Posted on 11/13/2006 9:25:11 PM PST by freedomdefender
"There may have always been a few that maintained that the states were sovereign,. . ."
Oh, you mean like the states that put it in their constitutions? That fact aside, your whole statement is BS. You would have me believe that the states willfully joined a club they believed they were not allowed to quit? That flys in the face of the whole revolution. I defy you to show me anything from the era that suggests MOST people thought they were joining a union they did not have the ability to quit.
"And what's wrong with that?"
Not a thing. What it is is the counter to his argument that the war was mainly about slavery. The point is that as far as Abe was concerned the war was about preserving the union. Go back and read the whole discussion.
Which means he interpreted it, then acted upon that 'interpretation'.
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Had the secessionists stayed in the union in 1861 they faced no loss of their rights as citizens under the Constitution.
LOL! The Constitution is a voluntary compact, not a suicide pact, and no one has any different right as a citizen under the Constitution as they do as a 'resident' or 'denizen'.
The Constitution grants nothing, it only outlines the scope of the general governments powers and expresses a few things the States are restricted from doing.
"The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no such duty [to submit his books and papers for an examination] to the State, since he receives nothing therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land [Common Law] long antecedent to the organization of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the Constitution. Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights."
Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 at 47 (1905)
There is no prevision for the President to exceed his constitutional authority based solely on his own judgment that 'rights needed to be extended to all Americans'.
If you should find such a Constitutional clause, please don't hesitate to post it.
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But Lincoln could not support the continuing desire of the Slovenian South to subvert the established right of Congress to control slavery in the territories.
Congress could establish territories, but had no authority to 'control' them outside their authority.
It was a legal impossibility to tell a slave-owner from a slave-holding state that he no longer had a right to his property once he traveled to a territory or another State.
The right to property is a guaranteed right, and slaves were property no matter how morally abhorrent we judge slavery to be today.
Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.
James Madison's Essay on Property (1792)
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It's all very simple unless one s trying to justify the unjustifiable selfish power grab of a group of slavery loving southern politicians.
I believe another poster has already pointed out the details of unfair trade practices being passed by the federal government. Nowhere was an authority given to interfere with the rights of the states on the issue of slavery or to financially punish those States that allowed it.
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I've enjoyed the discussion, but, like many people, you don't seem to understand that the Constitution is a LEGAL contract, not a moral one. Like any legal contract, the terms must be expressed in the contract. It's called full disclosure.
There is no Constitutional authority to extent powers outside the enumerated area OR prevent the States from leaving the compact. The States did not rebel, only people can rebel. Rebellion is when a group of people try to overthrow the legitimate authority. The States WERE the legitimate authority.
The States in the South only wished to leave since the federal government was no longer abiding by the Constitution and Lincoln refusal to allow them to go was an unconstitutional act.
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They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please ... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.
Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on National Bank, 1791
But that precedent was set by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which the Southern states agreed to in Congress at the time of the Constitutional convention. Many in the North thought it was the southern states who were the ones trying to unilaterally reverse the mutual compact in their overturning of the NW Ordinance. The Northwest Ordinance was a real agreement. On the other hand, there is nothing in the Constitution that said the slaveowning interests had to have a veto on national decisions despite what John C. Calhoun may have wished it to say.
I too have enjoyed the civil discourse, but I guess we've come to the same impasse in opinions that divided our people in the 1850s.
No, it wasn't.
Two of the Ordinance's six articles were at various times challenged in Courts of Law. In particular, the sixth article (concerning slavery) was frequently ignored by the courts, and several battles arose over it concerning it's legality. It was believed by some, based on the wording of the Sixth Article, that slaves who entered into the areas covered by the Northwest Ordinance for more than transit through such lands would become free men.
In most of the battles fought in court over this Sixth Article, it was frequently ruled as invalid and non-binding. In Strader v. Graham (1851), for example, the Supreme Court ruled that the Ordinance was no longer in force in the states formed in the northwest territory.
The Strader court held that many provisions of all six articles contained in the Ordinance were inconsistent with the Constitution and, where there were inconsistencies, the Constitution is clearly superior:
Indeed, it is impossible to look at the six articles which are supposed, in the argument, to be still in force, without seeing at once that many of the provisions contained in them are inconsistent with the present Constitution, and if they could be regarded as yet in operation in the States formed within the limits of the Northwest Territory, it would place them in an inferior condition as compared with the other States, and subject their domestic institutions and municipal regulations to the constant supervision and control of this court.
The six articles, said to be perpetual as a compact, are not made part of the new Constitution. They certainly are not superior and paramount to the Constitution, and cannot confer power and jurisdiction upon this court. The whole judicial authority of the courts of the United States is derived from the Constitution itself, and the laws made under it.
As we have already said, it ceased to be in force upon the adoption of the Constitution, and it cannot now be the source of jurisdiction of any description in this court
(Strader v. Graham, 51 U.S., 10 Howard, 395, 435-42)
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In the famous Dred Scott case, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1856), the plaintiff's attorneys argued prohibition of slavery based on Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance. Unfortunately for Scott, constitutional status was not forthcoming:
Consequently, the power which Congress may have lawfully exercised in this Territory (under the Ordinance), while it remained under a Territorial Government, and which may have been sanctioned by judicial decision, can furnish no justification and no argument to support a similar exercise of power over territory afterwards acquired by the Federal Government. We put aside, therefore, any argument, drawn from precedents, showing the extent of the power which the General Government exercised over slavery in this Territory, as altogether inapplicable to the case before us.
The problem with the Northwest Ordinance is that it was passed in 1787 by a Congress operating under the Articles of Confederation, which did not give the Congress the authority to make such laws. The Articles of Confederation served as the new nation's basic charter of government until the first government under the Constitution of the United States was formed in 1789.
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James Madison had strong views on whether the Congress had any constitutional authority to pass laws concerning the new territories:
Congress has undertaken to do more: they have proceeded to form new states, to erect temporary governments, to appoint officers for them, and to proscribe the conditions on which new states shall be admitted to the confederacy. All this has been done; without the least color of constitutional authority
(Federalist #38)
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I'd like to thank you again for the pleasantly rational discussion.
Regards,
MamaTexan
With all due respect that clause was not being infringed. There were fugitive slave laws on the books, and a large number of laws in place to enforce it.
Four months after he said slavery should be abolished, he admitted their was a Constitutional right to own slaves as well as having escaped slaves returned.
In both speeches Lincoln was acknowledging the legality of slavery, but he wasn't supporting it and he did expect that the people of the United States would choose to end it.
A lot of people are against abortion but recognize the legality of the practice as ruled by the Supreme Court. There is no hypocrisy in that.
He let his personal convictions trump the Constitution and failed to uphold his sworn oath to adhere to the terms of the compact.
When faced with extraordinary circumstances, Lincoln acted as he believed the Constitution allowed him to. I'm not aware of any case where Lincoln deliberately took actions he knew were unconstitutional.
Please show me the Constitutional Article that gave him the authority to promote someone from 'property' to 'citizen'
Lincoln promoted from 'property' to 'free'. His authority to do so came as a offshoot of the Confiscation Acts passed in 1861 and 1862 and later upheld by the Supreme Court. These allowed the government to seize without compensation private property used in support of the rebellion. Actual citizenship had to wait for the 14th Amendment, because of the Scott v Sanford ruling.
Not to put too fine a legal line in the issue, Lincoln did not end slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation. Rebellion or no rebellion he still lacked the authority to do so. He could, however, free slaves in those territories still participating in the rebellion because those slaves were being used to support it. So from a Constitutional standpoint Lincoln did not interfere with the state's right to run it's own show within it's borders.
Lincoln released the genie from the bottle, and God help us, we'll never get it back in there again.
How? Where does the Constitution allow states to seize government property without compensation? Where does it allow states to walk away from their share of obligations built up by the nation as a whole? Where does it allow a state to take actions unilaterally that impact the interests of the other states? Secession did not only impact the states that were leaving, it impacted the remaining states as well. Why should the Constitution only protect the leaving party and not the party staying?
If a state can leave without the consent of the majority of the impacted parties would you also agree that the other parties could expel a state without it's consent?
Please read Madison's report on the Alien and Sedition Act already posted.
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and later upheld by the Supreme Court
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
Frederick Bastiat, 1850
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Why should the Constitution only protect the leaving party and not the party staying?
Because the party staying is the one that breached the compact. Once that compact was breached, it was null and void by law. The 'terms' no longer existed for the leaving party.
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We've had this discussion before, NS. Each time, you live up to your screen name by trying to argue assertions that were never made, breeze right over points made by the other party (no matter how well-sourced they are) and rarely offer any sources of your own.
Good evening.
You should also accept the fact that Lincoln was a bloody tyrant.
Displaying your ignorance of history.... again.
Try reading The Emancipation Proclamation with some understanding instead of your uninformed neoconfederate babble.
What Lincoln did was perfectly within the Constitution and it did not confer citizenship on anyone. The 14th Amendment, over a year after Lincoln's death did that. (It was those damn nasty Radical Republicans again. What next... declare infants in the womb citizens????)
From a Constitutional standpoint, it's impossible to argue with the Emancipation Proclamation unless you think that "we are endowed by our Creator with an unalienable right" to keep other people as 'property.'
Is that what you think, Moma?
Lincoln had far more respect (or at least understanding) for the Constitution than you or any of your paper neo confederate simpletons.
Your 'sainted ancestors' were probably fine people, but like all people, they were wrong on some things and on slavery and attempting to destroy the Union over slavery, they were deadly wrong.
Standing here in front of the world telling everyone that they were right and Lincoln was wrong makes you look like a damn fool and makes your ancestors look like evil people instead of simply mistake people, which we all are or will be on one point or another.
In the end, they are trying to justify their "Sainted Ancestors" support of slavery.
At some point, you have to say that "my Great-great Grandfather was wrong" and just move on from there. I feel pretty good about myself, and I have no idea who my G-G grandfathers were, and even though I could, I have never been curious enough to attempt to search it out.
I'm sure I'd find saints and sinners, but that is what I find studying history. IMHO, both Lincoln and Jeff Davis and Washington and Benedict Arnold are "ancestors" although I'm fairly certain that I have none of their blood in my veins.
Who was in my "bloodline beyond living memory has nothing to do with me, but it seems to be the primary driver for these neo-confederates. IMHO, it's silly.
And what does that have to do with the confiscation acts?
Frederick Bastiat, 1850
Frederick Bastiat was not in a position to decide what was constitutional and what was not.
Because the party staying is the one that breached the compact. Once that compact was breached, it was null and void by law. The 'terms' no longer existed for the leaving party.
Only the leaving party in empowered to decide when the contract has been breached? I think not, and I disagree that the Constitution had been violated by either side until the south unilaterally seceded.
We've had this discussion before, NS. Each time, you live up to your screen name by trying to argue assertions that were never made, breeze right over points made by the other party (no matter how well-sourced they are) and rarely offer any sources of your own.
Yeah, I know. And every time you ignore those quotes that disagree with yours, Supreme Court decisions that you don't agree with, and entire quotes in context. You say the southern secession was legal because you say it was. And you're right, I don't know how to bridge that gap. But you'll understand if I continue to disagree with your claims?
Why?
You know why.
I know why you all claim he was. I just find it funny is all.
In our last conversation on this subject, you never bothered to reply to post #400, even though you stated-
Lots and lots of points here Mama, and even a few good ones
I'll reply maybe tonight, more probably or tomorrow.
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Now you show up with a nasty attitude, making insinuations about my lack of intelligence and telling me Ilook like a fool?
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Until you reply to the points on the other thread, I in no way feel obligated to waste further replies on you.
The fact is the legally Lincoln was wrong. No matter how many 'Proclamations' were written, no branch of government can give themselves a power they never possessed.
Good day.
The jist of the southron arguement in support of unilateral secession is the claim that since it is not explicitly forbidden by the Constitution then it must be permitted. The same should apply with expulsion.
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