Posted on 02/17/2006 5:47:19 PM PST by Mobile Vulgus
I don't know how many of you get the Federalist Patriot report via email, but it is a great source of conservative news and opinion that all of you should get.
You can find their site at:
http://patriotpost.us/
Anyway, even though I support them, they sent out an email today that bashed Abe Lincoln fiercely. I was so moved to annoyance by their biased and ill thought out email that I had to write them and say how disappointed I was.
You can go to their site and see the anti-Lincoln screed that they put out to know exactly what I am replying to if you desire to do so.
Now, I know some of you freepers are primo confederate apologists so I thought this would stir debate on freerepublic!!
Now, let the fur fly as we KNOW it must...
The Ordinance (of Nullification) is founded... on the strange position that any one state may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution; that they may do this consistently with the Constitution; that the true construction of [the Constitution] permits a state to retain its place in the Union and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider as constitutional.... Look for a moment to the consequence. If South Carolina considers the revenue laws unconstitutional and has a right to prevent their execution in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objection to their collection in every other port; and no revenue shall be collected anywhere.... If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the Union would have been dissolved in its infancy....
I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted explicitly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.
In vain these sages [the framers of the Constitution] declared that Congress should have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, etc.; in vain they have provided that they shall have the power to pass laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry those powers into execution, that those laws and the Constitution should be the Îsupreme law of the land, and that judges in every state shall be bound thereby...Ì Vain provisions! ineffectual restrictions! vile profanation of oaths! miserable mockery of legislation! if a bare majority of voters in any one state may, on real or supposed knowledge of the intent with which a law has been passed, declare themselves free from its operation....
The right to secede is deduced from the nature of the Constitution, which they say, is a compact between sovereign states who have preserved their whole sovereignty and are subject to no superior: that because they make the compact they can break it when their opinion has been departed from by other states....
The Constitution forms a government, not a league.... Each state having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with other nations, a single nation, cannot from that period, posses any right to secede, because such succession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation.... To say that any state may at pleasure secede from the union is to say that the United States is not a nation.... Because the union was formed by a compact, it is said that the parties to that compact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, depart from it; but it is precisely because it is a compact that they may not. A compact is a binding obligation....
Outside of expressly enumerated areas? No.
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Better check you "sources".
LOL! What better sources than the men who wrote the document?
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"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, February 15, 1791
"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."
-- James Madison, Federal No. 45, January 26, 1788
That's a myth.
Lincoln is not invoking a constitutional right to destroy the Union but the natural right of revolution, an inalienable right clearly expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln never denied this right. As he said in his First Inaugural of 1861. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." But the people's right to revolution is in tension with the president's constitutional "duty…to administer the present government, as it came into his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor."
Again, Lincoln was merely reiterating the commonly accepted political opinions of his predecessors. In the aforementioned "Proclamation to the People of South Carolina," Jackson said, "secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms…." (emphasis added). But despite claiming to be the true heirs of the American Founding, the seceding states never invoked the right of revolution that Jackson, Webster, Lincoln, and others acknowledged. Why not?
The main reason was that while the Founders understood the right of revolution to be an inalienable natural right of individuals antecedent to political society, Calhoun, the architect of the theory of State sovereignty used to justify secession expressly repudiated the idea of individual inalienable natural rights. Calhoun dismissed the fundamental idea of the American Founding — that "all men are created equal" — as the "most false and dangerous of all political errors." Given the large slave population of the South, this denial of the inalienable natural rights of individuals, including the right of revolution, was no doubt prudent.
Secession constitutes a repudiation of republican government as understood by the Founders. For Calhoun, sovereignty was not a characteristic of individuals, but of collective political bodies. Individual rights, such as they were, were prescriptive, not natural. If Calhoun was right, then the Founders were wrong.
For the Founders, the purpose of government was to protect the equal natural rights of all. They understood these rights to be antecedent to the creation of political society and government. The just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed who possess the equal natural rights that republican government is supposed to protect. While the people never relinquish their right to revolution, in practice, this natural right is replaced by free elections, the outcome of which are determined by majority rule.
When the States ratified the Constitution of 1787, they pledged that they would accept the results of elections conducted according to its rules. In violation of this pledge, the Southern States seceded because they did not like the outcome of the election of 1860. Thus secession is the interruption of the constitutional operation of republican government, substituting the rule of the minority for that of the majority.
In his July 4 address to Congress, Lincoln observed that the American "experiment" in popular government had passed two of three tests — the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One test remained. Could popular government in America maintain itself against a "formidable internal attempt to overthrow it." It had yet to be proved, said Lincoln, that ballots were "the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets" and that "when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets."
As William Freehling has argued, the supposed right to break up the government when the minority does not get its way is really nothing but blackmail. The attempted dissolution of the Union in 1860 and 1861 was the final act in a drama that had been under way since the 1830s, only this time the blackmailers' bluff was called.
In 1833, the minority threatened secession over the tariff. The majority gave in. In 1835, it threatened secession if Congress did not prohibit discussions of slavery during its own proceedings. The majority gave in and passed a "Gag Rule." In 1850, the minority threatened secession unless Congress forced the return of fugitive slaves without a prior jury trial. The majority agreed to pass a Fugitive Slave Act. In 1854 the minority threatened secession unless the Missouri Compromise was repealed, opening Kansas to slavery. Again, the majority acquiesced rather than see the Union smashed.
But the majority could only go so far in permitting minority blackmail to override the constitutional will of the majority. At the Democratic Convention in Charleston, held in April 1860, the majority finally refused the blackmailers' demand — for a federal guarantee of slave property in all US territories. The delegates from the deep South walked out, splitting the Democratic Party and ensuring that Lincoln would be elected by a plurality.
There are two ironies here. The first is that the real "secession" was that of the South from the Democratic Party. The resulting split in the Democratic Party was instrumental in bringing about the election of Lincoln, which the South then used as the excuse for smashing the Union. The second is that the South's demand at Charleston, far from having anything to do with States' rights, was instead a call for an unprecedented expansion of federal power.
From another President that divined extra constitutional powers for the Executive branch. That's it? If I were you, I'd fix the rift between your fellow Jaffaites first...especially the one that ran off the 16th President's plantation
There's nothing wrong with James Madison, or my quotes.
Nor can I see your post denying or affirming anything. Madison never states agreement, only that Webster "dodges the blow by confounding the claim "
Do you know where I can find a copy of the Daniel Webster speech of which Madison spoke?
Maybe you should have looked this one up too:
PREAMBLE - A preface, an introduction or explanation of what is to follow
It is merely an introduction to the Constitution..... and it doesn't say 'perpetual' union, just a more perfect one.
1. Thomas Jefferson didn't have any part in writing the Constitution --- he was in France through it's entire drafting and ratification.
2. Jefferson was opposed to ratification. He was the de-facto leader of the anti-Federalist faction.
3. Your Madison quote is very nice and also very true. The Federal power was defined and limited. But I fail to see how you can construe Madison's words as saying that the states can simply ignore at their pleasure the "defined and limited" powers of the Federal government.
BTW. You still have not told us what "unconstitutional" actions the Federal government took that drove 7 of the 11 southern states to trash the Constitution months before Lincoln even took office. Was it something the Buchanan administration did? ;~))
Here's another Jefferson quote for you.
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...That's commonly referred to as the Right to Revolution when faced with intolerable oppression. Can you list the intolerable abuses the south faced in the months following Lincoln's election that gave them the moral Right to Revolution? None of the Confederate documents from that era ever enumerated those abuses as Jefferson did 4 score and 5 years eariler.
In other words, the Founders come right out and let everyone know that the Constitution, the form of government it ordained, and the nation it forged are all here to stay.
Thanks for agreeing with me.
Let's do it...though I seriously doubt that you will actually read this in its entirety.
Madison Explains the Constitution to Jefferson
With the Constitutional Convention ending on the 17th of September, 1787, James Madison was at liberty to interpret the document to his close friend, Thomas Jefferson, who was in Paris throughout the Convention and critical phase of the ratification process.
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison's explanations are of interest for several reasons. First, all of the discussion is in one document, unlike the Federalist Papers, where the arguments are in a large number of separate documents. Second, Madison feels free writing to Jefferson to criticize one aspect of the Constitution: Congress was not given a negative (veto) over state laws. The Federalist Papers presented arguments in favor of the Constitution, and no faults were admitted. Third, Madison again presents his arguments concerning the dangers of factions and the advantages of a large republic in curbing faction. This argument is to gain lasting and deserved fame with the publication of the Federalist Papers specifically number 10.
Finally, this letter may be thought of James Madison's first and perhaps critical effort to secure ratification of the Constitution. Jefferson's support could not be assumed: he, unlike Madison, was not upset by Shay's rebellion, and he strongly objected to the lack of a Bill of Rights. Yet his support, or at least an absence of opposition, was essential for the ratification. If Jefferson had opposed the ratification or supported the call for another convention, Madison would have had to overcome the opposition of Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, Patrick Henry, and James Monroe to secure Virginia's ratification. It is difficult to imagine that Madison could have succeeded. If Virginia had not ratified, then New York would likely have refused to ratify, and the new Union would have failed without these two key states.
This one seldom read letter thus may be the single most important letter in James Madison's career and perhaps one of the most important in the history of the United States.
James Madison Explains the Constitution to Thomas Jefferson
You will herewith receive the result of the Convention, which continued its session till the 17th of September. I take the liberty of making some observations on the subject, which will help to make up a letter, if they should answer no other purpose.
It appeared to be the sincere and unanimous wish of the Convention to cherish and preserve the Union of the States. No proposition was made, no suggestion was thrown out, in favor of a partition of the Empire into two or more Confederacies.
It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of Sovereign States. A voluntary observance of the federal law by all the members could never be hoped for. A compulsive one could evidently never be reduced to practice, and if it could, involved equal calamities to the innocent and guilty, the necessity of a military force, both obnoxious and dangerous, and, in general, a scene resembling much more a civil war than the administration of a regular Government.
Hence was embraced the alternative of a Government which, instead of operating on the States, should operate without their intervention on the individuals composing them; and hence the change in the principle and proportion of representation.
This ground-work being laid, the great objects which presented themselves were: 1. To unite a proper energy in the Executive, and a proper stability in the Legislative departments, with the essential characters of Republican Government. 2. To draw a line of demarkation which would give to the General Government every power requisite for general purposes, and leave to the States every power which might be most beneficially administered by them. 3. To provide for the different interests of different parts of the Union. 4. To adjust the clashing pretensions of the large and small States. Each of these objects was pregnant with difficulties. The whole of them together formed a task more difficult than can be well conceived by those who were not concerned in the execution of it. Adding to these considerations the natural diversity of human opinions on all new and complicated subjects, it is impossible to consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle.
The first of these objects, as respects the Executive, was peculiarly embarrassing. On the question whether it should consist of a single person or a plurality of co-ordinate members, on the mode of appointment, on the duration in office, on the degree of power, on the re-eligibility, tedious and reiterated discussions took place. The plurality of co-ordinate members had finally but few advocates. Governor [of Virginia] Randolph was at the head of them. The modes of appointment proposed were various: as by the people at large, by electors chosen by the people, by the Executives of the States, by the Congress; some preferring a joint ballot of the two Houses; some, a separate concurrent ballot, allowing to each a negative on the other house; some, a nomination of several candidates by one House, out of whom a choice should be made by the other. Several other modifications were started. The expedient at length adopted seemed to give pretty general satisfaction to the members. As to the duration in office, a few would have preferred a tenure during good behaviour; a considerable number would have done so in case an easy and effectual removal by impeachment could be settled.
It was much agitated whether a long term, seven years for example, with a subsequent and perpetual ineligibility, or a short term, with a capacity to be re-elected, should be fixed. In favor of the first opinion were urged the danger of a gradual degeneracy of re-elections from time to time, into first a life and then hereditary tenure, and the favorable effect of an incapacity to be reappointed on the independent exercise of the Executive authority. On the other side it was contended that the prospect of necessary degradation would discourage the most dignified characters from aspiring to the office; would take away the principal motive to the faithful discharge of its duties--the hope of being rewarded with a reappointment; would stimulate ambition to violent efforts for holding over the Constitutional term; and instead of producing an independent administration and a firmer defense of the constitutional rights of the department, would render the officer more indifferent to the importance of a place which he would soon be obliged to quit forever, and more ready to yield to the encroachments of the Legislature, of which he might again be a member.
The questions concerning the degree of power turned chiefly on the appointment to offices, and the controul on the Legislature. An absolute appointment to all offices, to some offices, to no offices, formed the scale of opinions on the first point. On the second, some contended for an absolute negative, as the only possible mean of reducing to practice the theory of a free Government, which forbids a mixture of the Legislative and Executive powers. Others would be content with a revisionary power, to be overruled by three-fourths of both Houses. It was warmly urged that the judiciary department should be associated in the revision. The idea of some was, that a separate revision should be given to the two departments; that if either objected, two-thirds, if both, three-fourths, should be necessary to overrule.
In forming the Senate, the great anchor of the government, the questions, as they come within the first object, turned mostly on the mode of appointment, and the duration of it. The different modes proposed were: 1. By the House of Representatives. 2. By the Executive. 3. By electors chosen by the people for the purpose. 4. By the State Legislatures. On the point of duration, the propositions descended from good behaviour to four years, through the intermediate terms of nine, seven, six, and five years. The election of the other branch was first determined to be triennial, and afterwards reduced to biennial.
The second object, the due partition of power between the General and local Governments, was perhaps, of all, the most nice and difficult. A few contended for an entire abolition of the States; some, for indefinite power of Legislation in the Congress, with a negative on the laws of the States; some, for such a power without a negative; some, for a limited power of legislation, with such a negative; the majority, finally, for a limited power without the negative. The question with regard to the negative underwent repeated discussions, and was finally rejected by a bare majority. As I formerly intimated to you my opinion in favor of this ingredient, I will take this occasion of explaining myself on the subject. Such a check on the States appears to me necessary- 1. To prevent encroachments on the General authority. 2. To prevent instability and injustice in the legislation of the States.
1. Without such a check in the whole over the parts, our system involves the evil of imperia in imperio. If a complete supremacy somewhere is not necessary in every society, a controuling power at least is so, by which the general authority may be defended against encroachments of the subordinate authorities, and by which the latter may be restrained from encroachments on each other. If the supremacy of the British Parliament is not necessary, as has been contended, for the harmony of that Empire, it is evident, I think, that without the royal negative, or some equivalent controul, the unity of the system would be destroyed. The want of some such provision seems to have been mortal to the antient confederacies, and to be the disease of the modern. Of the Lycian confederacy little is known. That of the Amphictyons is well known to have been rendered of little use whilst it lasted, and, in the end, to have been destroyed by the predominance of the local over the federal authority. The same observation may be made, on the authority of Polybius, with regard to the Achaean League. The Helvetic System scarcely amounts to a confederacy, and is distinguished by too many peculiarities to be a ground of comparison.
The case of the United Netherlands is in point. The authority of a Statdholder, the influence of a standing Army, the common interest in the conquered possessions, the pressure of surrounding danger, the guarantee of foreign powers, are not sufficient to secure the authority and interest of the generality against the anti-federal tendency of the provincial sovereignties. The German Empire is another example. A Hereditary chief, with vast independent resources of wealth and power, a federal Diet, with ample parchment authority, a regular Judiciary establishment, the influence of the neighbourhood of great and formidable nations, have been found unable either to maintain the subordination of the members, or to prevent their mutual contests and encroachments. Still more to the purpose is our own experience, both during the war and since the peace. Encroachments of the States on the general authority, sacrifices of national to local interests, interferences of the measures of different States, form a great part of the history of our political system.
It may be said that the new Constitution is founded on different principles, and will have a different operation. I admit the difference to be material. It presents the aspect rather of a feudal system of republics, if such a phrase may be used, than of a Confederacy of independent States. And what has been the progress and event of the feudal Constitutions? In all of them a continual struggle between the head and the inferior members, until a final victory has been gained, in some instances by one, in others, by the other of them. In one respect, indeed, there is a remarkable variance between the two cases. In the feudal system, the sovereign, though limited, was independent; and having no particular sympathy of interests with the great Barons, his ambition had as full play as theirs in the mutual projects of usurpation. In the American Constitution, the general authority will be derived entirely from the subordinate authorities. The Senate will represent the States in their political capacity; the other House will represent the people of the States in their in their individual capacity. The former will be accountable to their constituents at moderate, the latter at short periods. The President also derives his appointment from the States, and is periodically accountable to them. This dependence of the General on the local authorities seems effectually to guard the latter against any dangerous encroachments of the former; whilst the latter, within their respective limits, will be continually sensible of the abridgement of their power, and be stimulated by ambition to resume the surrendered portion of it.
We find the representatives of Counties and Corporations in the Legislatures of the States much more disposed to sacrifice the aggregate interest, and even authority, to the local views of their constituents, than the latter to the former. I mean not by these remarks to insinuate that an esprit de corps will not exist in the National Government, or that opportunities may not occur of extending its jurisdiction in some points. I mean only that the danger of encroachments is much greater from the other side, and that the impossibility of dividing powers of legislation in such a manner as to be free from different constructions by different interests, or even from ambiguity in the judgement of the impartial, requires some such expedient as I contend for. Many illustrations might be given of this impossibility. How long has it taken to fix, and how imperfectly is yet fixed, the legislative power of corporations, though that power is subordinate in the most compleat manner? The line of distinction between the power of regulating trade and that of drawing revenue from it, which was once considered the barrier of our liberties, was found, on fair discussion, to be absolutely undefinable. No distinction seems to be more obvious than that between spiritual and temporal matters. Yet, wherever they have been made objects of Legislation, they have clashed and contended with each other, till one or the other has gained the supremacy. Even the boundaries between the Executive, Legislative, and judiciary powers, though in general so strongly marked in themselves, consist, in many instances, of mere shades of difference.
It may be said that the Judicial authority, under our new system, will keep the States within their proper limits, and supply the place of a negative on their laws. The answer is, that it is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law than to declare it void after it is passed; that this will be particularly the case where the law aggrieves individuals, who may be unable to support an appeal against a State to the Supreme Judiciary; that a State which would violate the Legislative rights of the Union would not be very ready to obey a Judicial decree in support of them; and that a recurrence to force, which, in the event of disobedience, would be necessary, is an evil which the new Constitution meant to exclude as far as possible.
2. A Constitutional negative on the laws of the States seems equally necessary to secure individuals against encroachments on their rights. The mutability of the laws of the States is found to be a serious evil. The injustice of them has been so frequent and so flagrant as to alarm the most stedfast friends of Republicanism. I am persuaded I do not err in saying that the evils issuing from these sources contributed more to that uneasiness which produced the Convention, and prepared the public mind for a general reform, than those which accrued to our national character and interest from the inadequacy of the Confederation to its immediate objects. A reform, therefore, which does not make provision for private rights, must be materially defective. The restraints against paper emissions and violations of contracts are not sufficient. Supposing them to be effectual as far as they go, they are short of the mark. Injustice may be effected by such an infinitude of legislative expedients, that where the disposition exists, it can only be controuled by some provision which reaches all cases whatsoever. The partial provision made supposes the disposition which will evade it.
It may be asked how private rights will be more secure under the Guardianship of the General Government than under the State Governments, since they are both founded on the republican principle which refers the ultimate decision to the will of the majority, and are distinguished rather by the extent within which they will operate, than by any material difference in their structure. A full discussion of this question would, if I mistake not, unfold the true principles of Republican Government, and prove, in contradiction to the concurrent opinions of the theoretical writers, that this form of Government, in order to effect its purposes, must operate not within a small but an extensive sphere. I will state some of the ideas which have occurred to me on this subject.
Those who contend for a simple democracy, or a pure republic, actuated by the sense of the majority, and operating within narrow limits, assume or suppose a case which is altogether fictitious. They found their reasoning on the idea that the people composing the Society enjoy not only an equality of political rights, but that they have all precisely the same interests and the same feelings in every respect. Were this in reality the case, their reasoning would be conclusive. The interest of the majority would be that of the minority also; the decisions could only turn on mere opinion concerning the good of the whole, of which the major voice would be the safest criterion; and within a small sphere, this voice could be most easily collected, and the public affairs most accurately managed.
We know, however, that no society ever did, or can, consist of so homogeneous a mass of Citizens. In the Savage state, indeed, an approach is made towards it, but in that state little or no Government is necessary. In all civilized societies, distinctions are various and unavoidable. A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it. There will be rich and poor; creditors and debtors; a landed interest, a monied interest, a mercantile interest, a manufacturing interest. These classes may again be subdivided according to the different productions of different situations and soils, and according to the different branches of commerce and of manufactures. In addition to these natural distinctions, artificial ones will be founded on accidental differences in political, religious, or other opinions, or an attachment to the persons of leading individuals. However erroneous or ridiculous these grounds of dissention and faction may appear to the enlightened Statesman or the benevolent philosopher, the bulk of mankind, who are neither Statesmen nor philosophers, will continue to view them in a different light.
It remains, then, to be enquired, whether a majority having any common interest, or feeling any common passion, will find sufficient motives to restrain them from oppressing the minority. An individual is never allowed to be a judge, or even a witness, in his own cause. If two individuals are under to bias of interest or enmity against a third, the rights of the latter could never be safely referred to the majority of the three. Will two thousand individuals be less apt to oppress one thousand, or two hundred thousand one hundred thousand?
Three motives only can restrain in such cases: 1. A prudent regard to private or partial good, as essentially involved in the general and permanent good of the whole. This ought, no doubt, to be sufficient of itself. Experience, however, shews that it has little effect on individuals, and perhaps still less on a collection of individuals, and least of all on a majority with the public authority in their hands. If the former are ready to forget that honesty is the best policy, the last do more. They often proceed on the converse of the maxim, that whatever is politic is honest. 2. Respect for character. This motive is not found sufficient to restrain individuals from injustice, and loses its efficacy in proportion to the number which is to divide the pain or the blame. Besides, as it has reference to public opinion, which is that of the majority, the standard is fixed by those whose conduct is to be measured by it. 3. Religion. The inefficacy of this restraint on individuals is well known. The conduct of every popular assembly, acting on oath, the strongest of religious ties, shews that individuals join without remorse in acts against which their consciences would revolt, if proposed to them, separately, in their closets. When, indeed, Religion is kindled into enthusiasm, its force, like that of other passions, is increased by the sympathy of a multitude. But enthusiasm is only a temporary state of Religion, and whilst it lasts will hardly be seen with pleasure at the helm. Even in its coolest state, it has been much oftener a motive to oppression that a restraint from it.
If, then, there must be different interests and parties in society, and a majority, when united by a common interest or passion, cannot be restrained from oppressing the minority, what remedy can be found in a republican Government, where the majority must ultimately decide, but that of giving such an extent to its sphere, that no common interest or passion will be likely to unite a majority of the whole number in an unjust pursuit? In a large society, the people are broken into so many interests and parties, that a common sentiment is less likely to be felt, and the requisite concert less likely to be formed, by a majority of the whole. The same security seems requisite for the civil as for the religious rights of individuals. If the same sect form a majority, and have the power, other sects will be sure to be depressed. Divide et impera, the reprobated axiom of tyranny is, under certain qualifications, the only policy by which a republic can be administered on just principles.
It must be observed, however, that this doctrine can only hold within a sphere of a mean extent. As in too small a sphere oppressive combinations may be too easily formed against the weaker party, so in too extensive a one a defensive concert may be rendered too difficult against the oppression of those entrusted with the administration. The great desideratum in Government is so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the society to control one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controlled itself from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire society. In absolute monarchies, the prince may be tolerably neutral towards different classes of his subjects, but may sacrifice the happiness of all to his personal ambition or avarice. In small republics, the sovereign will is controlled from such a sacrifice of the entire society, but is not sufficiently neutral towards the parts composing it. In the extended Republic of the United States, the General Government would hold a pretty even balance between the parties of particular States, and be at the same time sufficiently restrained, by its dependence on the community, from betraying its general interests.
Begging pardon for this immoderate digression, I return to the third object above mentioned, the adjustments of the different interests of different parts of the continent. Some contended for an unlimited power over trade, including exports as well as imports, and over slave as well as other imports; some, for such a power, provided the concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses were required; some, for such a qualification of the power, with an exemption of exports and slaves; others, for an exemption of exports only. The result is seen in the Constitution. South Carolina and Georgia were inflexible on the point of the Slaves.
The remaining object created more embarrassment, and a greater alarm for the issue of the Convention, than all the rest put together. The little States insisted on retaining their equality in both branches, unless a compleat abolition of the State Governments should take place; and made an equality in the Senate a sine qua non. The large States, on the other hand, urged that as the new Government was to be drawn principally from the people immediately, and was to operate directly on them, not on the States; and, consequently, as the States would lose that importance which is now proportioned to the importance of their voluntary compliance with the requisitions of Congress, it was necessary that the representation in both Houses should be in proportion to their size. It ended in the compromise which you will see, but very much to the dissatisfaction of several members from the large States.
It will not escape you that three names only from Virginia are subscribed to the act. Mr. Wythe did not return after the death of his lady. Doctor McClurg left the Convention some time before the adjournment. The Governor [Randolph] and Col. Mason refused to be parties to it. Mr. Gerry was the only other member who refused. The objections of the Governor turn principally on the latitude of the general powers, and on the connection established between the President and the Senate. He wished that the plan should be proposed to the States, with liberty to them to suggest alterations, which should all be referred to another General Convention, to be incorporated into the plan as far as might be judged expedient. He was not inveterate in his opposition, and grounded his refusal to subscribe pretty much on his unwillingness to commit himself, so as not to be at liberty to be governed by further lights on the subject.
Col. Mason left Philadelphia in an exceeding ill humor indeed. A number of little circumstances, arising in part from the impatience which prevailed towards the close of the business, conspired to whet his acrimony. He returned to Virginia with a fixed disposition to prevent the adoption of the plan, if possible. He considers the want of a Bill of Rights as a fatal objection. His other objections are to the substitution of the Senate in place of an Executive Council, and to the powers vested in that body; to the powers of the Judiciary; to the vice president being made president of the Senate; to the smallness of the number of Representatives; to the restriction on the States with regard to ex post facto laws; and most of all, probably, to the power of regulating trade by a majority only of each House. He has some other lesser objections. Being now under the necessity of justifying his refusal to sign, he will, of course, muster every possible one. His conduct has given great umbrage to the County of Fairfax, and particularly to the Town of Alexandria. He is already instructed to promote in the Assembly the calling a Convention, and will probably be either not deputed to the Convention, or be tied up by express instructions. He did not object in general to the powers vested in the National Government so much as the modification. In some respects he admitted that some further powers would have improved the system. He acknowledged, in particular, that a negative on the State laws and the appointment of the State Executives ought to be ingredients; but supposed that the public mind would not now bear them, and that experience would hereafter produce these amendments.
It was generally agreed that the objects of the Union could not be secured by any system founded on the principle of a confederation of Sovereign States. -- James Madison
Luis, this is very informative and I thank you. I knew all this back and forth way before the War of Northern Aggresion started. I still maintain that it was worth more time when the boil came to a head after Lincoln's election. Too much emotion, too many hot heads ruled the day and half a million men lost their lives. So sad.
Try reading it again, Mama. Madison clearly calls unilateral secession as Calhoun threatened then " violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged" while at the same time supporting the right to revolution, or "seceding from intolerable oppression." The "confounding" part was refering to was Calhoun and the nullification faction from South Carolina. What is interesting is that in 1833, the South Carolina fire-eaters were seen so over the top in their disrespect for Republican government that they did not even have the support of their Deep South neighbors who had common economic and social concerns. It took a full generation of repeting a lie and "confounding" the difference between what the patriots of 1776 and what the Slaveocracy demanded before enough of the public was gulible enough and full of self destructive macho sectionalism to think they were actually walking in the steps of the founders when instead they trampled into the mud the very thing the founders fought for.
Of all the men Andy Jackson killed or threatened to, one can only wish he had followed through on his threat to hang John C. Calhoun from the nearest tree. That may have been the only single act that could have prevented the Civil War.
Do you know where I can find a copy of the Daniel Webster speech of which Madison spoke?
See the Hayne-Webster Debate
Boy do I. If it ain't a hurricane right in our back yard, it's a new grandbaby. I've been in Dallas more in the last few months than home. Shoot! I thought there for a minute I might have to change my voter registration to Kaufman County! LOL.......but it's nice to hear from you. *~*
Lincoln's election was merely the culmination of a secession drive that began 30 years earlier in Charleston by John C. Calhoun. In fact, the "hot heads" actually engineered the election of a "Black Republican", by intentionally splitting the Democrat party along sectional lines with outrageous demands for various pro-slavery planks at the Charleston convention of 1860.
The "hot heads knew damn well that neither "sectional" Democrat could win enough electoral votes and the election would go by default to a "Black Republican" regardless of who they ran and that on its own would allow them to panic the Deep South to secession. From that point, it was a matter of starting a shooting war to get the Upper South to join them.
The war was not something that was stumbled into. It was a long time coming. It is that neither side could comprehend how bad it it be. But the fact is the people most pleased with Lincoln's election in 1860 were the Southern fire-eaters who had worked for secession for the last 30 years. They finally had the straw man they needed to scare enough of their fellow citizens into committing an insane act.
As I have said before, the Democrat party has a 150 year history of very skillfully playing the race card. In 1860, they dealt form one side of the deck. Today they deal from the other. But the theme is always the same. Divide and frighten people along race lines.
Where in my post did I mention unilateral divorce?
I didn't say they could. I said They had a right to ignore illegitimate actions of the federal government
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Can you list the intolerable abuses the south faced in the months following Lincoln's election that gave them the moral Right to Revolution?
It wasn't a revolution. A revolution is an attempt to overthrow a government. The Southern states were just trying to leave.
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None of the Confederate documents from that era ever enumerated those abuses as Jefferson did 4 score and 5 years earlier.
Yes they did. I posted it already in #179.
I have to agree Ditto, but my sympathies still lie with the South...(big suprise there, eh?). Thanks!
Which it did.
But being separate from the body of the Constitution, it carrys NO legal weight.
It is merely a notice of intent.
While the word secession is not mentioned specifically in this instance, Mr. Madison's notes from June 18, 1787 contain a synopsis of a lengthy speech from Mr. Hamilton regarding the states' sovereignty and about his concerns that the states will be powerful enough to dissolve the union, but not the other way around, etc. So the idea of states backing out or dissolving the union was certainly a concern of his, and he made his concerns known. I believe he also touched on similar issues in one of the Federalist papers.
On a side note, at the end of his speech, Mr. Hamilton provides a list of recommendations for items to be included in the Constitution; some of which made it in in some form and some of which didn't. The most interesting to me (one which did not make it in) is a suggestion that the "General Government" appoint the Governor of each State, as part of an effort to assure that no laws would be passed in the states which were contrary to the constitution. THAT would be an interesting one to have practiced today.
I'm still looking for others.
No where in the Constitution is a separate military branch called an Air Force mentioned. The Constitution allows for the funding of an army and a navy, but because an Air Force is not mentioned therefore Congress has no authority to fund it. The air force is an illegal organization. Right?
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