Posted on 07/22/2020 3:14:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Confederacy has been the excuse for some of today's rioting, property destruction and grossly uninformed statements. Among the latter is the testimony before the House Armed Services Committee by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley in favor of renaming Confederate-named military bases. He said: "The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought, and it was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution."
There are a few facts about our founding that should be acknowledged. Let's start at the beginning, namely the American War of Independence (1775-1783), a war between Great Britain and its 13 colonies, which declared independence in July 1776. The peace agreement that ended the war is known as the Treaty of Paris signed by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens and by British Commissioner Richard Oswald on Sept. 3, 1783. Article I of the Treaty held that "New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States."
Delegates from these states met in Philadelphia in 1787 to form a union. During the Philadelphia convention, a proposal was made to permit the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, rejected it. Minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: "A union of the states containing such an ingredient [would] provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
During the ratification debates, Virginia's delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments; namely, they held the right to dissolve their relationship with the United States. Ratification of the Constitution was by no means certain. States feared federal usurpation of their powers. If there were a provision to suppress a seceding state, the Constitution would never have been ratified. The ratification votes were close with Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts voting in favor by the slimmest of margins. Rhode Island initially rejected it in a popular referendum and finally voted to ratify -- 34 for, 32 against.
Most Americans do not know that the first secessionist movement started in New England. Many New Englanders were infuriated by President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which they saw as an unconstitutional act. Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who was George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state, led the movement. He said, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." Other prominent Americans such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III, and Joseph Story shared his call for secession. While the New England secessionist movement was strong, it failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a state's right. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty." New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent." The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
Confederate generals fought for independence from the Union just as George Washington fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who label Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals as traitors might also label George Washington a traitor. Great Britain's King George III and the British parliament would have agreed.
That's right, genius, they call it the "Lost Cause" because the think they won.
Yeah, genius. They f***ing do think they won.
I'm not sure I'm the one having problems following an argument, so let me try again and do try to follow along. My contention is that the Constitution gives the federal government the power the admit states and once admitted to approve any combination, splitting, or any change in their status at all. Implied in that is the power to approve states leaving altogether. It is your contention, if I'm reading your hardly comprehensible posts correctly, that only powers explicitly granted by the Constitution exist - this in spite of the fact that the words 'explicit' or 'expressly' are not in the Constitution anywhere. So if you are correct and implied powers do not exist then every one of those organizations I mentioned are unconstitutional. Yes or no? If no then what expressed power allows for them? It shouldn't be that hard to answer for someone with the amazing intellect you believe you have.
According to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, there are no powers originating with the states which are transferred to the central government by way of implication.
So implied powers do not exist? Then all those organizations are illegal?
What's funny is that, not only did you not give examples of powers that you think were somehow collected to the FedGov from the states through implication, you failed to even give examples of things actually denied the states.
On the contrary I've said all along that the power to admit states and approve changes in their borders or status is a power granted to the federal government. Implied in that is the power to approve their leaving altogether. Want another one? Even though the Constitution only expressly allows for an army and a navy, the Constitution also says that the government should provide for the common defense, so implied in that is the power to create whatever armed forces they feel is necessary to accomplish that. However, you would have us believe both are unconstitutional, right? Do you need any other examples?
It would not be until the 1940’s that the world would have one word to describe what took Sherman an entire sentence: “We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.”[
“The South went to war to preserve slavery and lost.”
That is an interesting comment.
If the South was fighting for slavery, who was fighting against slavery?
Who was fighting against slavery? Are you serious? The North. And don’t give that bs that Lincoln didn’t go to war exclusively to to end it. It was his intention to end slavery but first and foremost he was fighting to preserve the Union.
You Lost Causers and your intellectual acrobatics and revisionism.
The south went to war to preserve slavery.
924
That is an interesting comment.
For the purpose of this post, let's stipulate you are correct: Lincoln went to war to end slavery.
One troubling thing is that the United States Constitution enshrined slavery. If fact, the federal court system identified slavery as the cornerstone of the Constitution.
If Lincoln fought to end constitutional slavery, he was fighting to violently overthrow the United States Constitution. As President, he really wasn't supposed to do that.
Do you really want to make the case that Lincoln levied war against the states for the purpose of overthrowing the Constitution?
There is a word for that.
Winner?
"If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking."
That was true with the southern rebellion, it was true with the Indian wars.
A cornerstone? Without slavery the Constitution would collapse? I'd be interested in hearing what Supreme Court decision elevated slavery to that level.
No, as we've already discussed, the national debt and federal property, etc were things they should negotiate over. "international obligations"? No. They were a separate country. The treaties entered into by the US were not binding upon them any more than whatever treaties Britain entered into were binding on the colonies after they went independent. Yes really.Theft is the right of any sovereign country? Even if the southern states had been sovereign countries they still took things that didn't belong to them alone. Almost as if they were deliberately trying to start a conflict.
Nationalization is the right of a sovereign just as states can claim property under eminent domain. Its not theft as you claim. Your characterization is ignorant and false.So you keep telling us.
So they are.What gives them that legal authority?
Their sovereignty.Lousy example. All that was done through negotiations between both sides of the issue. The southern states didn't try that. They just walked out and stole everything.
Good examples. The Southern states were perfectly willing to negotiate. It was Lincoln who was not. You are simply wrong when you claim the Southern states didn't try that. They most certainly did. They didn't "steal" anything. They exercised their sovereign rights just as the 13 colonies had done when they left the British Empire.
You don't seem to get it. Nobody is claiming the cause prevailed. What we are saying is that they had every legal right to secede. Might does not make right.
No it didn't. This is a bold faced lie.
Talk about revisionism! The North was explicitly not fighting against slavery. The US Congress passed an express resolution stating exactly that. Lincoln said exactly that several times. The North offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. The US still had slavery at the time. Try to learn some actual history for a change.
About Sherman's plan to exterminate the Sioux (“We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.”) you instinctively blurted out your approval - “Winner.”
Please believe me, I did not deliberately intend to trap you into embracing genocide.
I put flashing lights around Sherman's extermination plans and before I could stop you, you swallowed them hook, line, and sinker.
You really can't blame me.
Of course not. I can't imagine anything that would trap be into signing on to your hyperbolic rants.
Why shouldn't that be negotiated before leaving? Once the south had walked out and walked away from the debt what incentive was there for them to actually pay for their share of it?
Nationalization is the right of a sovereign just as states can claim property under eminent domain. Its not theft as you claim. Your characterization is ignorant and false.So you keep telling us.
Nationalization, theft. To-may-to, to-mah-to. It's still taking something that doesn't belong to you without compensating the owners.
Their sovereignty.
But no rule of law.
The Southern states were perfectly willing to negotiate.
But they didn't.
t was Lincoln who was not.
Fake news. The Southern states walked out long before Lincoln was inaugurated. Once he was in, they demanded he recognize their soverignty and, by implication, the legality of their actions. Once Lincoln had done that then what was there to negotiate over?
Hitler went to war with the Soviet Union to destroy communism. Does that mean the U.S. and Great Britain were fighting to preserve communism?
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