Federalist Patriot bashes Abe Linclon

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.

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!!

I would be ashamed to have my utter lack of reading comprehension displayed in such a manner for the world to see, but perhaps you are unable to parse the English language.

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?

Article I § 9 (1): '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.' The clause bans the importation of African slaves. That is, for the reading impaired, slaves from the continent of Africa. The clause limits future importation of slaves to those from the United States of America.

Article I § 9 (2): '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.' The Confederate Congress could further enact legislation banning the importation of ANY additional slaves at will. Still with us? Clause 1 limits future imports to those from the United States. Clause 2 grants the Confederate Congress the power to pass legislation prohibiting the imports from the United States of America. Combined, the clauses would allow the Confederate Congress to ban ALL future importations of slaves.

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.

Article I § 9 (4): 'No bill of attainder or ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.' This clause does not address importation of additional slaves (that's clause 1 & 2 above). This clause specifically removes the power of Congress to pass any law ending slavery at the federal level. Any state could still end slavery on it's own, just as it could previously.

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.

Nope. As you noted (Article IV § 2 (1): 'The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all 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.') You then proceed to insist that 'transit' and 'sojourn' mean permanent residence. There's your 'living' Constitution again.

Justice Campbell addressed such in Scott v. Sandford ["the domestic condition and status of the plaintiff and his family during their sojourn in Minnesota Territory, or after their return to Missouri.... his temporary relocation, from the domicil of his origin, in company with his master, to communities where the law of slavery did not prevail"]

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?

The Confederate Constitution has the clause to allow the states to assemble in convention, as does the federal, so that states may amend their agreement and the terms therein. I must say I'm surprised that you don't understand the concept.

Because each State independently had to agree to transfer sovereignty to the whole of the people as represented by the Federal government.

The states were not “sovereigns” in the sense contended for by some. They did not possess the peculiar features of sovereignty,—they could not make war, nor peace, nor alliances, nor treaties. Considering them as political beings, they were dumb, for they could not speak to any foreign sovereign whatever. They were deaf, for they could not hear any propositions from such sovereign. They had not even the organs or faculties of defence or offence, for they could not of themselves raise troops, or equip vessels, for war.... If the states, therefore, retained some portion of their sovereignty [after declaring independence], they had certainly divested themselves of essential portions of it. -- Rufus King, Delegate Philadelphia Convention 1787

The idea that States were sovereign after transferring the essential trappings of sovereignty to the United States is ludicrous.

Madison's "weak union" view is based on the idea that "the Articles of Confederation did indeed acknowledge the separate sovereignty of the American states—and that was exactly the problem. Hamilton put it well in a sentence which is the theme of the entire Federalist: “The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist.” The new Constitution would solve this problem by creating a new kind of government—one of “divided sovereignty,” partly national and partly federal, in which all of the people of America would vest the national government with a part—limited and enumerated—of their sovereignty. The national sovereignty would therefore be totally separate from the sovereignty of the states. As Madison explained, the Articles of Confederation were “derived from the dependent derivative authority of the legislatures of the states; whereas this [Constitution] is derived from the superior power of the people.” The Constitution did not consolidate the states entirely, but “[s]hould all the States adopt it, it will be then a government established by the thirteen States of America, not through the intervention of the Legislatures, but by the people at large.” This is why the Constitution was ratified by special ratification conventions rather than state governments: to make clear that the states were not parties to the Constitutional compact. Thus, contrary to the strong-union view (Calhoun), the sovereignty of the states did not depend on the creation of the federal authority; they were two independent systems, in which the federal power was supreme within its limited sphere—and nonexistent outside of that sphere." --Source

As Madison stated in his letter to Jefferson explaining the Constitution (Jefferson was in Paris at the time of the Constitutional Convention): "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." -- Source

Calhoun was wrong, the States were clearly not sovereign entities within the uberentity that was the United States, "but because states are not parties to the Constitution, states have no unilateral authority to intercede between Americans and their own federal citizenship."

To put it in perspective: "The people, who adopted the Constitution, may decide to allow the people of a state to leave the union—through Congressional action (according to the weak-union view), or by adopting a Constitutional Amendment (according to the strong-union view)—but because the sovereignty of a state is distinct from that of the union, a state can no more absolve its people of their allegiance to the federal government than the gas company can absolve you of paying your electric bill."

The original states failed to develop the institutions associated with sovereignty: armies, navies, currency, embassies, mails, tariffs. They gave up their Western land claims and even their established churches. That's what I meand by a "history of sovereignty."

If the British crown wanted to treat them as a baker's dozen or so weak, little nations, that's not the way Americans thought of themselves by the early 19th century. And it's all the more true that most of the later states admitted lacked the attributes of sovereignty or a history as sovereign nations.

As you say, a state like Virginia had over two century of history behind it by 1860 and that was longer than some European countries have been independent or sovereign nations. I could object that many of those countries did have histories as peoples or "nations" even when they weren't politically independent that Virginia had joined with other states voluntarily and those European peoples had been brutally supressed as political entities, and that for virtually all of Virginia's history it wasn't truly independent or sovereign: it went from being a colony of the British empire to being part of the American union.

But that's not really what's at issue. Nor is whether the Virginians or Carolinians loved their native state as much as the English or French or Latvians love their own counties. I'm not saying Virginia has any less of a right to be an independent nation. I'm saying that it doesn't have a right to violate procedures and flout its obligations to the nation and the other states. Given time, Virginia might have made an admirable nation, but that wouldn't justify the state's acting unconstitutionally today. If you have a Constitution and a voice in the federal government you should use that to make any changes in your status, not simply break with your nation and set yourself against it.

Clearly secession isn't mentioned in the Constitution, and it was a mistake not to deal with the question up front from the beginning. By 1860, experts disagreed about whether unilateral secession was legal. Against the 10th Amendment -- a vague charter not so different from the later 14th Amendment -- one can put the "Supremacy Clause" of the original Constitution. It's hard to believe that the Founders would put so much effort into drawing up a Constitution and establishing clear procedures for adopting and amending it and for admitting new states and then let groups of citizens in a state simply break with the rest of the union at will.

Many American saw that war was the likely outcome of secession at will. They were right. The rebels dealt an ultimatum to the rest of the country, that the US couldn't let pass. Where there was uncertainty and disagreement, prudence was necessary. Instead the rebels took matters into their own hands and ignored their obligations to the rest of the country. Today, we can recognize that this was precisely the wrong way to procede in such a crisis.

There was enough bravado, stupidity, hypocrisy, opportunism, and heavy-handedness to go around in 1860. But then or now, if you are governed democratically and constitutionally and you want out from your native land, you do owe something to your fellow countrymen.

I would be ashamed to have my utter lack of reading comprehension displayed in such a manner for the world to see, but perhaps you are unable to parse the English language.

Now I've read enough of your stuff to know that you are completely without shame.

The clause bans the importation of African slaves. That is, for the reading impaired, slaves from the continent of Africa. The clause limits future importation of slaves to those from the United States of America.

Now who is parsing words here? Are you suggesting that the confederates still considered themselves part of the U.S.? Or did they consider the United States a foreign country. If so, then by definition any goods brought in from that country are defined as 'imports'. So if the U.S. was a foreign country then the confederate constitution explicitly protected imports from that country. Unless you consider the dictionary a living, breathing document like your constitution?

The Confederate Congress could further enact legislation banning the importation of ANY additional slaves at will. Still with us? Clause 1 limits future imports to those from the United States. Clause 2 grants the Confederate Congress the power to pass legislation prohibiting the imports from the United States of America. Combined, the clauses would allow the Confederate Congress to ban ALL future importations of slaves.

So why the dual clauses? If the south wanted to ban slave imports then why not ban them all? Why specifically protect some? I know the reason but I would love to hear you explain it.

This clause does not address importation of additional slaves (that's clause 1 & 2 above). This clause specifically removes the power of Congress to pass any law ending slavery at the federal level. Any state could still end slavery on it's own, just as it could previously.

No, it removes the power of congress to impair the right of property in negro slaves, which not only means ending slavery but also interfering in it in any way. Congress couldn't emancipate the slaves, no southern state that I'm aware of could, but it couldn't limit it or restrict it in any manner. In theory states could restrict slavery to some extent, except that every state constitution of the time that I've read all had clauses that said they couldn't pass legislation emancipating slaves. Which, I assume, would include passing laws proposing amendments to the state constituion ending slavery.

You then proceed to insist that 'transit' and 'sojourn' mean permanent residence. There's your 'living' Constitution again.

OK, if I'm so wrong then please tell me what the legal definition of 'sojurn' is? If I own property in Mississippi and Alabama, live in Mississippi but claim to be a Alabama citizen then what proves that I am not?

The Confederate Constitution has the clause to allow the states to assemble in convention, as does the federal, so that states may amend their agreement and the terms therein. I must say I'm surprised that you don't understand the concept.

Perhaps it's because I've actually read your confederate constitution. It says "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 as the said States shall concur in suggesting at the time when the said demand is made..." So congress calls the convention, and in doing so seems to violate article 1, section 9 clause 4. Like I said an interesting case for the supreme court...except that there wasn't one, was there?

>>>A constitution allowing secession would have been worthless and not even Jefferson supported such an idea.<<<

Jefferson did indeed believe secession to be a right. In an 1820 letter to Albert Gallatin regarding Missouri, there is this passage:

"For if Congress once goes out of the Constitution to arrogate a right of regulating the conditions of the inhabitants of the States, its majority may, and probably will next declare that the condition of all men within the US. shall be that of freedom, in which case all the whites South of the Patomak and Ohio must evacuate their States; and most fortunate those who can do it first. And so far this crisis seems to be advancing. The Missouri constitution is recently rejected by the House of Representatives. What will be their next step is yet to be seen. If accepted on the condition that Missouri shall expunge from it the prohibition of free people of colour from emigration to their state, it will be expunged, and all will be quieted until the advance of some new state shall present the question again. If rejected unconditionally, Missouri assumes independent self-government, and Congress, after pouting awhile, must recieve them on the footing of the original states. Should the Representative propose force, 1. the Senate will not concur. 2. were they to concur, there would be a secession of the members South of the line, & probably of the three North Western states, who, however inclined to the other side, would scarcely separate from those who would hold the Mississippi from it's mouth to it's source. What next?"
----

BTW, is it true that when Virginia ratified the constitution, they also passed a resolution that would allow them to secede if the national government became too tyrannical?

I'm not insane, you are ignorant.

In 1898, just as the Cuban patriots’ independence army was about to achieve victory after 30 years of armed struggle against the Spanish Crown, the United States declared war on Spain after their warship, The Maine, was allegedly torpedoed by the Spanish. Later that year, rule of Cuba was transferred from Madrid to Washington at the Treaty of Paris, WHERE NO CUBANS WERE PRESENT, after US President McKinley had stated “it wouldn’t be wise to recognise the independence of the Cuban Republic”.

Cuba's Mabises had been fighting against overwhelming odds since 1895, not only against Spanish forces, but also against American intrusion. Between June 11 1895 and November 30 1897, a total of sixty expeditions attempted to bring weapons and supplies to the rebels. Of those, only one succeeded. Twenty-eight attempts were hampered by the U.S. Treasury Department; 5 were prevented by the U.S. Navy Dept., 4 were interrupted by the Spanish naval patrol; 2 were wrecked; one was driven back to port by storm; 1 succeeded through the protection of the British; the fate of another is unknown.

In spite of all that, the Cuban rebels fought on.

The superior Spanish forces created a trocha, a line of fortifications, about two hundred yards wide, and fifty miles long. "Down the center, a single-track military railroad was equipped with armor-clad cars, and various forts and fortified blockhouses were built alongside. A maze of barbed wire was placed so that every twelve yards of posts had 450 yards of barbed-wire fencing. The fortified houses featured loopholes and trenches on the outside, and many encircled windows from which Spanish soldiers could observe and fire."

The "trocha" was intended to limit the rebellion to the eastern provinces, and keep the rebels away from the western centers of wealth and government.

The rebels split their forces, with Generals Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez (known collectively as the lion and the fox) leading the charge East to West (the Invading Army), and the Liberating Army holding the Eastern provinces.

In ninety days and 78 marches, the Invading army went from Baraguá (at the eastern tip of the island) to Mantua (the western end) traveling a total of 1,696 kilometers and fighting 27 battles against numerically superior forces. A number of war historians have agreed that the western invasion of Cuba was one of the great military achievements of the 19th century.

General Martinez Campos, credited with the Spanish victory in the Ten Year's War, and charged with defeating the machete-wielding Cuban rebels, resigned in shame after suffering 27 consecutive defeats at the hands of "peasants."

Enter General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, The Butcher.

The Butcher reinforced the trocha, and created concentration camps designed to keep the population from helping the rebels. Many died in those concentration camps, but the rebels pushed on.

On January 1st, 1898, Spain, faced with imminent defeat at the hands of the Cuban revolutionary forces, grants limited autonomy to Cuba in an attempt to retain some power on the island. The surrender of the Spanish troops in Cuban had begun in earnest,and the rebels were encircling Havana when the U.S. intervened.

On April 10th, Spanish Governor General Blanco in Cuba suspended hostilities in the war in Cuba, effectively beginning the process of surrendering Cuba to the revolutionary forces led my Gomez.

On April 19th, the U.S. Congress adopts the resolution for war with Spain, and war was formally declared on the 25th.

The decades-long struggle for Cuban Independence was crushed by the replacement of one colonial government with another.

During the surrender ceremonies, U.S. General William R. Shifter refused to allow Cuban General Callisto Garcia and his rebel forces to participate.

Five hundred thousand Cubans died fighting to throw off Spanish rule in the thirty-year struggle for Independence. In contrast, the Spanish-American war lasted a few months, and resulted in a total 379 American battle deaths. The other 5,083 died from tropical disease and unspecified "other causes," including malaria, yellow fever, and dysentery, most of which can be attributed to 500,000 pounds of beef purchased by the U.S. Army from Armour & Co. Meatpackers. (The very same shipment of meat had been sent to Liverpool a year earlier, but was rejected.)

In relation to the specific theme of this thread...the majority of American troops who fought and died in Cuba were black.

The Constitution, agreed upon by all parties involved, provided for a venue to settle disputes, and it was agreed upon by all signatories, …………… The CSA rejected the clearly stated Constitutional means to settle a dispute to which the United States was a Party to, and instead, acted on what was NOT said in the Constitution. ………..The body of the Constitution preceded the Tenth Amendment, so, if you are going to stand on the Constitution, and claim that the CSA stood on the Constitution, why wasn't the dispute that led to nullification settled via the Constitutionally prescribed method of settling a dispute to which the United States was a party to? ………..The answer of course was that the CSA rejected the Constitution.

Every corporation, partnership, labor union, private club, political entity and even marriages has mechanisms for addressing disputes. It does not follow that, once a member of such a union, you are never allowed to voluntarily leave.

As the old parental saying goes, “As long as you live under my roof, you will follow my rules”.

A violation of the Constitution would have been to replace a duly elected President or impose the minority political will by force of arms…………(as was the custom in our Cuba). The Southern States, however, voted to secede and leave the remaining United States to govern itself as they saw fit.

Prior to the Civil War, it was taken for granted in both the North and the South that a State had the right to voluntarily leave a Union that it had voluntarily joined. Thus, Northern states considered secession during the War of 1812 and after the Louisina Purchase.

It was only after the Civil War, perhaps to rationalize the butcher’s bill of 600,000 dead Americans, that it was claimed that there was no such right to secession and the Tenth Amendment be damned.

Today, secession is a recognized right in Western civilization. The European Union, learning from the tragedy of the American Civil War, specifically addresses how future secessions will be peaceful. Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia without a drop of blood being spilled. If Quebec ever decides to secede from Canada, there will be no Canadian Civil War. There is currently talk of Scotland withdrawing from the United Kingdom and being a separate member of the European Union.

Even the Evil Empire, the former Soviet Union, recognized the right of the Ukrainian people to follow the democratic desires of the Ukrainian people instead of forcing Ukraine to stay in a union they did not want at the point of a bayonet.

"Did Virginia fire on Fort Sumter?"

Friday April 12, 1861 ..........4:30 A.M. The "First Shot" A signal mortar shell was fired from Fort Johnson over Fort Sumter. Firing from surrounding batteries soon followed, starting the battle. A Virginia secessionist, Edmund Ruffin, claimed to have fired the "first shot" ………..

On Friday, April 12, 1861, Virginia was a State of the United States of America and Edmund Ruffin was a private citizen.

To claim that the Commonwealth of Virginia was responsible for the acts of a private citizen is exactly the same as to claim that the United States of America was responsible for the acts of Charles Manson, the Oklahoma City Bomber, the D. C. Sniper, Ted Bundy, Tokyo Rose, the Rosenbergs, the American Taliban, and, since Virginia was still a state in the Union, of Edmund Ruffin himself.

"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

The rest of that quote was:

“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;”

The people gave their consent to be part of the Union and the people later gave their consent to withdraw from the Union.

"Every corporation, partnership, labor union, private club, political entity and even marriages has mechanisms for addressing disputes. It does not follow that, once a member of such a union, you are never allowed to voluntarily leave."

The mechanism for addresing disputes such as the dispute which led to the nullification crisis is clearly detailed in the Constitution...anbd was never used by the CSA.

"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; —to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party."

The CSA claimed that they acted Constitutionally, when in fact, they did the exact opposite.

The Union could only be dissolved in the same manner that it was created; by the agreement of all parties to its creation.

"The people, who adopted the Constitution, may decide to allow the people of a state to leave the union—through Congressional action (according to the weak-union view), or by adopting a Constitutional Amendment (according to the strong-union view)—but because the sovereignty of a state is distinct from that of the union, a state can no more absolve its people of their allegiance to the federal government than the gas company can absolve you of paying your electric bill."

"On April 10, 1861, Brig. Gen. Beauregard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson refused. On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to reply effectively. At 2:30 p.m., April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The bombardment of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War. Although there were no casualties during the bombardment, one Union artillerist was killed and three wounded (one mortally) when a cannon exploded prematurely when firing a salute during the evacuation." -- Source

Get a grip.

"The people" never consented to any State withdrawing from the Union, had they done so, no war would have been fought.

States seceded from the Union, but since the States were not party to the ratification of the Constitution, they had no power to dissolve the Union.

Your entire argument is based on the Union being made up of a group of sovereign States, both James Madison and John Quincy Adams explicitly denied this notion. States were stripped of all trappings of sovererignty...could not wage war, were both mute and deaf to other nations, could not coin money, etc. Hardly indications of sovereignty.

The states were not “sovereigns” in the sense contended for by some. They did not possess the peculiar features of sovereignty,—they could not make war, nor peace, nor alliances, nor treaties. Considering them as political beings, they were dumb, for they could not speak to any foreign sovereign whatever. They were deaf, for they could not hear any propositions from such sovereign. They had not even the organs or faculties of defence or offence, for they could not of themselves raise troops, or equip vessels, for war.... If the states, therefore, retained some portion of their sovereignty [after declaring independence], they had certainly divested themselves of essential portions of it" -- Rufus King, Delegate Philadelphia Convention 1787

Let's finish Madison's quote:

"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."

How could a State be sovereign that allowed the Federal government to operate on its citizens without their intervention?

Sovereignty was not the State's, sovereignty belonged to the whole of the people first, to the Union next, and only then to the States. So, in order for the States to leave the Union, they must defer to the greater sovereignty, and retain the approval of the whole of the people of the Union before doing so.

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