. With her husband deceased and the American Revolutionary War underway, she remained a Loyalist and used her position with the Mohawk, other Indians, Loyalists, and British on the frontier to conduct hostilities against the rebel settlers. Suffering cruel massacres at the hands of the Indians and the Loyalists, the rebels replied in kind. To keep her from using her influence with the Indians to conduct further raids and massacres, she and her Loyalist family members were imprisoned, but oftern cruelly so in the same manner being suffered by many Patriot families.
“Perpetual union? I didn’t see that in the Constitution either. You must have a different copy than I am looking at.”
Obviously you did not read and/or failed to comprehend what I wrote and what the Founding Fathers so clearly wrote.
My reading comprehension is pretty good. I just don’t agree with what you wrote. Where in the US Constitution does it mention a “perpetual” union?
“That ratification of the Constitution made the States themselves property of the national government seems inconsistent with reference to the sovereignty of the States. There is no sovereignty under those circumstances, and if that is how the Constitution were understood and intended at the time, there would have been no reference to it. They would have understood that they were relinquishing all claim to it.”
You fail to understand the legal concept of delegation of authority used for millenia. Sovereignty has very rarely been entirely unified in the control of just one entity. You can see this when you study any political history and observe how sovereignty is distributed in the society.
In the case of the perpetual Union of the United States, the citizens of the United States has delegated personal sovereignty not reserved to themselves to their delegates or representatives to the State government, and the State Government has delegated certain enumerated powers and authority to the perpetual Union of the United States: Congress, the Executive, and the Supreme Court of the United States. The Founding Fathers in this case delegated certain limited powers of sovereignty to the perpetual Union of the United States through the Continental Congresses, the Congress, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Amendments to the Constitution. In particular, the Constitution was very explicit in reconfirming the delegation of certain sovereign powers of a State to the perpetual Union of the United States in: “Constitution of the United States. Article. VI. All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.” When the State ratified the Congressional act making the State a member of the perpetual Union of the United States as set forth in the Articles of Confederation, the ratification served to delegate those limited sovereign powers of the citizens and the State to the Union of the United States, subjecting them to the duty of obtaining the consent of Congress to alter the Engagement and agreements. The State nonetheless retains all sovereingn powers and sovereignty not delegated to the perpetual Union of the United States and not reserved by the citizens of the United States.
So, yes, the States are sovereign governments, but exercise that sovereignty in union with the States who share the same delegated powers of sovereignty through their mutual Union in the United States. Consequently, the State is no relinquishing the sovereign powers, but the State is sharing the delegated sovereign powers with the other States. This is why the consent of the other states must be obtained through the consent of Congress to alter their mutual agreement and Engagement to participate in a perpetual Union of enumerated powers and shared co-sovereignty over the Federal Territory and domain.
“My reading comprehension is pretty good. I just don’t agree with what you wrote. Where in the US Constitution does it mention a “perpetual” union?”
See Post 20
Also Rich Lowry's article Lincoln Defended.
“If they were still states in the Union then West Virginia should still be a part of Virginia.”
That is incorrect, because the pro-Union Virginia representatives seated in the U.S. Congress during the war undertook the Constitutional steps necessary to obtain the consent of Congress for the secession of West Virginia. The postwar State of Virginia sought to revoke its agreement and resorted to a lawsuit that went to the Supereme Court f the United States, but lost the case and confirmed the consent of Congress for West Virginia to secede with certain counties from Virginia.
Virginia v. West Virginia, 78 U.S. 39 (1871),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_v._West_Virginia
“I think it is ludicrous to expect a state that wants to leave the union to have to get everybody else’s permission to go their own way.”
Actually, the coastal states could secede and land lock the remaining states eventually destroying them with a trade/travel embargo.
This is why russian is not allowing Ukraine to secede. It is because russia would be landlocked except for the Pacific ocean route.
For example, CA, OR and WA plus TX, OK MO, IL, WI, and MN could pretty much completly land lock a bunch of state via secession.
Bookmark.
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