Posted on 06/28/2017 11:20:43 AM PDT by Sopater
My "Rewriting American History" column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail. Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write often does not reflect the facts. Let's look at some of the facts and ask: Did the South have a right to secede from the Union? If it did, we can't label Confederate generals as traitors.
Article 1 of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the war between the Colonies and Great Britain, held "New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States." Representatives of these states came together in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a constitution and form a union.
During the ratification debates, Virginia's delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments.
At the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," rejected it. The minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: "A union of the states containing such an ingredient (would) provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
America's first secessionist movement started in New England after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Many were infuriated by what they saw as an unconstitutional act by President Thomas Jefferson. The movement was led by Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state. He later became a congressman and senator. "The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy — a separation," Pickering wrote to George Cabot in 1803, for "the people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West." His Senate colleague James Hillhouse of Connecticut agreed, saying, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." This call for secession was shared by other prominent Americans, such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III and Joseph Story. The call failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
The U.S. Constitution would have never been ratified — and a union never created — if the people of those 13 "free sovereign and Independent States" did not believe that they had the right to secede. Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a right that states had. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty." The Northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.
Northern newspapers editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil — evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent." The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
Confederate generals were fighting for independence from the Union just as George Washington and other generals fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who'd label Gen. Robert E. Lee as a traitor might also label George Washington as a traitor. I'm sure Great Britain's King George III would have agreed.
I was kidding you. And rockrr.
I didn't cite you by name, but I was kidding you and rockrr.
You are not the judge of what is salient. In April of 1865, slavery was still legal in the Union states. Your point is valueless.
When discussing what individual states might do, you are using the logical fallacy of guessing to be right, i.e. speculation to support a point, that is false and pejorative.
A dialectic is impossible when pertinent facts are denied.
I am free to judge what is salient as anyone else is. My point has been made. On the day of the death of the Confederacy, no Confederate State had the authority under their Constitution to outlaw slavery. In the U.S., states could exercise the option to legally end slavery, there was nothing in the Constitution of the United states that legally prevented a state do so, if that is what the state wanted to do. Deny those pertinent facts if you wish they weren’t so.
The camels on the pinhead argument.
The Constitution did not require slave ownership.
Any state could initiate legal changes....no prohibitive actions.
Unfortunately, Federal authorities did not want those states rights to exist.
The D of I gives instruction and guidance, not legal or constitutional dictates, for valid secession. However, IMO, the D of I has persuasive authority because of its integrity and influence in American law and culture.
The D of I shows the steps to valid secession and that secession:
1) should not be “for light or transient causes”
2) requires a certain “patient sufferance” while “evils are sufferable”
3) involves notifying and submitting the facts of abuse “to a candid world” (27 specific abuses are listed in the D of I) and finally
4) “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such Government.”
The colonists suffered many decades of harm from George III and continually notified him of his wrongs and pleaded for redress. In the absence of a Constitution, the standard of judging the abuses and usurpations were the long list of broken promises, agreements, and oppressions by England, America’s “central government” at the time.
However, after the Constitution was ratified as the Supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution itself became the standard for judging abuse and usurpation by the U.S. Central Government. America was a Free Constitutional Republic under the Rule of Law of the Constitution. Any ratifying state and any state agreeing later to join the union knew in black and white exactly that to which they were agreeing.
The Rule of Law of the Constitution was now the standard to judge the legality of acts of the central government. Unconstitutional acts of the central government were acts of tyranny, the new standard in America for abuse and usurpation.
America's first secessionist movement started in New England after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
From https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-louisiana-purchase-jeffersons-constitutional-gamble: “The General Government has no powers but such as the Constitution gives it,” [Jefferson] wrote to John Dickinson in 1803. “It has not given it power of holding foreign territory, and still less of incorporating it into the Union. An amendment of the Constitution seems necessary for this.”
I agree with Jefferson that the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended DELEGATES LIMITED AND ENUMERATED powers to the central government. of federal power. It must be in the Constitution for it to be a federal power.
However, it seems to me that the Louisiana Purchase involved a treaty, or agreement, with a foreign government to purchase territory adjacent to the United States. the Constitution empowers the President to make treaties.
[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur. --Art. II, Sec. 2, Cl 2
From https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-louisiana-purchase-jeffersons-constitutional-gamble: the Federalists, who had advocated such a position before the treaty was signed, and supported by the Republicans, Jefferson’s party, which had opposed such a broad extension of presidential powers.
How is this a broad expansion of powers? It is an agreement with foreign government, which is what a treaty is, and must be approved by 2/3 of the Senate. I agree with Marshall.
The title of the article in https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-louisiana-purchase-jeffersons-constitutional-gamble says the Louisiana Purchase was a constitutional gamble, but the article doesn't explain, nor do I see, where this is not a treaty that is clearly within the bounds of the Constitution. (Would that today's politicians were that careful and concerned about the constitutionality of federal acts, most of which are not.)
So I see no legitimate justification for secession because of the Louisiana Purchase.
the South's right to secede
But the Constitution was now the reasonable standard for abuse and usurpation for secession.
The South had not yet suffered any unconstitutional acts from the feds regarding slavery. In keeping with the template for valid secession in the Declaration of Independence, the South should have first notified the feds of what acts were unconstitutional and why they were unconstitutional. Instead they ceded in anticipation of certain federal acts. There was really no “patient sufferance” and no attempt to notify the feds with reasonable constitutional arguments. Therefore, the South’s cessation was invalid IMO. I believe the North had a constitutional right to fight them and get them back into the Union.
I wouldn't call Gen. Robert E. Lee a traitor, but I would say he made an honest mistake. It happens.
I hate it when slave holders are abused and want independence.
The slaves had no farming skills?
“But the Constitution was now the reasonable standard for abuse and usurpation for secession.”
Can you tell us more about when the principles in the Declaration of Independence became obsolete?
Were the principles in the DOI actually repudiated by the founding fathers at some point?
“Therefore, the South’s cessation was invalid IMO”
Well I’m glad that’s finally settled.
“I hate it when slave holders are abused and want independence.”
Is this a reference to Washington and Jefferson? And Madison? And Mason? And Franklin?
nice spin I believe they were dead when the south seceded and none of them tried to use the declaration to break up the union. I give you a 9.1 for trying to avoid the issue that holding slaves does not give you the right to independence to do so. You don’t see the conflict there?
Is it your opinion the states ratifying the constitution knew they were signing up for the federal government to force states to recognize same-sex marriages?
Abortion?
Carbon dioxide as a pollutant?
The glancing geese wetlands rule?
However, IMO, the D of I has persuasive authority because of its integrity and influence in American law and culture.
The DoI is considered organic law which underpins the purpose and direction that the Constitution was intended to embody. With that in mind it does describe the proper circumstance and form for secession and includes an almost excruciatingly long example of the grievances our forefathers endured before employing the last resort.
I suspect that they included that long detailed list for more than the King's edification. After all, he had already heard it all, he didn't care, they knew he didn't care and they had already reached the point where they didn't care that he didn't care. I think they put it there to edify posterity.
“I give you a 9.1 for trying to avoid the issue that holding slaves does not give you the right to independence to do so.”
You do know that the King’s interference with slavery was one of the reasons given in the DOI for separating from England don’t you?
you do know we were discussing the southern states suceding after mid-century, 85 years later. You lost on the point I came to discuss.
Earlier it sounded as if you might have been disqualifying Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and others for owning slaves. I sought clarification.
As for the Declaration of Independence, it is timeless. That is why it was celebrated for 85 years. And it is why some still do.
not in question. Your examples of slave holders in 1776 was irrelevant. You are unable to stay on course and your responses are just distractions from your failure to defend your original point. I can’t maintain discussion with someone who cannot stay on track. Good night.
Even if the slaves had farming skills they probably had no land.
I have read (not sure if it is a good estimate) that about 50 acres of land was needed to provide food for a family. If you didn’t have land you couldn’t produce food or cords of firewood to keep you warm in the cold New England winter.
I’ve also read about families that had many male children. When the head of the house died the land was divided among the sons. If there were a lot of sons there was a problem.
Life was very different then. Even in the late 1800’s if you do any genealogy and look at the census data you can see that many families had laborers, boarders, servants or renters living in their house. There was no social security and if you didn’t own land you had to do something to put a roof over your head.
“Your examples of slave holders in 1776 was irrelevant.”
I hate to be persistent, but your first post on this thread was about slave owners. My rejoinder (Is this a reference to Washington and Jefferson? And Madison? And Mason? And Franklin?) was appropriate because it made apparent a relevant contradiction in your thinking.
context was the sucession of southern states. You may know that happened in the 1800s. I said good-bye already because you are not capable of an ongoing discussion. Pack up your gear and leave the arena. You lost by a wide margin.
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