... The nation purchased, with money, the countries out of which several of these states were formed. Is it just that they shall go off without leave, and without refunding? ...
The vicious Southerners wanted to negotiate a financial settlement with the North. THEY recognized their obligations. Lincoln essentially ignored a Southern delegation, led by Martin Crawford, sent to Washington for the purpose of negotiating some sort of settlement. I guess they just forgot to tell us about this in our high school history classes. And "Honest Abe" pretends to know nothing of it.
If we ... allow the seceders to go in peace ...
Can't allow anyone to go in peace could we? What a foolish idea!
If all the states, save one, should assert the power to drive that one out of the Union ...
Translation: Since we really don't have much of a leg to stand on about a State voluntarily leaving the Union, let's change the subject and discuss whether we could force a State OUT of the Union.
A. Lincoln, 7/4/01
01?
You really need to read more to supplement the brain washing you got in high school. I suggest Perkin's Northern Editorials on Secession or Fremantle's Three Months in the Southern States.
ML/NJ (who never lived south of the 40th parallel, and reverently memorized the Gettysburg address as a teen.)
In point of fact,'vicious' in not a bad choice of words for the secessionists.
"And this issue embraces more than the fact of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy--a government of the people, by the same people--can or cannot, maintain its territorial integtrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration, according to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily, without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness?" "Must a government, of neccessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existance?"
A. Lincoln, 7/4/61
The problem with the southern states just saying, "we're leaving, and we're leaving you with obligations that we freely incurred, (there not being enough money in the whole country to compence the federal governments for the present value of the Louisiana Purchase, the state debts of Texas, the whole state of Florida and other outlays), is that it shows that men cannot govern themselves through democratic means. Lincoln and the many many loyal men, north and south, who came forward to fight for the old flag thought that a reason to risk maintaing the national fabric. And history shows -they- were right, and the slave holder/secessionists were wrong.
Walt
They are lucky it was Lincoln and not Jackson. Jackson would have hung them all.
"On the question of states' rights versus supremacy of the federal government, Jackson clashed sharply with his vice president, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Calhoun had earlier proposed a theory of nullification, under which a state could refuse to obey acts of Congress it considered unconstitutional. Congress then would either have to drop the disputed act or obtain its approval through a constitutional amendment. Calhoun hoped to win the president to this states'-rights view. But Jackson revealed his strong feelings on the issue at a banquet in 1830, when, looking directly at Calhoun, he offered the toast, "Our Federal Union--It must be preserved."
This issue came to a head the next year, when South Carolina adopted an ordinance of nullification declaring that the high protective tariffs, or taxes on imports, of 1828 and 1832 were invalid within its borders. Privately, Jackson threatened to hang Calhoun. Publicly, he prepared to use military force against South Carolina. In a proclamation he denounced nullification as treason: "I consider the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it is founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed."
http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/nbk/bios/07pjack.html
Unilateral state secession is not allowed in our system of government.
It's dishonorable to think you can just walk away from your just debts, or think you can take what is not yours.
Now, will you will aver that you think that had Lincoln received these commissioners, and told them that no settlement would be made under any circumstance, that they would have subsided, and the rebellious states not attempted to overthrow the government?
Because if they --weren't-- willing to do that, they and their masters were no better than common thieves.
Walt