The Ominous ‘S-Word’ – Secession

Big Government ^ | 3-31-10 | Timothy H. Lee

[kingattax]

After 230 years, are the American people coursing toward eventual divorce?

Our polarized society increasingly ponders what would happen if American conservatives and liberals simply agreed that their differences had become irreconcilable, and redivided the nation to go their separate ways.

Which side would prosper and experience an influx of migration from the other? Conversely, which side would likely become a fiscal and socio-political basket case?

Any reasonable person already knows the likely answer. One need only compare the smoldering wreckage wrought by liberal governance in such states as California or Michigan with the comparative prosperity created by conservative governance in such states as Texas or Utah.

We can also examine the past 400 years, during which immigrants abandoned Europe for an America founded upon the fundamental principles of limited government and individual freedom.

[wolfcreek]

I live in Texas. I Chinese ship a lot of stuff through *their* ports in Mexico. (which is closer)

I don’t like it but, thanks to NAFTA...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1667854/posts

[Jack Black]

Today, a secession would not be violently responded to by the Federal Government, because armed action against Secessionist state government would be the ultimate in anathema. The only thing that might dissuade a successful Secession in these modern times would be the National Guard—not their federalization, but their professionalism in supporting any Commander in Chief’s orders.

I think I understand and agree with your first statement: the Federal Government would not be able to act like Lincoln did because it's now dominated by Liberals. Liberals believe every little group has a right to self-determination. They believe in Democracy. The support the rights of Palestianians for self-rule, etc. So if the people of Wyoming, by a significant margin, voted to leave the USA would liberals REALLY abandon ALL their beliefs, counter all their rhetoric, and FORCE poor Wyoming to stay in the Union? Would the same Senators voting for the Akaka bill to grant more autonomy and speical rights to Hawaiians (which is destined to end in Hawaiian independence) really support SENDING IN THE ARMY TO CASPER? I think not, I agree with you. Their own logic, emotion and oft stated beliefs will compell them to reluctantly admit Wyoming may leave the union.

As for your second point, it seems to have two point. While the Congress (dominated by leftists) might not want to fight a way to force states to remain in the union, the President might well want to. Then it would depend on the Army agreeing to do the fighting, possibly without legal approval from Congress.

What I don't understand is your focus on 'the national guard'. Wouldn't the regular Army and Marine Corp. be the ones to use?

[Lurking Libertarian]

Is not secession always by force of arms? Is there a single instance of a peaceful parting of the ways? Serious question - I don’t know the answer, but I’d be surprised if there were.

I can think of one-- the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There may be others.

[southernsunshine]

Response to your #175.

To me it is more than that. IMHO it is inexcusable the way this part of American history is taught. Not only are large parts of what led up to the Civil War omitted from what is taught, some of it is revisionist history.

Then, as now with the deathcare bill, the issue is States rights (individual rights) v Federal government.

[southernsunshine]

It wasn’t about Northern authority or a problem with the North per se. It was about Federal authority. It just so happened that the Federal authority was located in the North.

[wolfcreek]

Yes, you are right.

I was mainly responding to FReeper Non-Sequitur. We’ve had several conversations about this subject.

You have to feed him/her a little at a time.

[ScreamingFist]

“the U.S. was considered by the confederacy to be a foreign country, and imports of slaves from there was specifically protected.”

Yea, Just a bunch of god loving, anti-slave Union people that gave life and limb to free the slaves.....I notice you never mention the drafts.

[GonzoGOP]

The Civil War was a counter revolution. Prior to 1830 the US had been dominated almost completely by the South. They after all had most of the money. From 1830 - 1850 the North industrialized and began to grow much more rapidly both in wealth and population than the South. However the political power did not shift accordingly because the South prevented new Northern states coming in unless a Southern state was admitted at the same time. As a result then maintained parity or an advantage in the Senate and thus continued to exercise control over the entire country.

Despite the growth of the North the South maintained control by voting as a block and by splitting the northern vote between patronage Democrats and free state Wigs. That all fell apart in the 1850's. The western expansion of the South was limited by the fact that Arizona, Utah and New Mexico were not conducive to agriculture. Minnesota, Oregon and California also came in as a free states. So in order to maintain parity they had to move north of the Missouri compromise line. This brought about the Kansas Nebraska act where the South planned to colonize this northern territory with slave holders prior to the vote for admission. Unfortunately Northern interests had learned to play the game and sponsored mass colonization of Kansas by free states. Failing in the battle of the homestead an attempt was made to bring Kansas in as a slave state by force and a series of rigged elections. In moves that would make ACORN blush some counties along the Missouri border cast ballots three and four times their population.

By 1860 Bleeding Kansas, Dread Scott, and the Fugitive Slave Laws were all so offensive to the North that northern voters began to block vote in the same way as the Southern voters did. As a result the Democrats got pasted in the 1858 midterms and then saw the writing on the wall in 1860. Knowing that the Yankees were going to be looking for payback the Southern states decided to bail. As I said earlier had they done so in a quieter and less boisterous manner they probably would have been allowed to go. Union support for war was tepid at best and had they been given an honorable out they probably would have taken it. But the Confederacy was spoiling for a fight because they believed that Yankees were weak and divided and that by fighting they could pick up much more than they could get at the bargaining table. Making the same mistake the Japanese would make 80 years later the failed to grasp that by attacking fort Sumter they would cause the North's pacifism and divisions to vanish overnight. By 1863 when the errors of the Southern assumptions were obvious it was too late to save the Confederacy.

[GonzoGOP]

It just so happened that the Federal authority was located in the North.

They had never had a problem with Federal authority when they were the ones controlling it. The Southern Democrats had routinely used federal authority to enforce the fugitive slave laws. Clearly trumping the states rights of Northern States. The problem came when massive demographic shifts indicated that they would be a permanent minority in the country after 1860. And thus the federal power they had previously wielded would from then on be wielded against them. Their decision was completely logical (Why play a game you cannot possibly win) but the high moral cause against Federal power by the South is a bit hypocritical.

[antisocial]

I was being sarcastic and thought it might be obvious.

[wasp69]

And the Lost Causers will want us all to believe that slavery didn't exist

This time states exercising their right to leave a non-perpetual pact will really be about slavery, so at least you can feel vindicated that at least one secession movement was truly about slavery.

Your attempts at pissing on this thread not withstanding.

[mo]

“It really comes down to this: My conservative political philosophy does not threaten or affect the freedom of liberals. I don’t ask them to sacrifice anything for me, but they DEMAND I sacrifice for them””

[Non-Sequitur]

IMHO not very sound reasoning due to the fact that Texas v White didn’t happen until 3 years AFTER the War

And just what are you expecting? That the court should have ruled three years BEFORE the South seceded? Have you no concept of what a court is and how it operates?

[Non-Sequitur]

NS - Perhaps you do not understand the history of Nullificaiton?

I do. What's your point?

[Non-Sequitur]

I'll try once more. There is a difference in sighting something as part of an argument, even forcefully, and having a trial on that issue.

You can try until the cows come home. Your claim that the court has never ruled on the issues of secession is still wrong.

That trial never took place. Trials where those issues would have been forcefully put forward, that begged out for trial, such as Jefferson Davis, never took place. He was indicted for treason, but the charges were dropped.

Due, among other things, to the 14th Amendment.

There are entire books about the pros and cons of the legality of secession. I have read them, and it changed my thinking on the subject. Perhaps you should do the same if you are interested in this topic. (As we all know, too, the Supreme Court has been known to be wrong or change their mind occassionally, too.)

I've read two out of three. And my opinion hasn't changed.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Southerners also had no problem with labeling secession as treason when some northerners made a little noise about it at the Hartford Convention.

[ScreamingFist]

“Under the Union draft act men faced the possibility of conscription in July 1863 and in Mar., July, and Dec. 1864. Draft riots ensued, notably in New York in 1863. Of the 249,259 18-to-35-year-old men whose names were drawn, only about 6% served, the rest paying commutation or hiring a substitute.
The first Confederate conscription law also applied to men between 18 and 35, providing for substitution (repealed Dec. 1863) and exemptions. A revision, approved 27 Sept. 1862, raised the age to 45; 5 days later the legislators passed the expanded Exemption Act. The Conscription Act of Feb. 1864 called all men between 1 7 and 50. Conscripts accounted for one-fourth to one-third of the Confederate armies east of the Mississippi between Apr. 1864 and early 1865.”

Yes, the North, specifically NY, was all about morals and freeing slaves.....all 6% of them.

[Non-Sequitur]

Yea, Just a bunch of god loving, anti-slave Union people that gave life and limb to free the slaves.....I notice you never mention the drafts.

Are you not aware that the confederacy instituted conscription over a year before the Union did? As well as forcibly extending enlistments for the duration of the war?

[Non-Sequitur]

Another angle would be the property rights issue. Slaves, at that point in history, were property.

True.

Those of us whose relatives fought for the South know it wasn't *just* about slavery and no one will ever convince us otherwise.

Yes we know. Southern revisionism is always in full bloom.

[Non-Sequitur]

My point is when the Civil War was fought there was no legal finding that secession was unconstitutional. The finding did not come until 3 years AFTER the Civil War.

I am well aware of that. But that didn't change the fact that the Supreme Court found unilateral secession as practiced by the Southern states to be unconstitutional.

Just 3 years out of Civil War and the Union in control of the courts left no possibility of an unbiased outcome in the courts, IMHO.

Yes any court decision that goes against you has just got to be biased, doesn't it? </sarcasm>