Posted on 02/15/2010 3:29:27 PM PST by central_va
so true
And the loser gets to write the myths which are just as inaccurate. And nowhere is that more true than when dealing with the War of the Rebellion.
James Madison to Non-Sequitur
The resolution, having taken this view of the federal compact, proceeds to infer, “That, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them.”
It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges, in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority, of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal, above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.
But it is objected, that the judicial authority is to be regarded as the sole expositor of the Constitution in the last resort; and it may be asked for what reason the declaration by the General Assembly, supposing it to be theoretically true, could be required at the present day, and in so solemn|a manner.
On this objection it might be observed, first, that there may be instances of usurped power, which the forms of the Constitution would never draw within the control of the judicial department; secondly, that, if the decision of the judiciary be raised above the authority of the sovereign parties to the Constitution, the decisions of the other departments, not carried by the forms of the Constitution before the judiciary, must be equally authoritative and final with the decisions of that department. But the proper answer to the objection is, that the resolution of the General Assembly relates to those great and extraordinary cases, in which all the forms of the Constitution may prove ineffectual against infractions dangerous to the essential rights of the parties to it. The resolution supposes that dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other departments, but that the judicial department, also, may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority as well as by another—by the judiciary as well as by the executive, or the legislature.
BS, the radical abolitionists never got any compensation proposals of note off the table either ...most were on record same as you have on this forum that they did not favor it.
Has it ever dawned on you that the parties who wished to do something besides force this issue and other issues unpopular in the South won the popular vote in 1860? That says plenty.
Your side got 40% and wanted war and you got it. My side should have found a solution short of war. It was a horrible perfect alignment of political planets that had been forming since our colonization....and the price was huge and then you guys had "freed the slaves" but you sure didn't want them in your backyard...you figured you could just turn the power over to them down here and have a radical GOP block for centuries but that didn't quite go as planned either.
And unlike ya'll, down here we still live with the aftereffects to some degree and the same mindsets persist as well to some degree but now as then....you need us to be what you are because you can't be that alone....you guys can't hold your own political mud...most of the north is a sea of progressivism as always..need I show you some red-blue state maps...and no your lily cracker state of Kansas does not count...it's easy for ya'll ...try that with a 30-40% black population and stay red on the map.
To all my kinsmen here, good work....pour on the lead...you’ve got them on the run.....whoops...
“yes honey, I’m coming....I know groceries to get and more honey-do...and yes....NS still survives to fight another day..drat”
OK, if it's BS then that must mean you believe the Southern slaveocracy was open to compensated emancipation. So what do you base that on?
Has it ever dawned on you that the parties who wished to do something besides force this issue and other issues unpopular in the South won the popular vote in 1860? That says plenty.
It says that you haven't read the various Democratic platforms. Breckenridge ran on a platform saying that the right to settle with slaves in any territory in the Union should be protected. That states do not have a right to enact laws if the South viewed them as hostile to the Fugitive Slave laws. And that states must be admitted when they first petition congress which, if enforced, would have brought Kansas in as a slave state when the large majority of the Kansas population opposed slavery. So how did the Republican platform 'force the issue' where the Democratic platform of the candidate who carried most of the slave states did not?
My side should have found a solution short of war.
Yet it did not. It chose war instead, and having done so was hardly in a position to complain when it didn't work out quite how you had planned.
James Madison to Idabilly:
"It is not usual to answer communications without the proper names to them. But the ability and the motives disclosed in the Essays induce me to say in compliance with the wish expressed, that I do not consider the proceedings of Virginia in 98-99 as countenancing the doctrine that a state may at will secede from its Constitutional compact with the other States. A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact, absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it."
Madison goes on to say:
"It surely does not follow, from the fact of the States, or rather the people embodied in them, having as parties to the Constitutional compact no tribunal above them, that, in controverted meanings of the compact, a minority of the parties can rightfully decide gains the majority; still less than a single party can decide against the rest; and as little that it can at will withdraw from its compact with the rest. The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains."
How about we start with this one?
The Union is older than the states and, in fact created them as states. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. Union threw off their old dependence and made them states, such as they are.
Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress, July 4, 1861
have you lost the plot?
You are posting to me but reffering to another poster.
what is this bring it on crap too?
You’re a tough guy over the internet aren’t you, are you this tough face to face too and do you get upset when you see battle flags flying down here?
If so then I might suggest you don’t bother coming down here then just like the other liberal fairies who get bothered about a flag but forget that it was another flag which flew over slave ships and killed, raped and stole from the indians.
Now get it together because it seems in your haste you posted tot he wrong guy i.e. me
How about we start with that one...in context?
"Our States have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution -- no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into the Union from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas; and even Texas in its temporary independence was never designated a State. The new ones only took the designation of States on coming into the Union, while that name was first adopted for the old ones in and by the Declaration of Independence. Therein the "United Colonies" were declared to be "free and independent States;" but even then the object plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and afterward, abundantly show. The express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual is most conclusive. Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the "sovereignty" of the States, but the word even is not in the national Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What is a "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it "a political community without a political superior?" Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty; and even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this they can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of independence and liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and in fact it created them as States. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn the Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of the Union. Of course it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union, nevertheless dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union."
So where, exactly, is Lincoln wrong? Especially when referring to 7 of the 11 rebel states that were admitted following the ratification of the Constitution?
have you lost the plot?
You are posting to me but reffering to another poster.
what is this bring it on crap too?
You’re a tough guy over the internet aren’t you, are you this tough face to face too and do you get upset when you see battle flags flying down here?
If so then I might suggest you don’t bother coming down here then just like the other liberal fairies who get bothered about a flag but forget that it was another flag which flew over slave ships and killed, raped and stole from the indians.
Now get it together because it seems in your haste you posted tot he wrong guy i.e. me
He is wrong because every one of those states were free and independent states long before there was any union whatever!
This truth holds ( even in 2010 )
A meddling Yankee troubles himself about every bodys matters except his own and repents of everybodys sins except his own. We are a different people.
D. H. HILL
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
The consent of those who we accuse of abusing this government is not required for us to dissolve the political bonds which connect us to them.
James Wilsons Speech at the State House 6 October 1787
"This construction has since been fully confirmed by the twelfth (now 10th)article of amendments, which declares, "that the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. This article was added "to prevent misconstruction or abuse" of the powers granted by the constitution, rather than supposed necessary to explain and secure the rights of the states, or of the people. The powers delegated to the federal government being all positive, and enumerated, according to the ordinary rules of construction, whatever is not enumerated is retained; for, expressum facit tacere tacitum is a maxim in all cases of construction: it is likewise a maxim of political law, that sovereign states cannot be deprived of any of their rights by implication; nor in any manner whatever but by their own voluntary consent, or by submission to a conqueror.
not to get into an arguement but could you show me where it states it is illegal, thanks in advance
Of course the American Revolution was illegal. That's why it was called a rebellion. It was a rebellion against the presiding legal authority, and the actions of the Founders were illegal under the existing British laws.
The difference is that the Founders were successful in their rebellion, and thus were able to abrogate the laws in favor of new ones, while Britain conceded to and recognized the new authority. The South was not successful, and thus never established a new authority. They therefore remain today, and legally remained during the Civil War, under the authority of the US Constitution.
Since they remained under the Constitution, that means that they are bound by the legal rulings of the Supreme Court. They ruled that the manner of secession attempted by the South was illegal, in Texas v. White. They also stated that the proper, legal way to exit the Union was to do so in the same way as they got in: by consent of the other members of the Union.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.