Posted on 06/14/2004 5:16:34 AM PDT by Theodore R.
They Aren’t What They Used to Be
May 27, 2004
If I had to sum up American history in one sentence, I’d put it this way: The United States aren’t what they used to be.
That’s not nostalgia. That’s literal fact. Before the Civil War, the United States was a plural noun. The U.S. Constitution uses the plural form when, for example, it refers to enemies of the United States as “their” enemies. And this was the usage of everyone who understood that the union was a voluntary federation of sovereign states, delegating only a few specified powers, and not the monolithic, “consolidated,” all-powerful government it has since become.
Maybe Americans prefer the present megastate to the one the Constitution describes. But they ought to know the difference. They shouldn’t assume that the plural United States were essentially the same thing as today’s United State, or that the one naturally “evolved” into the other.
The change was violent, not natural. Lincoln waged war on states that tried to withdraw from the Union, denying their right to do so. This was a denial of the Declaration of Independence, which called the 13 former colonies “Free and Independent States.”
Washington and Jefferson at times expressed their fear that some states might secede, but they took for granted that this was the right of any free and independent state. They advised against exercising that right except under serious provocation, but they assumed it was a legitimate option against the threat of a centralized government that exceeded its constitutional powers.
Before the Civil War, several states considered leaving the Union, and abolitionists urged Northern states to do so in order to end their association with slave states. Congressman John Quincy Adams, a former president, wanted Massachusetts to secede if Texas was admitted to the Union. Nobody suggested that Adams didn’t understand the Constitution he was sworn to uphold.
But the danger to the states’ independence was already growing. Andrew Jackson had threatened to invade South Carolina if it seceded, shocking even so ardent a Unionist as Daniel Webster. Jackson didn’t explain where he got the power to prevent secession, a power not assigned to the president in the Constitution. Why not? For the simple reason that the Constitution doesn’t forbid secession; it presupposes that the United States are, each of them, free and independent.
Still, Lincoln used Jackson’s threat as a precedent for equating secession with “rebellion” and using force to crush it. This required him to do violence to the Constitution in several ways. He destroyed the freedoms of speech and press in the North; he arbitrarily arrested thousands, including elected officials who opposed him; he not only invaded the seceding states, but deposed their governments and imposed military dictatorships in their place.
In essence, Lincoln made it a crime — “treason,” in fact — to agree with Jefferson. Northerners who held that free and independent states had the right to leave the Union — and who therefore thought Lincoln’s war was wrong — became, in Lincoln’s mind, the enemy within. In order to win the war, and reelection, he had to shut them up. But his reign of terror in the North has received little attention.
He may have “saved the Union,” after a fashion, but the Union he saved was radically different from the one described in the Constitution. Even his defenders admit that when they praise him for creating “a new Constitution” and forging “a second American Revolution.” Lincoln would have been embarrassed by these compliments: He always insisted he was only enforcing and conserving the Constitution as it was written, though the U.S. Supreme Court, including his own appointees, later ruled many of his acts unconstitutional.
The Civil War completely changed the basic relation between the states, including the Northern states, and the Federal Government. For all practical purposes, the states ceased to be free and independent.
Sentimental myths about Lincoln and the war still obscure the nature of the fundamental rupture they brought to American history. The old federal Union was transformed into the kind of “consolidated” system the Constitution was meant to avoid. The former plurality of states became a single unit. Even our grammar reflects the change.
So the United States were no longer a “they”; they’d become an “it.” Few Americans realize the immense cost in blood, liberty, and even logic that lies behind this simple change of pronouns.
Joseph Sobran
There can be little argument that the 10th Amendment, although often stated as an Amendment stoically defended by the 'conservatives' on the Supreme Court, has been completely neutered, by the same Supreme Court, WITH the help of a few of those 'conservatives'.
"So in others words, you CAN'T cite any section of the Constitution that prevents secession."
That is a terrible straw man argument. So let's go to school. The prevention of secession is implied in the very creation of the Constitution. Our Founders didn't attempt to make the Balkans...they intended to have a government that proetected it's people and they intended for it to be perpetual.
The delegating power in the 10th Amendment is the US Constitution, not the states. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
If a state violates the Constitution by exercising a prohibited power, then it is the Federal Government's responsibility to uphold the Constitution and persuade or - if necessary - force the state to return to a state of compliance. That's what supreme law means - if you insist on not obeying it, the government uses force to get you to change your mind.
Bump. The Confederates did not try to overthrow the federal government, they defeded themselves:
The experiment instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary Union of sovereign States for the purposes specified in a solemn compact, and been perverted by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law but their own will. The Government had ceased to answer the ends for which it was ordained and established. To save ourselves from a revolution which, in its silent but rapid progress, was about to place us under the despotism of numbers, and to preserve in spirit, as well as in form, a system of government we believed to be peculiarly fitted to our condition, and full of promise for mankind, we determined to make a new association, composed of States homogenous in interest, in policy, and in feeling.True to our traditions of peace and our love of justice, we sent commissioners to the United States to propose a fair and amicable settlement of all questions of public debt or property which might be in dispute. But the Government at Washington, denying our right to self-government, refused even to listen to any proposals for a peaceful separation. Nothing was then left to do but to prepare for war.
President Jefferson Davis, 22 Feb 1862
The most important question is, what recourse does a state have within the Constitution, to interpose on an issue it is convinced violates egregiously it's constitutional protection? How else might a state handle the problem and preserve the Union? That question was simply ignored by the South.
Secession was a fact with the secession of the states from the Articles of Confederation & Perpetual Union. The right to secede was not prohibited, therefore, the right to leave is implied as well. Again, the 10th reserves ALL powers not delegated nor prohibited to the states. See this is easy.
Our Founders didn't attempt to make the Balkans...they intended to have a government that proetected it's people and they intended for it to be perpetual.
Which is why the founders TWICE rejected attempts to grant the federal government the power to use force against a state, and the framers also rejected Madisons attempt to "prevent disunion". The framers thought so much of the word "perpetual" [used 5 times in the AoC] that they LEFT IT OUT of the Constitution. So much for it being perpetual.
The delegating power in the 10th Amendment is the US Constitution, not the states.
Ignoring for the momemnt that the STATES delegated certain enumerated powers to the government via the Constitution, where is the power DELEGATED by the Constitution to prevent secession?
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
Sure, for states WITHIN the Union.
If a state violates the Constitution by exercising a prohibited power, then it is the Federal Government's responsibility to uphold the Constitution and persuade or - if necessary - force the state to return to a state of compliance. That's what supreme law means - if you insist on not obeying it, the government uses force to get you to change your mind.
Please cite what clause of the Constitution was was broken by secession. Where is secession prohibited?
Class over.
So let's go to school. The prevention of secession is implied in the very creation of the Constitution. ... If a state violates the Constitution by exercising a prohibited power, then it is the Federal Government's responsibility to uphold the Constitution and persuade or - if necessary - force the state to return to a state of compliance.
Yes, let's go to school. The 9th Amendment reads as follows:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This was meant to dispel the notion that the rights of the people include only those mentioned in the Constitution.
Now let's look at the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In other words, the federal government is only allowed to exercise those powers granted to it by the people through the Constitution. The states, on the other hand, are free to exercise any power that the Constitution does not specifically prohibit. Consider what James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 45:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.Why is this so difficult to understand? It couldn't be any clearer.
Those specious claims must be checked each and every time.
So who was a great president in your eyes?
The most important question is, what recourse does a state have within the Constitution, to interpose on an issue it is convinced violates egregiously it's constitutional protection?
According to you, there is no recourse. The Constitution means only what the Supreme Court says it means.
How else might a state handle the problem and preserve the Union?
If the Union becomes tyrannical in nature, why should it be preserved at all? That's like asking the colonists, "How else might you handle the problem and preserve the empire?"
By some, perhaps, but not by all. And certainly not in the unilateral manner practiced by the southern states.
My understanding is that the South paid 2/3 of the tariff receipts prior to 1860...
You have some figures to back that up?
Wrong. The issue had been going on for decades, with the South taking concillatory positions on tariffs, yankee protectionism and other issues.
Yankees ratified the Constitution and failed to abide by it. The US Supreme Court had decided 7-2 that the South's position was the correct one. Despite that, the yankees continued to foment discord and attempted to incite insurrection, passed blatantly unconstitutional laws negating the return of escaped fugitives, and attempted to bar ALL blacks from common territories. Then they demanded more in tribute - even higher tariffs, and attempts to give away western lands instead of selling them for revenue.
The Confederacy took the only option left open to them. They took the same option that the framers took - secession.
There is not a single instance where slavery ended with the support of the slave owners themselves. In every case slavery ended through government legislation and despite the opposition of those benefiting from the institution. And if it required a war in the U.S., then it is because only in the U.S. did the slave owners believe defending slavery was worth going to war over.
Wouldn't it have been cheaper for the North to pay southerners compensation for all their slaves to avoid a war that physically destroy nearly half of the country?
In 1860 Lincoln could have run on a platform proposing an end to slavery through compensated emancipation and it would have made absolutely no difference, because there is no evidence whatsoever that the southern slave owners were interested in ending slavery under any circumstances. The rebellion would still have come.
So why does the fact that their 'secession' in 1776 led to war doesn't bother you, and you remain pissed that the southern secession in 1861 did?
Maryland ended slavery on November 1, 1864. Kentuck and Delaware remained slave states until December 1865.
That's ridiculous. Davis wasn't tried because Chief Justice Chase, who was responsible for the federal circuit that included Virginia, made it clear that be believed that trying Davis would violate his 5th Amendment rights. Absent Chase's opinions then the government would have had no problem convicting Davis of anything they wanted to convict him of.
Nonsense. Read up on the matter. The fact that Jefferson Davis was never tried, convicted, and jailed is due solely to Constitutional and political reasons. Davis was never tried, in large part, because of the actions of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Salmon Portland Chase.
When Davis was captured he was held at Fortress Monroe and was headed for a military trial. However, the Johnson administration decided that any trial for treason would have to be in a civil court, and in Virginia since that was the base of Davis' alleged treasonable activities, that of directing armed rebellion against the United States. The competence of Judge John C. Underwood, circuit court judge for the District of Virginia, was suspect by those in the North who wanted to ensure a fair trial, so participation by Chief Justice Chase, who presided over the circuit including the Virginia district, was considered essential for a respectable verdict.
The first delay in trial was because neither Judge Underwood nor Chief Justice Chase felt that they had any authority over the case as long as Davis was held by the military. Because of the issues of military control of Davis' imprisonment, Chase refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus. Finally in May 1867 a writ was brought and Davis was taken to Richmond and transferred to the authority of the Federal courts. He appeared before Underwood on May 13, 1867, bail was set at $100,000, and bond was posted. Davis then left the country to reunite whith his family who were living in Canada, although he returned in November 1867 for his trial.
Over the next year Andrew Johnson was impeached and nearly convicted and the 14th Amendment was passed and ratified. Johnson began to fear that if Davis were tried and acquitted he would be impeached again and removed from office. So for political reasons, nothing further was done until after the 1868 election.
During this time, Chief Justice Chase made known to Davis' attorneys that it was his opinion that the third section of the 14th Amendment nullified the indictment against Davis, on the grounds that by stripping the right to hold elective office from high Confederate officials, a punishment for treasonable activities had been legislated. Trial and conviction on the treason charge would, in effect, mean that Davis would be punished again for the same crime. Chase saw that as a violation of his 5th Amendment rights.
Davis, however, wanted a trial because he saw it as an opportunity to vindicate both himself and the actions of the Confederacy. Davis' lawyers, understanding that trial would lead to conviction, pointed out that Davis' life was at stake, and there was a general agreement that they could not pass up the opportunity to arrange what they believed to be an honorable settlement. So on November 30, 1868, Davis' lawyers filed a motion requiring that the government attorneys show cause why the indictment should not be quashed. A hearing on the motion was held before Chase and Underwood in December, and on the December 5th the two announced a split vote, with Chase favoring laying aside the indictment, and Underwood wanting the case to be tried. The certificate of division between Chase and Underwood was forwarded to the Supreme Court, and while the indictment technically remained pending, no more action was ever taken. It was clear that Chase would favor overturning a guilty verdict, making the government hesitant to proceed. The Davis case remained on the circuit court docket for February 15, 1869, but the government indicated at that time that it would not prosecute. The indictment was, therefore, dismissed, as were indictments against thirty-seven other ex-Confederates, including Robert E. Lee.
So without the intervention of Chief Justice Chase, Jefferson Davis would have been tried and he would have been convicted. Even in Virginia a jury could have been found that would have done that.
So who was a great president in your eyes?
>>>
Jeff Davis, who led his rebellious region to utter self-destruction.
My understanding is that the South paid 2/3 of the tariff receipts prior to 1860...
You have some figures to back that up?
>>>
It's impossible, since the North had something on the order of 10-20x the industrial capacity, and therefore HAD to have imported more than the then-backward South.
I should add that's HIS idea of a "great president," not mine, which remains Father Abraham, tied for first place with George Washington, with FDR (yes) in 3rd and Ronaldus Magnus for 4th (FDR winning out because he, like Ronald, won a world war, but ALSO had to deal with the Depression, managing to defeat both without destroying American representative government).
damnyankees are nothing but arrogant LIARS & HYPOCRYTES!
free dixie,sw
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.