Posted on 09/17/2007 2:35:27 PM PDT by Delacon
Guess What Folks - Secession Wasn't Treason The Copperhead Chronicles ^ | August 2007 | Al Benson http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1887357/posts
My apologies for the formatting errors. I had to convert it from PDF and it didn't got smoothly. I suggest going to the link http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=933676 and downloading the original PDF file if you are interested.
FYI, the best way to clean up a pdf copy is to paste it into notepad before pasting it into a thread. This strips out all the hidden formatting objects like line breaks, that cause problems when copying from pdfs.
1. Smoke some weed.
2. Ignore long treatises.
3. Eat brownies.
4. Repeat.
ping
here we go:
;)
Ooh boy, can we get a conservative vs. libertarian flame war, as well as a union vs. neo-confederate flame war at the same time? LOL.
You forgot, “have sex with homely woman”, which comes after “smoke weed”.
I had pretty much the same dilemma: two toes wanted to secede from my right foot and I couldn’t figure out whether I should let them. Finally I let them have their way, and I think I’m better off for it—apart from the gimpy walk, of course.
ML/NJ
“Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech”
Tsk. Tsk.
“The distinction between secession and revolution is a distinction without a difference. Our Revolution was effectively a secession from the British Empire. The Declaration says “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.” Any form, and whenever seem pretty all encompassing, and alter/abolish seem to me what the Southerners were seeking. Anyone who suggests that the government of South Carolina, &c. wouldn’t have be altered following secession is practicing sophistry.”
Well there is a distiction between secession and revolution. Look up either word in any dictionary and you won’t find them to be synonyms. It is theoreticly possible to secede without having a revolution and there have been many revolutions that didn’t involve any secession(France’s and Russia’s revolution for one). Mr. Sandefur goes into detail on why the South’s secession wasn’t constitional and therefore justifiably put down and then goes on to explain why it wasn’t wasn’t a valid revolution.
ML/NJ
By that reading, you'd have had no issue with a slave uprising in the south, right? Would you have argued that the south had no right to put down such a rebellion? And if any rebellion is a right, why does the Constitution talk about suppressing insurrections?
Secession is a legal construct. Revolution is an overthrow of the existing legal construct and its replacement with a new one. The American Revoution was the latter, and its leaders made no pretense that what they were doing was somehow legal.
She may be ugly before smoking the weed, but she is generally NOT ugly after smoking the weed. As I’ve always said “Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder”-or in this case the bong holder. I have always said that when I was single I never went to bed with an ugly woman-but I sure woke up with a few.
anyone interested.
I can offer pistols at dawn.
I live rather close to Clover Bottom, Old Hickory’s preferred ground for sending ingrates to their maker.
Of course, the slaves had a right to rebel; and their owners had a right to suppress. I wasn't considering rights but merely that secession and revolution/rebellion both apply to the unpleasantness during the term of "Honest Abe."
Why does the Constitution talk about suppressing insurrections? I suppose for the same reason that the Federalist Papers talk about rebelling:
Federalist No. 28 (Hamilton) excerpt:You might note that the first part of this excerpt about the "usurpations of the national rulers" applies directly to what the Southern States did. But WTF did Hamilton know? He was just a Framer.If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.
ML/NJ
Well, you used the Declaration to justifiy the south's secession as revolution. Here is Mr. Sandefur's response to that from the article:
The Declaration of Independence enunciates these principles in what is almost a syllogism: “all men are created equal... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights... among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness... to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends... it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government....” This right and duty, however, may only be exercised after “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [the people] under absolute Despotism.”
The Declaration of Independence, therefore, far from recognizing any “unconditional” right of people to overthrow their government, places several important limits on rebellion: it is justified only by a collective act of self-defense, and even then, only after “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” And a rebellion which institutes a new government based not on securing individual rights, but on violating them (such as a revolution that consists of stealing people’s property(he means the south's stealing of the slaves right to own themselves), is not a legitimate revolution at all in the eyes of the Declaration’s libertarian theory; it would be merely a massive criminal
act or coup.
Funny you should mention Andrew Jackson. He was anti-secession to. From President Jackson’s Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832:
“This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the Constitution, which they say is a compact between sovereign States who have preserved their whole sovereignty, and therefore are subject to no superior; that because they made the compact, they can break it when in their opinion it has been departed from by the other States. Fallacious as this course of reasoning is, it enlists State pride, and finds advocates in the honest prejudices of those who have not studied the nature of our government sufficiently to see the radical error on which it rests.
The people of the United States formed the Constitution, acting through the State legislatures, in making the compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they ratified those provisions; but the terms used in its construction show it to be a government in which the people of all the States collectively are represented. We are ONE PEOPLE in the choice of the President and Vice President. Here the States have no other agency than to direct the mode in which the vote shall be given. The candidates having the majority of all the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of States may have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may be chosen. The people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive branch.
In the House of Representatives there is this difference, that the people of one State do not, as in the case of President and Vice President, all vote for all the members, each State electing only its own representatives. But this creates no material distinction. When chosen, they are all representatives of the United States, not representatives of the particular State from which they come. They are paid by the United States, not by the State; nor are they accountable to it for any act done in performance of their legislative functions; and however they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult and prefer the interests of their particular constituents when they come in conflict with any other partial or local interest, yet it is their first and highest duty, as representatives of the United States, to promote the general good.
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 ale 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 offense against the whole Union. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation
because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense. 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 upon 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 offense, by whatever means the constitutional compact may have been formed; and such government has the right, by the law of self-defense, 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 of the laws.
It would seem superfluous to add anything to show the nature of that union which connects us; but as erroneous opinions on this subject are the foundation of doctrines the most destructive to our peace, I must give some further development to my views on this subject. No one, fellow-citizens, has a higher reverence for the reserved rights of the States than the magistrate who now addresses you. No one would make greater personal sacrifices, or official exertions, to defend them from violation; but equal care must be taken to prevent, on their part, an improper interference with, or resumption of, the rights they have vested in the nation.
The line has not been so distinctly drawn as to avoid doubts in some cases of the exercise of power. Men of the best intentions and soundest views may differ in their construction of some parts of the Constitution, but there are others on which dispassionate reflection can leave no doubt. Of this nature appears to be the assumed right of secession. It rests, as we have seen, on the alleged undivided sovereignty of the States, and on their having formed in this sovereign capacity a compact which is called the Constitution, from which, because they made it, they have the right to secede. Both of these positions are erroneous, and some of the arguments to prove them so have been anticipated.
The States severally have not retained their entire sovereignty. It has been shown that in becoming parts of a nation, not members of a league, they surrendered many of their essential parts of sovereignty. The right to make treaties, declare war, levy taxes, exercise exclusive judicial and legislative powers, were all functions of sovereign power. The States, then, for all these important purposes, were no longer sovereign. The allegiance of their citizens was transferred in the first instance to the government of the United States; they became American citizens, and owed obedience to the Constitution of the United States, and to laws made in conformity with the powers vested in Congress. This last position has not been, and cannot be, denied. How then, can that State be said to be sovereign and independent whose citizens owe obedience to laws not made by it, and whose magistrates are sworn to disregard those laws, when they come in conflict with those passed by another? What shows conclusively that the States cannot be said to have reserved an undivided sovereignty, is that they expressly ceded the right to punish treason-not treason against their separate power, but treason against the United States. Treason is an offense against sovereignty, and sovereignty must reside with the power to punish it. But the reserved rights of the States are not less sacred because they have for their common interest made the general government the depository of these powers. The unity of our political character (as has been shown for another purpose) commenced with its very existence. Under the royal government we had no separate character; our opposition to its oppression began as UNITED COLONIES. We were the UNITED STATES under the Confederation, and the name was perpetuated and the Union rendered more perfect by the federal Constitution. In none of these stages did we consider ourselves in any other light than as forming one nation. Treaties and alliances were made in the name of all. Troops were raised for the joint defense. How, then, with all these proofs, that under all changes of our position we had, for designated purposes and with defined powers, created national governments-how is it that the most perfect of these several modes of union should now be considered as a mere league that may be dissolved at pleasure ? It is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used as synonymous with league, although the true term is not employed, because it would at once show the fallacy of the reasoning. It would not do to say that our Constitution was only a league, but it is labored to prove it a compact (which, in one sense, it is), and then to argue that as a league is a compact, every compact between nations must, of course, be a league, and that from such an engagement every sovereign power has a right to recede. But it has been shown that in this sense the States are not sovereign, and that even if they were, and the national Constitution had been formed by compact, there would be no right in any one State to exonerate itself from the obligation.
So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession, that it is necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the benefit of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifice of interest and opinions.”
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/proclamations/jack01.htm
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