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Posted on 01/24/2009 8:44:42 PM PST by rabscuttle385
No, that IS the issue. If the Southern states legitimately left, the Union had no authority to force them back into a 'free association' with the other states.
If the Southern states leaving was not legitimate, then they never left the association, ergo there was no 'return' and no conditions for their reinstatement could be placed on them.
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Once that had been forfeited, everything those states had to do to get it back was a consequence of that action, not an outside imposition.
Something agreed to under duress is not legally binding.
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What does Blackstone’s opinion of abortion in 1765 matter?
It is within the subject of the thread.
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I thought nerarly all conservatives agree that Blackmun’s definition of personhood was erroneous.
If conservatives agree that Blackstones’s definition of person-hood was erroneous, it's the first I've heard of it.
To be fair, I don't think you can assume that they would all be contributing to the Ponzi scheme. Quite likely, there would have been considerably more costs associated with raising these children than they would have contributed by now.
O.k. Are you arguing in favour of the Confederacy, or against abortion?
If the states did leave by secession, then obviously their votes were not required to enact the additional amendments.
Common law notions of civil contracts do not apply, and merely wanting something someone else can give you does not amount to “compulsion” in any event.
Requiring the rebel states, either successfully escaped from the Union or not prior to their occupation, to have their legislatures endorse the new amendments as a condition of regaining their forfeited Congressional representation was not compulsion unless you believe that states which had announced their secession had a right to continued representation in the Union they claimed to reject.
Justice Blackmun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmun) was the one who declared fetuses non-persons; he is not to be confused with the 18th century English legal author William Blackstone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blackstone).
Blackstone’s opinion, while of historical interest, will not by itself overturn Supreme Court precedent.
ACK ... the PAULISTINIANS ARE HERE ... I know.. I get a Disguise so they won’t bother me ... Get me some DRUGS AND A HOOKER, and they won’t Recognize me.
Both
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If the states did leave by secession, then obviously their votes were not required to enact the additional amendments.
Yes they were, as the the south was forced back into the Union in 1865 and the 14th was [supposedly] ratified in 1868.
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Common law notions of civil contracts do not apply, and merely wanting something someone else can give you does not amount to “compulsion” in any event.
Source, please.
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Requiring the rebel states, either successfully escaped from the Union or not prior to their occupation, to have their legislatures endorse the new amendments as a condition of regaining their forfeited Congressional representation was not compulsion unless you believe that states which had announced their secession had a right to continued representation in the Union they claimed to reject.
It was the federal government that refused to acknowledge the South could leave, thus [according to the Federal government] the right to representation was never interrupted. Are you saying the government could put conditions on the South for an act that never happened?
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Blackstone’s opinion, while of historical interest, will not by itself overturn Supreme Court precedent.
Why should it? Particularly since the Supreme Court didn't have the legitimate jurisdiction to decide the issue in the first place:
However true, therefore, it may be, that the judicial department is, in all questions submitted to it by the forms of the Constitution, to decide in the last resort, this resort must necessarily be deemed the last in relation to the authorities of the other departments of the government; not in relation to the rights of the parties to the constitutional compact, from which the judicial, as well as the other departments, hold their delegated trusts. On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve.
James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions
Ron Paul is a fringe kook, who is correct in several areas, abortion being one of them. Its too bad he is as mentally unstable as Dennis Kucinich.
Once you’ve forfeited your representation, you, not surprisingly, don’t get to participate in future debates about when you get your representation back.
The fact that the South came to regret secession did not amount to a moral or legal obligation to readmit their representatives as soon as the last gunshot died away.
LOL! You're blatantly ignoring that the Union decided the South couldn't leave, so having never left, there was no forfeit of representation. You can't have it both ways.
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The fact that the South came to regret secession did not amount to a moral or legal obligation to readmit their representatives as soon as the last gunshot died away.
Firstly, to my knowledge, the South never regretted the attempt to exercise it's Constitutional rights. Secondly, the there was nothing legal about the acts of the Union.
BTW- the morality issue is irrelevant since the Constitution is a legal contract, not a moral one.
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The fact remains until and unless the people again understand what the Constitution is and what it can and can't do, we are all nothing more than 'artificial persons', forever separated from our natural aspect....the source of our inalienable rights.
A federal approach to the issue of murder of the preborn is not going to work. How many millions of dollars were spent passing the partial birth abortion ban (of no effect)? We will not have a true pro-life judiciary in my lifetime either. And a constitutional convention would be a disaster (hello socialist Newstates of Amerika!) Leaving the matter to the States is a longshot but much better than a Constitutional amendment, or waiting 300 years for a federal judge who actually believes in personhood of the preborn.
I’m not generally an incrementalist - all the incremental “victories” under RINO rule the last decade have given us even more socialism - but in this case, every single preborn baby saved is a victory. If Idaho or South Dakota want a complete ban on abortion, they should pass it and enforce it. Then they should call out the state police and/or state national guard if needed.
Supporters of the federal approach to banning abortion have never explained how the Constitution permits federal law enforcement to enforce such a ban against private individuals within the several States of the Union. Would they have the doctor, the mother, or the payer arrested? On what charges? How does murder affect interstate commerce? Or would they arrest the state Governor for refusing to protect life, liberty and property? Are they prepared to declare martial law in order to enforce the ban?
>> or, the Supremes could decide WHEN life begins
Life begins immediately. It’s a question of the point at which prenatal life deserves protection.
Your position, on Ron Paul's position is that we don't.
Which other unalienable rights do you think states have the authority to alienate?
The issue of the validity of secession is moot. The confederate states, by announcing their withdrawal from the Union at the same time announced their withdrawal from Congress. While the validity of withdrawal from the Union is debatable, the validity of withdrawal from Congress is explicitly recognised.
We don’t need to decide whether secession was legal or not to see that the lack of Congressional representation by the former Confederate states at the time the 14th Amendment passed Congress was indeed valid.
If the issue of secession is moot, did we then not have a right to secede from Britain?
***While the validity of withdrawal from the Union is debatable, the validity of withdrawal from Congress is explicitly recognised.***
Then why did the North feel the need to force the South to sign the Amendment? They already had the Congressional representation right?
We can debate the legality of rebellion and secession till the cows come home; it doesn’t affect the legitimacy of the 14th Amendment as written.
The Union made state legislative ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments a precondition of their resumption of federal representation so that those representatives could not later disown those Amendments and reopen the issues the war had settled.
Like I said: a hard bargain; but when you bet everything on black and the house wins, you’re bargaining position has pretty much Gone with the Wind.
We do have a nation built upon a recognition of the God-given rights to life and liberty. Local and state governments do not have the authority to alienate any of our rights, but they do anyway. The federal government does not have the right to alienate any of our rights, but they do anyway. Your point?
You didn’t answer my questions.
That’s “your bargaining position,” of course.
Let's make 'em stop.
LOL! Sorry, but there is a minor fact that occurred prior to the 14th Amendment that blows the 'Constitutional validity' of your argument out of the water.
It's called the 13th Amendment.
The ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 8, 1865 undoubtedly supplies this official proof. If the Southern States were not member States of the Union, the 13th amendment would not have been submitted to their Legislatures for ratification.
The 13th Amendment was ratified by 27 states of the then 36 states of the Union, including the Southern States of Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia. This is shown by the Proclamation of the Secretary of State December 18, 1865.
Without the votes of these seven Southern State Legislatures the 13th Amendment would have failed. There can be no doubt but that the ratification by these Southern States of the 13th Amendment again established the fact that their Legislatures and State governments were duly and lawfully constituted and functioning as such under their State Constitutions.
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It wasn't until the States of the South refused to vote for the 14th Amendment that the unconstitutional Reconstruction Acts were passed, wherein the federal government created military districts out of the southern States.
In President Andrew Johnson’s Veto of the First Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867, he pointed out the hypocrisy of Congress... particularly since it had passed the Crittenden Resolution by a majority vote:
It is a part of our public history which can never be forgotten that both Houses of Congress, in July, 1861, declared in the form of a solemn resolution that the war was and should be carried on for no purpose of subjugation, but solely to enforce the Constitution and laws, and that when this was yielded by the parties in rebellion the contest should cease, with the constitutional rights of the States and of individuals unimpaired. This resolution was adopted and sent forth to the world unanimously by the Senate and with only two dissenting voices in the House. It was accepted by the friends of the Union in the South as well as in the North as expressing honestly and truly the object of the war. On the faith of it many thousands of persons in both sections gave their lives and their fortunes to the cause. To repudiate it now by refusing to the States and to the individuals within them the rights which the Constitution and laws of the Union would secure to them is a breach of our plighted honor for which I can imagine no excuse and to which I can not voluntarily become a party.
You don’t seem to be following the argument. Whether or not the states had been in the Union, they forfeited their Congressional representation by their acts of secession. Once they decided they wanted that back, they were confronted with the hard bargain requiring their ratification of the post-war Amendments as a precondition of regaining their representation.
No one challenges the legitimacy of the state governments, or their post-war right to ratify amendments, or not, according to their perceptions of their states’ interests.
The fact that those legislatures saw ratification of the 14th Amendment as part of a bargain to regain their states’ congressional representation does not make the ratification a compelled act.
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