Replies

rustbucket: "Ah, you are wavering a bit. Good."

Nonsense, my views are the same as they've been.

rustbucket: "You have been asserting for years that the Southern state's reasons or causes for secession were equivalent to "at pleasure."
That is your personal opinion."

And not just my opinion, also that of such Doughfaced Southern sympathizers as President Buchanan.

"In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties.
If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States...

Secession is neither more nor less than revolution.
It may or it may not be a justifiable revolution, but still it is revolution."

Or, if you prefer Thomas Jefferson, his word for it was "scission":

"...if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the union, no federal government can ever exist.
if to rid ourselves of the present rule of Massachusets & Connecticut, we break the union, will the evil stop there?
suppose the N. England states alone cut off, will our natures be changed? are we not men still to the South of that, & with all the passions of men?
immediately we shall see a Pennsylvania & a Virginia party arise in the residuary confederacy, and the public mind will be distracted with the same party spirit.
what a game too will the one party have in their hands by eternally threatening the other that unless they do so & so, they will join their Northern neighbors.
if we reduce our Union to Virginia & N. Carolina, immediately the conflict will be established between the representatives of these two states, and they will end by breaking into their simple units.
seeing therefore that an association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry, seeing that we must have somebody to quarrel with, I had rather keep our New-England associates for that purpose, than to see our bickerings transferred to others....

...it is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war, & long oppressions of enormous public debt.
but who can say what would be the evils of a scission and when & where they would end?
better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we can & from all attachments to any portions of it, and if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist."

Oh, but, but, you might say: what about all the quotes where Jefferson seems to support some theoretical "scission"?
Sure, theoretically, but when faced with his own actual secession crisis -- Aaron Burr's attempt to secede with Louisiana -- Jefferson had Burr arrested and tried for treason.
So much for Jefferson & "scission".

Nor is it simply opinion -- the fact is that Southerners ruled over Washington, DC, almost continuously for 60 years before 1860, it was their capital and they made the rules.
And up to the election in November 1860 they had no remote reason to secede.
So what changed in November 1860?
Answer: absolutely nothing, except the election of Lincoln's Black Republicans.
But they had not yet taken office and had done nothing to change the "happiness" of any Southerner.
In any normal court of law secessionists' case would be thrown out because they lacked standing -- no harm had yet been done to them, nor was there reason to think it might be.

rustbucket: "The English king did that to America in the 1770s-1783s.
Lincoln did that to the South in the 1860s to coerce them back into the Union."

Come on, rusty, you can do better than that.
Our 1776 Declaration of Independence spoke of events which had already happened, they were the reasons which made separation necessary.
But in November 1860 no such remotely similar events had made Southern secession "necessary".
So by standards of our Founders, and by many as sympathetic as President Buchanan in 1860, Southern Fire Eaters were declaring secession at pleasure, and that was revolution.

rustbucket: "Lincoln said on several occasions to different people that he wouldn't seek peace with the South, he needed the revenue."

None of those quotes are validated, all are reported by people who hated Lincoln and supported the Confederacy, none represent Lincoln's actual written words.
And the fact is that Federal tariff revenues from Confederate ports totaled no more than 10% of total revenues, so a war costing $billions to save a few million dollars per year made no sense.
Which is why such words put into Lincoln's mouth amount to no more than, for example, anti-military words put into President Trump's mouth by Democrats who hate him.

rustbucket: "This all reminds me of what Hamilton... said in the New York ratification convention"

In your quote Hamilton is speaking about a hypothetical situation which, in fact, never arose.
But in historical fact, Hamilton supported President Washington's military actions against the Whiskey Rebellion and against British supported Indians in the Northwest Territories.
He also supported the Alien & Sedition Acts and hoped to command President Adams' armies against the French Quasi War.

Nowhere did Hamilton, or any other Founder, propose or support unilateral unapproved declaration of secession at pleasure.

rustbucket: "Nice guy, that Lincoln, causing 600,000 to 700,000 deaths in the war so that he could have revenue and protect the Northern economy from those rascally seceding states that in February 1861 had decided to use basically the same tariff as the United States. "

Sorry, but that's just garbage-talk, typical Democrat hate-speech.
The real fact is those "rascally seceding states" first provoked war, then started war, then formally declared war and waged war against the United States for four years, refusing to stop fighting for any terms better than Unconditional Surrender.
That's on them, specifically Jefferson Davis, not Lincoln.

rustbucket: "As you know, the Constitution does not outlaw secession."

But it does make provisions against rebellion, insurrection, "domestic violence", invasion and/or treason.
And it specifically defines "treason" as:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Bottom line: no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure.
In November 1860 there was no material change in Federal government that suddenly made unilateral secessions "necessary".
Those secessions were, in fact, at pleasure.

[You quoting President Buchanan]:

"In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. . . . "

And here is Madison in Federalist #39 (which I quoted before):

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act."

I discovered just now that I did not respond to a comment you made in Post 294 about something I posted in Post 288 about what Madison said in the minutes of the Virginia Ratification Convention. Here is what Madison is recorded as saying:

"An observation fell from a gentleman, on the same side with myself, which deserves to be attended to. If we be dissatisfied with the national government, if we should choose to renounce it, this is an additional safeguard to our defence."

In your response you argued:

I think that alleged quote is disputed and was never later acknowledged by Madison himself.
The word here used is "dissatisfied", only one step removed from "annoyed by" or "in disagreement with", suggesting any minor dispute might result in secession -- Madison never agreed to that, but maintained the clear distinction between "necessity" and "at pleasure".

Madison was responding to Patrick Henry's argument that the Southern states would be outvoted in the Union what with 7 Northern states and 6 Southern states (as counted back then). So, Madison's response deals directly with Henry's argument. It had nothing do do with your assertion Madison always made a "distinction between 'necessity' and 'at pleasure' ". You seem to have have "at pleasure" on your mind. Statements of what the Southern states decided were "necessary" for their secession are always interpreted by you as "at pleasure." I doubt that any of the seceding states considered them that. I give you an 'A' for consistency in your responses though.

In Madison's statement above about "a gentleman on the same side with myself," Madison was referring to a statement by the President of the Virginia Ratifying Convention who had said (my emphasis below):

"Where is the cause of alarm? We, the people, possessing all power, form a government, such as we think will secure happiness: and suppose, in adopting this plan, we should be mistaken in the end; where is the cause of alarm on that quarter? In the same plan we point out an easy and quiet method of reforming what may be found amiss.... we will assemble in Convention; wholly recall our delegated powers, or reform them so as to prevent such abuse; and punish those servants who have perverted powers, designed for our happiness, to their own emolument."

And that is exactly what Virginia did in 1861. In 1861, Virginia did assemble in Convention, and they did recall their delegated powers. In 1861, they did cite and use the Virginia reassume powers of governance statement written by Madison, Marshall, and three other Federalists and issued in the 1788 ratification document.

And I find I need to correct you on another thing you said in Post 294:

rustbucket quoting Madison Federalist #46: "Were the plan of the [Philadelphia] convention adverse to the public happiness, my voice would be, Reject the plan. Were the Union itself inconsistent with the public happiness, it would be, Abolish the Union."

I cited Federalist #45, not #46. And you followed my citation with:

Right, Madison is here talking about voting & mutual consent, not unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure, which no Founder ever proposed or supported.

Need I say it? There you go again.

You cite Thomas Jefferson. So can I. Here is Thomas Jefferson to John Breckinridge, 12 August 1803 [Source, bold emphasis added]:

"the future inhabitants of the Atlantic & Mispi states will be our sons. we leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. we think we see their happiness in their union, & we wish it. events may prove it otherwise; and if they see their interest in separation, why should we take side with our Atlantic rather than our Mispi descendants? it is the elder & the younger son differing. god bless them both, & keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better."

I shall be out of pocket for perhaps a week. On the road again, per Willie Nelson. Even in these Covid times. See you later.