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 older I get, though, and the more I look into the history of the country, the clearer it is to me that what the rebels did necessarily produced a war. They assumed that they were wholly in command and could lay down an ultimatum to the government which no legitimate government could accept and retain its authority.
Imagine California or Texas, Florida or New England "seceding" today based on spotty or dubious election results, seizing federal property, suppressing loyal citizens, repudiating debts, getting an army together, subverting neighboring state governments, and forming an alliance or new nation against the rest of the country. Can anyone believe that there wouldn't be war?
Where Alexander and others go wrong is in assuming that ordinary political conditions prevailed with secessionists petitioning Congress with their request, rather than seizing the initiative and presenting their demands to the country. They neglect the mania which prevailed in South Carolina and the other rebel areas and the panic that this produced in Northerners.
Unilateral secession wasn't generally accepted as constitutional in 1860, and it's not a very good idea. It encourages people to think that the answer to all their problems is to break away from the larger nation. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Elections may be disputed, as is the fate of those who want to remain with the rest of the country when their neighbors want to leave. Unilateral secession isn't a workable idea, not that that stops some people who are looking for a cure-all or magic bullet that will resolve all the problems in government.
Maybe the secessionists didn't know what they were doing. We don't have that excuse now. We can see exactly how things developed. And maybe not all of the rebels were primarily concerned with the defense or expansion of slavery. But some were very much preoccupied with that, enough to give their rebellion a bad taste for us now. Whether people want to apply some stigma to the cause as a whole is up to them, and it's not the most useful argument to have. For today's Americans, secession is and was a bad idea.
"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."
So where does it say "except for the Preamble"?
Whiskey Papa, is that you?
Careful, one reading of what you just said amounts to, "We won, you lost, now sit down and shut up!"
I thought it was a great article, and even posted it here.
Wrong. Article V states, 'no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.'
The federal goverment can't evict a state, but a state may - provided it chooses to do so, remove it's members from the Senate and secede.
I've already answered that question by explaining the system of laws that create our *Republic* on this thread.
I will not do so again.
Good for them!
It's about time somebody told the truth about the biggest tyrant in US History....
Please point to a law pursuant to a delegated power to prevent secession. Please point to a clause in the federal Constitution prohibiting secession.
Mama, it's cool to play Constitutional Lawyer on the internet, but as a FRiend, I'd advise that you never try this in a courtroom.
Human beings are natural persons, and are subject to natural law. You can't murder, lie, cheat, steal or conspire to do so. This was also called common law.
Natural Law is a philosophy that among other things says that humans are born with certain rights (from nature or God as you chose to believe) and give every individual as Jefferson said the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Common law is a body of precedent that began in England under Henry II in the 12th Century, (only after he had Beckett murdered for insisting on Natural Law as defined by Rome) that "harmonized" English law to give some predictability, be it equitable or not, of outcome between various jurisdiction within the realm. It was not based on written laws but on decision by Judges and juries. Once decided, rightly or wrongly, other judgments were obliged to apply the "law" consistently. It was only intended to provide predictability.
Common Law also could only provide remedies for acts -- (your cow ate my corn) --- not injunctions (keep your cow out of my corn field.) Common law was based on judgment, not statute and not philosophy. Once a judgment was made in one jurisdiction, it was obliged to be respected in other jurisdictions. It was all about establishing precedence. But over the centuries, common law became the basis for settling on damages or punishment for offenses and all in all, it was an acceptable standard.
The United States inherited the common law tradition from England, as did Canada (except Quebec) and many other former British colonies, and while it has been largely replaced by statute over the centuries, it is still active in 49 of the 50 states. Louisiana does not and never has relied on Common Law. State Courts in Louisiana are still based on European/Napoleonic Law, not Common Law.
The Judicial power of the Constitution was intended as a court for the federal enclave and a mediator between the states. It never was intended to make *law* for the People, only for the States within enumerated areas)
IF that's the case, you must then totally condemn the Texan Secession Convention for insisting that the Federal Government do a better job of punishing those citizens who were smuggling their property out of slave states to free states and absolutely abhor the fact that Federal Marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act were empowered to enter any state, in fact any property in any state, and compel under Federal law, any private citizen of that state to assist them in capturing, detaining and returning those escaped slaves, even if those slaves were no where with hundreds of miles of any Federal "enclave."
You could also condemn George Washington for compelling citizen farmers on private land to pay excise on their distilled spirits being sold to other citizens far from any Federal enclave.
Take you pick. Was the FSA which was demanded by the Slave States unconstitutional, or do you admit that the Federal Government had the power to enforce laws, Constitutionally enacted, directly on the People and well outside any Federal enclave?
The federal government was created by statutory (state..get it?) law
The root of the word statutory is in the Latin --- it means "erected or built" as in Statue not State. (get it?).
Madison clearly stated that the Constitution was created by the people as embodied by the States. To say that the Constitution could not act on the people is to among other things make the Bill of Rights absolutely meaningless outside Federal enclaves.
Another point. Your contention that there were no citizens of the "United States" but only citizens of "States" at their discretion. If the Federal government had no decision on who or who could not be a citizen, where did the Taney Supreme Court find the power to declare that members of the African race could not be citizens of any state regardless of the desires of that state?
As to the Alien and Sedition Acts, they were clearly unconstitutional, (slam dunk) but nothing Madison said in the Virginia report, (or even Jefferson who was far more radical in the Kentucky Resolution) can on fair reading give comfort to those who think unilateral secession is somehow Constitutional.
Yours is one of the many disingenuous arguments made by the neo-Confederates.
Secession was not the only thing that those eleven States did, TWO things happened, they seceded AND formed a Confederacy.
Article I, Section 10 US ConstitutionNo State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation;
The Article I, Section 10 response is a red herring. 6 states seceeded prior to the Montgomery Convention on 4 Feb, 1861. These states were independent entities, verification can be found in state documents debating the course of events leading up to each state's decision. They were free to join the CSA or remain independent - reading some of the transcripts from state politics at that time can be revealing.
If one was to use the Articles of Confederation in the context of Lincoln and secession, it would not be applicable to Confederate states such as Florida and Alabama, since they had no delegates to sign the AofC. Both states ratified the Constitution which was in effect when they entered the United States of America.
Excellent point. We can use other sources as reference, but we should explictly read the Constitution and not make inferences to suit our desires.
I did find that thread - thanks for posting. I suspect many folks did not bother to read the actual article, but went straight to posting whatever suits their agenda on this thread.
About time you got here, TC1861. We got folks citing the Articles of Confederation instead of Constitution and pictures of ol' Eddie Ruffin, we're just getting started!
No you've tossed out a lot of your opinion masquerading as fact. Can you point to a constitutional scholar who says that the Preamble cannot be used to determine the constitutionality of an issue?
Sure. If you can point to a clause that prohibits a state from being expelled from the Union against its will.
Both state did nothing of the sort. The Constitution was in effect long before Florida and Alabama were created, they agreed to abide by it which is a long way from saying that they "ratified" it. And they didn't "enter" anything. They were admitted. They were allowed to join only with the permission of the other states. They were, in effect, created by the other states through a vote in Congress.
When did this become a discussion on Jefferson Davis?
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