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...
...And here's an example of the comments being made by both sides of the debate on Thanksgiving Day 2001.
Its hard to imagine how THIS EXCHANGE could be construed as anything but an atmosphere of mutual respect and fellowship.
-btw Thanks for providing these links to past ACW discussions. They are quite interesting.
Since you don't share that interest, and since you seem to have an irrational animosity toward the participants on the northern side in these debates, my advice is to stay off such threads in the future.
Geez Mr. Truck, are you going to switch the word 'northern' with 'Southern' in the above sentence and take your own advice?
stand watie to rockrr (The Punk), Sepember 2, 2009:
that figures. crude garbage (like you, for example) generally has no sense of SHAME. be GONE, as DECENT people (especially ladies & children) don't want to be exposed to your STUPIDITY & arrogant VULGARITY. (i also note that when you showed up on this thread, most people LEFT. that should tell you something about how other FReepers see your moronic antics.)
free dixie,sw
I miss stand watie....... Free Dixie!
So do I. Ol' stand added his own level of goofy lunacy to the Lost Cause. It was impossible to dislike him, or to take him seriously for that matter. Not like the current crop. Y'all are just impossible to take seriously.
I do hope that swattie is in good health wherever he is. You pokie - I wouldn’t wizz on you if you were on fire.
Doggone it! I forgot to switch back to my “pokie” tagline:
Now, now punkrr. Relax. You're getting spit all over your screen again.
See, if you were on fire, I wouldn't waste any time to wizz on you. Think about it: the last thing little punkrr sees as he's slowly burning to death is cowboyway's thick, yellow stream hittin his face.
Wow, I love a happy ending! HAhahahaha!!!
Free Dixie!
Why don't you leave it there all the time? It makes me feel good that I'm able to help you with that self esteem problem of yours.
You’re contradicting yourself again pokie. But then, comprehension was never a strong point with you.
Why don’t you pull your head out of your butt for half a tick and go pay your respects to one of your (many) better’s:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2616968/posts
??? Giving advice to yourself?
I know you didn't mean to be admonishing yourself, rockrr. Your advice to go to the BnBlFlag thread was good though.
Yes it does...
No it doesn’t.
Forgive me if someone has already replied to your post. I'll read this thread later. This last couple of days have been very hectic for me, but for the better. My daughter shot her first buck; unfortunately, she didn't place the shot properly and it took me two days of climbing around these mountains to find her deer. Nice deer though..
In regards to your post. The Several States left the perpetual Union of the Articles. Not that "perpetual" if they left. . . right? Moreover that word "perpetual" is never mentioned within the new agreement, the Constitution. I'm sure you're familiar with St. George Tucker and the View of the Constitution of the United States, which he authored. He talks about this subject, and he's on point with my thoughts about this issue:
"But the seceding states were certainly justified upon that principle; and from the duty which every state is acknowledged to owe to itself, and its own citizens by doing whatsoever may best contribute to advance its own happiness and prosperity; and much more, what may be necessary to the preservation of its existence as a state.30 Nor must we forget that solemn declaration to which every one of the confederate states assented . … that whenever any form of government is destructive of the ends of its institution, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government. Consequently whenever the people of any state, or number of states, discovered the inadequacy of the first form of federal government to promote or preserve their independence, happiness, and union, they only exerted that natural right in rejecting it, and adopting another, which all had unanimously assented to, and of which no force or compact can deprive the people of any state, whenever they see the necessity, and possess the power to do it. And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties. Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess."
The U.S Constitution begins, "We, the People , in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice," etc....
How can the argument possibly be made that the states had the right to unilaterally secede, when they had deliberately and perpetually forfeited their sovereignty?
I'll point you to the original which is..
"We the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachussetts, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, and Georgia, do ordain, declare, and establish the following Constitution for the Government of Ourselves and our Posterity."
They only switched to the version that you've indicated because they didn't know which States would ratify. It becomes even more clear when James Madison answered Patrick Henry's question. Here is the answer: Who are the parties to it? The people - but not the people as composing one great body, but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties.
We can continue later, if you're so inclined.
I liked him what happened to him?
I think you confuse "forfeit" with "delegate." Consider the statement by John Taylor of Virginia, a ratifier of the Constitution:
In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed.
The sovereignties which imposed the limitations upon the federal government, far from supposing that they perished by the exercise of a part of their faculties, were vindicated, by reserving powers in which their deputy, the federal government, could not participate; and the usual right of sovereigns to alter or revoke its commissions.
Here is a basic question for you. Where does sovereignty ultimately reside?
Taylor says it is not in the federal government, which was created by the states. He calls the states that formed the Union the sovereignties. More accurately, IMO, the sovereignty of each state resides in the people of that state, not the state government and not even in a ratification convention to which some "sovereignty" was delegated by the people of the state.
A number of the states that seceded in 1861 put the secession question directly to their voters, the sovereign voice of their state. That kind of check with the sovereignty of the states did not happen when the Constitution was ratified. As far as secession goes, I am reminded by what Madison said on July 24, 1788 to the Virginia ratification convention:
That resolution declares that the powers granted by the proposed Constitution are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby remains with the people, and at their will. It adds, likewise, that no right, of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified, by the general government, or any of its officers, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for these purposes. There cannot be a more positive and unequivocal declaration of the principle of the adoption — that every thing not granted is reserved. This is obviously and self-evidently the case, without the declaration.
Secession was not prohibited in the Constitution. The power to prohibit secession was not delegated to the federal government or to other states that might oppose the secession of a given state. Secession remained in the powers reserved to the states or the people.
The content of the discussion was never at issue, but you know that, don’t you? The point was that even on holidays, here he/she is, re-fighting the war. I’m not going to do your work for you, but I can assure you not all holiday posts were tame. Go look for yourself. I will say, he/she is a little less rabid on holidays, doesn’t call people names as much, that sort of thing. The bashing of Southerners has lessened considerably since I posted many of his/her bigoted slurs. Maybe he/she didn’t realize how many nasty, piggy remarks he/she was making and decided he/she better tone it down a little.
I especially liked the one where he/she said that anyone in the Army probably had parents that weren’t married.
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