History of Liberty: Judge Napalitano on the Civil War and the Gilded Age

http://www.youtube.com ^ | June 12, 2012

[NKP_Vet]

Lincoln's "actions were unconstitutional and he knew it," writes Napolitano, for "the rights of the states to secede from the Union . . . [are] clearly implicit in the Constitution, since it was the states that ratified the Constitution . . ." Lincoln's view "was a far departure from the approach of Thomas Jefferson, who recognized states' rights above those of the Union." Judge Napolitano also reminds his readers that the issue of using force to keep a state in the union was in fact debated -- and rejected -- at the Constitutional Convention as part of the "Virginia Plan."

[Tau Food]

Perhaps, perhaps not, but if you look at the electoral map, it is obvious Lincoln's election was a dividing point. If nothing else, it underscores the division inherent in the different states/regions.

Well, there were plenty of hard feelings when Jefferson beat Adams (1800) and when J.Q. Adams "beat" Jackson (1824). The election of Lincoln didn't warrant any "secessions" or a Civil War.

When South Carolina announced its attempt to "secede" in December 1860, we had an extraordinarily weak president (Buchanan) and the "secessionists" correctly predicted that Buchanan was a pushover unable to defend the United States or its Constitution. I think the "secessionists" guessed that by the time Lincoln became president in March, 1861, he would be forced to accept the attempted "secessions" as a fait accompli. They guessed wrong.

[central_va]

I have no idea how you feel about slavery.

Do you actually think someone living in the USA right now could possibly be in favor of reinstating slavey? Could anyone(you?) be THAT condescending or THAT ignorant?

[central_va]

he admitted contemplating suicide.

I have nothing nice to say about that...

[Tau Food]

You shouldn’t let anyone prod you into expressing your opinion about slavery before you feel comfortable about sharing your opinion. There’s no need for you to rush. ;-)

[central_va]

I’m trying to plumb the depths of you stupidity. I keep trying to find the bottom, but no joy yet....

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "They were wealthy and prominent men.
The rich liberal elite of Massachusetts in the 19th Century."

John Brown's 21 raiders at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in October 1859, murdered three white civilians, one slave and two US marines -- six all told.
Ten of Browns men were killed, while Brown and six others were captured and hanged.
Only five escaped.
Brown's "wealthy and prominent" northern supporters were eventually exposed, forced to seek refuge out of country, or in one case, in an insane asylum.

But remember: Brown had already left "Bleeding Kansas" three years earlier -- in October 1856, and so Brown was not in Kansas to battle pro-slavery forces (about 30 men) lead by Charles Hamilton from Georgia in May 1858.
Near Trading Post, Kansas, they captured eleven unarmed anti-slavery civilians -- and at the Marais des Cygnes Massacre murdered five of them.

None of the pro-slavery raiders -- or their wealthy and prominent slave-holding supporters in the South -- were arrested at the time.
The murdering pro-slavery leader, Charles Hamilton, returned to his home state of Georgia, where he died, presumably of natural causes, in 1880.

So it seems, where Brown and Hamilton committed similar crimes, justice was far kinder to Hamilton than to Brown.

In short: John Brown, Charles Hamilton and others were simply two sides of the same coin.
None of those outlaws should have been allowed by voters or elected officials to dictate national policies regarding expansion or restrictions on slavery, much less more important questions like union or secession.

[donmeaker]

My understanding was that John Brown’s raid killed as its first casualty, a freedman.

[donmeaker]

I think that Democrats seek to do exactly that.

Bankruptcy procedings do not permit shedding IRS taxes or student loans. Accordingly, people owing money to the government for either of those will be expected/demanded/required to work without compensation for at least part of their work. Higher income tax rates means that people must work without receiving compensation for increasing shares of their work.

Conscription was enacted under Woodrow Wilson and F.D. Roosevelt. I believe it was Charlie Rangel (D-ny) that submitted a bill to return to conscription.

[donmeaker]

I figure you are pretty familiar with the bottom of the barrel of stupidity.

I trust you as our best qualified representitive, to seek and find its bottom. Good luck.

[donmeaker]

Or it may be that he realized what a fight was going to be necessary, and that might have made him sad. Since it was reality, to know what he knew, and not be sad would have been crazy.

Of course people who did not know what he knew would have been sure that such a fight would not be necessary, and would see his sadness as unwarranted.

[CatherineofAragon]

"This is the thread. Check what one of them did to the keywords on this thread."

LOL, I'm beginning to think we're dealing with a juvenile.

[Pelham]

“John Brown’s 21 raiders at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in October 1859, murdered three white civilians, one slave and two US marines — six all told”

Hayward Shepherd appears to be missing from that account- Shepherd was a free black man working as a baggage handler on the B&O railroad, who was shot by Brown’s men when he confronted them.

Brown also kidnapped Lewis Washington and took him hostage; the elderly Lewis was the great grandnephew of George. Lewis aided the Marines in capturing Brown.

[Smokin' Joe]

Calhoun was talking about secession in the SC legislature in the 1830s over taxes and trade. The hard feelings were entrenched over two generations by 1860. When two generations find that government policy is favoring one region over another there are going to be some hard feelings.

Compare to the current situation in the US where taxpayers are supporting the "poor" with subsistence packages which are often more costly than they themselves can afford, if you want a similar sentiment.

I have read the Constitution, and saw nothing to prevent a State from dissociating itself from the Union. If one considers the powers not enumerated and reserved to the Federal Government are reserved to the States and to the People, and further considers that a Right not enumerated may nonetheless exist even though it is not specifically stated, the right of a group of people to freely associate might be implied as well as an individual Right. To infer from that somehow that the Constitution would prohibit the dissolution, in toto, or in part, of the Union--especially in light of the very origin of the Republic--would require some extraordinary contortions of logic.

Furthermore, the sentiment contained in another seminal founding document, the Declaration of Independence: " That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, ..." was still fresh in the minds of many not intent on maintaining the status quo.

Americans have always reserved the right to rebel--it is part of our nature.

Many of the little industrialized States joined South Carolina, and the list would have continued to grow had Virginia seceded in time to permit the Maryland Legislature to vote on secession before the State was invaded by Northern Militias. (The MD legislature was placed under house arrest at Fort McHenry, Habeas Corpus suspended by Lincoln.)

Consider that nearly half of the country was sufficiently intent on separation to fight for it, if necessary, and the only question becomes one of what was the final straw, not what single thing moved the South to secession. That no one would want another nation to have an armed presence in the midst of and controlling a vital harbor, and would be willing to use force to evict that presence is a no-brainer. In the mind of the South Carolinians, Fort Sumpter was just such an entity.

Consider carefully how the Right to dissociate from the Union is treated. We are again at a juncture where large portions of the country are at loggerheads over economic and other issues. We again find ourselves squared off over an abyss of disagreement at a fundamental level, where some embrace the overreach of Federal Government and others eschew it--favoring instead local solutions. We have reached the point where the Federal Government is not doing its Constitutionally enumerated tasks (securing the borders, for instance), and yet will not allow the States to secure the international borders within their jurisdictions. We have taxation without effective representation. We have swarms of Federal officers sent forth to disrupt commerce and travel, and have standing armies of federal agents and militarized police armed with military grade equipment. We are not secure in our persons, places, papers nor effects from the very government sworn to uphold the Right to be so.

Frankly, our forbears would have been up at arms long ago.

So if one attacks, historically, the Right of the South to secede, that has serious implications for some lines of thought for the present.

If we are to learn from History, we need to look at a less distorted picture than the "good guys/bad guys" fable and consider many of the issues which impelled those in the 1860s to consider schism as the best solution may be echoed in the issues of today.

In the minds of many, we have a new slavery, overseen by the IRS, a rogue agency which has been used to further political aims, which forcibly extracts a "voluntary" income tax and will decide not just who wins or loses in an economic sense, but can be used to deny essential health care if current efforts come to fruition--effectively deciding not just who is economically successful, but who lives or dies. This is not a Constitutionally enumerated power of the Federal Government, and has the potential to fly in the face of the fifth and 14th amendments as well.

When we deal with a government which has such visible contempt for its own seminal documents and founding precepts, which will not perform its Constitutionally mandated tasks nor permit other governmental entities to step into the breach, seeking to eliminate what might be the only viable (if fundamentally undesirable) option would be folly.

[Tau Food]

Calhoun was talking about secession in the SC legislature in the 1830s over taxes and trade.

Yes, he did and there was that Nullification Ordinance in 1832 and President Jackson's formal written response. At about the same time, he asked that the folks in South Carolina be informally advised that he was prepared to personally lead an army into South Carolina and "hang the first secessionist I see from the first tree I can reach." So, it was pretty clear how that Southern president felt about the "right to secede."

I have read the Constitution, and saw nothing to prevent a State from dissociating itself from the Union.

We do see things differently. I believe that unlike the Articles of Confederation (a league of states), the Constitution creates political bonds between the citizens of the United States. The Constitution begins with the words "We the people of the United States." Patrick Henry argued that the Constitution should not be ratified because it was apparent to him from the text of the proposed Constitution that its effect would be to convert the existing "confederation" of states into a "great consolidated government" created by "we the people of the United States" rather than "we the states."

As an individual, I have political bonds with all other Americans. I also have personal constitutional rights as an American citizen. I have first amendment rights to speech, religion and press. I have second amendment rights to own a personal firearm. I have the right to vote for individuals to represent me in the U.S. Congress. If my state proposes to sentence me to live in one of its dungeons or to kill me, I have a right to a trial, I have a right to be represented by an attorney, I have a right to be judged by a jury and a slough of other procedural rights. Also, I have the right to seek the assistance of a United States district court if my state chooses to disregard my rights under the United States Constitution. A "secession" by my state purports to sever my political bonds with other individual Americans, to strip me of my American citizenship and to immediately strip me of every one of my rights under the United States Constitution. I don't believe that a state has the right to do that under our Constitution.

Thus, while you see the issue as one of convenience to the State, I see the issue as including a conflict between the interests of the State and the interests of the individual. As an historical aside, the only time that secession was ever attempted was, according to the secessionists, for the purpose of protecting the institution of slavery. The secessionists were at the time using the machinery of their State governments to prop up a particularly ugly abuse of basic human rights. So, again, we were confronted with a basic conflict between the interests of the State and the interests of individuals. Secessionists always seem to side with the interests of the State at the expense of individual rights and liberties.

Americans have always reserved the right to rebel--it is part of our nature.

That can't be disputed. In fact, that's what happened.

Maybe if a state or county or city or town or village or neighborhood were to someday present a legitimate case showing that a secession was necessary to protect or promote individual rights, then maybe something could be worked out. The problem is that secessionists never seem to be motivated by any interest in individual rights or liberties. It's always about the State and "State's rights."

[Smokin' Joe]

The problem is that secessionists never seem to be motivated by any interest in individual rights or liberties. It's always about the State and "State's rights."

I do not think the slavery issue was seen as one of human rights except in the most abolitionist quarters. For the north, it was an economic sanction, in one fell swoop divesting the South, both of the means of production and the tremendous investment in slaves, which were seen as property. Any attempt to achieve moral high ground is broken on the rocks of the slaveholders in the north.

Recalling that Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel, was indeed abolitionist agitprop, and that despite the vexation with which we view slavery, it is unlikely that abuses of slaves beyond their station were widespread. Taken from a rational viewpoint, to intentionally damage the means of production would be folly at best. Trying to capture the mindset, the destruction of valuable income producing property would be foolish, as would the failure to maintain that in the best of operating condition.

While there are always components of any culture which practice cruelty and neglect, the widespread practice of such would lead to rapid impoverishment if the viability of an enterprise depended on the subjects of that cruelty. It is therefore safe to say, that despite the absence of freedom, otherwise the subjects of the institution were likely to be reasonably well kept.

We see the same today, only the government itself has become the owner, and we even liken that condition to the former institution by calling it the Democrat Plantation.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, only now the one which would enforce the union is the one which is ignoring the selfsame Rights to which you (and I) refer. We have those Rights, but they are effectively being usurped by the very Government which is supposed to guarantee them. No-knock raids, TSA pat-downs, NSA recording of electronic transmissions whether broadcast or sent to an individual, IRS invasiveness, and a multitude of laws, conditions, and infringements on the right to bear arms, all weigh heavily on the proverbial camel, not to mention the volumes of regulations which encumber private property.

The contract is increasingly breached, not by the people, but by the selfsame government which is supposed to enforce its terms, regardless of the whim of the masses. That failure, that breach, widens when one considers the failure to secure our borders (provide for the common defense), and even to reward the invaders. Other Federal digressions from the Constitution would be too burdensome to list comprehensively, but range from regulating the food you eat, what you drink, the means to illuminate your home, to even how much water your toilet may flush--yet only a small portion of the scope and nature of the potential for abuses from acts such as the NDAA and Obamacare.

So, without encouraging such, in the event there is another attempt at secession, (like that of several counties in Colorado attempting to secede from that State and form another), it is likely that it will be done in the interest of individual freedom--freedom supposedly guaranteed by the very governments which increasingly strip us of our Liberty daily.

We are not seeing today's situation through the filters of the victor's history books, but as it happens.

With that in mind, I would say there is much more to the story of that earlier conflict than will be gleaned from books published in Boston, Mass or Connecticut or New York, as most of the history texts of my youth were. The prism of the victor's viewpoint will color the conclusions of those who learn only that, and the filter of the surviving contemporary media is unlikely to let unexpurgated accounts pass on to posterity.

Human nature does not change, only the trimmings. If you examine the press of today and the reporting of events now, you get an example of how the biases inherent in those accounts could affect the history of the future as well. Hopefully, that history will be published in some semblance of English.

[BroJoeK]

Pelham: "Hayward Shepherd appears to be missing from that account..."

My mistake, counted Shepherd as a slave instead of freedman.

There were two slaves killed in the raid, but not by Brown's people.
Appear to be cases of "wrong place, wrong time".

[BroJoeK]

Smokin'Joe: "I have read the Constitution, and saw nothing to prevent a State from dissociating itself from the Union."

The Constitution does not mention words like "secession", "withdrawal" or "disunion".
Neither, for that matter, do state ratification statements.
Instead, states like New York and Virginia declared their powers could be "reassumed" if "necessary".

But the Constitution does clearly provide Federal powers in response to "rebellion", "insurrection", "domestic violence", "invasions", "treason" and "war".

The Constitution also provides numerous methods for states to resolve conflicts within constitutional limits.
Those include not just presidential elections, Congress and Supreme Court, but also the amendment process and even calling for a new Constitutional Convention.

Further, Founders were clear and consistent in saying that "disunion" could only lawfully come from mutual consent (meaning Congress) or from "usurpations" and "oppression" making secession "necessary" (i.e., confirmed by the Supreme Court).

In short: there had to be legitimate, actual reasons for secession, such as those they themselves endured from the British.
Founders never intended unilateral declarations of secession "at pleasure" to be constitutional.

So, non-constitutional secession would fall under the Founders categories of "rebellion" "treason" and/or "war".

But in November 1860, when South Carolina called its Secession Convention, there was neither "mutual consent" nor some Federal breach of constitutional contract to lawfully justify unilateral secession.
Indeed, there had been only one change from previous conditions: the recent constitutional election of "Black Republican" Abraham Lincoln.

And secessionist documents make clear: it was not some list of serious past grievances -- such as those in our Founders Declaration of Independence -- but rather their concerns over the future of slavery under those nasty, rascally Black-Republicans, which drove their Declarations of Secession.

In short: they declared secession unconstitutionally, "at pleasure".

But secession itself did not cause Civil War.
For five months after Lincoln's election, there was still no war, because the Federal Government still refused to respond to secessionists many acts of rebellion, insurrection and "domestic violence" against it.
Lincoln even announced in his first inaugural address that secessionists could not have Civil War unless they themselves started it.

Lincoln did not know that Confederate President Jefferson Davis had already issued orders to do just that, at Fort Sumter.
So when war came, it was not because of secession itself, but because secessionists themselves chose to start it.

The lessons for today are clear and simple: you will have a much better chance of protecting your vital interests within the law than outside it.
Rebellion, insurrection &/or war will result in the worst possible outcomes, from your perspective.

[Smokin' Joe]

The lessons for today are clear and simple: you will have a much better chance of protecting your vital interests within the law than outside it.

Only so long as there is a rule of law. When the law is selectively enforced, when specific groups get a free pass while others are prosecuted to the fullest extent, following the law is not the best course. While we have not completely reached that point, we are close. Even the Founders understood the necessity of throwing off the shackles of tyranny. If that cannot be effected within the law, it will be attempted outside those bounds.

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 of 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

We are nearing the point where this will again apply. Those who should be safeguarding our Liberty have become its worst enemies.

[Tau Food]

Well, it looks like we have a couple of Sovereign Citizen casualties today. Nevada will try to reconstruct their lives for them, but first they will get some "time out."

There are a lot of unhappy, very lonely people out there.

[Tau Food]

And secessionist documents make clear: it was not some list of serious past grievances -- such as those in our Founders Declaration of Independence -- but rather their concerns over the future of slavery under those nasty, rascally Black-Republicans, which drove their Declarations of Secession.

Yes, indeed. You're absolutely right.

But, look at it from the standpoint of the slaveholders. These are people who had become addicted to slavery. Often, their families had for generations been supported by the labor they stole from their slaves. They became trapped in a culture of dependency and that's why we hear the explanation that they "knew no other way of life." From the nursery, they were raised and cared for by slaves.

The slaveholders were parasites totally dependent upon their slaves for economic and personal support. Many of them talked about the need to end slavery, but most of them could not conceive of how they might make their own way in the world without the support of their slaves. So, they got lazy and did nothing and then, when they felt that their parasitic lifestyle was being threatened by talk of abolition, they very desperately tried to declare a "secession" so that they could continue to use the machinery of their State governments to protect their indolent lifestyles. The slaveholders felt trapped. They felt that they had no choice, no other option. So, that's what they did.

Most Southerners now are strongly opposed to slavery. Most now are very grateful that Lincoln and the United States freed the slaves and many now are also very grateful that Lincoln and the United States freed the slaveholders from their parasitic addiction to slavery. Granted, some of the slaveholders couldn't make it on their own and their lives could not be reconstructed. However, most regained their self-respect and moved on.

The Civil War was really just a case of very tough love.