Posted on 04/01/2018 9:05:49 AM PDT by Simon Green
Why do you keep trotting out the Federalist Papers?
They are private citizen editorials that have have no force of law and are not even agreed upon opinions.
I presented VA Articles of Ratification that legally bound VA to the United States of America and its Constitution.
There is no sensible comparison as to language or binding legal effect.
I also presented the most important address Jefferson Davis ever gave to Congress to make my point about the importance of the issue of slavery to secession and you offer quotes from relative nobodies compared to Davis. He didn’t talk about tariffs or government spending or unfairness, etc.
I ask again, do you know of another historically significant elected leader that is on better authority about the origins of the Civil War than Jefferson Davis?
First, don’t complain that I don’t read all of your posts when you copy and paste such a huge tract. Abbreviate, use excerpts if you want to be read. Supply hot links.
That quote of Davis was from September, 1864. That month, Sherman was entering Atlanta, TN Unionists met in Nashville to restart the state government, Phil Sheridan destroyed the Shenandoah Valley and Jubal Early’s Army, the Confederacy was on the run all over.
Jefferson Davis was packing his bags and was captured 7 months later.
Davis well understood the Union anger at the loss of so many soldiers, north and south, over slavery.
Davis said what he had to, he knew he was likely going to hang for treason, soon.
Why do you keep trotting out the Federalist Papers?
They are private citizen editorials that have have no force of law and are not even agreed upon opinions.
I presented VA Articles of Ratification that legally bound VA to the United States of America and its Constitution.
There is no sensible comparison as to language or binding legal effect.
Why? Because they are evidence as to the original intent of the parties. That is all that matters. I presented the VA proviso reserving the right to unilateral secession. There is no sensible argument that Virginia did not intend at the time of ratification to reserve a right to unilateral secession.
I ask again, do you know of another historically significant elected leader that is on better authority about the origins of the Civil War than Jefferson Davis?
And I presented a great deal of evidence showing that failure to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution was merely a pretext and that the real cause was partisan sectional legislation that impoverished the Southern states while lining the pockets of Northern corporate fatcats. That is furthermore backed up by the fact that the original 7 seceding states refused to return even when offered slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment.
That quote of Davis was from September, 1864. That month, Sherman was entering Atlanta, TN Unionists met in Nashville to restart the state government, Phil Sheridan destroyed the Shenandoah Valley and Jubal Early’s Army, the Confederacy was on the run all over.
Jefferson Davis was packing his bags and was captured 7 months later.
Davis well understood the Union anger at the loss of so many soldiers, north and south, over slavery.
Davis said what he had to, he knew he was likely going to hang for treason, soon.
Davis had maintained throughout that the Southern states were not battling over slavery. He never even mentioned the word slavery in his inaugural address. As for a treason trial....he welcomed one. You know who did not welcome one? The Chief Justice of the Supreme court and member of the Lincoln administration Salmon P Chase.
“If you bring these [Confederate] leaders to trial it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution secession is not rebellion. Lincoln wanted Davis to escape, and he was right. His capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one.” Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, July 1867 (Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 3, p. 765)
“If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not a rebellion. His [Jefferson Davis] capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason.” [as quoted by Herman S. Frey, in Jefferson Davis, Frey Enterprises, 1977, pp. 69-72]
Davis had hung around in Washington DC after resigning from the US Senate after Mississippi seceded hoping to be arrested and tried for treason. He had also hoped for a treason trial - indeed demanded one - after the war. He was never given a treason trial. Its quite obvious why.....
They should have tried hillary and the REALLY should have tried jeff davis.
Speaking of intent of the parties, the Federalist Papers are hardly as compelling as the VA Articles of Ratification themselves.
They state very plainly that withdrawal from the Union was a power reserved by the People of the United States, in toto.
No interpretation or divining or guessing as to intent. A plain reading and an open mind is all that’s needed.
I offered the Corwin Amendment to this discussion and it was in place and offered BEFORE any secession.
The Fugitive Slave Act was the law of the land and the slave states were fed up with its lack of enforcement.
They knew the lack of enforcement meant their slave property would continue to escape to the north in increasing numbers. Only a Confederacy would offer a new national barrier that would be more effective in stopping the escapes.
“He never even mentioned the word slavery in his inaugural address.”
Why would he? He was by then preaching to the choir.
His resignation speech to Congress was his statement of intent of himself and of MI.
No one welcomes imprisonment and possible execution. Davis had young children, other Confederate leaders had escaped. Davis was clearly on the run to avoid capture. Davis freely admits he was heading for TX to start up another Confederacy.
The north was worried that Davis might be able to establish some legal basis for secession and be able to offer a defense, as Burr had done, that there was no overt act by Davis for secession. That it was MI’s move, not his.
So, with the prospect of an innocent verdict to treason, he was not tried and then released. There was also a strong political interest not to make Davis a martyr and further inflame the conquered South.
They should have tried hillary and the REALLY should have tried jeff davis.
Even Chase admitted they would have lost.
They state very plainly that withdrawal from the Union was a power reserved by the People of the United States, in toto.
No they didn’t. The people were as Madison described them, represented by the states in their sovereign capacity.
Correct.
Several states had already seceded before Lincoln’s Inaugural Address in which he endorsed the Corwin Amendment (which he had orchestrated anyway).
How do you figure that? That is directly the opposite of what Lincoln and several other said. How were they going to police a 1500 mile long border? The second a slave crossed that border, they were in a foreign country that owed no duty to return the escaped slave as had been guaranteed by the fugitive slave act in the constitution. You have it exactly backwards. Slavery was more safe within the US than it would’ve been outside it.
Why would he? He was by then preaching to the choir.
The choir whose real motivation was not protection of slavery.
It was the legal basis for saying the Northern states had violated the compact between them.
That was after the war. I was talking about the time directly after he had resigned from the US Senate and before Lincoln chose to start a war over secession.
As Chase admitted, secession was legal and there had been no treason. Adjudicating the issue would not have turned out well for the Federals. Ergo, they chose not to fight it out in court.
I quote you chapter and verse on an issue and you deny it.
Then I ask readers to just make a plain reading and you agree, LOL.
“Several states had already seceded before Lincoln’s Inaugural Address”
As if the secessionists weren’t waiting on Lincoln’s move.... My point was that secession started as soon as Lincoln was elected, two months before. Again you cherry pick history to try to make a point, and fail.
“How were they going to police a 1500 mile long border?”
Agreed, but the South was seeing little enforcement as a part of the Union and felt that a new national border, rather than open state borders would be more secure.
“Slavery was more safe within the US than it would’ve been outside it.”
You think slavery was better protected within the Union than within the Confederacy? Nonsense.
“I was talking about the time directly after he had resigned from the US Senate”
He resigned January 21, 1861, the article you quoted was published in September 1864, check your facts.
“they chose not to fight it out in court.”
We agree on that point. The Constitution requires treason to be an overt act, not just a conspiracy, and there was no collusion with a foreign power . Davis was not a direct actor in the MI secession. Davis was one of the strongest voices against secession.
I quote you chapter and verse on an issue and you deny it.
Then I ask readers to just make a plain reading and you agree, LOL.
You quote chapter and verse...after misreading what they said. I pointed out the passage from the federalist papers to you showing what they meant and you fail to grasp it. LOL.
As if the secessionists weren’t waiting on Lincoln’s move.... My point was that secession started as soon as Lincoln was elected, two months before. Again you cherry pick history to try to make a point, and fail.
You made an assertion and were once again, Wrong. As I demonstrated.
Agreed, but the South was seeing little enforcement as a part of the Union and felt that a new national border, rather than open state borders would be more secure.
They did? What evidence is there that they felt it would be more secure? If anything, they understood that it would be Less secure - something Lincoln himself along with many others, pointed out. Nobody could dispute it.
“But secession, Lincoln argued, would actually make it harder for the South to preserve slavery. If the Southern states tried to leave the Union, they would lose all their constitutional guarantees, and northerners would no longer be obliged to return fugitive slaves to disloyal owners. In other words, the South was safer inside the Union than without, and to prove his point Lincoln confirmed his willingness to support a recently proposed thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which would specifically prohibit the federal government from interfering with slavery in states where it already existed.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 32-33)
He resigned January 21, 1861, the article you quoted was published in September 1864, check your facts.
I said he resigned from the US Senate and then hung around in Washington DC hoping to be arrested so that he could argue the case in court. I’ve checked my facts. Nothing I posted refutes what I said.
“I pointed out the passage from the federalist papers to you showing what they meant”
Why is it so hard for you to admit that the Federalist Papers editorials meant nothing compared to the actual legal and binding plain text of the Articles of Ratification for VA?
You talk as if the Federalist Papers were some sort of after-the-fact explanation of the ratifying docs as to what they meant.
While I ask others to rely on the plain language of those ratifying docs. Why do you waste so much talk on a losing argument?
“You made an assertion and were once again, Wrong. As I demonstrated.”
You demonstrated what? That you are wrong on the historical dates and facts of the beginning of the secessions?
“What evidence is there that they felt it would be more secure?”
I am a personal witness to southern states attempts to recapture slaves. My great-great grandfather helped hundreds of them. He told my grandfather, who told me, about the slave patrols all over the Mississippi River Valley. They were federally appointed and someties accompanied by federal marshalls with warrants. Many had Deputy Sheriff badges from Counties in the South. I still own the timber with the remains of the cabin the slaves hid in.
I asked Grandpa why my great-great grandfather would risk arrest and imprisonment to do it. He simply said, “they were Methodists”.
Very simple, the Confederacy, had it lasted, could have federalized border crossings to the north. It could have stopped and searched shipping and freight going north.
Why is it so hard for you to admit that the Federalist Papers editorials meant nothing compared to the actual legal and binding plain text of the Articles of Ratification for VA?
Why is it so hard for you to grasp that the Federalist Papers were very influential AND that they shaped/framed the debate and the language used in the debate?
No not after the fact. Before. They are evidence as to the intent of the parties at the time of ratification.
I don’t. The losing argument is yours. You seem to have somehow convinced yourselves that the express provisos of 3 states reserving the right to secede somehow don’t mean exactly that. Everybody at the time understood exactly what they meant.
Nope. Those 3 states DID reserve the right to secede at the time of ratification. Jefferson Davis DID hang around in Washington DC hoping to be arrested so he could litigate the issue of secession after resigning from the US Senate.
I asked Grandpa why my great-great grandfather would risk arrest and imprisonment to do it. He simply said, “they were Methodists”.
Very simple, the Confederacy, had it lasted, could have federalized border crossings to the north. It could have stopped and searched shipping and freight going north.
That border from the Atlantic Ocean to El Paso is a good 1500 miles. There was no high technology in those days. The population....especially the white population of the original 7 seceding states was relatively small. there is simply no way they could have effectively secured that border. It would’ve been too long and they didn’t have the manpower or anything close to the manpower needed to do it. Everybody knew that. Lincoln openly said that as did many others. The white population of the Southern states even AFTER the Upper South seceded was only 5.5 million. Look how difficult its been to secure our southern border today even with all our technology and our vastly greater population....and that’s a shorter border and large stretches of it are desert you need a vehicle to cross.
Another example:
In the debate in Congress on the resolution to censure John Quincy Adams, for presenting a petition for the dissolution of the Union, Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, said: “They (the South) were the weaker portion, were in the minority. The North could do what they pleased with them; they could adopt their own measures. All he asked was, that they would let the South know what those measures were. One thing he knew well; that State, which he in part represented, had perhaps a deeper interest in this subject than any other, except Maryland and a small portion of Virginia. And why? Because he knew that to dissolve the Union, and separate the different States composing the confederacy, making the Ohio River and the Mason and Dixon’s line the boundary line, he knew as soon as that was done, Slavery was done in Kentucky, Maryland and a large portion of Virginia, and it would extend to all the States South of this line. The dissolution of the Union was the dissolution of Slavery. It has been the common practice for Southern men to get up on this floor, and say, ‘Touch this subject, and we will dissolve this Union as a remedy.’ Their remedy was the destruction of the thing which they wished to save, and any sensible man could see it. If the Union was dissolved into two parts, the slave would cross the line, and then turn round and curse the master from the other shore.”
In attempting to secede from the Union, the South had to be aware that they were, effectively, giving up their slaves.
Hey Shemp, do you want to take me off your mailing list?
All right, we’re officially going around in circles if you think secession meant the south knew they were giving up slaves.
That’s enough.
All right, we’re officially going around in circles if you think secession meant the south knew they were giving up slaves.
That’s enough.
I’ve posted statements by Lincoln and others that that would be the effect of secession. Something very like that did happen in Brazil when a couple of Brazilian states abolished slavery. Without an effective enforcement mechanism, slavery collapses. That’s why the Berlin Wall was built. East Germany was collapsing. Their slaves were simply leaving.
According to this source there are 1,503 public Confederate memorials, of which 60 have been removed = 4%.
Where were they removed to? Private property.
How many were actually destroyed? A handful, maybe.
Typical is one to Jefferson Davis in Biloxi, Mississippi:
As you can see, it had nothing to do with "American Taliban."
Uncle Sham: "Just remember, we have sledgehammers too. "
And so while making false accusations against me, you self-identify as American Taliban, eager to destroy monuments you dislike.
Uncle Sham: "Demonizing those who fought to defend themselves against the tyranny brought forth by YOUR ancestors which has only grown worse with each passing decade is your way of trying to FORCE us once again into submission."
Nobody on Free Republic demonizes your ancestors, FRiend, while posters like yourself constantly demonize mine.
Why is that?
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