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 southern secession was about slavery, unless you seriously expect us to believe that their goal was to carve off New Jersey.
Intersting that in the face of all the southern hostility the Northern states hadn't resorted to expelling the Southern states from the Union. Must have had thicker skin than the rebels I guess.
With their massive exports, such a tax would amount to a loss of almost half their revenue.
Are you sure it wasn't 3/4ths of their revenue? Or maybe 7/8ths? After all if you're going to toss figures out there why not make them big ones?
Secession is NOT prohibited. A liberal believes in a LIVING Constitution, a document says whatever they want. Until you can cite a clause that specifically prohibits secession, you have no case.
And yet you claim that the Constitution forbids a state from being ejected against it's will. Funny, I never pegged you for a liberal.
Show me where the Constitution of 1787 bans secession.
While you are at it, we can watch pigs fly too! :)
LOL! I've posted the constitutional clause that prevents a state from being denied representation in the Senate. In your tortured reasoning it is a LIVING Constitution where what's written doesn't mean squat.
You wrote in 417, And I will repeat, since you seem to be a little slow today, if the other states, acting in the capacity as sovereign entities, boot another state out of the Union then that body of land is no longer a state. No longer bound by the Constitution. No longer protected by it. It has no right to representation, so the other states are depriving it of nothing.
You and 12 others have an agreement that YOU may not be denied a seat at that table, unless YOU decide not to show up. But in the liberal world of Non-Sequitur, if the other 12 lock the door, and hold you at bay with guns, you have not been denied a seat. In my world, the 12 have violated the agreement, but you claim they have abided by their agreement.
Yet if you leave voluntarily, tell them you're leaving and not coming back, the others track you down at gunpoint, slaughter your familily, burn your home, destroy your crops, steal all your possessions, and drag you back to the table, that's perfectly ok?
Your words proves who's slow and liberal, a believer in a 'living' Constitution, and it's not me.
For the zillionth time, Davis was ELECTED provisional President by a vote of the delegates. He was later ELECTED President by the people of the Confederate States of America. Many incumbents are re-elected unopposed. Regarding the legiimatecy of such, can you post a LAW that prevents running unopposed?
Wrong. 'Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.'
... prevented the confederate congress from passing any law interfering in slavery...
Wrong. The Confederate Congress was also required to pass laws prohibiting the importation of African slaves, as well as akkowing Congress to prohibit the importation of any other slaves (see above).
... prevented states and future territories from outlawing slavery ...
Wrong. It prohibited territories from prohibiting slavery, as such were common property. States could outlaw slavery at will.
... and made included the gist of the fugitive slave laws.
Because most northern states violated that agreement.
Somehow y'all manage to forget how the two Constitutions differed in that area.
Both allowed slavery, Both could end slavery by state, or via amendment. The Confederate version simply removed any chances at having a living Constitution regrading slavery, and was far superior in other areas.
It's not surprising that you blew right by this part, "The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same." So why include such a clause at all if not to specifically protect slave imports? Why not say that slave imports were forbidden, period. Why the need to waffle on the subject?
Wrong. The Confederate Congress was also required to pass laws prohibiting the importation of African slaves, as well as akkowing Congress to prohibit the importation of any other slaves.
Then there is this clause. "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed." Which brings an interesting question. You have to conflicting clauses in the confederate constitution. On the one hand you have article 1, section 9, clauses 1 and 2 saying that congress can pass laws limiting slave imports and then you have clause 4 saying that no laws imparing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed. Couldn't any law limiting slave imports be seen as a law imparing the right of property in slaves? It would make an interesting question for the confederate supreme court, had such an institution ever existed.
Wrong. It prohibited territories from prohibiting slavery, as such were common property. States could outlaw slavery at will.
No it could not. This clause, "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired," would certainly have prevented any repeats of Dred Scott-type court decisions. If Mississippi (*snicker*) had outlawed slavery, for example, a resident of Arkansas could 'sojourn' there until the cows came home and still keep his chattel. It left a loophole big enough for Sherman to march his army through. Sojourn is defined as temporary but there is no legal definition of that term. A person could sojourn in Mississippi forever and keep his property intact. When Illinois amended it's constitution in 1848 to read "...there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the state, except as punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" it prevented anyone from "sojourning...with their slaves" and would have been overturned in the confederacy. Had there been a supreme court to rule on it, of course.
Because most northern states violated that agreement.
And the southern leadership was making damned sure that didn't happen again, right?
Both allowed slavery, Both could end slavery by state, or via amendment. The Confederate version simply removed any chances at having a living Constitution regrading slavery, and was far superior in other areas.
But could it? Perhaps if your confederate constitution was a living, breathing document, the kind which you claim to despise. Consider this clause in article 5 section 1: "Upon the demand of any three States, legally assembled in their several conventions, the Congress shall summon a convention of all the States, to take into consideration such amendments to the Constitution..." If the confederate congress passed legislation to summon the states to consider an amendment to end slavery then wouldn't such legislation violate article 1 section 9 clause 4 because it would most certainly result in impairing the right of property in negro slavery? Again, an interesting supreme court question if not for the fact that there was no supreme court. So I guess the answer to these questions would be that they were all constitutional or unconstitutional depending on whatever the president at the time thought. Right? And that's your idea of superior?
No I can't. Lots of leaders ran unopposed. Castro, Kim Il Sung, Saddam Hussain. All legitimate leaders, right?
Ah now who is the living, breathing Constitution proponent here? Some one who takes a clause relating to amending the constitution and somehow sees it as preventing unilateral expulsion? Some one who takes a clause that says that a state cannot be denied equal sufferage in the senate and somehow sees it as reading denied any sufferage? Breath in...breath out. You're quite imaginative.
When Luis posts the clause in Article I, Section 10 forbidding states from entering into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation you pooh-pooh him by stating that the states had unilaterally seceded and were no longer bound by any Constitutional restrictions. Well, if a state is unilaterally expelled then it is no longer entitled to any Constitutional protections, like representation in congress or anything else. So once again please point out where the Constitution prevents that?
You and 12 others have an agreement that YOU may not be denied a seat at that table, unless YOU decide not to show up. But in the liberal world of Non-Sequitur, if the other 12 lock the door, and hold you at bay with guns, you have not been denied a seat. In my world, the 12 have violated the agreement, but you claim they have abided by their agreement.
And quite an imaginative world it is that you live in. In your world while the 12 are at the table you can walk out, nail the door shut, steal the furniture, and fire a few shots at them. In your world unilateral action is OK when it preserves what your imagination identifies as your rights and is absolutely wrong if it might be something that you don't like. It would be OK for Virginia to unilaterally secede and cut off Maryland from access to the sea, or for Georgia to secede and refuse to abide by anti-slavery treaties, of for Mississippi to secede and abdicate any responsibility for the national debt. But somehow it would not be OK for the other states to expel South Carolina. And while the Constitution is silent on both issues, somehow you find one to be a protected right and not the other. The Constitution apparently means whatever you want it to, and that's as living and breathing as they come.
Your words proves who's slow and liberal, a believer in a 'living' Constitution, and it's not me.
Well I certainly wouldn't expect you to admit it.
Slavery was an affront to the Declaration.
Now you go on and excuse off slavery.
"They (Founders) rested upon the assumption of the equality of the races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of government built upon it." -- Alexander Stephens
"There is not a word of truth in it (Declaration of Independence). All men are not created. According to the Bible, only two, a man and a woman, ever were, and of these, one was pronounced subordinate to the other." -- John C. Calhoun
"It is a great and dangerous error to suppose that all people are equally entitled to liberty." -- John C. Calhoun
From the Confederate Constitution:
"If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy? This is the great, grave issue. It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule -- it is a question of political and social existence." -- Alfred P. Aldrich, South Carolina legislator
"I want Cuba . . . I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican States; and I want them all for the same reason -- for the planting and spreading of slavery." -- Albert Gallatin Brown, U.S. Senator from Mississippi.
"Democratic liberty exists solely because we have slaves . . . freedom is not possible without slavery." -- Richmond Enquirer, 1856
"The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South . . . This war is the servant of slavery." -- Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, preaching at Yorkville, South Carolina
The threats of secession over tariffs Constitutionally enacted by Congress violated the agreement signed by all States to live under the Constitution. To threaten to secede in rejection to a tariff enacted Constitutionally, constituted a rejection of the Constitutional form of government agreed upon by all States.
The will of the people was represented by the actions of their elected representatives in Congress, and it was Congress that enacted the tariff of abominations that Calhoun objected to, and that led to Carolina's threat to secede from the Union.
So, there again, the States rejected the Constitution they had agreed to govern under.
"Who couldn't care less about the Constitution? Southern states representatives? If so, that's not accurate - they chose to uphold the Constitution."
False.
Abraham Lincoln was Constitutionally elected...they did not defend his election, they secede over his election. Defending the Constitution meant defending a Constitutional election.
The South insisted on the imposition of the Gag Rule, a clear violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution by negating the citizens the right to petition the government. They threatened secession if discussions on slavery were not tabled without consideration. The actions of Congress, reached as an agreement to end the threatened secession, was a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution, and it was supported by the same States who later claimed that their secession was in actuality a defense of the Constitution.
The threat of secession in 1850, led by the Fire eaters, and fueled by the expansion westward and California's ban on slavery once again pitted the diminishing support for slavery in Congress against the growing abolitionist majority, a compromised was reached in order to stop the threatened secession of the minority...once again, a violation of the will of the majority of the people, as represented by the Constitutionally elected members of Congress, by the minority pro-slavery factions.
In supporting the Fugitive Slave Law, the slave holding States violated their own idea of State sovereignty by demanding that States that abolished slavery be subjected to the will of States who supported slavery via use of Federal force and acts of Congress...these are the very same States that supported Calhoun's idea of the right of a state to nullify laws which went against its interests.
The denied the Northern States the ability to nullify laws which went against their OWN interests, and indeed used Congress in a manner that they themselves had rejected, and threatened secession over.
Let's end this.
The hypocrisy of the South was beyond belief.
They rejected the Constitutional process when it went against their interest, and demanded that other States accept laws enacted Constitutionally even if it went against the interests of those States.
Claimed that they were in favor of upholding the Constitution, and seceded in protest of the outcome of a Constitutional election.
They created crisis after crisis over slavery, ultimately leading to secession and claimed that slavery was not the issue.
There may have been other issues, the most glaring of which being the South's rejection of Constitutional rule, but the defense of slavery was in and of itself such a heinous offense to human decency, such a vile rejection of the God-given natural rights of man, and such an affront to the principles that this Nation was founded on, that it makes every other argument defending the South worthless, and those who defend the right of the South to secede in order to continue and expand their "peculiar institution" little more than apologists for the idea that one man can buy and sell another man as property.
Vile notion, and no amount of double talk, no coat of paint, and no number of rose colored glasses will ever overcome the evil that the South slaveholders stood for.
free dixie,sw
you don't have the guts to answer my question in #490, directly, do you????
free dixie,sw
Under article I-60 of the proposed constitution a state can announce its intention to withdraw. Once the state announces its intention to withdraw, the Union and the state are to negotiate the terms of the withdrawal ………………X
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……………Non-Sequitur
I was just thinking if the WBTS was set in 2006, how many folks would go back and side with their home state……………….stainlessbanner
In my hypothetical, I never said that the situations were identical or set up the situation with regards to what the proposed EU Constitution actually says. I specifically set up the hypothetical by stating “ Let us say that the Constitution of the European Union...........is silent about the issue of secession.”
Such was the case with the U.S. Constitution in 1860.
The Europeans of the 21st Century, heeding the words of the historian Polybius that I quote on my profile page, have learned from catastrophic error of omission made by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution in the 18th Century………….namely, the error of remaining silent about the issue of secession while, at the same time, specifically stating that, “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."
In order to avoid a repeat such a catastrophic error of omission, the 21st Century Europeans have specifically addressed the issue of a possible future secession in the proposed EU Constitution.
A rational man in 1860 that expects a legal document to say what it means and mean what it says, can reasonably conclude that there was no prohibition to secession in the Constitution in 1860. Today, however, we live in a nation where we are told that, somewhere in the U.S. Constitution, there is a penumbra that allows us to suck the brains out of a viable late term unborn child. The 21st Century U.S. Constitution therefore means whatever the winner of a battle, either on the battlefield or in a judicial chamber, wants it to mean regardless of what the Constitution actually says.
My judicial philosophy is that, if the U.S. Constitution truly had a position on the issue of secession prior to the Civil War, it should clearly have said so as the proposed European Union Constitution does today. My judicial philosophy is that, if the U.S. Constitution truly has a position on the issue of abortion, it should clearly say so in an Abortion Rights Amendment rather than have the Constitution mean whatever some people who claim the ability to read “penumbras” says it means.
Stainlessbanner’s question about how many people would side with their “home states” today brings up the point that the majority of 21st Century Americans are most likely persons without the 18th or 19th Century concept of a “home state”. The individual with a father from Georgia and a mother from Ohio who was born in California and now lives in Washington State has no concept of a “home state”.
In the 18th or 19th Century, however, an individual was likely to live on the same land that his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been born in, lived in, fought for and died on or lived in a new land that he himself had fought for.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia were just as sovereign as any nation in the European Union is today. In 1844, the Republic of Texas was just as sovereign than any nation in the European Union is today.
In 1860, Virginia meant as much to a Virginian as England means to an Englishman in 2006 or will in 2016. If, in the future, things went sour in a European Union whose Constitution < hypothetical> was silent on the issue of secession < /hypothetical>, given the choice of fighting for regaining the independence of England or fighting against England to keep it in the European Union, most true Englishmen would fight for England against the European Union.
That is and was the nature of the Englishman and the Scot that is descended from Old Stock and 19th Century America was populated predominantly by such individuals. In 21st Century America, such an individual no longer exists.
As I stated before, it is undeniably better that the Union was preserved in the 19th Century.
In addition, the issue of secession is now “settled law” that was settled at the cost of the modern day population equivalent of 5.8 million American deaths.
Be that as it may, it is my opinion that an impartial interpretation of the Constitution in 1860 would not support the assertion that secession was prohibited by the Constitution. The butcher’s bill of the war was therefore a monumental failure on the part of the politicians on both sides of the Potomac that, as the Europeans already have, should have addressed the secession issue before young men had to die to settle the issue for them.
Stupid?
Maybe.
Ignorant?
Possibly.
Misguided?
Undoubtedly.
Why don't we ask some of today's brave and honorable men what they think about those men?
Are you trying to pick another fight that you'll lose?
What's truly priceless about this bit of Southern machismo of yours, is that the slavers of the time considered the "negro" to be neither brave, nor honorable.
By the way...the lie here is yours.
The Confederate negro soldiers never went into action.
The never fought.
free dixie?
Educate Dixie.
you are either a liar and/or a "vicktim uv da gubmint pubic screwl sistim".
there are MOUNDS of original documentation of BLACK CSA soldiers,sailors & marines actually FIGHTING the DAMNyankee invaders, regardless of the LIES told by the REVISIONIST/leftist/PC academics.
come to DC & we'll show you their veterans service records at the National Archives. (OH, i forgot! you DAMNyankees don't trust the OFFICIAL CSA Service Records, do you,since the service records don't fit you REVISIONIST agenda???)
may i also offer the words of LTG Nathan Bedford Forrest, "No better fighters ever drew breath than my sable warriors. they were MAGNIFICENT in battle!"
free dixie,sw
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