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.
“From Lincoln’s perspective he was not violating the constitution. The constitution clearly states that the president has the right to call up troops in the case of rebellion and insurrection.”
In the words of Joe Wilson: “YOU LIE!”
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From the book, “Lincoln on Leadership”:
“Lincoln once attempted to convince his secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, that it was a good idea for the government to issue interest-bearing currency as a means of raising money to support the war effort. Chase, however, objected to the proposal and argued that it was unconstitutional...[Lincoln told a story]...’Why, Chase,’ responded Lincoln, ‘I don’t intend precisely to throw the Virgin Mary overboard, and by that I mean the Constitution, but I will stick it in the hole if I can. These rebels are violating the Constitution in order to destroy the Union; I WILL VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION, if necessary, to save the Union - and I suspect, Chase, that our Constitution is going to have a rough time of it before we get done with this row.’ {Emphasis added].
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Lincoln knew well that he was violating the Constitution. He did it to preserve the Economic power gained by the overthrow of sovereign states. His “I’ll violate the Constitution, to save it” attitude, means that he not only didn’t care about the Constitution, he didn’t understand its purpose.
You are right about Madison and Hamilton would have supported secession. I would add Jefferson to that list. However, the constitution is silent on this unless you argue that it is implied by the 10th amendment.
When I stated that secession was now a moot point I meant it had been decided by the sword. The 10th is not a moot point but has been greatly limited due to the incorporation principle provided by the 14th amendment.
Can we at least agree that south carolina seceded because of slavery? Therefore the cause of the civil war was slavery. Without the institution of slavery there would have been no secession.
Here are a few more excerpts from the next three states that seceded;
Mississippi-
“In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”
Georgia -
“ For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war.
Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.
The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation.”
Texas-
“The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,
The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery— the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits— a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?
The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.
By the disloyalty of the Northern States and their citizens and the imbecility of the Federal Government, infamous combinations of incendiaries and outlaws have been permitted in those States and the common territory of Kansas to trample upon the federal laws, to war upon the lives and property of Southern citizens in that territory, and finally, by violence and mob law, to usurp the possession of the same as exclusively the property of the Northern States.”
You are correct on why Arkansas secceded, though again I would be interested in reading any notes from the secession convention. I would be surprised if slavery was not mentioned during it.