Posted on 05/13/2016 1:18:26 PM PDT by GraceG
I have been reading about the periodical votes the Texas legislature makes about secession and pondered on it a while and thought a bit about it and came up with a few things.
1. We have a set of procedures for adding a state to the union in the Constitution.
2. We don't have any set of procedures if a majority of a state's population want to no longer be part of a union.
3. If the formation of the country was the voluntary gathering of states to form the union in the first place, then wouldn't forcing a state to stay against the majority of it's inhabitant's will essentially by tyranny?
4. If you added a process for a state to leave you would by default make that process be somewhat harder than if a territory wanted to become a state. Say for instance Saskatchewan was able to leave Canada peacefully, but then after a while wanted to become a state of the United States, if they wanted to leave later you would want an ever greater majority to on the vote to leave than the vote to join.
5. The civil was was caused by the illegal actions and military actions of the southern states ganging up, forming their own country illegally and then attacking the north. (though there is still some debate who fired first). If there had been a legal process and procedure for states to leave and then later form the confederacy, would the civil war had been averted if they had in that case "stuck to procedure" ?
6. Does a government body that has a process for admittance of smaller entities, but doesn't have any process for them leaving. Does that make that government a Tyranny by default? Does this make the United States a Tyranny by definition? What about the European Union? What about NATO, or the UN even?
Just some pondering about the very nature of "Unions" in the Nation-State sense.
In a few months, all will be well again. That’s the spirit!! ;-)
Exactly where in the Constitution is the article that permits states to secede. That is why it would should have gone to the Supreme Court. The Constitution does not address the issue.
Just as Lee's invasions of Union states also had political purposes -- to influence Northern voters and their political leaders into seeking terms favorable to the Confederacy.
Any suggestions otherwise, FRiend, is just, ahem, "bull sh!t"
In practical effects, every Confederate invasion of Union states & territories had the same results as Sherman's march, since the Confederate army always "lived off the land", taking what it needed and destroying anything of military value.
Indeed, Sherman's actual orders to his troops are the opposite of what has so often been alleged, for examples:
After the war, Congress paid reparations to Southern Unionists who suffered such losses in the war.
central_va: "The reason why the Chambersburg incident was so widely publicized because it was totally out of character for the Confederate Army/Cavalry to do that."
Not really.
The Lawrence, Kansas, massacre & burning was a year before either Chambersburg or Sherman's march.
And when Lee's army invaded Pennsylvania in June 1863, some of his commanders made demands for supplies from towns & cities using threats of violence & burning if their demands were not met.
Indeed, there was already significant destruction in Chambersburg, PA in 1862, when JEB Stuart invaded, destroyed railroad property and took supplies for the Confederacy.
Again in 1863 Confederate General Jenkins occupied Chambersburg, destroyed railroad property and burned down storage buildings.
In summary: the behavior or each side's army in the other's territory was roughly equivalent and by standards of any other war you'd care to name was, with few exceptions, both civilized and gentlemanly.
Significant manufacturing capability? Tredegar works in Richmond, VA was the largest manufacturing operation in the entire Confederacy. Half of all Confederate artillery barrels were cast there. It was the only foundry operation in the Confederacy that could cast barrels larger than 3 inch in caliber. It was also the only facility in the Confederacy capable of manufacturing a steam locomotives. There were 5 iron works in the North that exceeded Tregedar’s manufacturing capacity and six more that equaled it. There were some manufacturing operations in the South that could produce rifled muskets at a rate of hundreds a month. The Richmond Arsenal produced at a rate of thousands of rifled muskets a month. But they had to use the machinery looted from the Harpers Ferry Arsenal to do it. The Confederacy had to import rifled muskets from Europe for the entire war, because they could not manufacture enough. In mid 1863 the North stopped importing rifled muskets because the Springfield Arsenal and it 21 contractors could meet the weapons requirements for the Union Army. The South was not even in the ball game when it came to manufacturing.
Your point about Southern political from the Early years of our Republic are quite accurate. But by 1860, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency were in the hands of elected officials that were not sympathetic to Southern interests. The perception in the South was that once the Lincoln administration took control of Washington DC, that their would be significant legislation to further limit or end the practice of slavery in the South. The Dred Scott decision aside. That sentiment was a major factor in the deep South States to consider secession as a viable political option.
bkmk
Agreed, I'm not disputing the fact that Northern manufacturing greatly outpaced the Confederates'.
But that is not the same as saying the South had nothing, as your words seem to imply.
Indeed, your own statement that half of Confederate artillery was cast at Tredegar means that half was cast in other manufacturing facilities.
Cumberland Iron Works in Tennessee is sometimes mentioned.
Bull Snipe: "The South was not even in the ball game when it came to manufacturing."
I would say it a little differently.
By 1860 Southern states were in the manufacturing "ball game", and played it pretty well, just not at the level of the major league world series champions -- Northern manufacturing.
Bull Snipe: "...by 1860, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Presidency were in the hands of elected officials that were not sympathetic to Southern interests.
The perception in the South was that once the Lincoln administration took control of Washington DC, that their would be significant legislation to further limit or end the practice of slavery in the South. "
My argument is that the Democrats' election defeat in November 1860 was actually engineered by Fire Eating Southern secessionists themselves, when they split apart the ruling national Democrat party.
Their goal was to make the Union intolerable for average Southerners by convincing them that the worst of abolitionist "Black Republicans" were coming to steal their wives & children.
And it worked.
With the pro-Southern voters split amongst three different parties, and Northerners highly charged up over Dred-Scott, the minority Republicans won enough to elect their first president.
But it only happened because secessionist Fire Eaters wanted it.
In a more normal election, such as in 1856, Southern & Northern Democrats allied to control all branches of Federal Government.
one third of all Confederate field artillery was captured Federal manufactured weapons. I never said they had nothing. The basic fact is that the Confederacy lacked the manufacturing capacity meet its military needs in artillery, rifle muskets, railroad engines, rolling stock or rail. They could make some of it but they had to capture or import the balance.
That damn war not only produced a whole lot of iron, but a whole lot of irony. The tyrannical President of the Confederacy, who broke as many, if not more rules than Lincoln, ended up never again being a full citizen of the United States. While the blacks who Taney had just proclaimed nothing better than property, became citizens! Delicious irony. The slaves, after those four years ended up in a better place than J.Davis.
And let's stop with this "SC militia attacking a pile of rocks" fantasy. J.Davis himself, as President of the Confederacy, issued the order to tell Anderson he had so many hours to evacuate the fort. And after that time went by, the first round of shelling began. For three hours, the best artillery of the South (which had been placing artillery pieces in strategic location for weeks) began three hours of non-stop shelling, sending 3,000lbs of iron, a piece at a time at the incredibly fortified Sumter. That decision by the idiot J.Davis was a declaration of War against the United States.
There are planes leaving every hour. Be sure to write.
Don’t give him credit
You ARE in Virginny
Founders Original Intent.
On this I follow Lincoln, who followed Madison, who expressed most clearly Founders' Original Intent:
Summarizing, Founders understood two acceptable conditions for disunion:
But neither condition existed in December 1860 when South Carolina first declared its secession.
That means it, in effect, declared secession "at pleasure", which Madison says is not legitimate.
Agreed.
I am no expert, but it seems reasonable to assume that the several States who have agreed to be “United States”, if one or more decides they no longer want to be “united”, that ALL states would then dissolve the *current* union. After which, several different states could *reunite* and form a NEW United States. Theoretically, instead of civil war, the United States could have effectively split into 2 or more “countries”, or the states could have remained separate.
Agreed, thanks for that.
Agreed.
That would be in keeping with Founders' Original Intent.
“So, legally you can’t leave?.”
Brezhnev Doctrine
Thanks
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.