Posted on 11/13/2006 9:25:11 PM PST by freedomdefender
How so?
I don't recall any of them being at the Constitutional Convention. Madison and Washington were, and they both said it wasn't a legal option.
I see gentlemanly concessions are lost on you.
St George Tucker, (1803), James Kent (1826-1830), William Rawle (1829) and Joseph Story (1833) all considered secession a viable option. I've posted many of them for your consideration.
Not true. Here's Story on the idea of secession at will:
"The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact between the states or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government, in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the states; they retained all the power they did not grant. But each state having expressly parted with so many powers, as to constitute jointly with the other states a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation; and any injury to that unity is not only a breach, which would result from the contravention of a compact; but it is an offence against the whole Union. To say, that any state may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say, that the United States were not a nation; because it would be a solecism to contend, that any part or a nation might dissolve its connexion with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offence. 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; and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those, who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before 'they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent on a failure.
"Because the Union was formed by compact, it is said 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 cannot. A compact is an agreement, or binding obligation. It may, by its terms, have a sanction or penalty for its breach, or it may not. If it contains no sanction, it may be broken with no other consequence, than moral guilt: if it have a sanction, then the breach incurs the designated or implied penalty. A league between independent nations, generally, has no sanction, other than a moral one; or, if it should contain a penalty, as there is no common superior, it cannot be enforced. A government, on the contrary, always has a sanction, express or implied; and in our case, it is both necessarily implied, and expressly given. An attempt by force of arms to destroy a government, is an offence, by whatever means the constitutional compact may have been formed; and such. government has the right, by the law of self-defence, to pass acts for punishing the offender, unless that right is modified, restrained, or resumed by the constitutional act. In our system, although it is modified in the case of treason, yet authority is expressly given to pass all laws necessary to carry its powers into effect, and under this grant provision has been made for punishing acts, which obstruct the due administration or the laws. [Emphasis added]
I don't know about Kent. There are assertions on the Internet that he "implicitly acknowledged the reserved rights of the States" which are apparently changed from claims that he "explicitly acknowledged the reserved rights of the states and included secession among them." So there may be something fishy at work.
Four states made it plain to everyone they were seceding over slavery. Your insistance that 17 other documents must be examined in order to glean intent from the first four is absurd.
"value Lincoln, fight to keep Union together"
I do not value Lincoln because he created the situation that caused the threat to the Union in the first place. There isn't anything else you can say to convince me that he should be valued. In some ways, he was as bad as Sherman.
How. By winning an election? South Carolina followed by the other cotton states threatened to secede numerous times from 1830 onward, long before anyone outside of Springfield every heard the name Abraham Lincoln.
There was nothing Lincoln did that "caused" the situation." That situation had existed since 1820 and in fact even before back to the 3/5 compromise of 1787. As Jefferson said at that time, it would eventually explode, and Lincoln just happened to be the guy in the hot seat when it happened and thank God he was or this nation would have ended and along with it, the last best hope of freedom.
"the last best hope of freedom."
That went with the surrender of the Confederacy.
Lincoln didn't have the gumption to stand up and stop the rape of the southern commerce and didn't have the good sense to allow them to deal with slavery on their own terms.
Actually, that's from President Jackson's Proclamation of the 10th of December, 1832. Story agreed with it.
While I take your point on Story, I also learned he was a rabid abolitionist. For that expansion of that knowledge, I thank you.
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This is interesting. The Amistad case
(Oddly enough, I can't find a copy of the decision itself. Something else fishy at work?)
The recovery of slaves for their owners, whether foreign or domestic, is a matter with which the executive of the United States has no concern. The Constitution confers upon the government no power to establish or legalize the institution of slavery. It recognises it as existing in regard to persons held to service by the laws of the states which tolerate it; and contains a compact between the states, obliging them to respect the rights acquired under the slave laws of other states, in the cases specified in the Constitution. But it imposes no duty, and confers no power on the government of the United States to act in regard to it. So far as the compact extends, the Courts of the United States, whether sitting in a free state or a slave state, will give effect to it. Beyond that, all persons within the limits of a state are entitled to the protection of its laws.
If that were true, would that make the Missouri Compromise illegal?
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Both the right to property and the right to own slaves was in the Constitution, and the South were being denied both. Massive agriculture in the South required the slaves, and the North was clamoring for what the South could produce. The slaves were being encouraged and helped to escape by the people in the North.
Financially, the South was being bled dry, the North was helping the process and nothing had been done despite constant complaints. Then the federal government jumps in an says something that had been was no longer going to be allowed.
THAT is contrary to everything the Constitution stands for.
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I see gentlemanly concessions are lost on you.
No, they are not.
Now that I know your sensibilities are so delicate, however, I try to refrain from so bluntly stating my opinion.
The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state. The people alone as we have already seen, hold the power to alter their constitution. The Constitution of the United States is to a certain extent, incorporated into the constitutions or the several states by the act of the people. The state legislatures have only to perform certain organical operations in respect to it. To withdraw from the Union comes not within the general scope of their [Gianni note: "their" is the state legislature] delegated authority. There must be an express provision to that effect inserted in the state constitutions. This is not at present the case with any of them, and it would perhaps be impolitic to confide it to them. A matter so momentous, ought not to be entrusted to those who would have it in their power to exercise it lightly and precipitately upon sudden dissatisfaction, or causeless jealousy, perhaps against the interests and the wishes of a majority of their constituents.
So Rawle seems to be saying that none of the states in 1829 had the authority to secede as part of their Constitutions. So what changed?
Rawle is saying that none of the legislatures were empowered to seceed by thier respective state constitutions, but makes it clear that the people of that state could delegate such power, were it deemed wise.
A make believe nation ruled by a small elite with 30% of its population in chains is not my idea of any hope for freedom.
And since freedom went down when Lincoln won, what the hell are you still doing here? Seems like Sudan, where they still have slaves, would be more to your liking.
S'matter, truth bother you some?
I'm done arguing this.
Let me ask... from the Confederate perspective, was there any such thing as a non-rabid abolitionist? Or were they all rabid?
Elsewhere in the world-
Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist who achieved lasting fame by producing considerable evidence that species originated through evolutionary change, at the same time proposing the scientific theory that natural selection is the mechanism by which such change occurs. This theory is now considered a cornerstone of biology.
Arguing? You haven't argued at all. You're just cut'n & running.
Financially, the South was being bled dry, the North was helping the process and nothing had been done despite constant complaints.
ROTFLMAO. Aside from the cognitive disconnect of the North somehow "clamoring" for what the south could produce while at the same time "bleeding away" the source of that production, even the most wild estimates of the number of slaves that actually succeeded in escaping slavery was 100,000 over a 30 year period from 1810 until the enactment of the fugitive slave act in 1850. The actual number is likely far less than that but even 100,000 over 30 years (3500/year) is not "bleeding" by any measure.
Over that same period of time, the slave population of the Southern states increased from a little over 1 million to nearly 4 million people -- a threefold increase.
Far more slaves were granted their freedom by their masters in the Upper South in that same time frame than ever managed to escape to the Northern states.
The problem the south, particularly the Deep South had in 1860, and why they insisted on the expansion of slavery to the territories, was an approaching over abundance of slaves, which would have made their value collapse and put the deep south states in a dangerous situation of hopelessly outnumbered by a hostile population in their midst in another generation or so.
Because slaves reproduced so fast, slavery became a financial Ponzi scheme that required continual expansion to keep the bubble inflated.
Even though I disagree with Lincoln because of my great affection for the South, let me say this. He is a fine example of true leadership, grace under tremendous pressure. He displayed the ability to adjust his war aims to the reality on the ground, and the quality of his character does shine through in the four years he held office.
Absolute nonsense. What you are saying is that a partnership protects only the party choosing to abuse it, and provides no protection for the abused.
If he gives you no satisfaction to the petition, then you either ask for a summary judgment or he has to meet you in court.
And what court was the U.S. supposed to meet the confederacy in? The U.S. Supreme Court? The rebel states considered themselves a separate country, not bound by the U.S. Constitution or the U.S. courts. The confederate supreme court? Such an institution didn't exist. In your world the southern states walked away from obligations, took what they wanted, and didn't give a damn for the consequences.
Its the way the law works.
I would be amazed if you could find a lawyer who agreed that theft was a contractual right.
if an acquaintance should come to your house and you invite him in, and after a while he decides to leave, do you have the legal authority to make him stay against his will?
If he is trying to leave with his pockets filled with my property then yes, I can detain him and call the police.
That's right. Because to do so would affect another State, and therefore falls under the authority of the general government.
And when a state walks out of the union, repudiating debt and leaving that obligation to the remaining states, taking property jointly owned by all states, putting themselves in a position where they can cut off access to the sea at whim for some of the remaining states and cripple them economically, then wouldn't you say that those actions affect other states? Shouldn't those states have something to protect them? Don't they have any Constitutional rights in the matter?
So the confederacy was "the last best hope for freedom" huh? Well for about 2/3rds of the population that might have been the hope.
And yet in states like South Carolina and North Carolina and, supposedly, Missouri it was the state legislatures that took them out of the Union, in two cases done in opposition to popular referendum against secession. Are you saying that all those actions were illegal? If not, then what changed between 1829 and 1860 that made such actions legal?
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