Posted on 02/11/2009 6:06:39 PM PST by Kaslin
This is the 200th birthday of the first Republican to win a national election, Abraham Lincoln. It is good for Republicans today to remember Lincoln, not to be antiquarians, but to learn from his principled defense of the Constitution.
By becoming students of Lincoln, Republicans can win elections and would deserve to win by helping America recover its constitutional source of strength and vitality.
The greatest political crisis America faces today is neither the recession nor Islamic terrorism; it's not health care, education, immigration or abortion. It is that the United States Constitution has become largely irrelevant to our politics and policies.
All three branches of government routinely ignore or twist the meaning of the Constitution, while many of our problems today are symptoms of policies that have no constitutional foundation.
If we are to recover the authority of the Constitution and the many ways it restrains and channels government power, someone or some party must offer a principled defense of the cause of constitutional government.
They must understand not only the Constitution, but also the principles that informed its original purposes and aspirations, principles found in the Declaration of Independence among other places.
No one understood that better than Lincoln.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Eloquently and precisely stated, brother. Encore!
There is no doubt what-so-ever that the progressives have used, and continue to use, that fact to great effect!
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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And I've already mentioned that your source was in the crosshairs and would be under constant attack from the Lincoln administration in the courts. I doubt it would have survived very long.
The finding is fact. Postulating about what might have happened is not fact. Something I've already mentioned.
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Fort Sumter didn't belong to them.
Once legal Notice was received as the Law requires, South Carolina was no longer a 'State' as far as the federal government was concerned.
There are decades of Constitutional history prior to the War, surely you can find something in there to support your position.
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Rebellion is defined as open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistence to an established government.
No, rebellion is an open, armed, defiance of a lawful authority. As the States were a lawful authority and no one was defying it. There was no rebellion.
I've already showed where the States MUST request the assistance before the federal government can enter it.
You refute my claim, yet offer no proof.
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"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions..."
Again, no Rebellion.
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Yet the seceding states, as they may be not improperly termed, did not hesitate, as soon as nine states had ratified the new constitution, to supersede the former federal government, and establish a new form, more consonant to their opinion of what was necessary to the preservation and prosperity of the federal union. But although by this act the seceding states subverted the former federal government, yet the obligations of the articles of confederacy as a treaty of perpetual alliance, offensive and defensive, between all the parties thereto, no doubt remained; and if North Carolina and Rhode Island had never acceded to the new form of government, that circumstance, I conceive, could never have lessened the obligation upon the other states to perform those stipulations on their parts which the states, who were unwilling to change the form of the federal government, had by virtue of those articles a right to demand and insist upon. For the inadequacy of the form of government established by those articles could not be charged upon one state more than another, nor had North Carolina or Rhode Island committed any breach of them; the seceding states therefore had no cause of complaint against them. On the contrary, these states being still willing to adhere to the terms of the confederacy, had the right of complaining, if there could be any right to complain of the conduct of states endeavouring to meliorate their own condition, by establishing a different form of government. But the seceding states were certainly justified upon that principle; and from the duty which every state is acknowledged to owe to itself, and its own citizens, by doing whatsoever may best contribute to advance its own happiness and prosperity; and much more, what may be necessary to the preservation of its existence as a state.
NOTE B, SECTION XIII.
Breaking it down, you are saying that Lincoln, by fighting to preserve the Union, made the Union more powerful than the states.
Your position, however, begs the question of whether the states were allowed to secede. If they were not, and it is debatable, then Lincoln certainly had the right to fight a war to maintain the Union. You can't complain that to defeat an illegal war, he defeated the states who illegally left the Union.
Whatever the rightness of the secession issue (and it is incapable of decision because, like many human endeavors based upon interpretation of words, there is no "correct" answer, only opposing theories), Lincoln also had the moral high ground in that war, and in preserving the Union, laid the groundwork for all the good things that a united nation was able to accomplish in these past 145 years, not to mention eliminating the evil of slavery.
If it was a debate that could go either way, and one course leads to indefinite extension of an evil system and long-term warfare between two neighboring states, and the other results in a final resolution of a long simmering issue and elimination of a terrible evil, I would take the latter every time.
Having taken the latter approach, all that was established was that a state could not secede. Not that a state could not regulate its internal affairs. That was not a principle that Lincoln or the Republicans established. The Constitution was amended in two key aspects, eliminating slavery and requiring that all US citizens be given due process of law. Period.
No principle detracting from federalism, any more than the Bill of Rights already did, was established by the example of the Civil War. Federalism didn't die until the Democrats, the second generation descendants of the southern slave-owners and their northern sympathizers, decided to use the power of the state to establish socialism in the United States. Southerners were eager to join a coalition with Northern Democrats because, in spite of the socialist aspects, it gave them protection in their home states and allowed them to maintain their in-state fiefdoms for a few decades more. The slaves by then had become little more than serfs, not much different than before they were supposedly freed by the 13th Amendment. Those Democrats, the Northern socialists and their southern racist allies who descended from racist confederates, are the cause of our ills today. You are their progeny. I remain their opponent.
Your extremely offensive manner and unwarranted insults make any further attempt at communication between us pointless.
Good day!
I guess it is easier to blame everything on Lincoln than examine the truth.
So you're saying that for the states to outlaw slavery was illegal?
The finding is fact. Postulating about what might have happened is not fact. Something I've already mentioned.
What have we been doing all along but postulating? Obviously the Southern leadership viewed it as more than postulating on Lincoln's part, but as a very real threat. One worth rebelling over.
Once legal Notice was received as the Law requires, South Carolina was no longer a 'State' as far as the federal government was concerned.
Irrelevant. Sumter continued to be the property of the federal government. Nothing in law magically changed ownership from one to the other without the government's permission.
There are decades of Constitutional history prior to the War, surely you can find something in there to support your position.
How about something to support your position?
As the States were a lawful authority and no one was defying it. There was no rebellion.
The federal government was the lawful authority under the Constitution. The defiance was to them.
I've already showed where the States MUST request the assistance before the federal government can enter it.
And I've shown you where Congress has the authority to call up the milita to enforece the laws and suppress insurrection. And that doesn't require the request from the states. Precedent goes back to 1794 when Washington called up the militia to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion without the request of governor.
Proof enough? Again, no Rebellion.
Again, there was.
What the hell does that have to do with the Northwest Ordinance or its prohibition on slavery?
No, I'm saying the federal government had no authority to outlaw slavery.
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Sumter continued to be the property of the federal government.
Which owns nothing. It merely holds such property as a delegated trust for the collective States.
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The federal government was the lawful authority under the Constitution. The defiance was to them.
And since the seceding states, by establishing a new constitution and form of federal government among themselves, without the consent of the rest, have shown that they consider the right to do so whenever the occasion may, in their opinion require it, as unquestionable, we may infer that that right has not been diminished by any new compact which they may since have entered into, since none could be more solemn or explicit than the first, nor more binding upon the contracting parties. Their obligation, therefore, to preserve the present constitution, is not greater than their former obligations were, to adhere to the articles of confederation; each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess.
St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States, Of the Several Forms of Government, Section XIII
There is no way to justify the reaction of the Union on the simple basis of destruction of a fort that had yet to be completed, manned, or even fully armed until after South Carolina delivered her notification.
It had everything to do with an involuntary union of States.
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Precedent goes back to 1794 when Washington called up the militia to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion without the request of governor.
First, the ability to legislate for an enumerated area and the authority to collect a tax are two totally different powers.
Secondly, Washington only attempted to call out the militia without the request of the Governor. He did not succeed.
But Mifflin declined, asserting that a president in peacetime and in the absence of any local request for help had no authority to direct a state governor to use a state militia for any purpose. In the process, he established a precedent that is still honored today.
The Whiskey Rebellion
Washington then issued a proclamation requesting the assistance of Pennsylvania, and Mifflin agreed.
The Confederation Congress enacted the Northwest Ordinance in July 1787. The Articles make no mention of slavery, so the Confederation Congress had no authority to legislate for it..... anywhere.
That's what 'no shadow of the authority exercised' means.
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In footnote #2, Madison also discusses the fact that:
Yet neither of them, nor indeed any of the other opponents, among the multitude of their objections, and farfetched interpretations, ever hinted, in the debates on the 9th Sect. of Ar. 1, at a power given by it to prohibit an interior migration of any sort. The meaning of the Secn. as levelled against migrations or importations from abroad, was not contested.
The enumerated power in the US Constitution concerns the importation of slaves into the country, not an individual territory or a State.
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While I'm willing to discuss just about anything, I have no intention of spoon-feeding provided material to you. If you have no interest in pursuing any links, do me the courtesy of telling me now.
I have a damned sight better use for my time than to waste it on someone who has no interest in honest debate.
The southern states never left the Union. South Carolina was a state in the USA on the 24th of December 1860, and the 25th, and 26th, and so on. South Carolina had no legal standing to call for secession. In order to make their extralegal action binding, they needed to win the war. They didn’t.
All your link showed was that they attempted to leave, not that there claim to have seceded was accepted.
No, it showed where they gave legal Notification that they were leaving. They needed neither permission nor acceptance.
From the first legal treatise written after ratification and at the request of Congress:
each state possessing the same right of withdrawing itself from the confederacy without the consent of the rest, as any number of them do, or ever did, possess
St. George Tucker, View of the Constitution of the United States 1803 [See post #229 for link]
I think we need to take the Constitution over what George Tucker says. I’d like to know what provision in the Constitution sanctions secession. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, not private opinions.
Tucker was wrong. There is no “right of secession”. The same way a state can’t pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they will follow. The Constitution is the law of the land. States, btw, have no *rights*. Only individuals have rights. God-given rights.
South Carolina couldn’t give legal notice they were seceding, because secession wasn’t legal. They gave notice they were rebelling is all. They were always a state in the Union; just one in a state of rebellion. If they had won they might have been able to press their case a little better. They lost. Get over it. :)
Not in the states, no. But territories were not states and the government controlling it was the federal government. Most people at the time of the rebellion believed that Congress should be able to control or outlaw slavery in the territories, and the loathsome decision that prevented it would undoubtably have been overturned.
Which owns nothing. It merely holds such property as a delegated trust for the collective States.
Not according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 which grants Congress exclusive control over property acquired by the government for such purposes.
There is no way to justify the reaction of the Union on the simple basis of destruction of a fort that had yet to be completed, manned, or even fully armed until after South Carolina delivered her notification.
The attack on Sumter was a deliberate act of war, and turned the Southern cause from a peaceful attempt to leave into armed rebellion. All the death and destruction that was to rain down upon the South in the next four years were self inflicted.
It had everything to do with an involuntary union of States.
It had everything to do with the Constituiton and the rights of all the states, not just the rebelling ones.
Secondly, Washington only attempted to call out the militia without the request of the Governor. He did not succeed.
He certainly did. He took 13,000 militia from several states into Pennsylvania and marched all over the state attempting to find the ringleaders. At least two men were tried and convicted for treason.
Washington then issued a proclamation requesting the assistance of Pennsylvania, and Mifflin agreed.
But that's not what your source says. And if you read Washington's Proclamation it's clear that he did not act at the request or with the permission of Governor Mifflin or the Pennsylvania legislature. All the authority he needed came from Article I, Section 8 and the Militia Act of 1792.
Tucker is still considered a legal authority by today's US Supreme Court.
I believe I'll be taking his word over either of yours.
I'll take the Constitution over all our opinions. Where in the Constitution is there sanction for secession? I see no mention of the concept.
What people believed was immaterial. Again, you have conjecture, but no facts.
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Not according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 which grants Congress exclusive control over property acquired by the government for such purposes.
No, it is an area of exclusive legislation, not exclusive control.
§ 1220. A great variety of cessions have been made by the states under this power. And generally there has been a reservation of the right to serve all state process, civil and criminal, upon persons found therein.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution
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The attack on Sumter was a deliberate act of war, and turned the Southern cause from a peaceful attempt to leave into armed rebellion. All the death and destruction that was to rain down upon the South in the next four years were self inflicted.
No, it was an act of defense.I've already given a legally acknowledged source that said the States could leave at will.
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It had everything to do with the Constituiton and the rights of all the states, not just the rebelling ones.
If it has to do with the Constitution, please quote the Article, Section and clause that deals with secession, mentions a perpetual union, or speaks of any obligation concerning 'the rights of all the Stataes'.
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
James Madison, Federalist #45
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He certainly did. He took 13,000 militia from several states into Pennsylvania and marched all over the state attempting to find the ringleaders. At least two men were tried and convicted for treason
and sentenced to hang, and Washington pardoned them.
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But that's not what your source says.
That's exactly what is says-Rebuffed by Pennsylvania’s governor, Washington drafted a proclamation requesting that the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia place a force of 12,950 men into federal service.
You didn't even bother to read it, did you?
“Tucker is still considered a legal authority by today’s US Supreme Court.”
You can take Tucker’s word, and I’ll take the Constitution. The law of the land isn’t Tucker, or don’t you know that?
lol
§ 207. XIII. Another rule of interpretation deserves consideration in regard to the constitution. There are certain maxims, which have found their way, not only into judicial discussions, but into the business of common life, as founded in common sense, and common convenience. Thus, it is often said, that in an instrument a specification of particulars is an exclusion of generals; or the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another. Lord Bacon's remark, "that, as exception strengthens the force of a law in cases not excepted, so enumeration weakens it in cases not enumerated," has been perpetually referred to, as a fine illustration.
Justice Joseph Story on Rules of Constitutional Interpretation
1833 It is a general principle of statutory construction that the mention of one thing implies the exclusion Of another. (For an exhaustive annotation on this "rule of exclusion," see: 73 Am. Jur. 2d Statutes §212 and the citations collected thereunder.) As exceptions in a statute strengthen the force of law in cases not excepted, so enumerations weaken it in cases not enumerated.
John C. Danforth, Missouri Attorney General, April 21, 1975
the familiar principle laid down in Page vs. Allen, 58 Pa. 338, 346, that "as exceptions strengthen the force of a general law, so enumeration weakens, as to things not enumerated."
Berks County Law Journal, April 21, 1975 , OCTOBER 1919
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Above you have THREE linked quotes from legal authorities stating that if something is NOT enumerated in the Constitution, then the case for it is weakened.
Now....please show me where in the Constitution are the PROVISIONS for secession?
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