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Lincoln Defended: The Case Against the Critics of Our 16th President
National Review ^ | 06/05/2013 | Rich Lowry

Posted on 06/05/2013 7:52:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

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To: 0.E.O
I think the Air Force could possibly be unconstitutional. I am not going to make a case out of it, are you? No plaintiff, no foul.

PS: The Louisiana Purchase was probably unconstitutional too, nobody at the time complained to the SCOTUS about the best real estate deal millennium.

201 posted on 06/06/2013 6:09:28 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: 0.E.O
And I just chose the Air Force at random. I could just as well said NASA is illegal or the Department of Veteran's Affairs is illegal or the air traffic control system is illegal. All draw their existence from powers implied in the Constitution.

NASA could possibly be unconstitutional, again it could be folded back into the Army. Air traffic control is interstate commerce so that passes constitutional muster. The VA is a Army-Navy off shoot therefore it passes also.

Nice try, not!

202 posted on 06/06/2013 6:13:14 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: MamaTexan
Again, please show me the Constitutional Article Section and Clause that says a State cannot secede from the Union.

Why do you Lost Cause Losers lean on that so heavily? You know the answer yet you trot that out as though it was some sort of coup de grâce.

It isn't.

The Constitution is silent on the issue of secession. That means it neither prohibits it nor offers guidance on its process. But you already knew that. So what?

That doesn't excuse what the insurrectionists did. As a matter of fact there was a whole bunch of people who didn't agree with what the rebels tried to do. When the rebs didn't get what they wanted they waged war on their own country. It was in all the papers. Those rebs got their butts whooped - both on the battlefield and in the courtroom.

As a direct result we have precedent that spells it out pretty clearly - if y'all want to split the sheets, you'd best not try it that way.

A letter that admits it is unsigned, undated and verified as being from Madison only by a third party by the name of Alexander Rivas? From the New York Times no less? Really?

What are you whining about? The NY Times has always been a leftist rag. They supported the democrats, the confeds, - you know - your people.

203 posted on 06/06/2013 8:34:29 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: central_va

The Louisiana Purchase was decidedly unconstitutional and Jefferson was fairly brazen about admitting it in a sort of “so what are ya gonna do about it?” fashion.


204 posted on 06/06/2013 8:37:29 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: 0.E.O
If the Air Force is not unconstitutional

What I am saying is I don't know if the USAF is unconstitutional. IMO A case can be made either way. But since there is no plaintiff trying to get the USAF found unconstitutional, we will never have an official ruling from the SCOTUS. All laws are deemed constitutional until found otherwise. Like In criminal law we are assumed innocent, laws have that defacto assumption if created by the duly elected legislature. If someone or group has a case against a law on constitutional grounds then they can pursue it.

205 posted on 06/07/2013 3:08:17 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: rockrr
You spew much, yet say nothing.
206 posted on 06/07/2013 3:29:55 AM PDT by MamaTexan (I am not a citizen of the United States, I am a citizen of the several States)
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To: wardaddy
Toomey? hysterical the same conservative who tried to rush through a gun control bill with Manchin and failed? you will have to do better than that I was gonna say Mike Kelly...but his ACU is only 78...whew...much worse than even Trent Lotts

Toomey has a 100% rating from the ACU. You want more than that?

207 posted on 06/07/2013 3:44:34 AM PDT by Ditto
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To: central_va
I think the Air Force could possibly be unconstitutional. I am not going to make a case out of it, are you? No plaintiff, no foul.

No, just wanted to hear you say it. So if you're not going to make a case of it then how can you complain about any other Constitutional infractions, by Obama or anyone else. No plaintiff, no foul and all.

208 posted on 06/07/2013 3:46:05 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: central_va
NASA could possibly be unconstitutional, again it could be folded back into the Army. Air traffic control is interstate commerce so that passes constitutional muster. The VA is a Army-Navy off shoot therefore it passes also.

Where does the Constitution explicitly grant Congress the authority to explore space? Or control air traffic or any other traffic? Or establish hospitals and a health system? Nowhere. You say all those agencies are constitutional because you find the authority for them implied in the Constitution. Under the commerce clause or as part of defending the country. But implied powers do not exist, or so we've been told.

209 posted on 06/07/2013 3:50:30 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: MamaTexan
No, I said "Please show me the part of the Constitution where the federal government is authorized to operate on an 'implication' of a court."

In reply 159 you said that since secession was not included in the Constitution then it is reserved to the states. I've said all along that the need for states to get permission from the other states to leave is implied in the Constitution itself. Either powers are implied or they are not. Which is it?

No, I said the Constitution did not prohibit that.

To-may-to, to-mah-to. Either the Constitution treats all states equally or it does not. If it does, then the means by which the Southern states chose to walk out is not protected by the Constitution.

Why would their be? All of the States took the same risk....equally, when they joined the Compact. They they all had the right to stay or leave....equally.....it's part of that 'voluntary' thing.

But as I pointed out, most states didn't join. They were allowed in, and only after getting permission from a majority of the other states through a vote in Congress. Why shouldn't they be consulted about leaving as well?

LOL! Nowhere has any Founder said anything about their being a different standard for States admitted after the original 13. Your statement is patently false.

No they did not. So all states labor under the same requirements. As Madison said, a true secession requires the consent of the other states.

A letter that admits it is unsigned, undated and verified as being from Madison only by a third party by the name of Alexander Rivas? From the New York Times no less? Really?

Read it again. The Rives letter was unsigned. Madison's letter was. Here's a better link, from an online version of Galliard Hunt's Volume 9 of Madison's papers: Link

But until such justifications can be pleaded the compact is obligatory in both cases.

Pleaded to whom? The other states? I think this is nothing more than the sentiment Madison later expressed in that same letter to Rives: "Each of these being equal, neither can have more right to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved than every other has to deny the fact and to insist on the execution of the bargain."

Again, please show me the Constitutional Article Section and Clause that says a State cannot secede from the Union.

Again, please show me where I ever said they couldn't?

210 posted on 06/07/2013 4:34:37 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: MamaTexan

Mirror meet mama.


211 posted on 06/07/2013 5:37:41 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: 0.E.O
Where does the Constitution explicitly grant Congress the authority to explore space?

You're not listening, all of the things you mention COULD be unconstitutional. Nobody has made a case against any of those things on Constitutional grounds so we may/will never find out.

212 posted on 06/07/2013 5:50:58 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: 0.E.O
So if you're not going to make a case of it then how can you complain about any other Constitutional infractions, by Obama or anyone else. No plaintiff, no foul and all.

Whether I complain or not is moot, many legal foundations have many different Constitutional cases making there way up to the SCOTUS. Here is a link to one that Marl Levin is associated with : \landmarklegal.org

213 posted on 06/07/2013 5:55:41 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: 0.E.O
In reply 159 you said that since secession was not included in the Constitution then it is reserved to the states.

True

-----

I've said all along that the need for states to get permission from the other states to leave is implied in the Constitution itself.

Yes, and your evidence is a letter from Madison that begins:

A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact absolving the seceding party from the obligation imposed by it.

The northern states were continually and willingly abusing the compact, thus releasing the south from the Constitutional Compact. This abuse is verified by the US Court of Appeals Jack vs Martin as well as a floor speech of Daniel Webster both previously posted.

Not to mention that Madison wrote a multitude of essays and literally hundreds of letters in his lifetime. To my knowledge, this is the only letter that contains this proviso:
Having many reasons for marking this letter confidential, I must request that its publicity may not be permitted in any mode or through any channel. Among the reasons is the risk of misapprehensions or misconstructions,

Madison not wanting to have his opinion publicly known? Wazzup with that?

(BTW – I’ve searched for this ‘letter signed “A Friend of Union and State Rights”’ in the past so that I may read Madison’s commentary in context. If anyone has come across it, I’d appreciate a link)

-----

Either powers are implied or they are not.

Implied powers can only exist if their is a viable connection to an expressed power.

§ 1075 ...........(snip) The question comes to this, whether a power, exclusively for the regulation of commerce, is a power for the regulation of manufactures? The statement of such a question would seem to involve its own answer. Can a power, granted for one purpose, be transferred to another? If it can, where is the limitation in the constitution? Are not commerce and manufactures as distinct, as commerce and agriculture? If they are, how can a power to regulate one arise from a power to regulate the other? It is true, that commerce and manufactures are, or may be, intimately connected with each other. A regulation of one may injuriously or beneficially affect the other. But that is not the point in controversy. It is, whether congress has a right to regulate that, which is not committed to it, under a power, which is committed to it, simply because there is, or may be an intimate connexion between the powers. If this were admitted, the enumeration of the powers of congress would be wholly unnecessary and nugatory. Agriculture, colonies, capital, machinery, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, the rents of land, the punctual performance of contracts, and the diffusion of knowledge would all be within the scope of the power; for all of them bear an intimate relation to commerce. The result would be, that the powers of congress would embrace the widest extent of legislative functions, to the utter demolition of all constitutional boundaries between the state and national governments.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution

-----

To-may-to, to-mah-to.

Mock all you like, but words have meaning and the Founders used the words they did for a reason.

-----

They were allowed in, and only after getting permission from a majority of the other states through a vote in Congress. Why shouldn't they be consulted about leaving as well?

So you have to ask permission of the oppressor in order to leave an abusive relationship? How likely is that?

-----

As Madison said, a true secession requires the consent of the other states.

I've shown a letter where he says otherwise and posted from Tucker's View of the Constitution which says a State can leave at will.

-----

Again, please show me where I ever said they couldn't?

Let me rephrase -

Please show me the Constitutional Article Section and Clause that says a State cannot secede from the Union should it feel the other parties are failing to uphold the compact.

------

Yet another Founder's words on willful secession -

A proclamation was issued by the President, commanding the insurgents to disperse, while quotas of militia were called for from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey. These Governor Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, who seemed to be in sympathy with the insurgents, hesitated to call out. He was, however, forced either to do so, or to break with the central government, and the militia volunteered in greater numbers than were wanted, even members of the "Society of Friends" joining the force.
The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 , Alexander Hamilton

Remember this little gem?

Article 4 section 4
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Hamilton words clearly state that Governor Mifflin could have severed Pennsylvania's ties to the Union right to President Washington's face as he stood outside the State's boundary....simply because the State had made NO REQUEST for assistance from the federal government......

AS PER the Constitution.

214 posted on 06/07/2013 6:42:42 AM PDT by MamaTexan (I am not a citizen of the United States, I am a citizen of the several States)
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To: Ditto
you want more than that?

Yep....how about one who will not work with the dems for national background checks and registration for guns?

215 posted on 06/07/2013 6:42:59 AM PDT by wardaddy (wanna know how my kin felt during Reconstruction in Mississippi, you fixin to find out firsthand)
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To: central_va
You're not listening, all of the things you mention COULD be unconstitutional. Nobody has made a case against any of those things on Constitutional grounds so we may/will never find out.

Probably because most people understand and accept the concept of implied powers.

But I will note that somebody did make a case against the constitutionality of secession as performed by the Southern states and that was ruled unconstitutional. Are you saying you accept that?

216 posted on 06/07/2013 9:30:43 AM PDT by 0.E.O
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To: MamaTexan

Except it doesn’t mean what you say it means. Yes, the federal government can help a state with domestic violence. It can also put down insurrections with out the application of a governor or state legislature.


217 posted on 06/07/2013 9:43:11 AM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: central_va

http://books.google.com/books?id=1qhEHVki8tEC&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=lee+robert+E.+shot+stragglers&source=bl&ots=pt23bdAUKH&sig=W_UzXc2hwNJK8Jj0RLwM3803Afg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6wqyUceqBcWgiQLCgoHoAw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=lee%20robert%20E.%20shot%20stragglers&f=false

This book points out that Lee put sharp shooter companies behind each brigade not just to shoot deserters, but also to shoot stragglers.


218 posted on 06/07/2013 9:44:42 AM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: MamaTexan

Certainly the states after the original 13 were created by the federal government, from a territory or possession, with the possible exceptions of Texas, California which requested entry into the US. Texas requested it more than once, so with Texas, its entry was certainly voluntary.

Hawaii also requested entry at a state more than once, but spent quite a while as a possession.


219 posted on 06/07/2013 9:49:58 AM PDT by donmeaker (Blunderbuss: A short weapon, ... now superceded in civilized countries by more advanced weaponry.)
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To: donmeaker
Except it doesn’t mean what you say it means.

Yes it does. Evidence has been provided to support the contention.

220 posted on 06/07/2013 9:50:58 AM PDT by MamaTexan (I am not a citizen of the United States, I am a citizen of the several States)
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