Oh I can read just fine. As a matter of fact I can read right through your PC revisionism.
In #102 you post a line you lifted from one of those lost cause sites misrepresenting US Grant:
“If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers.”
What he actually said contradicts your premise of advocating secession:
“If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted. The problem changed on the ratification of the Constitution by all the colonies; it changed still more when amendments were added; and if the right of any one State to withdraw continued to exist at all after the ratification of the Constitution, it certainly ceased on the formation of new States, at least so far as the new States themselves were concerned. It was never possessed at all by Florida or the States west of the Mississippi, all of which were purchased by the treasury of the entire nation. Texas and the territory brought into the Union in consequence of annexation, were purchased with both blood and treasure; and Texas, with a domain greater than that of any European state except Russia, was permitted to retain as state property all the public lands within its borders. It would have been ingratitude and injustice of the most flagrant sort for this State to withdraw from the Union after all that had been spent and done to introduce her; yet, if separation had actually occurred, Texas must necessarily have gone with the South, both on account of her institutions and her geographical position. Secession was illogical as well as impracticable; it was revolution.”
You also lift the claim that “The Northern Federalists’ Hartford Convention declared in 1814 that a state had the right to secede in cases of “absolute necessity””. Had you looked closer you would have seen that in truth an author of a book claimed that was a determination of the convention (it wasn’t).
As far as the Lincoln quote goes, you are wrong again. Lincoln was speaking to revolution, not secession. And his considerable qualifier “...and having the power” supports that.
Lincoln was speaking out against the then current president, “declaring that the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President”. The quote in question comes into play when discussing the on-going dispute over international boundary lines. Look at the sentence that precedes the infamous passage:
“The extent of our teritory(sic) in that region depended, not on any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it) but on revolution.”
Then comes the money-quote:
“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,-—a most sacred right-—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.”
He sorta re-phrases it next:
“Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory(sic) as they inhabit.”
This is interesting:
“More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.”
See what he did? He bookcased the whole proposition to be one of revolution, not secession.
Look what comes next if you doubt me:
“As to the country now in question, we bought it of France in 1803, and sold it to Spain in 1819, according to the President’s statements. After this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and still later, Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so far as she carried her revolution, by obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling, submission of the people, so far, the country was hers, and no farther.”
It is unmistakable that he is referring to armed, hostile rebellion against arguable authority (Mexico). Not secession.
Reading is fundamental ;’}
So let’s see.....
Grant thought the right to unilateral secession did exist at the time of ratification of the constitution. I’d say he was correct in that as would anybody who read the provisos of the 3 states which issued them expressly reserving that right. I disagree with him that the right of each state to unilaterally secede somehow disappeared later....even though nobody actually agreed to that. Oh, and under the Comity Principle, every state is equal to every other state. Therefore any claims that states which were not among the 13 original states somehow had lesser rights is a non starter.
I then correctly cited the fact that the Northern Federalists thought they had the right to secede in the Hartford Convention. You have nothing to refute that.
As for Lincoln’s quote, res ipsa loquitor. It speaks for itself. Your attempts to weasel by claiming some imaginary semantic difference between revolution and secession is ridiculous. Just read what he wrote. He was plainly talking about secession. Americans had long championed secession as “a principle to liberate the world” as he put it. After all.....the 13 colonies seceded from the British Empire. I was right again.
Reading is indeed fundamental.