Posted on 02/18/2005 11:27:18 PM PST by churchillbuff
Different matters. In the earlier case the property had not been used in a rebellion against the government.
If you care to continue this tack, I'll state that unilateral secession was legal BEFORE the war, and only declared illegal AFTER the war. Thus secession, was not illegal before or during the war.
You would be wrong.
Besides, the 5th Amendment says that you cannot be deprived of property without due process. Well, Miller's property was seized on order of the court after the government presented its evidence that Miller did actively support the rebellion.
BUT IT DOES give instructions on how to treat slaves.
Most experts agree that slavery would have gone the way of the Dodo by 1880 or so. It wouldn't have remained economically feasible after the industrial revolution.
The that gives me a few questions.
Does that make slavery defensible?
Did the Confederate government or any of the Slave state governments codify the Biblical instructions on slavery?
Was Biblical slavery racially based?
Do the terms Old Covenant and New Covenant mean anything to you?
And finally, is there any feature of the Confederacy that you would not defend to the point of absurdity?
Most experts? I'd be interested in hearing about them. And I wouldn't include stand watie in that category.
It wouldn't have remained economically feasible after the industrial revolution.
The Industrial Revolution had been ongoing for decades before the rebellion, and with the exception of the cotton gin had left plantation agriculture untouched. Cotton harvesting was a complex process, dealing with open cotton bolls and closed bolls, separating the stems and leaves from the cotton bolls, and separating the cotton itself from the boll. True mechanization of cotton harvesting would not become common until the 1940's.
And that doesn't include the slaves that weren't in the field. The millions of slaves that were domestic help. How would the industrial revolution impact them?
Name some experts from say 1860 who said that. Or even some from 1880 who said that.
It wouldn't have remained economically feasible after the industrial revolution.
The industrial revolution didn't hit most of the south, at least the prediminant crops of the agricultural south, until well into the 20th century.
You haven't heard of US Steel, in Birmingham, Al. or the textile mills in North Carolina, or the Cigarette factories? All those were before the 1900's if memory serves.
1. Yes and No....Yes, if you go strictly by the scripture.
No...if you go by standards of morality. You were saying the Bible was opposed to slavery. It isn't.
2. Not that I know of, but a good source of how they were treated can be found in "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell.....Plantation owners who mistreated slaves were shunned and ostracized by their peers. In some states, if a slave was killed due to maltreatment, it was a criminal offense.
3. No, but that has nothing to do with it.
4.They mean plenty, but St. Paul was under the "New Covenant", and he was the one who wrote of treatment of slaves.
5. Last question is totally ludicrous. Not everything the Confedracy did was perfect. And I don't nor ever have stated such.
I will state again: The losses of our Republic, and to our freedom, and the amount of lives, do not justify what was done by Lincoln and company.
Like always, you simply ignore what I wrote. The words "most" and "agricultural" mean things. I'm even old enough to remember seeing cotton being harvested by hand yet I don't recall ever seeing anyone harvest wheat by hand. You look for the exceptions to deny the fact that the south lagged far behind in terms of industrialization and significant portions of the region's agriculture relying on unskilled, mostly "share-cropper" labor.
It took the REA, TVA, and WWII followed by the Cold War Military Industrial Complex (big Federal Government) to bring serious levels of industry into the south.
It also brought a hell of a lot of "damn yankee carpetbagers."
And the courts FORCED us to have legalized abortion, and gave us legal separatism, struck down state laws on sodomy. Your heros? I think they are just a bunch of old men and women, not gods.
Well, I certainly agree with your last statement :)
It has been said that one of the most certain condemnations of Lincoln is the character of many of those who so absolutely defend him. I suspect you'll find that to also be the case with many or most of the Dixie-haters and other antiSouth bigots you encounter.
Actually, slavery DID go the way of the DODO bird in the 1880s.
The Confederados, a group of Confederates who moved to Brazil when the South's loss was imminent, took the institution of slavery with them, and Brazil welcomed it.
But the Confederados ended the institution less than 30 years later.
Hatred of the South and southerners is illogical. The north had slaves also. Grant and Sherman were both slaveowners. In fact, the US government itself OWNED SLAVES the entire course of the war, which they used for construction projects in downtown DC.
Pasting the South alone with the slavery moniker has NO LOGIC. The north was just as 'guilty', if anyone want to use that term...
I'm sorry, your contentention that "Lincoln sent armies to free the slaves" has NO basis in history.
Give me just ONE example of where he did that. It does NOT exist.
The Emancipation Proclamation freed NO ONE. Neither did it order "the armies to free the slaves". It, in effect, told people in another country, where Lincoln had no authority, what to do. He could just as well tolk the French to stop drinking wine, while distributing it to his own troops. This is actually a fairly accurate statement, since Union troops raped, murdered, and took blacks as their own slaves which they came to "emancipate".
Your version of 'history' has no basis in fact, whatsoever.
While you sit on your throne of moral superiority, please explain to the rest of us why Grant and Sherman owned slaves the entire war; indeed, why the US government ITSELF OWNED SLAVES THE ENTIRE WAR, which it used for construction projects in downtown Washington, DC???
Concerning the secession of West Virginia, I'll have to check the Confederate constitution to see what it says.
But according to Lincoln's own logic, and the US Constitution, it was CLEARLY unconstitutional-- yet Lincoln supported it.
Do you need me to look it up for you, or are you capable?
And the Declaration of Independence:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Maybe there's something about the right of self-determination you don't understand.
Or maybe you wish the 13 British colonies would re-join the Kingdom.
I don't know which.
But if you believe 13 British colonies had the right to secede, then you must believe that 13 sovereign Southern States, which granted a few, delegated powers to a federal union (and 3 of them clearly stated when they joined that they retained the right to reclaim the powers given the federal government when they joined), and that federal government was based on the power of self-determination, then those 11 Southern states CLEARLY had the power to secede.
Admit it. Lincoln destroyed the very thing the founding fathers fought for.
Or maybe you think ALL tyrant rulers have the power to use military force to force governments on people who want independence.....
Actually, the Supreme Court has NEVER ruled that 'unilateral secession' is unconstitutional.
First, you need to describe "unilateral secession". Do you mean the secession of groups of states? If so, then you have no knowledge of what happened. Each state seceded in it's own independent nature, NOT unilaterally.
Second, since it is not mentioned in the Constitution, it is a power reserved to the States; therefor, the Supreme (sic) court has no POWER to rule on it, at all. The job of the Supreme Court is to act as part of a system of checks and balances against the President and the Congress, NOT the States. This is a very basic concept of the federated government.
Jefferson clearly believed in, and spoke on, the issue of secession when the northeastern states threated it. Madison, the father of the Constitution, not only said that secession was allowed, he furthermore said that the federal government could NEVER be the final judge of its' own powers; in fact, the States were the final judge of the powers of the federal government.
Your views, while mainline today, simply do not square with what the founding fathers believed AT ALL. You have been misled, my friend....
As to the "lot of bad things" you'd care to attribute to Lincoln's choices you can't add up enough of them to amount to a significant fraction of the good that occurred by the elimination of slavery and the maintenance of the Union. Remember that both Britain and France supported the Confederacy because they feared a strong America. Fortunately for them both they lost that fight so we could bail their butts out of two deep holes in the 20th Century.
Yes they did. Texas v White (74 US 700) 1868.
First, you need to describe "unilateral secession". Do you mean the secession of groups of states? If so, then you have no knowledge of what happened. Each state seceded in it's own independent nature, NOT unilaterally.
I would define unilateral secession is secession performed without the consent of a majority of the states, as expressed through a vote in Congress. Same way the Supreme Court defined it.
Jefferson clearly believed in, and spoke on, the issue of secession when the northeastern states threated it. Madison, the father of the Constitution, not only said that secession was allowed, he furthermore said that the federal government could NEVER be the final judge of its' own powers; in fact, the States were the final judge of the powers of the federal government.
And I too believe that there is no reason why a state should not be allowed to withdraw from the Union. But the withdrawl of a state or states from the Union could have a negative impact on the remaining states, and their interests deserve to be protected, too. That's why secession should be done only with the consent of a majority of the states. That would mean that all concerns are addressed and everybody's interests are protected.
Your views, while mainline today, simply do not square with what the founding fathers believed AT ALL. You have been misled, my friend....
On the contrary, Jefferson spoke against the idea of secession in his inaugural address, and Madison made clear that he did not agree with unilateral secession.
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