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
"Perhaps you remember reading about their little act of secession that occurred in 1776."
Not a very good parallel with the Civil War - The Colonials were not give rights that English citizens had and were in open rebellion.
In the Civil War case the States signed onto Constitutional government.
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Thank you for making my case...honestly, you should read it again.
No, Lincoln destroyed the "illusion" of "free and independent states", one that kept one american in 10 in bondage to the South.
You do realize that slavery was legal in the North during the war, right? Most of the states that remained in the Union had ended slavery, but Maryland, Deleware and Kentucky remained slaveholding states throughout the war. Missouri ended slavery a few months before the South surrendered in April of 1865.
Sobran is covering old ground. I could swear that I've read this almost verbatim in the past. The answer to your question is: A state can't secede. Each state is now just a form of local government, right above counties and cities. After the Civil War, we became one union comprised of 50 weak governmental entities. And with the ever-more-rapid movement of Americans (I've been transfered to four different states), we are becoming blurred as a nation. Throw in jet travel, nationwide 24/7 media, immigration (legal and otherwise), and the idea of secession becomes moot. Right or wrong, Mr. Lincoln won his war, and changed us forever.
In the Civil War case the States signed onto Constitutional government.
That constitutional government did not prohibit secession. Read what the states had to say when they ratified the Constitution:
Virginia
We the Delegates of the people of Virginia ... declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will ...New York
We, the delegates of the people of the state of New York ... Do declare and make known ... 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 ...
Besides, if secession had been illegal, prosecuters would have had no problem convicting Jefferson Davis of treason. They didn't, because they couldn't.
"That constitutional government did not prohibit secession"....
Nor did it allow for it.
The States were bound by Article VI to uphold the Constitution. Secession without Federal judicial approval of its Constitutionality, as well as the creation of an Amendment to validate it, is insurrection.
...and an insurrection they had...and now we live with the results.
You may be right. It is also irrelevant.
We righteously destroyed the slave South for its crimes against humanity, at a very high price to everyone involved, north included.
I want to know what it would take to secede from a state, or how to form our own county.>>
Why don't you secede on your own? Declare your back yard independent. That way you get all the pleasure of being a republic of one without having to destroy the country.
Why was slavery ended peacefully everywhere else in the world (with a few places in
Africa still having chattel slavery) but required a war in the USA?>>>
Because 11 American states were inhabited by a critical mass of gibbering racists and neo-aristocrats who needed to get their butts kicked to convinced them that the social world they had created was nakedly evil.
We tried what Mr. Sobran wants, it was described by something called the Articles of Confederation, and frankly, they sucked.
Woot for the Constitution! :)
Why? I can read and understand it perfectly. What part of the Constitution prevents secession? What federal law made in PURSUANCE of the Constitution prevents secession? Where does the Supremacy clause bind the people of the states?
Nor did it allow for it.
The Constitution does not enumerate our rights; it enumerates the powers of the federal government. Read the 10th Amendment. Besides, once a state secedes, it is no longer bound by the Constitution. According to your reasoning, American citizens shouldn't be able to eat meat because the Constitution doesn't specifically allow for it.
The States were bound by Article VI to uphold the Constitution.
And what about the federal government? The Southern states that seceded did so because they believed the U.S. government had violated the Constitution by interfering with the internal affairs of the states. You seem to believe that there should be no escape from federal tyranny. You may disagree with the South's arguments for secession - in fact, many Southerners at the time opposed it - but how oppressive would the federal government have to get before you would endorse breaking away for the sake of preserving liberty? The colonists declared their independence from the British Empire over much less tyrannical government interference than we have today.
Secession without Federal judicial approval of its Constitutionality, as well as the creation of an Amendment to validate it, is insurrection.
Ah, yes! It all makes sense now. You're one of those people who believe that nine people in black robes rule the country. The Constitutuion means only what they say it means. I guess Benjamin Franklin was wrong when he said, "It is every American's right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself."
Again, I will point out that Jefferson Davis was never tried for treason. If he was guilty of insurrection, then the case would have been a slam-dunk, and he would have been convicted and executed. But none of that happened because the constitutional case against secession could not be made.
Amazing - your ideology sounds like that of Osama bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists.
Bingo and bump.
We righteously destroyed the slave South for its crimes against humanity, at a very high price to everyone involved, north included.
Oh, so the North went to war to end slavery? That might make some sense had all states loyal to the Union abolished slavery before illegally invading the South. There was nothing righteous about Lincoln's war.
Amazing - your ideology sounds like that of Osama bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists
Yeah, aren't they the ones fighting a righteous and holy war against the Great Satan? And I've seen people on this forum try to compare Confederates to terrorists when all they were trying to do was defend their families and homes.
"What part of the Constitution prevents secession? What federal law made in PURSUANCE of the Constitution prevents secession?"
Yes, there you have it. The suicide pact thesis. It's a silly thesis now, but to try that thesis in the time of the Founding - after a weak Art. of Confederation failed so miserably - is just plain sophmoric.
That argument may be bought to a radical bent on an agenda, but it won't be bought by any serious student of the Constitution or history.
Seems to me he wants to RESTORE our country.......
(What do they teach some people in school these days!)
Restore it to the way it was BEFORE 1861.
It is high time.....!
That argument may be bought to a radical bent on an agenda, but it won't be bought by any serious student of the Constitution or history.
So in others words, you CAN'T cite any section of the Constitution that prevents secession.
There was nothing righteous about Lincoln's war.
>>>
"Sorry Miss Scah'let! All the ress of them fiel' hans, they done run off with the Yankees!"
Damn. Donchahateitwhenthathappens?
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