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...
get the message, it's about the FACTS.
free dixie,sw
wlat, #3fan,cvn76 & a host of other DY ex-FReepers are over on DU, spewing out their usual anti-dixie garbage.
free dixie,sw
Please wipe the spittle from your face, or else have the men in the white coats to bring your meds. Unless you're just pretending to be dense, it was yankees that sailed the ocean blue to capture slaves, and yankees that had the antebellum version of 'QVC and the Slave Shopping Network.'
Maybe you're just trying to convince people that you're uneducated, bigoted, opinionated, obnoxious, bellicose, and quite possibly - liberal.
You could argue your case much better if you could post facts instead of your unsubstantiated beliefs. You can easily argue your position with documented facts, and if that were the case I would be most respectful of your opinion (even if I disagree with it), and would be prone to at least give some weight to your arguments, but as it is, you're simply yet another poster here that pretends to be conservative, yet is evidence of exactly what the Southern states were trying to escape - someone that wanted their money, told them how to live, and wanted to controul their lives. I'm a Christian, with one Lord and Master, as were my ancestors, and I'm not about to submit to some fool that attempts to take God's place.
try doing some research from primary sources & learn the UNcomfortable truth about lincoln & his coven of cruel thugs, thieves & DY HATERS.
free dixie,sw
I've heard he's pretty much tied up.
In other words, since secession is not mentioned in either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, it is your position that it was therefore not a right in 1860.
That dovetails perfectly into the Authoritarian Maxim -- WHATEVER IS NOT EXPLICITLY PERMITTED IS FORBIDDEN.
The now totally ignored Tenth Amendment, however, specifically states:
"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."
It is undeniable that it was far better for the World that the United States of America stayed united in the 19th Century.
However, it would also have been far better if the issue had been decided through the rule of law in accordance to what the Constitution actually says than through the deaths of 620,000 Americans..........A total that, in comparison to populations, would today be the equivalent of approximately 5.8 million American deaths.
Now here is a future hypothetical question that IMHO recreates the mindset of the South in 1860:
Let us say that the Constitution of the European Union is ratified by all present members and that the E.U. Constitution is silent about the issue of secession. Let us say that, in 20 years, Britain is dissatisfied with the European Union and desires to revert to its prior status as a sovereign nation but Germany and France are dead set against that.
Does Britain have a right to secede from the European Union?
Do France and Germany have the right to keep Britain in the European Union by force of arms?
CF 1957
Does Britain have a right to secede from the European Union?
Do France and Germany have the right to keep Britain in the European Union by force of arms?
At present a member state can leave simply by repealing its assent to the EU treaty, according to its own governmental procedures. Greenland opted out when it was still under Danish rule.
Under article I-60 of the proposed constitution a state can announce its intention to withdraw according to its own constitutional procedures. Once the state announces its intention to withdraw, the Union and the state are to negotiate the terms of the withdrawal and set out the future terms of relationship between the EU and the exiting state. If the negotiations are unsuccessful, after two years, the state becomes independent anyway.
You can see first of all, that the EU constitution would explictly allow for the possibility of withdrawal. It also requires that the Union and the state try to work out the terms of withdrawal. It doesn't allow the state simply to say that it is leaving on its own terms. It provides a mechanism for resolving conflicts through negotiation and allows a state to leave anyway if negotiations fail.
All in all it seems like a sensible set of provisions, designed to lessen conflicts. If the EU had built bases or dams in one country or had gold reserves stored there, it wouldn't be fair for a state to simply claim those as its own without the Union at least making its case heard. It wouldn't be wise for a country to unilaterally cancel its debts to the Union or to join a rival alliance before the EU had had its say in the matter.
The US Constitution of 1787 is different. It has never explicitly allowed for unilateral secession, and now it explicitly bans it.
Well if the situations are so similar then I'm sure that you can post the relevant sections of the European constitution and show how they relate to the U.S. Constitution. And while you're at it please point out which southern state enjoyed the same level of autonomy in terms of managing their internal and their external affairs as any one of the European countries do. Once we've laid the groundwork then no doubt we can debate your point.
is it your contention that those BRAVE & HONORABLE Black men were too STUPID to know what they were fighting FOR?
free dixie,sw
Further, I have sucessful used one of your favorite sources to defend my position: "A More Perfect Union" by Gary Wood from the Claremont Institute.
You can top me on a recipe thread (grin), but I think you got outgunned by folks around here, including Non, Ditto, and X.
Where?
free dixie,sw
Once again, I refer to The Jubilee of the Constitution: A Discourse by JQ Adams. He discusses secession, state sovereignty, and natural rights.
If secession is only about slavery, how do you explain these:
Earlier in the thread, we touched on Rhode Island's secession from the Union after the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution. Providence threatened to seceed from Rhode Island, which was technically independent at that time and become it's own state.
`Democracy run rampant' Rhode Island's obstreperosity
This article appeared in the Providence Journal Bulletin on Sunday, February 14, 1999
HISTORIANS call Rhode Island "first in war, last in peace." We declared our independence from England two months before any of the other original colonies. The rest waited until they signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, but Rhode Island had already declared its independence on May 4, 1776. The British custom sloop "Liberty" was scuttled near Newport in 1769, and Providence had its own "Tea Party" in 1775.
The Providence Town Meeting became the first governmental assemblage to issue a call for a general Congress of Colonies to resist British policy. Rhode Island's General Assembly ratified the Declaration of Independence in two weeks. Not bad when communication was by horseback or sailboat. "The first blood was shed" in the Revolutionary War in Rhode Island on June 9, 1772, when John Brown and Capt. Abraham Whipple recruited eight longboats of men, and rowed down Narragansett Bay from Providence at night to His Majesty's Ship Gaspee, which was aground in Warwick, shot its captain, Lieutenant Dudington, and burned the ship to the water.
That was three years before Lexington and Concord. When those skirmishes occurred in 1775, the Rhode Island General Assembly within days raised an army of 1,500 troops to defend the colony. The "best way to protect Rhode Island's charter rights was to fight for them." One thousand Rhode Island troops went to Massachusetts in May 1775 "to join the patriot army" in the siege of Boston. Rhode Island was a leader in the American Revolutionary Movement. It had the greatest degree of self-rule, created by Roger Williams and the Charter of 1663, so it had the most to lose from England's increasing its supervision and control of the American colonies.
Rhode Island opposed the Sugar Act of 1764 because it restricted the molasses trade from which Rhode Island made vast sums of money in the ugly Triangular Trade -- i.e., rum for slaves in Africa, for molasses and sugar in the Caribbean Islands, to make rum again in Rhode Island. Esek Hopkins, of Providence, attacked Fort Mason, in the Bahamas, and got powder for General Washington's army. Returning to Newport, he fought the British gunboat Glasgow off Point Judith on April 6, 1776.
In July 1777, Major William Barton, stationed in Tiverton, took a few men and captured Gen. Richard Prescott, commander of the British forces in Newport, while he was "spending the night" visiting in Middletown. Prescott said, "I did not think it possible." Major Silas Talbot captured the British Brig Pigot, which was blockading Narragansett Bay. The Pigot had 20 guns to Talbot's two. "The British captain was so humiliated he wept openly."
The Battle of Rhode Island, on Aug. 29, 1778, in Portsmouth, saw the First Rhode Island Battalion -- the Black Regiment -- made up largely of freed slaves, drive the British back until they retreated into Newport.
The Articles of Confederation were placed before the states in November 1776 for ratification, and Rhode Island gave the Articles its unanimous consent in February 1778. But after formally ratifying the Articles in Philadelphia, Rhode Island thereafter resisted federal union on everything; rejecting the Continental Impost of 1781, which was supposed to pay for the war; refusing to ratify the federal Constitution of 1787; and becoming the only state to boycott the Philadelphia Convention held to adopt the Constitution. Three times the state's General Assembly refused to send delegates, and Rhode Island's governor's excuse was that the state could not send delegates without having a referendum.
The Federalists said "nonsense," and pointed out that Rhode Island had dispatched delegates to the Continental Congress, ratified the Declaration of Independence and accepted the Articles of Confederation, all without a popular referendum. On Sept. 17, 1787, the federal Constitutional Convention submitted the Constitution to the states for ratification by popularly elected conventions. In February 1788, the Rhode Island General Assembly specifically rejected calling a ratifying convention. Over the course of the next 23 months, 11 more such efforts would be spurned. When a popular referendum was finally held, only 243 votes supported the federal Constitution, and 2,711 voted against it. Providence and Newport boycotted the referendum. Only Bristol and Little Compton voted for the federal Constitution. Glocester, Coventry, Foster and Scituate all voted overwhelmingly against it.
When New Hampshire approved the federal Constitution, many anti-Federalists in Providence formed a mob to prevent a July 4, 1788, celebration of the progress of ratification. In the early summer of 1788, Virginia and New York approved the Constitution. In March 1789, the Rhode Island General Assembly for the fifth time rejected a motion to call a ratifying convention. Likewise in May, June and October.
North Carolina, the only other state that hadn't ratified, finally capitulated, and left Rhode Island alone, and, in effect, an independent republic.
In 1790, when support for the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, grew, opposition to the federal Constitution in Rhode Island started to decline. Gov. John Collins broke a tie vote in the state Senate, and voted for a ratification convention to meet in South Kingstown in March 1790. Governor Collins was not renominated. On March 6, the convention adjourned until May. When the convention reconvened in May, a motion to consider ratification squeaked by on a vote of 34 to 32. The margin of acceptance was narrower than that of any other state.
A formal bill ratifying the Constitution was then approved by the convention, along with approval of 11 out of 12 of the amendments to the Constitution proposed by the federal Congress, and two senators and one representative elected by the General Assembly to the Congress. Rhode Island was finally a full participant in the new federal Union.
Why was Rhode Island so slow to ratify the Constitution?
First, politics in the state was under the control of the agrarian, rural communities, headed by the Country Party, which was a strong supporter of a paper-money program that had been very successful in relieving the farmers of debts on their land, and the proposed federal Constitution forbade states to make anything but gold or silver coin as payment of debts.
Second, Rhode Island also had a strong tradition of separatism, democracy and liberty, both civil and religious. Those principles were not threatened by the Articles of Confederation, to which Rhode Island readily assented. Under the Articles, the state General Assembly controlled delegates to Congress. The executive was weak, and the legislature supreme. This was what was called "democratic localism," and Rhode Island did not want to give it up.
Third, another formidable factor contributing to the state's anti-Federalism was the strong hostility toward slavery -- a hostility that pervaded the state. Only five weeks after the adjournment of the federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed an act prohibiting any Rhode Island citizen from engaging in the slave trade. When Moses Brown, a leader in the anti-slave contingent, embraced the Federalist cause in 1790, the Rhode Island Ratifying Convention in South Kingstown proposed an amendment to the federal Constitution to ban the slave trade immediately. Rhode Island was the only state to suggest such an amendment to the federal Constitution -- this 70 years ahead of the Civil War.
Rhode Island's hostility toward the Union was made worse by the Union's hostility toward Rhode Island. Congress tried to unseat Rhode Island's delegate for his strenuous opposition to the impost tax. The state was called the "quintessence of villainy" for its opposition to paper money, and an example of "democracy run rampant." The chief justice of New York, described Rhode Island as a "downright democracy" where governmental officials were "entirely controlled by the populace."
President George Washington made a tour of New England after the Revolutionary War, but snubbed Rhode Island, and did not stop there. Providence threatened to secede from the state unless Rhode Island joined the Union. The federal government sent notice that it would start to charge duties and tariffs on Rhode Island goods moving across state lines, and would treat Rhode Island as a foreign nation. Congress prohibited all commercial intercourse between the United States and Rhode Island effective July 1, 1790, and demanded immediate payment of $25,000 on the state's war debt.
Noncompliance was going to be a sufficient pretext for a resort by military force by the United States. These actions by the federal government against Rhode Island were "meant to be used in the same way that a robber does a dagger, or a highwayman a pistol, to obtain the end desired by putting the other party in fear." Rhode Island finally ratified the Constitution -- the last state to do so -- and the Bill of Rights made good on Roger Wiliams's principles of religious liberty and separation of church and state.
After 1790, Rhode Island entered a new era. While the country became obsessed with settling the West, the state tried to sustain its maritime trade and at the same time rapidly entered the age of textile industrialization with the Slater Mill in Pawtucket. So if you are feeling negative about the port at Quonset, or about Providence Place, or the airport terminal, just remember where those feelings started.
Bruce Sundlun, a monthly contributor and lawyer and businessman, teaches at the University of Rhode Island. He was governor of Rhode Island in 1991-95.
That put a shiver down my back. I was just thinking if the WBTS was set in 2006, how many folks would go back and side with their home state. Would be an interesting discussion, even though "what-if" threads quickly deteriorate.
While I disagree with many on this thread, I do believe they present their case in a more researched, well-versed fashion.
Louis, below are some links that might help you, provided you read them. The United States (including Northern States) practiced slavery for years. To condemn the Southern States for doing the same thing is disingenious.
Consider the following:
"Historians are stunned by some of the evidence," said Cheryl LaRoche, a historical archaeologist at the University of Maryland. "The popular notion is that slavery in the North consisted of two or three household servants, but there is growing evidence that there were slaveholding plantations," she said. "It's hard to believe that such a significant and pervasive part of the past could be so completely erased from our history."Slaveowners in the North
Which ideals were rejected? Please enumerate them so we can understand your position. Was it freedom, independence? Most of the Southerner politicians felt they were upholding those ideals. You should be able to find documentation to support this very easily.
proceeded to violate its charter every time they rejected the will of the people via the Constitutional process
What does this mean? Violate the charter of the Constitution? How did they reject the will of the people and which process are you referring to?
they couldn't care less about what the Constitution
Who couldn't care less about the Constitution? Southern states representatives? If so, that's not accurate - they chose to uphold the Constitution. Many of the period speeches support this. Any google search (I know you are familiar with this) should provide adequate sources.
Then they have the unmitigated gall to accuse Lincoln of violating a Constitution they violated routinely
Lincoln's violations of the Constitution are one debate, your accusation of the Southern states' violations are another. Which violations did the Southern states make?
proven that they rejected the Constitutional process altogether.
Actually, they followed the same process to create the constitution using conventions and delegates of the people. They also used the original U.S. Constitution as a framework. Read the CSA Constitution, you'll find both are very similar, in fact the CSA version bans the imporatation of slaves.
they argued that they were defending the rights of a State to be sovereign, and the right of the people of a State to throw off a government they considered oppresive , then immediately upon secession, went about the business of setting up a government
So you admit secession is a right! Excellent. Maybe you are reading some of the posts around here.
In future posts, you might choose to be more specific. Most of this post is generalities and doesn't help to move the debate forward.
It also protected slave imports, prevented the confederate congress from passing any law interfering in slavery, prevented states and future territories from outlawing slavery, and made included the gist of the fugitive slave laws. Somehow y'all manage to forget how the two Constitutions differed in that area. One was far more explicit in protecting the institution than the other.
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