Posted on 08/05/2008 12:11:25 PM PDT by cowboyway
TAMPA, FLA. - Chip Witte doesn't consider himself a Rebel. He doesn't hang Dixie battle flags in his living room, nor does he wear one on the back of his leather jacket.
Yet when the Tampa motorcycle mechanic saw the world's largest Confederate battle flag unfurl above the intersection of I-75 and I-4 in June, he felt a jolt of solidarity with the lost cause and lost rights that he says the battle flag represents. "I think it's great that they're allowed to fly it," says Mr. Witte. [Editor's note: The original version misidentified the highway intersection.]
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I was talking about the Constitution, you tried to limit the discussion to only the Tenth Amendment to score an empty rhetorical point, but I was not taken in by that ploy.
If you could write clearly, it would have been obvious.
Perhaps if I used monosyllables with my interlocutor it would have been.
You're saying that the supreme court is 100% right and should never be questioned.
Not at all.
I am saying that under our Constitution the South Carolina State Assembly has zero constitutional authority to void the acts of any other state and that their only constitutional recourse is the federal judiciary.
What a useful idiot you are.
You can't resist invective, can you?
You used the word "ultimatum".
Good thing you aren't engaging in semantics.
While you continue to attempt to divert the substance of this discussion into trivial minutiae, I have to point out why you are avoiding the substance - because the substance undermines your claims.
(1) The South Carolina State Assembly's case for secession revolved entirely around slavery.
(2) The South Carolina State Assembly's reasoning was Constitutionally unsound.
The Constitutional remedy for legislation in other states that one's own state considers injurious is recourse to the federal judiciary - which, I repeat, had found in South carolina's favor repeatedly already. Secession was not the Constitutional remedy.
Moreover, the right to recover one's escaped slave was a personal right and not a "right" of a state (states, again, cannot possess rights) - it simply was not a state matter at all.
Before you sling that ‘your side embraces traitors’ charge against General Thomas once again, you might want to take another look at some of the rebel leadership. Josiah Gorgas, head of the army’s munitions branch? Born in Pennsylvania. Archibald Gracie, rebel brigadier general? Born in New York City. His family’s house in currently the official resident of the mayor. Bushrod Johnson, Major General? Born in Ohio. John Pemberton, Lieutenant General? Born in Pennsylvania. Albert Sidney Johnson? Born in Kentucky. Rebel generals born in Maine and Massachusetts and New Jersey and New York and you name it. Are you going to label them ‘traitors’ as well?
". . . The contest was between those who held it to be strictly Federal in its character, and those who maintain it was thoroughly National. . . "
This is Stephens' invention.
The conflict was between two federal systems, one of which saw slavery as the essence of its social being and one of which saw liberty as the essence of its social being.
The Confederacy claimed for its ideal not a federal system, but a confederated system - i.e. a system akin to that which obtained under the Articles of Confederation wherein the states were essentially sovereigns who were bound by a treaty.
In reality, the Confederacy was a federal government, as it proved by introducing universal conscription, stripping the individual states of the power to decide the legality of slavery for themselves, etc.
Some view the above as post-war whitewash used to minimize the role that slavery played in bringing about the war. Perhaps it was.
It clearly was - unless Stephens was a schizophrenic.
There were fundamental differences between North and South in how the Constitution was viewed
Indeed. That difference of opinion doesn't invalidate the Constitution.
These kinds of petty squabbles went back and forth and the North had its own similar grievances.
None of them are grounds for secession, either individually or as a group.
Protectionist tariffs had the effect of extracting wealth from the South for the benefit of Northern manufacturers and providing jobs for northern workers. Put a pencil to paper sometime and you'll see how much this amounted to.
A common claim, but a false one.
The tariff created plenty of Southern jobs as well - Northern manufacturers invested their money back into the South, and the runup in cotton prices during the 1850s far outstripped the tariff.
There were Southerners who liked the tariff as well - sugar growers and rice growers.
Moreover, the tariff payments went into the federal treasury for the benfit of both Northerners and Southerners.
Finally, demand for cotton was so strong that there were none of the drops in agricultural demand that Southern politicians warned about - Europeans grumbled and paid the duties because the margin on textiles was profitable.
Was the tariff good policy? No. Did it stop the Southern economy from doubling between 1850 and 1860? No.
Nope.
It passed the Senate 25-14.
Unless one wants to argue that MS, AL, GA, SC, NC, TX or LA would have voted for the tariff in the Senate, the tariff would have failed.
Southern states were being taken advantage of.
No they weren't. The South's economy was unharmed by economic nationalism, and the South was given a much larger vote in Congress due to their sweetheart deal in the Constitution than they deserved.
Southern states felt they had the right under the Tenth Amendment (the Tenth being the basis of so-called "state's rights") to leave the old voluntary union
States don't have rights, and the Tenth Amendment does not delegate a power to secede. The Constitution states explicitly that it, and not state law, is the supreme law of the land.
I've read somewhere that the value of slaves on the market took a big hit when Lincoln was elected.
I'm sure they did.
New England states threatened secession when the Louisiana Purchase expanded the area of slavery (later legislated away) and when slave state of Texas was added to the Union.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
Is there a Senator on the other side who to-day will agree that we shall have equal enjoyment of the Territories of the United States?
You don't need slaves to "enjoy" the benefits of owning land in a new territory.
The Confederacy wanted peace between itself and the Union - temporarily. The ultimate goal was to seize federal territory and populate it with slaveholders. That was the main reason why the South left in the first place.
To secede over not having slaveholder access to federal territory and then subsequently decide to completely abstain from entering that territory would have completely defeated the purpose of secession.
The Confederacy had already begun preparing for war before there even was a Confederacy as a corproate entity. The governor of Alabama publicly requested - and promptly received - the formation of volunteer companies external to the existing state militia in the fall of 1859.
Source please.
Don Alberts' book about Glorieta Pass.
And it stands to reason if you do the math: John R. Baylor began raising a regiment as soon as Texas seceded. His goal (which made excellent strategic sense) was to seize Mesilla in federal territory to prevent the Federals from surrounding Fort Bliss just inside the Texas border.
He took Mesilla on July 25, 1861 - 68 days after Sumter fell.
During that time he had raised a regiment in the San Antonio area and made his way in the heat of the South Texas spring and early summer 600 miles - stopping along the way to pick up recruits and horses and shore up Fort Bliss, etc.
Main reason? Hardly. There might have been individuals who wanted to do that. Sibley might have been one. But to say it was the official intention of the Confederacy is a stretch.
Besides, the southern part of New Mexico and Arizona had already seceded from the Union (as much as a territory can secede) in early 1861. They passed two secession documents, one one on February 3 and the other on March 16. They had no use for the Union. A Confederate flag flew in Mesilla, New Mexico put up by the townspeople.
The Confederacy had already begun preparing for war before there even was a Confederacy as a corproate entity. The governor of Alabama publicly requested - and promptly received - the formation of volunteer companies external to the existing state militia in the fall of 1859.
And exactly how is the State of Alabama the Confederacy? Was his calling for volunteer companies in response to John Brown's invasion of Virginia?
Don Alberts' book about Glorieta Pass.
Albert's book (hard copy, page 6):
During late June and early July, 1861, Lt. Col. John R. Baylor led a battery of artillery and four companies of his Second Texas Mounted rifles into Fort Bliss as its new garrison.
How is that before Fort Sumter as you claimed? And Fort Bliss is in El Paso, not New Mexico. Sibley's invasion of New Mexico did not occur until later. Sibley didn't complete his force until late October, 1861 (so says Alberts' book). Sibley didn't resign his commission in the Federal army until May 13, 1861.
Troops from Texas had no claim to be there, and the secession documents were just documents drawn up by local Confederate sympathizers without even the figleaf of an actual referendum.
It was US federal territory.
And exactly how is the State of Alabama the Confederacy? Was his calling for volunteer companies in response to John Brown's invasion of Virginia?
The State of Alabama was not alone - it was just the first to begin mobilizing.
John Brown was a private criminal leading a crew of raiders, not the leader of an invasion.
State militias - which already existed in AL - were the normal means for dealing with criminal bands in those days. In Brown's case - since he attacked a federal arsenal - the federal government put him down.
Volunteer companies were organized for making war, not for apprehending gangs.
How is that before Fort Sumter as you claimed? And Fort Bliss is in El Paso, not New Mexico.
In my post I specifically pointed out that Baylor got underway in San Antonio - which is 600 miles from Mesilla.
I also said, quite explictly in my post, that Fort Bliss was just inside the Texas border. Which El Paso is.
If Baylor was at Fort Bliss in late June, and he finally got his men to Mesilla, 40 miles from Fort Bliss, in late July how long did it take his expedition to get from his home base in Uvalde County - more than 500 miles from Fort Bliss - to Fort Bliss in late June?
Answer: months.
Baylor was underway before April 12, 1861.
There were no high speed rail links between San Antonio and Fort Bliss. It was 500 miles through the Texas sun.
[you]: This is Stephens' invention.
So you say. Davis had similar ideas. From a Davis speech on April 29, 1861:
Strange, indeed, must it appear to the impartial observer, but it is none the less true, that all these carefully worded clauses [rb: in the Constitution and Bill of Rights] proved unavailing to prevent the rise and growth in the Northern States of a political school which has persistently claimed that the government thus formed was not a compact between States, but was in effect a national government, set up above and over the States. An organization created by the States to secure the blessings of liberty and independence against foreign aggression has been gradually perverted into a machine for their control in their domestic affairs; the creature has been exalted above its creators; the principals have been made subordinate to the agent appointed by themselves.
Lincoln was the philosophical descendant of the Federalists who pushed for the national rather than a federal government. Lincoln's preposterous theory that the Union created the states was necessary for him because if he admitted that states created the federal government he would have a hard time arguing against the right of states to secede.
The Confederacy claimed for its ideal not a federal system, but a confederated system - i.e. a system akin to that which obtained under the Articles of Confederation wherein the states were essentially sovereigns who were bound by a treaty.
As Madison said in Federalist 39 [my emphasis below]:
Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act.
In reality, the Confederacy was a federal government, as it proved by introducing universal conscription, stripping the individual states of the power to decide the legality of slavery for themselves, etc.
The Confederate Constitution agreed to by the individual Confederate states made slavery the law of the land. Universal conscription was a step toward a more centralized government. But the Confederate Constitution (you know, that document approved by all Confederate states) said:
Sec. 8. The Congress shall have power-
- To raise and support armies;
The Confederate Congress approved universal conscription by 53 to 26 in the House and 19 to 5 in the Senate. Incidentally, 11 of the 13 original states resorted to conscription during the American Revolution.
None of them are grounds for secession, either individually or as a group.
I believe that is for the aggrieved states to decide, not you and not Lincoln.
States in the Confederacy retained the right to secede. They could have left if they felt the need.
A common claim, but a false one.
Do a material balance around the two regions and see for yourself. The tariff propped up prices that Southerners had to pay for Northern manufactured goods. This was a huge transfer of wealth.
There were Southerners who liked the tariff as well - sugar growers and rice growers.
As I remember the Confederate tariff reduced the tariff rate for sugar to 20%. I'm not sure where rice ended up on the Confederate Tariff. Perhaps it was part of:
Bacon, pork, hams, lard, beef, wheat, flour and bran of wheat, flour and bran of all other grains, Indian corn and meal, barley, rye, oats and oatmeal, and living animals of all kinds, not otherwise provided for; also, all agricultural productions, including those of the orchard and garden, in their natural state, not otherwise provided for.
Those items were exempt from duty.
It passed the Senate 25-14.
Yes, passed by the old Senate that was elected in 1858. If the Southern senators had been there in the old Senate they could have blocked its passage. But they knew they couldn't stop it in the incoming Senate that took office in March, 1861. December 1860 vote calculations had shown the South losing the future tariff vote in the incoming Senate even if no state seceded.
I found it interesting that six of the 14 Senate votes against the Morrill Tariff came from the West which also suffered economically under the tariff. The other eight votes against came from the South (if you include one vote from Maryland). No votes against it came from the manufacturing North.
Could it be that the politicians back then knew something you don't? If the tariff were neutral or even beneficial to the West and South as you seem to think, why did they vote against it?
States don't have rights, and the Tenth Amendment does not delegate a power to secede. The Constitution states explicitly that it, and not state law, is the supreme law of the land.
That's why I put quotation marks around "state's rights." You have quite a different view of the Tenth Amendment that do I. As Madison said [emphasis mine below]:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
Now where exactly is secession banned in the Constitution in some definite statement? There is no definite statement to that effect, and three of the original states said in their ratification documents that they could resume their own governance if they wished, or words to that effect.
As long as states remain in the Union, they are bound by the Constitution (except apparently for Northern states that nullified the Fugitive Slave Law). Once seceded, however, the US Constitution and its Supremacy Clause no longer applies to the seceded state.
From the Handbook of Texas Online put out by the Texas State Historical Association [my emphasis below]:
In June 1861 four companies of Ford's cavalry, under the command of Lt. Col. John R. Baylor, were ordered to occupy the extreme western part of Texas. Baylor reached Fort Bliss at El Paso in early July and later in the month moved into New Mexico.
I've spent some time analyzing transportation times of Texas units. (I have four Texas Confederate ancestors.) In bad rainy weather with reports of bad muddy roads in East Texas the troops averaged about 20 miles a day. Twenty miles a day would do 500 miles in 25 days. In dry West Texas, I suspect they made more miles a day than that.
From the Arizona Territory secession document of February 3, 1861 (the Arizona Territory being the southern halves of Arizona and New Mexico). [Source: February 23, 1861 State Gazette of Austin, Texas, from the declaration published in the Mesilla Times of New Mexico]
That in case there is no formation of the Southern Confederation, that we desire to be annexed to the Republic of Texas, (in case Texas should secede and act independently,) as a part and parcel of that Republic, where we naturally belong. And that our delegates do all that they can to place us under the protection of the Lone Star Banner.
The residents of the Arizona Territory had been agitating for some years to separate from the northern half of Arizona and New Mexico because the US administration in Santa Fe was ignoring the needs of the southern half of the territory.
The State of Alabama was not alone - it was just the first to begin mobilizing. ... John Brown was a private criminal leading a crew of raiders, not the leader of an invasion. ... State militias - which already existed in AL - were the normal means for dealing with criminal bands in those days. In Brown's case - since he attacked a federal arsenal - the federal government put him down. ... Volunteer companies were organized for making war, not for apprehending gangs.
Here is some history on the event, which actually happened in 1860, not 1859 as you said and the prime mover in this case was the legislature, not the governor [Source].
Considered a moderate on the slavery issue, Moore defeated the extremist William F. Sandford in the gubernatorial election of 1859. Although he became more concerned with the defense of states' rights after John Brown's raid on the US Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia., in October 1859, Moore continued to recommend caution. The Legislature, nevertheless, enacted a law to provide for the military organization of the state in February 1860. The law established a Military Commission composed of the Governor, an Adjutant and Inspector General, and a Quartermaster General, as well as a state army of eight thousand volunteers.
The existing Alabama militia units were ununiformed and largely untrained at this point in time. [Source]
There were other threats from the North about this time. An anti-slavery circular being distributed throughout the country in 1859 advocated the following [Source]:
Our plan is –
1. To make war (openly or secretly, as circumstances may dictate,) upon the property of the slaveholders and their abettors – not for its destruction, if that can be easily avoided, but to convert it to the use of the slaves. If it cannot be converted, then we advise its destruction. Teach the slaves to burn their master’s buildings, to kill their cattle and horses, to conceal or destroy farming utensils, to abandon labor in seed-time and harvest, and let crops perish. Make slavery unprofitable in this way if it can be done in no other.
Incidentally, the date of the first Arizona Territory secession (Feb. 3, 1861) and the date it appeared in the Austin paper (Feb. 23, 1861) indicates that the time for a newspaper containing news of the secession to get from Mesilla to Austin was about 20 days or less. That’s consistent with my rough estimate above for the time it might have taken Texas troops to get from San Antonio to El Paso.
There certainly were no telegraph lines in West Texas at the time and few settlements. In fact, a telegraph line between Houston and San Antonio wasn’t even built until after the war.
After reading about the legions of loyal slaves willing to help repel the Yankee invader those contemporary southern lawmakers should have known that there was no threat of servile insurrection. Southerners worried about pamphlets like that obviously didn't realize that slavery was a benign institution and that legions of slaves would be eager to take up arms for a southern confederacy in any future conflict with the North.
Didn't those antebellum Dixie worrywarts realize that their slaves were a population of Weary Clyburns?
A modern day example would be Iraq and they have the help of the most powerful army on earth and are being attacked by only a handful of insurgents.
It was a stressful situation to be sure. And government in the North didn't always hold up against the strain either. But the errors of well meaning government, both Union and Confederate, is a far cry from the organized system of extortion and intimidation that rose up too many places under the Confederate regime. Sometimes the central government is not the greatest threat to liberty.
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