Posted on 12/24/2003 10:30:18 AM PST by Grand Old Partisan
Abraham Lincoln, with his son Tad in tow, walked around Richmond, Virginia, one day 138 years ago, and if you try to retrace their steps today you won't see much that they saw, which shouldn't be a surprise, of course. The street grid is the same, though, and if you're in the right mood and know what to look for, the lineaments of the earlier city begin to surface, like the outline of a scuttled old scow rising through the shallows of a pond. Among the tangle of freeway interchanges and office buildings you'll come across an overgrown park or a line of red-brick townhouses, an unlikely old belltower or a few churches scattered from block to block, dating to the decades before the Civil War and still giving off vibrations from long ago.
Note it says between the states. One would think that 9 states would also have the right to abbrogate that Constitution between them.
You don't seem very familiar with the history of these events. The state legislatures did not ratify the Constitution. It was ratified in special conventions called for that purpose, because the intent, as Madison said, was to have the power flow form all the people.
Walt
Your interpretaion of that clause is definitey counter to several other clauses in that same Constitution.
The words of the Supremacy Clause are clear enough.
The rebels didn't even --pretend-- to abide by legality. Had they given a fig about legalities they would have gone before the courts.
Don't go there.
Walt
So you admit their activities were outside the law?
They were made to recognize those courts by brave and loyal Union men of whom President Lincoln said, "no partizan cause can make false to the nation's life."
Huzzah.
Walt
I'd say looking to the future and not living in the past made them right on some level, at least.
Walt
The South Carolinians were no better than purse snatchers.
Walt
In our eyes, probably not.
Alright, I'm getting a glimmer of hope. Not that I would entirely change your mind about the nature of the Civil War, but that you'll see what I consider the most important aspect of what it has cost and what it has wrought.
But if we wanted to negotiate a treaty with anyone then who would we deal with? Ourselves?
We'd deal with whoever wanted to deal with us. China and Taiwan trade, even though China refuses to acknowledge that Taiwan is a country.
So firing on Ft. Sumter is what put them in the wrong, not secession. Step by step, you're coming around...
Somehow that parallel doesn't seem to be right. For starters, in this context, "childish" is probably a better word "childlike." But beyond that, if you have a rampaging youth gang in your neighborhood, you'd probably want the police on the scene, not to subject the unwilling to your desires or theirs, but just to restore order.
My parallel isn't the best, either, but 1) those who initiate force can't simply deny the right of those they attack to fire back, and 2) great countries can't simply stop fighting in the middle of things; therefore, those who want change should move towards it peacefully, not initiate wars that will end up causing more suffering to those they claim to speak for.
You can make a case for the right to self-determination, but others will respond based on how you pursue your independence and on what you do with it when you get it. Wars unleash passions that can't easily be tied up again. If you want to limit the ferocity of the conflict, it's best to proceed peacefully from the beginning, not to use violence and then protest when it's used against you.
It's the same story from Davis to the Kaiser to Saddam. You can't limit how people will react once you take up the gun -- you can't tell them to stop shooting once you've started the conflict -- so it's best to avoid violence if you can.
Not suprised, just disheartened. They originally were not interested in leaving the Union, but upon seeing how Lincoln was acting there was a danger they would change their minds. Lincoln couldn't allow that!
For example, United States Senator from Maryland James Alfred Pearce, who did not want Maryland to secede but supported the peaceful secession of the Southern States, said "I have no idea that the Union can be maintained or restored by force. Nor do I believe in the value of a Union which can only be kept together by dint of a military force." Maryland Congressman Jacob M. Kunkel wrote, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impracticable, and destructive and destructive of republican liberty."
That 'republican' modifier on liberty is not accidental. They were concerned about the changes Lincoln's course was imposing on the nature of the relationship between the federal and state governments.
The normal legislative elections were to take place in November, and General Banks was ordered to "protect Union voters... arrest and hold in confinement till after the election all disunionists." The ballots were made of different colors so that the soldiers could throw out the Peace Party votes. "Many who attempted to vote the Peace ticket in Baltimore were arrested for carrying a ballot of the wrong color. The charge against these men was simply 'polluting the ballot box.'"(Dean Sprague, Freedom under Lincoln)
Hard to so objectively when Lincoln was visibly jailing editors and sending his troops to smash the printing presses of newspapers that continued to acknowledge secession as a right. You don't have to arrest all of them, just shut down some, arrest some more, and refuse to allow others to be delivered by the Post Office, and the rest will shut up.
No, my whole problem is that Lincoln refused to acknowledge the right of self government, yet waged a war in its name. His victory was the culmination of the consolidation of power in Washington, D.C. It is what made possible the monstrosity I believe most of us on FR oppose. FDR was in that sense his bastard child, who was able to sign and enforce legislation that commited unimaginable violence to the Constitution, and for the worse shaped the nature of the federal government and its relation to the States.
You still haven't shown me what Article, Section, and Clause of the Constitution Lincoln would violate by recognizing the right of a State to secede. Still having trouble find a copy of the Constitution?
That's not a fair appreciation of what happened.
"Scholars still debate whether Lincoln had the authority to invoke the Constitutional provision suspending Habeas Corpus during the early days of the war. I will not wade into the muddy waters of that debate. I am more interested in talking about what Lincoln did after March of 1863--for that is when Congress gave Lincoln legislative authority to suspend the writ. From that point forward, Lincoln faced no constitutional obstacles. He could arrest whomever he chose, without courts interfering with Writs of Habeas Corpus. What did Lincoln do at this point? Did he attempt to stifle political debate, by imprisoning his opponents? In short, did he trample on the civil liberties the Writ of Habeas Corpus was meant to protect?
A recent historical study, entitled The Fate of Liberty, says "no." The author, Mark Neely, combed through the musty boxes of arrest records from the Civil War "to find out who was arrested when the Writ of Habeas Corpus was suspended and why." Neely concludes that, throughout the war, Lincoln was guided by a "steady desire to avoid political abuse under the Habeas-Corpus policy."
According to the best estimates, about 38,000 civilians were arrested by the military during the Civil War. Who were they? Almost all fell within a few categories: "draft dodgers, suspected deserters, defrauders of the government, swindlers of recruits, ex-Confederate soldiers, and smugglers." And strikingly, most of these were Confederate citizens, caught behind Northern lines. The numbers show that very few civilians were taken from their homes and arrested. And of those few arrests, only a handful were colored by political considerations.
Indeed, Lincoln issued his most sweeping proclamation suspending Habeas Corpus not to silence political dissent, but to stop judicial interference in the draft. Early in the war, patriotic zeal was so strong that volunteers flooded into the Army. But as the war dragged on, public enthusiasm ebbed. Eventually, the government was reduced to instituting a draft. Conscription was rather unpopular, to say the least. If any of you remember the burning of draft cards during the Vietnam War, imagine that unrest multiplied several times over in the New York City Draft Riots in 1863. The problem was especially bad in Pennsylvania. Coal miners attacked men thought to be "in sympathy with the draft." State and federal courts added to the problem. They were churning out Writs of Habeas Corpus, freeing soldiers as soon as they were drafted. Lincoln observed that "[T]he course pursued by certain judges is defeating the draft."
Lincoln's response was to suspend the Writ throughout the North in any case that involved military arrest of deserters or draft dodgers. And for good measure, he threw in prisoners of war, spies, and those giving assistance to the enemy--say, by smuggling goods to the Confederate government. But his focus was always on military necessity. Lincoln never tried to suppress political dissent. He understood that a democracy only grows stronger by allowing people to voice their opposition to the government, even in the midst of war. He understood that the strength of the Union lay not only in force of arms, but in the liberties that were guaranteed by the open, and sometimes heated, exchange of ideas. And as one historian has put it, "[T]he opposition press in the North was vibrant, vigorous, and often vicious....
The President was not out to trample on the First Amendment. He was not out to crush his political opposition. He suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus in response to perceived military threats to the Union. After he, and later Congress, removed that Constitutional safeguard, the Lincoln Administration did not use its power selfishly or arbitrarily. It arrested only those people who actively supported the Confederate war machine--people like Merryman, who recruited troops to march south. And when people walked this fine line between political dissent and treason, as Vallandigham did, Lincoln tried to err on the side of free speech."
--Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
http://www.gettysburg.edu/academics/cwi/Lincoln_Fellowship/o'connor'96.htm
Walt
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