… So here we see the actual words of those "signing statements," and note again that NONE include such terms as "states' unilateral secession," or "a states unapproved withdrawal from the Union."
The Constitution did not prohibit states from seceding or place any limitations on their right to do so unilaterally. The "necessary to their happiness" or similar statement of those ratifications does not include a requirement that they have to ask for approval from states that might be oppressing them. Requiring the approval of other states wouldn't be to their happiness, and it would be reading something into the Constitution that wasn’t there.
As I pointed out to you before, attempts were made by Republicans in Congress after states started seceding to amend the Constitution so that approval to secede was needed. They knew that such approval wasn't required by the Constitution.
The powers of the states were many and undefined. The Constitution restricted the power of the federal government, and its restrictions on the power of individual states/people do not include a prohibition or conditions on secession.
Finally, even supposing we grant that an individual state's signing statement including the word "reassumed," (or "resumed") MIGHT be interpreted to mean "unilateral state secession," that could conceivably cover Virginia, if it had suffered some "injury or oppression" -- had it? But how, exactly might that cover the other ten states of the Confederacy? ;-)
Virginia suffered economically over the transfer of Southern wealth to Northern manufacturers under the protective tariff. As the Daily Chicago Times editorialized on December 10, 1860:
The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole . . . We have a tariff [the Morrill Tariff] that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually.
The New Orleans Daily Picayune said something similar (emphasis mine):
Some months ago we said to the Northern party, "You sought sectional aggrandizement, and had no scruples as to the means and agencies by which to attain your unhallowed purposes. You paid no heed to the possible consequences of your insane conduct." The fact was then patent that the condition in the bond by which the Northern protectionist party gave its weight and influence in aid of Black Republicanism was the imposition by the party of a protectionist tariff. The South was to be fleeced that the North might be enriched.
Having driven the South to resistance, instead of adopting a policy of conciliation, it added to the existing exasperation by adopting a tariff as hostile as could be to Southern interests. The estrangement of North and South was not sufficiently marked and intense. New fuel must be added to the fires of strife, new incentives to embittered feelings.
Virginia seceded mainly because of Lincoln’s calls for troops to coerce the South. I would guess they saw through Lincoln’s ploy of getting the South to attack when he sent down a battle fleet to South Carolina’s territorial waters.
Family is here from out of state, and I've got estate work to do the next few days to review with them. I have to be off the boards for a while.
Now look, rustbucket, South Carolina did not first secede on December 20/24, 1860, because all-of-a-sudden they suffered some drastic increase in the rate of tariffs they had been happily paying for many years.
Tariffs had NOTHING to do with it! You've read South Carolina's Declaration of Immediate Causes, and you know perfectly well, it says NOT ONE WORD about tariffs.
Tariffs were the LAST thing on South Carolina's mind. Tariffs could easily have been solved by normal political processes, if that was South Carolina's major concern. But it wasn't, not in the least.
As it's Declaration clearly spells out, South Carolina's immediate reasons for secession were:
But Northern "nullification" of Fugitive Slave laws had been going on for many years, and did not cause South Carolina to secede. What caused secession was the election of anti-slavery candidate Lincoln, pure and simple, and NOTHING ELSE.
rustbucket: "The New Orleans Daily Picayune said something similar (emphasis mine): "
Did you really just "forget" to quote for us the date of that article, and provide a link to it? Why am I guessing that you have taken their words pretty badly out of context?
rustbucket: "Virginia seceded mainly because of Lincoln’s calls for troops to coerce the South. I would guess they saw through Lincoln’s ploy of getting the South to attack when he sent down a battle fleet to South Carolina’s territorial waters."
"getting the South to attack"? I don't think so. Remember that since the firing on Star of the West on January 10, President Buchanan had at least twice (Jan 13 & Feb 5) told South Carolina envoys he would not surrender Fort Sumter, and South Carolina's legislature had declared on January 14 that any attempt to resupply Fort Sumter was tantamount to war.
So both sides knew since January that Fort Sumter must be either resupplied or surrendered, and it would not be surrendered, it must be resupplied, and that South Carolina had declared resupplying Fort Sumter tantamount to war.
Since January, both sides knew perfectly well what would happen.
But step back for a minute, and look at the "big picture." Here's what you need to remember:
between December 20, 1860 and February 1, 1861 -- just 6 weeks -- seven states voted to secede, all from the Deep South: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. These seven states had a free white population of 2.8 million.
But EIGHT other slave states specifically REJECTED secession: the Upper South of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas (2.9 million whites), plus the Border States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri (2.8 million whites).
So Confederate President Davis needed something -- anything -- to CHANGE THE MINDS of those Upper-South and Border States. He chose Fort Sumter, and it worked for him. As a direct result of Fort Sumter, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas all CHANGED THEIR MINDS and decided to secede.
Firing on Fort Sumter was a brilliant strategic offensive move by President Davis, increasing the Confederacy from 7 states to 11, and DOUBLING its white population.
Sure, he did it at the price of starting a war for Southern Independence, but I'll say it again: he considered that war both inevitable and necessary anyway.
It's often said that the Civil War put the South on strategic defense, and the North on offense. But that's only true after 1861. Throughout all of 1861 and into 1862 it was the South on strategic offense: first in persuading the Upper South to secede, and later in sending Confederate armies into the Union Border States.
Anyway, that's my theory on Fort Sumter... ;-)