Posted on 10/25/2010 7:28:30 AM PDT by Michael Zak
On this day in 1859, Senator William Seward (R-NY) said:
"The Democratic party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders... The history of the Democratic Party commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been the Democratic Party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its present alarming culmination... Such is the Democratic Party... The government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic Party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery."
The more things change...
So if nothing in the Constitution explicitly authorizes them then they must, by your definition, be unconstitutional, right? After all only explicit powers are allowed, according to you.
Let's try to stay on topic, shall we?
Lord knows I'm trying. But y'all make it so difficult when you say one thing and then decide you really meant something else.
So when Hoodat says asks in reply 69, "Can you please show me where the Constitution delegates to the United States the explicit power to prevent a State from leaving the Union" what the heck is Hoodat talking about?
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
They [the US] did not talk of them [Rhode Island and North Carolina] as if they were anything but part of the U.S. that were temporarily not participating in the government.
Hmmm. The US statement that goods "imported or brought into the United States" from North Carolina and Rhode Island says in plain words that those two states were not then part of the United States. If they were part of the US as you say they were, then goods from them could not be imported into the United States.
Goods imported from those two states shall be subject to duties "as goods of the like kinds, imported from any foreign state, kingdom, or country are made subject to." In other words, Rhode Island and North Carolina were treated just like any foreign states, kingdoms, or countries, not like parts of the US.
And as for the states themselves, Rhode Island certainly did not view itself as a foreign country or as anything but a state within the United States. Link
From the Rhode Island document of your link [my bold emphasis]:
We are induced to hope that we shall not be altogether considered as foreigners, having no particular affinity or connection with the United States; but that trade and commerce, upon which the prosperity of this State much depends, will be preserved as free and open between this and the United States, as our different situations, at present, can possibly admit; ...
"... between this and the United States ..."? How does that mean that they viewed themselves as "a state within the United States," to use your words?
Continuing from your link:
... earnestly desiring and proposing to adopt such commercial regulations on our part, as shall not tend to defeat the collection of the revenue of the United States, but rather to act in conformity to, or co-operate therewith; and desiring also to give the strongest assurances that we shall, during our present situation, use our utmost endeavors to be in preparation, from time to time, to answer our proportion of such part of the interest or principal of the foreign and domestic debt as the United States shall judge expedient to pay and discharge.
Rhode Island, a small independent state no longer part of the US, did not want to be a thorn in the side of the much bigger, more powerful US. In that sense they were somewhat like the Confederate States of America, that in 1861 authorized its commissioners to negotiate with the US about public property and debt and that had passed a law allowing free passage of the Mississippi for Northern ships (except for local navigation and warfage fees).
No, what you said was that Lincoln deliberately ignored the Supreme Court and what I did was deny it. So please show me where he deliberately ignored the Supreme Court and your case is made.
Are you serious? The South had been loudly expressing their collective grievances for over thirty years before South Carolina finally seceded. THIRTY YEARS! You act as though the South rushed to war. It did not. Yet two months after the Commonwealth of Virginia peacefully exited the Union due to breach of contract by the Federal government, they found an invading army on their soil. Two months v. thirty years. Now who is the aggressor here?
If you get irked at someone quoting your own words back at you then you need to thicken your skin.
And all those Southern presidents and Southern vice-presidents and Southern heads of Congress just ignored them I guess. So why are you acting like it was all the Yankees fault?
You act as though the South rushed to war.
But initiate war it did. And lost it, too.
Yet two months after the Commonwealth of Virginia peacefully exited the Union due to breach of contract by the Federal government, they found an invading army on their soil.
You overlook the little matters of seizing federal facilities at Harper's Ferry and Norfolk and joining a group of states already engaged in armed rebellion against the U.S. Virginia considered themselves part of a country called the confederate states. They joined that group knowing that it had deliberately started a war with the U.S. Virginia isn't some innocent party here. They knew what they were doing, they knew what they were joining, they went to war on of their own free will. They have no cause to complain when that war came home to them.
Two months v. thirty years. Now who is the aggressor here?
The confederacy. They started it.
If you cannot stand the heat then stay out of the kitchen. If you don't like your posts read by others then FReepmail. If you don't like your words quoted, tough.
That was not ignoring the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Taney's ruling was handed down from the Circuit court bench. The Supreme Court was not sitting when the Merryman decision was handed down, and Lincoln's suspension had lapsed by the time the court resumed that fall. Lincoln probably should have taken the matter to the full court - it is one of his actions I disagree with - but it does not make your false statement true. Try again.
I will. You do the same.
Rather than feed your paranoia I'll just let your ramble to your heart's content.
Now who's fantasizing?
you really are delusional aren’t you
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