The constitution is silent on secession and whether the constitution allowed it or not is moot at this point. The argument I am presenting is that south carolina seceded because of the slavery issue.
Was the average southern soldier fighting for the institution of slavery? No. Was the average northern soldier fighting to free the slaves? No. But this does not change the reason that the civil war was fought. I see many posts by freepers trying to distort this easily proven point. If you look at the history of this country slavery has always been an issue of contention. The argument has been made that it is about taxes or the differences between the people of the north and south.
If you look at our history you will see this is not the case. The missiouri compromise was not about taxes. One congressman did not bludgeon another congressman over the issue of taxes. The bloodshed in Kansas prior to the civil war was not a disagreement over taxes. John Brown did not attack harpers ferry because he wanted the south to pay more taxes. He was trying to forment a slave rebellion.
To say that that slavery was not the cause of the civil war is at best disingenuous and at worse an outright lie. I will let Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the confederacy, speak as to the cause of the civil war;
"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell." Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."
It seems to me that Lincoln wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Either the states were still in the Union or they weren't. If they were still in the Union, expenditures Lincoln made w/o the authorization of Congress and expanding the army w/o Congressional authorization are constitutional violations. And, as I pointed out in an earlier post, Madison and Hamilton are both on record as to the use of force/coercion against a sovereign state. If the seceded states were not still in the Union, Lincoln still made expenditures and expanded the army w/o Congressional approval and called for the blockade of several Southern ports (an act of war) absent Congressional approval.
The constitution is silent on secession and whether the constitution allowed it or not is moot at this point. The argument I am presenting is that south carolina seceded because of the slavery issue.
I do not believe the 10th Amendment is a moot point, ever. My argument is why Arkansas seceded.