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.
Really? What article, section, and clause of the Constitution prohibits the withdrawal of any State from the constitutional union?
;>)
"Odd view of things?" I recognize the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land." You apparently do not. I will let other readers decide for themselves which view is "odd"...
;>)
I'm sure that by now they have.
The obvious applicability of your 'screen name' no doubt provided a major assist...
Happy holidays!
;>)
The idea that the US was a commonwealth of independent states or confederation of sovereign republics would have carried more weight if the states had kept or established their own armies, navies, weights and measures, currencies, embassies, tariffs, postal services, established churches, transappalachian territories, merchant fleets and other institutions. They didn't. Given that and the words and actions of the founders, one can conclude that the Charleston Courier was wrong: whatever the founding generation wanted or was willing to allow, they went further in the direction of building a nation than latter-day secessionists claimed.
While the founders did not centralize all power in the federal government, they did create something more powerful and permanent than a loose league of independent nations.
The Courier text cited earlier is from South Carolina's secession debates.
This is from New York's Constitutional ratification document, and was by no means radical:
"We, the delegates of the people of the state of New York, duly elected and met in Convention, having maturely considered the Constitution for the United States of America, agreed to on the 17th day of September, in the year 1787, by the Convention then assembled at Philadelphia, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, (a copy whereof precedes these presents,) and having also seriously and deliberately considered the present situation of the United States,--Do declare and make known,--
That all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people, and that government is instituted by them for their common interest, protection, and security. That the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are essential rights, which every government ought to respect and preserve.
That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several states, or to their respective state governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution."
Secession was an accepted political principle. It is the very heart of the Declaration of the Independence. Lincoln tried to drown it in blood.
State objections or conditions had no legal standing unless they were written into the Constitution, no more than one's own mental reservations in signing a contract have validity if they're not written into the contract.
Any group of people could declare their secession from the rest of the country, but would it be valid? What about in a state where the legislature or a convention splits, half declaring that the state has seceded, and half denying it? Or where half the counties of a state declare that they have seceded, and the other half denies it?
I don't think anyone would have a problem with South Carolina's signaling its intention to leave the union. That should have been the beginning of a process of national divorce. But presuming that a state could simply leave the union on its own, repudiate its debts, seize property, form a government with other seceding states, call for an army, and start shooting at federal installations was a mistake.
It's possible to feel much sympathy with Southerners in 1861 and even some for their wrongheaded leaders. America was in love with the Revolution of 1776, and Southern radicals naturally concluded that when they were dissatisfied they ought to follow what they took to be the example of 1776, raise a flag and start shooting. But the colonists had shown much patience in the search for peaceful solutions. They only took up the gun as a last resort. And one has to treat a representative government that one disagrees with differently from a government that one has no voice in.
Unilateral secession leads to chaos. That's why so many Americans rejected in in the 1860s. Look at Robert E. Lee's letter of January 23, 1861 denying that a state can secede. It's representative of how many Americans, thought of secession. Or look at the speeches of Calhoun, Clay and Webster during the debate over the Compromise of 1850, they presumed that secession could and most likely would bring war (though Calhoun was prepared to take that risk).
I don't know of any polls taken of the whole country in the 1860s, but it's simply not true that a large majority of the country considered unilateral state secession a right. What convinced many who denied such a right were the passions and panic of the day, the doctrine of the right of revolution against intolerable circumstances, and solidarity with one's own state or region.
At least you recognize that. :) To bad Lincoln didn't. Instead he suspended habeus corpus, shut down hundreds of newspapers that dared disagree with him, jailed their editors and anyone else who dared disagree (like the Maryland legislature, or an unfortunate Ohio congressmen).
But it's not clear that unilateral state secession was legitimate under the constitution.
Gee, was it clear under British law that American Independence was 'allowed'?! Read the Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
State objections or conditions had no legal standing unless they were written into the Constitution
Jefferson and Madison (you know, the guy that wrote the Constitution) disagree with you. To wit: the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions. The Kentucky Resolution declared "the several states composing the United States of America, are not united on a principle of unlimited submission to their general government" The States joined a compact. If one side feels the other isn't holding up the bargain, or even that the bargain no longer suits them, they can shed it. Governments are not and end in and of themselves. It's important to keep that in perspective.
Any group of people could declare their secession from the rest of the country, but would it be valid?
Lincoln thought so in 1848, before he was president and the idea of the Southern Confederacy outside of the desired Republican protectionist racket threatened his own political goals, "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right--a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."
That wasn't a radical idea. It was the basis of the American revolution.
I don't know of any polls taken of the whole country in the 1860s, but it's simply not true that a large majority of the country considered unilateral state secession a right.
"I don't know... but it's simply not true..." You got the first part right. Historian Howard Cecil Perkins compiled 495 editorials from Northern newspapers that were written from late 1861 to mid-1861 in an attempt to characterize public opinion in the North regarding the right of secession. He found that "During the weeks following the [1860] election, editors of all parties assumed that secession as a constitutional right was not in question... On the contrary, the Southern claim to a right of peaceable withdrawl was countenanced out of reverence for the natural law principle of government by consent of the governed."
According to the Declaration of Independence, the severing of ties between political communities was a last resort, not something to be done lightly or without reason:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But 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, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
In other words, work within the system if you can for as long as you can. Self-determination doesn't justify violent revolts against established governments for "light and transient causes." I don't think 1776 justified the Revolution of 1861. Where you have representative and republican institutions you ought to work through them, not simply throw them away when it doesn't suit you.
But in any case, the founders went on to write a Constitution and establish a government. To the end of their days, they would allow for a right of revolution against unbearable tyranny, but they didn't establish a right of secession, nor were those who wrote and supported the Constitution particularly enthusiastic about the idea of secession.
When people exercise the right of revolution, things get violent and messy very quickly, so they'd better make sure that they are justified. Unilateral secession as well makes great troubles. Either one secession provokes other rebellions within the seceding state and questions arise over which deliberative body represents the legitimate government, or one arbitrarily declares a "divine right of states" to secession that isn't shared by other political units. Either way, things can get quite complicated and dangerous. Any sort of separation has to be worked out together by common consent for it to work well. And it ought to be based on real abuses that can't be remedied by political action. Unilateral action and force aren't the first resort but the last.
Governments aren't ends in themselves, but they aren't simply disposable items -- not because of any great value in government, but because of the chaos that would result if we were forever throwing off this or that government without going through the proper procedural channels.
If I take a dim view of secession today, it's because there are plenty of countries around the world where leaders have convinced themselves that direct action is the way to change governments. It might sound like a good idea in the abstract, but those countries have had much more troubled histories than the US. The result isn't greater liberty but more chaos, insecurity, and unrest.
The early years of the Republic were quite tumultuous. Jeffersonians were convinced that Federalists wanted to bring monarchy and tyranny to America. Federalists were certain that Jefferson sought to bring about a Jacobin revolution here. That's the background behind Jefferson's Kentucky resolutions. Madison was more restrained even at that time. The "Father of the Constitution" didn't go as far as Jefferson, who was in France in 1787 and had little or nothing to do with the creation of the Constitution. When the Republicans vanquished the Federalists, Jeffersonians modified their earlier radicalism and allowed greater scope to federal power. In his later years Madison was sharply critical of nullification and secession. You can see this in his letters to Webster and others during the nullification crisis of 1830.
As for the editorials of the secession crisis one has to be careful reading them. It was common for Northerners to say, "if they want to go, let them go." But this didn't necessarily imply acceptance of the theory of unilateral state secession. It simply reflected 1) the fact that Northerners didn't want to fight to keep such states in the union and 2) a recognition of the principle of self-determination. "Let them go" didn't necessarily imply acceptance of unilateral secession. Southern declarations may have been taken as expressions of intent, rather than legally effective acts. And there were also presumptions behind Northern attitudes that aren't always noted. "Let them go" implied a spirit of concord and comity, not seizing forts, weapons, and naval bases, repudiating debts and contracts, forming a new nation, raising an army, and firing on US troops. Many of those who were not opposed to peaceful dissolution of the union were quick to raise the call to arms when it turned out that such a dissolution would not be peaceful.
I can understand why Southerners wanted independence, and why they supported unilateral secession. I can also see that it didn't work, and I can understand why many Americans disagreed that unilateral secession was Constitutional. That was long the majority viewpoint, though over the years, Americans have forgotten the reasons why a majority rejected secession. Consequently it's been easy for radical libertarians and sectionalists to present a skewed view of American history and have it accepted by many people. But there was very definitely another side, though it doesn't get as much of a hearing today.
I'm not inclined to carry this over into the next year, since it's obvious neither one of us is going to convince the other. For whatever its worth, though, the secessionist cause was unworthy and their methods were mistaken and bound to result in major trouble for the country. It's easy to understand why the rebels acted as they did, but it would be wrong to make political models out of secessionist firebrands and Confederate leaders today, since neither their ends nor their means were particularly praiseworthy.
The word "guy" is not a plural. I suppose, for you, I should have clarified as follows, "Jefferson and Madison (the former who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the latter who penned the Constitution). I sometimes assume too much from people on this forum.
So do you agree that this means maintenance of political power and dominance of an unwilling people? Or is it still about a few acres of swampland?
BTW, Happy new year. The one resolution that I'm considering is to stop attempting to find common ground with the neoconservatives, who more and more seem to be wolves in wolves' clothing who's 'big tent' foolishness should be an affront to principled people.
IIRC, Hamilton would not accept conditional ratification. Madison was able to convince him that New York, Virginia, etc were not 'conditional' as the conditions as stated were inherent to the Constitution itself.
If the primary architects were convinced, how can that not be good enough?
Another damn Neo-confederate myth. The ONLY people who got in trouble were those urging munity or disertion from the army. They were perfectly free to call Lincoln what ever nasty name they wanted, which the Northern Democrats did at every single opportunity. They were far nastier than even the DU dummies are on W today. But they were not free to encourage, entice or organize munities among the armed forces, which is exactly what the "unfortuniate" Ohio EX-Congressman" did. Lincoln was too damn soft on him. He should have had him shot instead of sending him across the lines to live with the slavocrats he loved so much. He was no damn different than Jane Fonda or the Saddam-butt kissers of today.
Read the newspapers of the day. There was no shortage of criticism of Lincoln and the war in Northern papers. However, you will find little or no calls for compromise or disloyality or settlement in Southern papers. That would get an editor hung from the nearest tree in Dixie. They were very tightly controlled by the slaveocrats.
Do you actually have something to add? Or is Free Republic just a pissing match to you?
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