And I'm still waiting for the listing of said seized properties that isn't from the Lincoln Museum or available only via purchase.
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But second and more important, since when did this particular "Law of Nations" become part and parcel of the United States Constitution?
Do you seriously think the Founders threw down less than 5000 words and expected them to restrain the government?
Since the quote from America's Blackstone, George Tucker, seemed insufficient for you, here's
I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly, that copy which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the college of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript Idee sur le gouvernment et la royauté, is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel.
Benjamin Franklin To Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas, Philadelphia December 9, 1775.
Having given you this general idea and description of the law of nations; need I expatiate on its dignity and importance? The law of nations is the law of sovereigns. In free states, such as ours, the sovereign or supreme power resides in the people. In free states, therefore, such as ours, the law of nations is the law of the people. Let us again beware of being misled by an ambiguity, sometimes, such is the structure of language, unavoidable. When I say that, in free states, the law of nations is the law of the people; I mean not that it is a law made by the people, or by virtue of their delegated authority; as, in free states, all municipal laws are. But when I say that, in free states, the law of nations is the law of the people; I mean that, as the law of nature, in other words, as the will of nature's God, it is indispensably binding upon the people, in whom the sovereign power resides; and who are, consequently, under the most sacred obligations to exercise that power, or to delegate it to such as will exercise it, in a manner agreeable to those rules and maxims, which the law of nature prescribes to every state, for the happiness of each, and for the happiness of all.
Of the Law of Nations, James Wilson, Lectures on Law
and
There has been a difference of opinion among writers, concerning the foundations of this law. It has been considered by some as a mere system of positive institutions, founded upon consent and usage; while others have insisted that the law of nations was essentially the same as the law of nature, applied to the conduct of nations, in the character of moral persons, susceptible of obligation and laws. We are not to adopt either of these theories as exclusively true. The most useful and practical part of the law of nations is, no doubt, instituted or positive law, founded on usage, consent, and agreement. But it would be improper to separate this law entirely from natural jurisprudence, and not to consider it as deriving much of its force, and dignity, and sanction, from the same principles of right reason, and the same view of the nature and constitution of man, from which the science of morality is deduced. There is a natural and a positive law of nations. By the former, every state, in its relations with other states, is bound to conduct itself with justice, good faith, and benevolence; and this application of the law of nature has been called by Vattel, the necessary law of nations, because nations are bound by the law of nature to observe it; and it is termed by others, the internal law of nations, because it is obligatory upon them in point of conscience.
James Kent, Commentaries
Hey, that's pretty good! I think I'll remember that the next time a Lost Causer demands that someone show him the part of the US Constitution that prohibits secession....or demands the "citation from Article II of the Constitution where the people, operating through their individual States DELEGATED a power they possessed to the Executive to "preserve the Union?"
Thanks!
First of all, there are many different Civil War Almanacs available in paperback, at very reasonable prices.
I recommend the one I have, by John Fredriksen, but others are available even cheaper.
Second, there are no complete Civil War Timelines available online, at least that I can find.
However, this site comes as close as any:
1860 election, November 6, 1860 to fall of Fort Sumter, April 14, 1861
Third, I have myself typed up and posted on FR timelines of the more significant pre-civil war actions, but didn't save and now cannot find them.
However, I could do it again, if data in the link above does not satisfy your curiousity.
The key point is this: in every seceding state there were large numbers of Federal properties seized by force, some even before a state officially seceded.
These Federal properties included dozens of forts, armories, arsenals, barracks, customs houses, ships, naval yards, lighthouses and three US mints with millions in coins.
And by definition, forceful seizures of a nation's military assets are acts of rebellion or war.
That all those properties still belonged to the Federal government is proved by
Other secessionist acts of rebellion included arresting and detaining Federal officers, threatening violence against Federal forces and firing on Federal ships -- all this before assaulting Fort Sumter in April 1860.
Indeed, it was secessionists obvious rebellion, not secession itself, which fueled Northern war-fever.
So secessionists assault on and seizure of Fort Sumter was only the most egregious of many events that fired Northern passions to enforce the law and suppress the rebellion.
And, of course, secessionists then sealed their fate by formally declaring war on the United States, on May 6, 1861.
Mere words, of course, can't restrain anything.
So the first question is whether the Law of Nations regarding the abrogation of simple treaties was intended by the Founders to fully apply to their new "compact", "union" and Constitution?
I see no proof they did so intend, and primary evidence includes those mechanisms provided in the Constitution itself to resolve conflicts among various states and Federal powers.
But no mechanisms were provided for secession, and no specific discussions on the subject are recorded, and so we must conclude that secession was not considered to be ever necessary, except under the most extreme circumstances.
In short, our Founders did everything possible to make secession both unnecessary and difficult, regardless of how the Law of Nations treats the subject.
But second, even if we grant the Law of Nations "authority" over the Constitution (which I don't), even the LON does not authorize breaking treaties "at pleasure"!
Even the Law of Nations requires there must first be a material breach of contract on one side before the other can abrogate the whole thing.
But in November 1860 there was no serious breech of contract, and no new breech of any degree -- serious or minor.
Nor had South Carolina officials made any serious attempt to constitutionally resolve their concerns.
Indeed, of the several famous late 1850s fugitive slave cases. not one involved a slave escaped from South Carolina.
So South Carolina secessionists had no legal standing to even complain about some Northern states Fugitive Slave Laws.
That's why the whole question of Northern states' Fugitive Slave Laws is bogus.
Secessionists obviously real reason for secession was the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln's Republicans -- a fact they didn't try to hide or deny.
But the election of Lincoln's Republicans in no possible way constituted a material breach of contract, and so in fact, South Carolina declared its secession "at pleasure", and that is not authorized by either the Constitution or the Law of Nations.