Eminent domain is the process of condemning and acquiring private land for public use, not public land for private use. Sumter was the property of the United States government and South Carolina had no legal claim to it.
"What is ``invasion''? Would the marching of an army into South California, for instance, without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them, be coercion or invasion? I very frankly say, I think it would be invasion, and it would be coercion too, if the people of that country were forced to submit."
We've had this arguement before, 4CJ, mainly because to take the quote out of context. In the very next sentence Lincoln went on to say the following:
"But if the government, for instance, but simply insists upon holding its own forts, or retaking those forts which belong to it, or the enforcement of the laws of the United States in the collection of duties on foreign importations, or even the withdrawl of mails from those portions of the country where the mails themselves are habitually violated; would any or all of those things be coerciion?"
The South sent three men to meet with Lincoln, to pay the federal government for any property seized, yet Lincoln refused to meet with them.
The south sent three men to get Lincoln to agree that they were an independent country. He refused to do that.
Lincoln invaded a sovereign nation, instigated a war that needlessly killed over 623,000 men, women and children, black and white, soldier and civilian.
The confederacy was not an independent nation and your saying so doesn't make it so. Neigher the United States nor any other nation recognized them as a soverign nation. They were a section of the United States in rebellion. Nothing more, nothing less.
IIRC until 1875 all federal property acquired via eminent domain was actually sezied by the state, then transferred to the federal government. In 1875, the decision by Justice Strong in Kohl v. US allowed the federal government the right to exersize the power at will. The taking of the fort by South Carolina was exactly the same as the taking of Ft. Ticonderoga and Crown Point in the Revolutionary War. Currently, the federal government has over 300 laws and regulations that enable it to seize ANY property, be it "wetlands", planes, ships, vehicles, sites to be deemed historic, to species protection policies ad nauseum. If SC did not have the right to take control of property contained within her borders, then the states were guilty of the same indiscretion previously.
We've had this arguement before, 4CJ, mainly because to take the quote out of context.
I have neither the time nor intent to post every speech made by Lincoln in full, nor every court decision. Lincoln was the consumate politician, using about 4 different definitions of the word "union", and different dates for our founding (inaugural 1774, GA 1776 etc). In this speech, and many others, Lincoln has crowned himself dictator and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The south sent three men to get Lincoln to agree that they were an independent country. He refused to do that.
On 14 Feb, 1861 the Confederate congress debated a resolution which "for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two Governments", which passed the next day. On the 27 Feb 1861, President Davis sent a letter to President Lincoln introducing the delegates - Andre B. Roman, of Louisiana; Martin. J. Crawford, of Georgia; and John Forsyth, of Alabama.- stating that "I have invested them with full and all manner of power and authority for and in the name of the Confederate States to meet and confer with any person or persons duly authorized by the Government of the United States being furnished with like powers and authority, and with them to agree, treat, consult, and negotiate of and concerning all matters and subjects interesting to both nations." Lincoln had no interest in a peaceful settlement.
The confederacy was not an independent nation and your saying so doesn't make it so. Neigher the United States nor any other nation recognized them as a soverign nation. They were a section of the United States in rebellion. Nothing more, nothing less.
If the Confederacy was not an independent nation, then neither were the states in 1776. Using that logic, ALL nations should be forced to rejoin their prior masters. The Confederacy was not in rebellion, they were not overthrowing the existing state/federal governments. What transpired was the people of the several states met in convention and voted peacefully to secede -it was not an overthrow of the governemnt, a coup d'etat, a revolution or anything similar.