Posted on 12/24/2001 4:25:26 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
I Pledge allegiance to the Confederate Flag, and to the Southern People and the Culture for which it stands
by Lake E. High, Jr.
The Confederate flag is again under attack, as it has always been, and as it always will be. It is under attack because of what it symbolizes. The problem is that to many Southerners have forgotten just what it does symbolize.
The Confederate Nation of 1860 - 1865 was the intellectual, as well as the spiritual, continuation of the United States of America as founded, planned, and formed by Southerners. It was the stated, and often repeated, position of almost all Southerners in the 1860’s that they, and the South, were the heirs of the original political theory embodied in the U. S. Constitution of 1789. In 1860 their attempted to separate from the rest of the states and form their own nation since that was the only way the South could preserve the philosophy and the virtues that had made the United States the magnificent nation it had become.
In both of these contentions, that is, the South was the true repository of the original political theory that made the United States great, and the South was the true home of the people who took the necessary actions to found, make, and preserve the original United States, Southerners have been proven by the passage of time to be correct.
The Southern colonies of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Maryland were where the majority of the original American population resided until the 1700’s despite the fact Massachusetts was settled only 13 years after Virginia and New York was settled 18 years before South Carolina. As the population of the colonies grew, the New England States and the middle Atlantic states, gained population so that by the time of the American Revolutionary War the two general areas of the north and the South were generally equal in size with a small population advantage being shown by Virginia. This slight difference in population by a southern state was to have a profound effect on the development of the United States.
First of all, the New England states managed to start a war with England, which they verbalized as "taxation without representation." In truth the problem from their point of view was the taxes on their trade. Having started the war they then promptly managed to lose it. The British, after conquering the entire north from Maine (then part of Massachusetts) to Boston, to Providence, to New York, to the new nation’s capital, Philadelphia, shifted their military forces to move against the Southern colonies. They secured their foothold in the South by capturing Savannah and Charleston and then proceeded to move inland to subdue the Southern population. They planed to catch the Virginia forces under General Washington in a coordinated attack moving down from the north, which they held, and up from the South that they thought they would also conquer.
The British army that had mastered the north found they could not defeat the Southern people. Once in the backwoods of the South they found themselves to be the beaten Army. The British defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens were absolute. Their Pyrrhic victories at Camden and Guilford Courthouse were tantamount to defeat. In both North Carolina and South Carolina they were so weakened they had to retreat from the area of their few "victories" within days. Their defeats at those well-known sites among others, along with their defeat at Yorktown in Virginia, led directly to their surrender.
Having secured the political freedom from England for all the colonists, Southerners then mistakenly sat back and took a smaller role in forming the new American government that operated under an "Articles of Confederation." That first attempt at forming a government fell to the firebrands of New England who has started the war and who still asserted their moral position of leadership despite their poor showing on the field of battle. These Articles of Confederation, the product of the Yankee political mind, gave too much economic self determination to the separate colonies (as the Northern colonies had demanded in an attempt to protect their shipping, trade and manufacturing) and too little power of enforcement to a central government.
After a period of six difficult years, when the Articles of Confederation failed as a form of government, another convention was called and a new form of government was drawn up. This time the convention was under the leadership of Southerners and they brought forth the document we all refer to as the U.S. Constitution. Even northern historians do not try to pretend the Constitution and the ideas embodied therein are anything other than a product of the Southern political mind. (Yankee historians cannot deny it, but they do choose to ignore it so their students grow up ignorant of the fact that the Constitution is Southern.) So, as it turns out, when the new nation found itself in political trouble it was the South which, once again, came to the rescue just as it had when the nation found itself previously in military trouble.
With the slight population advantage it enjoyed over other states, Virginia was able to give to the new nation politicians who are nothing short of demigods. Their names are revered in all areas of the civilized world wherever political theorists converge. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, Henry, Taylor and Monroe are just a few, there are many more. These men along with the leading political minds of South Carolina, Rutledge, Heyward, and, most importantly, Pinckney, saw their new nation through its birth and establishment.
The military leadership, as well as the political leadership, of the South saw the nation through its expansion. Under Southern leadership the British were defeated a second time in 1814. Under Southerners, most obviously John Tyler and Andrew Jackson, Florida was added as a state. The defeat of Mexico in 1846, under the Southern leadership of James Polk and numerous Southern military officers, established of the United States as a force to be feared. That was an astonishing accomplishment for so small and so young a nation
Thomas Jefferson, who added the Louisiana Purchase, barely escaped impeachment for his efforts. The north argued continuously against the war with Mexico that added the area from Texas to California just as they had argued against the Louisiana Purchase. One Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, was particularly vehement against Texas being made a state. Northerners, having seen Mexico defeated and the United States enlarged all the way to the Pacific Ocean, then objected to the methods and motives of the acquisition of the Washington and Oregon territories in the northwest. Polk, who had added that vast area from Louisiana to California to Colorado to the pacific northwest, served only one term as President due to the constant attacks he sufferer in the Northern press. Left to the people of the north, the French would still control from Minnesota to Louisiana and Mexico would control from Texas to the Pacific while Canada would still include Washington, Oregon Idaho and Montana.
Every square inch of soil that now comprises the continental United States was added under a Southern president, and they did it over the strenuous political objections of the north. The provincial and mercenary Yankee people fought every effort to expand the United States. The expansion of the United States became a regional political disagreement that spread ill feeling north and South. Its accomplishment by Southerners was no small feat. It was accomplished under Southern military leadership and with much Southern blood. (Which is why Tennessee is called "The Volunteer State" and the names of Southerners are almost exclusively the only ones found on memorial tablets and monuments from Texas to California.). The expansion of the original colonies into the continental power it became was completely the results of the Southern mind and Southern leadership.
Having secured the freedom of the United States from England and then having formed and led the successful government into a new political age under a written constitution that is still the envy of the whole world, the South gave the entire military and political leadership that formed the United States into the boundaries it now enjoys. But these magnificent accomplishments were soon to be overshadowed by population shifts and the ensuing results that brings in a representative government. By the early 1820s the north had finally secured just enough additional population that it had achieved enough political clout to start protecting its first love, its money. The unfair and punitive tariffs that were passed in 1828 led to the South’s first half-hearted attempt to form its own separate government with the Nullification movement of 1832. The threat of war that South Carolina held out in 1832 then caused a negotiated modification of those laws to where the South could live with them. For the time being, the political question was settled by compromise.
While those changes pacified the political leaders of the South for the time being, some statesmen could see, even then, that if the North ever became totally dominant politically, the South would be destroyed, not just economically, but philosophically and spiritually as well. Those statesmen, with Calhoun in the lead, then started planting the intellectual seeds that led to the South’s second attempt at political freedom in 1860.
Unfortunately, in the 1840’s Yankee abolitionist introduced the new poison of the "voluntary end" of slavery as a political issue. There were attempts by many Southerners to defuse this situation by offering an economic solution. That is, Southerners offered to end slavery in the South just as England had ended it in the West Indies, by having the slave-holders paid for their losses when the slaves were freed. The abolitionist Yankees would have none of that. Their position was simple, the South could give up it slaves for free and each farmer could absorb the loss personally. There was to be no payment. To the Yankee abolitionists it was either their way or war.
The fact that the abolitionist movement became a dominant presence in the northern part of the United States from the 1840’s on is primarily because a liberal can politicize any subject and enrage any body of people regardless of the level of preexisting good will. (As current liberals have turned the simple good sense argument that one should not litter one’s own environment into the political upheaval of "the ecology movement." The effectiveness of liberal methods can currently be seen in the simple instance that most people believe such nonsense as the chemical cause of "ozone depletion" and "the greenhouse effect" despite any evidence of either. Liberals are absolutely capable, by their strident, activist natures of raising any question to harmful emotional heights.)
Unfortunately, the loss of the War for Southern Independence in 1865 caused the very thing that Southern statesmen had foreseen in the 1830’s; that is, the north became dominant and the cultural, spiritual, and economic base of the South was decimated. The loss of the war was most severely felt in the South, of course, but it has also had political repercussions in the north as well.
Without the South in a position of dominance, the leadership of the United States has gone from Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Tyler and Polk to the inept, or leftist, Grant, Harding, Arthur, Harrison and Roosevelt, among others. Plus, the ascendancy of the leftist north to national prominence has also caused the rise of leaders in the South who had to be acceptable to the north. Such spectacularly immoral or totally incompetent Southern politicians as Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are examples of the quality of the men that the South must now produce to garner northern votes. When these modern day jackals are contrasted with the demigods the South produced when unfettered by the northern voter, that in itself should be enough to make all people reject northern philosophy and northern politics and embrace all things Southern.
As the forces of the left have gained ascendancy in the United States, the pressure intensifies to completely obliterate anything that remains between them and complete leftist victory. That means that the traditional enemy of leftists, the South, must be erased in its every form. That is why leftists always demand that even symbols of the South be eradicated.
We, therefore, now have a coalition of people who want the Southern flag taken down and hidden from public view. This coalition is composed of three main groups. First of all are African-Americans, whose emotional position is totally unmitigated by any knowledge of history. Secondly, there are Yankees who have moved to the South and who, despite their remarkable political failures in their own states, have learned nothing and continue to vote leftist here too. Or either these northern imports have been transferred here to run the newspapers that are owned by the people who live outside the South. And, thirdly, there are leftist Southerners, or Southerners of "politically correct" leaning, who have apparently learned their history from the television and movies and who feel the South is a bad place because it is not egalitarian enough.
But the demands of this coalition of political thinkers need to be put in proper perspective. Before anyone starts to tell someone else how to act and how to think, it is incumbent on him to demonstrate the success of his own ideas and actions. So far the introduction and enforcement of leftist ideas in our world has led to nothing but sorrow and degeneration. The force necessary to make people live under a leftist government has been the direct cause of the murder of over one hundred million people in this century alone. Leftist political theory has enslaved and impoverished billions of people worldwide. Its introduction has weakened even such great nations as England and France and reduced them to the status of third rate nations. Socialism in Scandinavia has reduced it to an economic level even less than that of England. In the United States leftist ideas have turned our country into the increasingly sick society it has become.
So until this coalition of leftist can point to a single successful instance of where their leftist philosophy has improved a country, or a people, rather than to the spectacular political failures the left has precipitated in any place into which its poisonous philosophy has been introduced, they have no right to demand anything of anybody. Leftist, the most spectacular political failures in all of history, have no standing to demand that Southerners accept anything that flows from their false philosophy. And of all people, leftist have the least demand on Southerners, the people who formed, guided, expanded and gave them a great country.
The Confederate flag is a symbol. It stands for the people who had the spirit, the courage, and the intelligence to give the world its greatest governmental entity. As long as the Confederate flag flies there is hope that the terrible scourge leftists have placed on the world will pass. It represents the culture that produced the most wished for, the most just, and the finest political system on earth. And as long as the Confederate flies there is hope that the greatness that was once ours may someday be reestablished.
Apparently you are not reading the words of Washington that I have posted repeatedly.
"Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin to the whole; whereas a liberal, and energetic Constitution, well guarded and closely watched, to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence, to which we had a fair claim, and the brightest prospect of attaining..."
George Washington to James Madison November 5, 1786
What Washington said, and what Lincoln said are entirely consistant. It was Lincoln who defended the government established by the framers of the Constitution.
Walt
ARTICLE V
MODE OF AMENDMENT
----------The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
It has to do with amending the Constitution. All the members of the Senate had to be there unless their state said it was ok for them not to be. Where do you read a right to secession into that Article? Curious minds would like to know.
That's not all it says.
The Constitution also promises that each state shall be guaranteed a republican form of government. Sort of hard to do if a state withdraws, isn't it?
The Constitution also promises in Article Four Section One, Para. 1 that "the Citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." Sort of hard to do if a state may withdraw, isn't it?
Your position is absurd.
"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all."
-- George Washington, Farewell Address
It was Lincoln who maintained this position against all comers.
Walt
Indeed? The "dissolution" of the Articles of Confederation which resulted from the ratification of the Constitution produced a “dissolution” of the union: the delegates to the New York State convention (for one) recognized that fact, and it is impossible to draw any other conclusion from the results. Rhode Island existed as an independent State for the bettter part of two years before belatedly ratifying. Would you suggest that the union remained intact during that period, when the ratifying States were bound by the new Constitution, but the non-ratifying States were not? An interesting concept of ‘union,’ if so...
Where does Madison explicitly suggest that a state may dissolve the compact? He had asserted, 30 years prior, that a state may interpose, under certain circumstances, on Constitutional grounds. Whether or not one agrees with that idea, a state dissolving the Compact is far removed from a state declare a law unconstitutional. Quite near the opposite, it seems to me.
It may be worth remembering that the States had just seceded from a union formed under a compact (the Articles) that described itself, in writing, as “perpetual.” (And it may be worthy of note that the first compact required the unanimous consent of the parties – the States - before said compact could be modified, which is something the terms of the new Constitution ignored completely.) The new constitutional compact made no explicit claims regarding 'pepetuity,' and many ratification documents indicate that the people of the States were well aware of the potential for a 'less-than-perpetual' union under the new compact, and reserved to themselves, in writing, the right to reassume the powers of government whenever they should so desire.
One other point worth considering: the secession of nine out of thirteen States from the union formed under the Articles was apparently sufficiently traumatic to produce the “dissolution” of that union. The secession of a single State from a union of thirteen (or fifty) would hardly produce the same result.
And what of the last line in the letter, which you neglected to include?:
”It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism.”
It seems to me then, that Madison saw the obligations of a compact as vital, and yet, not necessarily expressed explicitly in the Constitution itself. I wonder what Mr. Madison's ideas were on the nature of and obligations of parties to a compact.
Nine States, out of thirteen, had previously substituted one compact for another, preserving (as they did) “free Government.” It can hardly be said that the Southern States accomplished any less, given that the Constitution of the Confederate States of America was almost a word-for-word copy of the U.S. Constitution. And the secession of the Southern States in no way required the “dissolution” of the ‘rump’ union remaining in the North, which was (as I previously noted) the practical effect of constitutional ratification.
You quoted his Report, which asserts that the states, i.e., the parties, are the final judges of Constitutionality. Let's just accept that as it is, OK? But then you leap to the conclusion that this means a state may "secede". In fact, you say this is "clearly" so. I must be blind. I don't see it! Looking at the Report, we see that Virginia has found a Federal law unconstitutional. They have written some resolutions which spell it out in painstaking detail. And they let us know what they intend to do about it. Did they propose to write their own Constitution? Cease to obey the US Constitution?
I believe Mr. Madison noted in The Federalist Papers that the violation of a compact by one party was grounds for the abrogation of the compact by the other parties. But perhaps we should simply refer to Mr. Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions, which post-date the ratification of the Constitution, and were written with full knowledge of the Constitution including the Bill of Rights:
Resolved, That the several States composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
Mr. Jefferson declares that each State “has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.” (Later in the Resolutions, he cites the Tenth Amendment as grounds for State action – Resolved, The it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" - more on this below.) The Southern States ‘judged for themselves,’ and determined that secession was the appropriate “mode and measure of redress.”
Quite the opposite! Madison wrote:
> The object, being to maintain what the Constitution has ordained, is in itself a laudable object.
As opposed to the Slave states, which sought to remove themselves from it.
And if the compact itself reserves all undelegated and unprohibited rights (including, obviously, secession, which is nowhere “delegated” nor “prohibited” by the U.S. Constitution) to the States and the people of the States, how can the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Constitution itself be described as an effort by the parties to “remove” themselves from its obligations? Mr. Jefferson cited the specific reservation of rights embodied in the Tenth Amendment as justification, and stated specifically that the States shall determine for themselves “as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.”
The means are expressed in the terms "the necessary and proper measures." A proper object was to be pursued by the means both necessary and proper.
Now what could he mean by "necessary and proper" means? (I can't help finding some humor in the choice of words, given the context, but I digress, except to say surely he intended a strict construction of the phrase?)
Mr. Jefferson apparently believed that the States, as parties to the compact, were free to judge for themselves regarding "necessary and proper" means. Not so the federal government, which was a creature of the compact rather than a party to it. Perhaps we should refer to Mr. Madison’s comments regarding other constitutional clauses which have been ‘inflated’ beyond a “plain” reading of the text, and beyond the Founders intent (pardon the length of the quote – it all appeared applicable):
The other questions presenting themselves are, 1. Whether indications have appeared of a design to expound certain general phrases, copied from the "Articles of Confederation," so as to destroy the effect of the particular enumeration explaining and limiting their meaning; 2. Whether this exposition would, by degrees, consolidate the states into one sovereignty; 3. Whether the tendency and result of this consolidation would be to transform the republican system of the United States into a monarchy.
1. The general phrases here meant must be those "of providing for the common defence and general welfare."
In the "Articles of Confederation," the phrases are used as follows, in Art. VIII.: "All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence and general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several states, in proportion to the value of all land within each state, granted to or surveyed for any person, as such land, and the buildings and improvements thereon, shall be estimated, according to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled shall, from time to time, direct and appoint." In the existing Constitution, they make the following part of sect. 8: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare, of the United States."
This similarity in the use of these phrases, in the two great federal charters, might well be considered as rendering their meaning less liable to be misconstrued in the latter; because it will scarcely be said, that in the former they were ever understood to be either a general grant of power, or to authorize the requisition or application of money, by the old Congress, to the common defence and general welfare, except in cases afterwards enumerated, which explained and limited their meaning; and if such was the limited meaning attached to these phrases in the very instrument revised and remodeled by the present Constitution, it can never be supposed that, when copied into this Constitution, a different meaning ought to be attached to them.
That, notwithstanding this remarkable security against misconstruction, a design has been indicated to expound these phrases, in the Constitution, so as to destroy the effect of the particular enumeration of powers by which it explains and limits them, must have fallen under the observation of those who have attended to the course of public transactions. Not to multiply proofs on this subject, it will suffice to refer to the debates of the federal legislature, in which arguments have, on different occasions, been drawn, with apparent effect, from these phrases, in their indefinite meaning...
Now, whether the phrases in question be construed to authorize every measure relating to the common defence and general welfare, as contended by some, or every measure only in which there might be an application of money, as suggested by the caution of others,--the effect must substantially be the same, in destroying the import and force of the particular enumeration of powers which follows these general phrases in the Constitution; for it is evident that there is not a single power whatever which may not have some reference to the common defence or the general welfare [or be deemed by the government to be “necessary and proper”]; nor a power of any magnitude which, in its exercise, does not involve, or admit, an application of money. The government, therefore, which possesses power in either one or other of these extents, is a government without the limitations formed by a particular enumeration of powers; and, consequently, the meaning and effect of this particular enumeration is destroyed by the exposition given to these general phrases.
This conclusion will not be affected by an attempt to qualify the power over the "general welfare," by referring it to cases where the general welfare is beyond the reach of the separate provisions by the individual states, and leaving to these their jurisdiction in cases to which their separate provisions may be competent; for, as the authority of the individual states must in all cases be incompetent to general regulations operating through the whole, the authority of the United States would be extended to every object relating to the general welfare, which might, by any possibility, be provided for by the general authority. This qualifying construction, therefore, would have little, if any, tendency to circumscribe the power claimed under the latitude of the term "general welfare." The true and fair construction of this expression, both in the original and existing federal compacts, appears to the committee too obvious to be mistaken. In both, the Congress is authorized to provide money for the common defence and general welfare. In both is subjoined to this authority an enumeration of the eases to which their powers shall extend. Money cannot be applied to the general welfare, otherwise than by an application of it to some particular measure, conducive to the general welfare. Whenever, therefore, money has been raised by the general authority, and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises whether the particular measure be within the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money requisite for it may be applied to it. If it be not, no such application can be made. This fair and obvious interpretation coincides with, and is enforced by, the clause in the Constitution which declares that "no money shall be drawn from the treasury but inconsequence of appropriations made by law." An appropriation of money to the general welfare would be deemed rather a mockery than an observance of this constitutional injunction.
2. Whether the exposition of the general phrases here combated would not, by degrees, consolidate the states into one sovereignty, is a question concerning which the committee can perceive little room for difference of opinion. To consolidate the states into one sovereignty, nothing more can be wanted than to supersede their respective sovereignties, in the cases reserved to them, by extending the sovereignty of the United States to all cases of the "general welfare" [or anything deemed “necessary and proper]---that is to say, to all cases whatever.
3. That the obvious tendency, and inevitable result, of a consolidation of the states into one sovereignty, would be to transform the republican system of the United States into a monarchy, is a point which seems to have been sufficiently decided by the general sentiment of America. In almost every instance of discussion relating to the consolidation in question, its certain tendency to pave the way to monarchy seems not to have been contested.
In other words, the “common defense and general welfare” clause does not constitute a federal ‘license to kill’ – and neither does the phrase “necessary and proper.” “(W)hat could he mean by ‘necessary and proper’ means?” With regard to the federal government, apparently nothing beyond the powers ‘plainly’ delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, and clearly “enumerated” therein. And the Constitution nowhere ‘plainly’ delegates authority to the general government to prevent secession, nor does it ‘enumerate’ any prohibition of secession with regard to the States.
They are "assisting in interpretation." A far cry from exiting and re-writing.
Your statement assumes that the Constitution prohibits secession, rather than reserving that right to the people of the States and their respective State governments. An interesting assumption, given the language of the Tenth Amendment.
Union. Fidelity to the Constitution. It seems to me the Report asserts a state's responsibility to interpret the Constitution, to interpose as a last resort (when the Congress has failed), as a means of preserving the Constitution, preserving the Union.
What were you saying about the “dissolution of the union” versus the “dissolution of the Constitutional Compact?” You seem to be confusing the two with regards to ‘preservation.’ Many public servants take an oath to ‘preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution:’ they do not swear to preserve the “union.” And, if the Constitution itself reserves the right of secession to the States and their people (as the Tenth Amendment suggests, and as many 19th century secessionists claimed), to ‘preserve’ the union by force could very well be considered a violation of the Constitution itself...
Does this mean a state may secede? No. Secession may well have been considered "improper means." Judging by Mr. Madison's great support for Daniel Webster (shall we post Webster's speech, to which Madison referred?), I would say he would have considered "secession" an improper violation of the compact, as opposed to the Virginia Resolution, which was performed in service to the Compact.
You are certainly free to reach your own conclusions. The fact remains: the Constitution nowhere ‘plainly’ prohibits secession – but it does quite ‘plainly’ reserve all powers “not delegated...nor prohibited” to the States and their people. As for Mr. Webster, I will leave you with the following:
”Opposition to [the federal military draft] bills in the House of Representatives was led by none other than Daniel Webster, who argued that any federal draft under the army clause impermissibly evaded the constitutional limitations on federal use of the militia. The plan was an illegitimate attempt to raise ‘a standing army out of the militia by draft’...Webster closed with an invocation of the libertarian localism of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and a quotation of the ‘Right of Revolution’ clause of the New Hampshire Constitution:
“‘It will be the solemn duty of the State Governments to protect their own authority over their own militia, and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power. These are among the objects for which the State Governments exist; and their highest obligations bind them to the preservation of their own rights and the liberties of their people...[My constituents and I] live under a constitution which teaches us that ‘the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.’ “
I am reminded of the extensive debate in The Federalist Papers, in which even the most ardent federalists apparently admitted the right of the States to oppose federal tyranny with armed force. Tell us: would you consider combat between State militia and federal troops over the issue of ‘intolerable oppression’ to be "an improper violation of the compact?" And would such military action be more or less “improper” than peaceful secession? And, finally, do you think the Founders would agree with your conclusions?
Thank you for your time...
If you only moved a few miles further south, you would be living in the ‘paradise’ that the Confederacy, run by a small group of corrupt plantation owners, surely would have become.
Nothing 'improper' about it, but it isn't 'legal' and isn’t supported by the Constitution. It's called a rebellion, and the Founders would have approved in the case of oppression but they would not try to worm some lame Johnny Cochran legalism around it. It was rebellion and that is an honorable course if there is an honorable cause. The South did not have an honorable cause.
Now tell us: exactly what 'intolerable oppression' the Federal government imposed on the south in 1860 that justified rebellion? Seems to me that the Feds did everything but kiss their ass. The arrogant slave holding aristocrats couldn't be appeased regardless of what the Federal government did short of dictating slavery nation-wide. That, after all, is what the radical south slavocracy wanted --- slavery from sea to shining sea. Great role models you have --- nothing honorable about them or their cause.
D: Partially true. ..I guess if you consider Lincoln a tyrant, calling calling Washington a 'used car salesmen' is not all that bad.
No offense intended, but you seem confused. I was speculating with regard to Walt’s argument – not my own. I refer repeatedly to the comments of Mr. Madison during the ratification debates, and those of Mr. Jefferson shortly thereafter, and take them at their word. Others do not: several of those who disagree with me have taken exception to their statements, and have gone so far as to label them ‘senile’ and ‘crazy.’ Others have suggested that I am subject to arrest by federal authorities, apparently because I quote their statements. Often it can be quite amusing: Walt simply refuses to even discuss the secession of the ratifying States from the union formed under the Articles, and also refuses to discuss the ‘federal-court-approved-but-unconstitutional-as-h&ll’ Alien and Sedition Acts. (Change your mind yet, Walt? ;>)
History simply does not agree with you
Are you saying that the States, only a few short years after winning a war of secession from Britain, would independently secede from a self-described ‘perpetual union,’ only to form a new union from which secession was prohibited by some unwritten, yet irrevocable, agreement? Shall I quote State ratification documents, wherein they specifically reserve the right of secession in writing? Shall I quote the most respected legal references of the era (Tucker’s Blackstones and Rawle’s A View of the Constitution), both of which confirm the right of State secession from the constitutional union? Perhaps you will accept an independent evaluation:
”...The proponents of secession had a strong constitutional argument, probably a stronger argument than the nationalists advanced...”
William E. Gienapp, Professor of History at Harvard University
If there is anyone here with whom “(h)istory simply does not agree,” it is not I: I would suggest that it is the person (or persons ;>) who avoid certain historical topics like vampires avoid garlic...
I wish I had more of it. In fact, I wish we could sit face to face, hoisting a few frothy mugs, with all the necessary books at our disposal, where we could debate this ad infinitum. Unfortunately, time is something I don't have to spare on this, as my recent posting habits should demonstrate. I wonder how many men with ample leisure time to spare spend it on so worthy a cause? One can only guess.
In the meantime, you serve your country well by bringing ideas to the table for vigorous debate. I am extremely busy at work, and occupied at home, and so will probably not be able to really get into this debate. Perhaps some other time. You should know I am intellectually inclined to continue, and am constituionally (pun-intended) not inclined to withdraw, but withdraw I must. Be well.
"Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin to the whole; whereas a liberal, and energetic Constitution, well guarded and closely watched, to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence, to which we had a fair claim, and the brightest prospect of attaining..."
George Washington to James Madison November 5, 1786
What Washington said, and what Lincoln said are entirely consistant. It was Lincoln who defended the government established by the framers of the Constitution.
Defended the government?! Ha! what a joke. Apparently, you forgot to notice that Lincoln used a gun to supposedly do what Washington did with the "consent of the governed". I would have preferred Washington's Union to the one created by the 39th Congress, which was unchecked by Lincoln.
That is exactly what they did. An individual state could no more unilaterally remove itself from the Union without the permission of the others than the other states could expel a member state without its consent. It is the nature of the contract.
It could have been legal if they had either passed an amendment giving states a unilateral right to secede or even if the congress as a whole voted to allow a state or states to depart the same way as congress votes as a whole to admit new states. The South attempted neither and they may well have been successful if they had tried. Instead they chose open rebellion.
and those of Mr. Jefferson shortly thereafter
Jefferson had no role in writing the Constitution. And his ‘words’ tended to change considerably depending on what ax he was grinding at any give moment. He was not a model of consistency. If I read him right, he surely would not have tolerated secession during his eight years in office. When he waxed on at Montecello about the evils of slavery or whatever he may have divined such a right, but the actual framers did not. Neither Madison or Jay saw a right to secede. The writings of Hamilton and Washington strongly imply that they saw no right to do so either. These are people who sat in Philadelphia in the summer of 87 and wrote that document. They clearly viewed the Constitution as a perpetual Union. It would be foolish to think these men who understood how very difficult representative government was would spend their time devising a Union of 13 states thinking that at the first storm, or the first disappointment, those states could simply pack up and depart. These were very practical men. They would not have wasted their time writing a fragile document such as that.
If the south were being oppressed in 1860, the Founders would have supported armed rebellion. But exactly how was the south being oppressed by the Federal Government? There only grievance seemed to be that many in the North didn’t like slavery and were helping slaves escape and teaching them to read. The Federal government wasn’t helping the slaves escape or teaching them to read. Private citizens were. So the south rebelled and started a war. Where’s the justification?
It is implied that a state may leave the Senate. It's far stronger an argument than any that says the Constitution prohibits secession. Because there is zero argument for that. I've always thought that the primary intent of that article is to prohibit the Constitution from being modified such that a State would no longer have suffrage in the Senate. "You can change the Constitution in any way but these..." That preserves forever the integrity of the States, under the Constitution. I've always thought that your observation was a secondary, but valid, purpose of the Article.
You seem to be suggesting that even unconstitutional federal action is somehow “’legal’ and...supported by the Constitution,” simply because it is undertaken by the federal government. And that State action taken in direct support of the Constitution, “isn't 'legal' and isn’t supported by the Constitution” if it is opposed by the federal government. Yes - no? Perhaps you can address an example: please explain how State militia protecting Jewish Americans (or gun owners, or homosexuals) from extermination by federal troops would be violating the law. Be specific: what law, exactly, would the States be violating? Does the Constitution permit genocide? (Don't bother with the Nuremberg defense - it won't fly... ;>)
The South did not have an honorable cause.
Now tell us: exactly what 'intolerable oppression' the Federal government imposed on the south in 1860 that justified rebellion?
Actually, it is not up to you (or I) to judge regarding the tolerability (or lack thereof ) of federal oppression faced by the citizens of the Southern States. As Mr. Jefferson noted:
”...(T)he several States composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes... that to this compact each State acceded as a State...[and] each [State as a] party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress. “
Unless you qualify as a “State,” your opinion would seem to be irrelevant. It was a matter for the citizens of the Southern States to decide.
That, after all, is what the radical south slavocracy wanted --- slavery from sea to shining sea.
Please enlighten us – when, precisely, did the union amend the Constitution to abolish slavery? Was it before the war, during the war, or after the war? Perhaps you can tell us which government, in the spring of 1861, proposed an amendment to the Constitution, which would have permanently prohibited national abolition legislation? Hmm? While you’re at it, tell us all which nation’s President, in December 1862 (if I remember correctly), proposed a constitutional amendment that would have permitted slavery to exist through the end of the century? And which nation’s President emancipated the slaves – but only in the other nation’s States, and specifically not in those States over which he held any constitutional authority? And finally, which nation’s House of Representatives overwhelmingly defeated an abolition amendment in the summer of 1864 – an action directly comparable to Congress refusing to condemn National Socialism on the eve of the Normandy invasion?
A word of advice: when folks play the ‘slavery card’ in these debates, they tend to get trumped by historical fact.
Great role models you have --- nothing honorable about them or their cause.
Gosh - sorry you don’t approve of Mr. Jefferson or Mr. Madison. But pardon me if I don’t lose any sleep over your disapproval...
;>)
I'd take my chance crossing Abe before George any day. George was one tough dude.
You seem to be suggesting that even unconstitutional federal action is somehow “’legal’ and...supported by the Constitution,” simply because it is undertaken by the federal government. And that State action taken in direct support of the Constitution, “isn't 'legal' and isn’t supported by the Constitution” if it is opposed by the federal government. Yes - no?
What 'unconstitutional action did the Federal government take in 1861? The Federal Government has and has always had a legal right and even duty under the Constitution to put down rebellion. The Southern states were in rebellion.
What clauses of the Constitution did the Confederate states cite in declaring secession? What was Constitutional about their actions? Nothing. They were rebels.
Actually, it is not up to you (or I) to judge regarding the tolerability (or lack thereof ) of federal oppression faced by the citizens of the Southern States.
Why not? You claim the Federal Government was trampling the rights of the South, but you don’t want to discuss it? How odd.
The South was fighting for the expansion of slavery. As you pointed out, neither Lincoln nor the Federal Government had indicated that they would attempt to end slavery where it existed. As you say, he even offered to support legislation that would guarantee it for another 40 years. That would have effectively ended Lincoln’s political career and the Republican party if it had passed, but Lincoln was willing to do that to preserve the Union. BTW. To say that the South was fighting for slavery does not say that Lincoln and the North went to war to end slavery --- a straw man argument that the neo-confederates always try to make. It’s a stupid argument. Lincoln and the North went to war to preserve the Union. Lincoln did plainly state that he would not allow slavery to expand and the majority of congress was with him on that issue. That economic and political issue (seats in the Senate) is what drove the South to secede. The North was growing rapidly. The South was not. They were losing the demographic war.
If secession was not about slavery, why did every southern state say it was the major cause in their secession articles? Why did the Confederate Constitution include an article that mandated slavery not only in the 11 existing states of the confederacy, but in every territory that would obtain statehood in the Confederacy? Not simply allowed it, but mandated it! Because their grievance was that the North would not allow slavery to expand to the West?
As to your distortion of the Emancipation Proclamation, I'll reply in detail later when I have time. But your words show that you are either being intentionally deceptive, or that you do not understand the limitations imposed on the executive branch by the Constitution. Far from being the tyrant you insist, Lincoln respected the Constitution far more than any of the slavocracy did.
Allow me to correct you: “the nature” of a contract is to include binding terms in writing. The constitutional contract nowhere prohibits secession – period. Now you may believe in the validity of ‘unwritten laws’: that is certainly your right. I can only wonder what you would say if your finance company advised you that you owed another 36 (or 72, or 144) car payments above and beyond what your contract specified, in writing, simply because that was their understanding of “the nature of the contract.”
It could have been legal if they had either passed an amendment giving states a unilateral right to secede or even if the congress as a whole voted to allow a state or states to depart the same way as congress votes as a whole to admit new states. The South attempted neither and they may well have been successful if they had tried. Instead they chose open rebellion.
No amendment was required: as Senator Toombs noted at the time, the Tenth Amendment declared, in writing, that all powers not delegated nor prohibited (including, by definition, secession) by the Constitution were reserved to the people of the States. The written words of the Constitution trump any supposed ‘unwritten law’...
Jefferson had no role in writing the Constitution...
Your arguments are perfectly compatible with an ‘unwritten law’ foundation. You seem to suggest that those who had “no role in writing the Constitution” could not possibly understand its terms. You would most certainly be correct, if the compact was composed of secret handshakes, confidential agreements, and ‘unwritten laws.’ That, fortunately, is not the case. The Constitution is a written document, and it is quite specific: powers not delegated nor prohibited are reserved, not to the federal government (as the proponents of ‘unwritten law’ seem to suggest), but to the States and their people. As Mr. Madison observed:
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Nowhere does the Constitution ‘define’ a federal power to prevent secession; rather, the States retain that power (among those which are “numerous and indefinite”). This is perfectly in keeping with the written terms of the Tenth Amendment.
But exactly how was the south being oppressed by the Federal Government?
I have addressed this point previously (Post #372).
Allow me to ask you a somewhat related question: if the citizens of another State violated their written obligations under the Constitution, and the federal government refused to enforce those written obligations, would you take exception to their conduct? Would you consider either entity to be in compliance with the written terms of the compact?
I quote source documents, at length; you post unsubstantiated opinion. And you suggest that I am the "revisionist?" You have an amazing talent for comedy.
Since I don't have time this evening for comedians (I have work to do), I will leave you with a question that has caused all manner of difficulty and consternation to your philosophical bed-fellows:
Shall government be bound by law, or by morality?
Sweet dreams...
;>)
Sometimes life's a bitch.
http://boards.multicity.com/servlet/BoardServePage?action=7&expand=1&boardid=101064013&pg=2&translatelanguage=&msgid=1393
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.