Posted on 06/12/2003 5:58:28 AM PDT by Aurelius
Over the years I've heard many rail at the South for seceding from the 'glorious Union.' They claim that Jeff Davis and all Southerners were really nothing but traitors - and some of these people were born and raised in the South and should know better, but don't, thanks to their government school 'education.'
Frank Conner, in his excellent book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 deals in some detail with the question of Davis' alleged 'treason.' In referring to the Northern leaders he noted: "They believed the most logical means of justifying the North's war would be to have the federal government convict Davis of treason against the United States. Such a conviction must presuppose that the Confederate States could not have seceded from the Union; so convicting Davis would validate the war and make it morally legitimate."
Although this was the way the federal government planned to proceed, that prolific South-hater, Thaddeus Stevens, couldn't keep his mouth shut and he let the cat out of the bag. Stevens said: "The Southerners should be treated as a conquered alien enemy...This can be done without violence to the established principles only on the theory that the Southern states were severed from the Union and were an independent government de facto and an alien enemy to be dealt with according to the laws of war...No reform can be effected in the Southern States if they have never left the Union..." And, although he did not plainly say it, what Stevens really desired was that the Christian culture of the Old South be 'reformed' into something more compatible with his beliefs. No matter how you look at it, the feds tried to have it both ways - they claimed the South was in rebellion and had never been out of the Union, but then it had to do certain things to 'get back' into the Union it had never been out of. Strange, is it not, that the 'history' books never seem to pick up on this?
At any rate, the Northern government prepared to try President Davis for treason while it had him in prison. Mr. Conner has observed that: "The War Department presented its evidence for a treason trial against Davis to a famed jurist, Francis Lieber, for his analysis. Lieber pronounced 'Davis will not be found guilty and we shall stand there completely beaten'." According to Mr. Conner, U.S. Attorney General James Speed appointed a renowned attorney, John J. Clifford, as his chief prosecutor. Clifford, after studying the government's evidence against Davis, withdrew from the case. He said he had 'grave doubts' about it. Not to be undone, Speed then appointed Richard Henry Dana, a prominent maritime lawyer, to the case. Mr. Dana also withdrew. He said basically, that as long as the North had won a military victory over the South, they should just be satisfied with that. In other words - "you won the war, boys, so don't push your luck beyond that."
Mr. Conner tells us that: "In 1866 President Johnson appointed a new U.S. attorney general, Henry Stanburg. But Stanburg wouldn't touch the case either. Thus had spoken the North's best and brightest jurists re the legitimacy of the War of Northern Aggression - even though the Jefferson Davis case offered blinding fame to the prosecutor who could prove that the South had seceded unconstitutionally." None of these bright lights from the North would touch this case with a ten-foot pole. It's not that they were dumb, in fact the reverse is true. These men knew a dead horse when they saw it and were not about to climb aboard and attempt to ride it across the treacherous stream of illegal secession. They knew better. In fact, a Northerner from New York, Charles O'Connor, became the legal counsel for Jeff Davis - without charge. That, plus the celebrity jurists from the North that refused to touch the case, told the federal government that they really had no case against Davis or secession and that Davis was merely being held as a political prisoner.
Author Richard Street, writing in The Civil War back in the 1950s said exactly the same thing. Referring to Jeff Davis, Street wrote: "He was imprisoned after the war, was never brought to trial. The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and that the South had got a raw deal." At one point the government intimated that it would be willing to offer Davis a pardon, should he ask for one. Davis refused that and he demanded that the government either give him a pardon or give him a trial, or admit that they had dealt unjustly with him. Mr. Street said: "He died 'unpardoned' by a government that was leery of giving him a public hearing." If Davis was as guilty as they claimed, why no trial???
Had the federal government had any possible chance to convict Davis and therefore declare secession unconstitutional they would have done so in a New York minute. The fact that they diddled around and finally released him without benefit of the trial he wanted proves that the North had no real case against secession. Over 600,000 boys, both North and South, were killed or maimed so the North could fight a war of conquest over something that the South did that was neither illegal or wrong. Yet they claim the moral high ground because the 'freed' the slaves, a farce at best.
It seems to me that all those activities you spoke of you label as 'war crimes' when you claim the Yankees did it. If that is true then they would be war crimes regardless of who did it. So either they are war crimes or they are not. If they are then you are advocating war crimes by the confederacy. If they are not then what are you bellyaching about?
Really? Cause I recall your hero Beast Butler hanging a civilian in New Orleans for possessing one. I also recall what Mr. Lincoln did to the author of that song's grandkid...
"When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day forty-seven years before my grandfather, Mr. F.S. Key, then prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry. When on the following morning the hostile fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the Star-Spangled Banner. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed." - Francis Key Howard, newspaper editor of the Baltimore Exchange, imprisoned in Fort McHenry for comments critical of Lincoln
There was no National referendum. STATES acceded to the Union. The parties to the Union were sovereign STATES, not individuals.
As no WOMAN was allowed to vote at all, were the parties to your Union only that minority of Americans know as MEN?
Thomas Jefferson
"The States entered into a compact which is called the constitution of the United States."
James Madison
"new form of government by the States."
"a compact to which the States are parties."
"that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party
Alexander Hamilton
If the new Constitution should be adopted, says he, the Union would "still be, in fact and theory, an association of States, or a confederacy."
"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act."
Governor John Randolph of Virginia
"the accession of eight States reduced our [Virginia's] deliberations to the single question of Union or no Union."
Patrick Henry
"If it [the proposed constitution] be amended, every State will accede to it."
William Grayson of Virginia
"Does she [the State of Virginia] gain anything from her central position by acceding to that paper...?"
Benjamin Franklin
"Our new constitution is now established with eleven States, and the accession of a twelfth is soon expected."
George Washington
"If these, with the States eastward and northward of us, should accede to the Federal Government...."
Chief Justice John Marshall
"North Carolina accedes to the Union."
Justice Joseph Story
"Rhode Island did not accede to it until more than a year after it had been in operation"
I've been called worse numbers than that.
when one side starts committing war crimes and NO punitive action by a third party has been taken to stop the war crimes, according to the international law of war, the other side may do "similar acts" as a "payback". not pretty (and perhaps immoral), but acceptable.
the response, according to the Law of Land Warfare, published by the USAJAGC, must be "porportionate to the acts previously committed by the opposing force".
BTW, i didn't say that i APPROVED of such acts in revenge.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
The difference between "'high' crimes and misdemeanors" and just plain old "crimes and misdemeanors", is that the term 'high' distinguishes the type of crimes that may be impeachable. In this sense, 'high' acts as a restriction on the construct "crimes and misdemeanors" and distinguishes that type from other types of crimes.
You don't have to take my word for this however, you can read all about it from the Brigham Young University Federalist Society, who have nicely published a sixty page analysis of the subject.
The Clinton Impeachment and the Constitution: Introduction to the Federalist Society Panel
An exerpt of their comprehensive effort appears below.
Impeachment under English law
Proponents of the view that “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” implied some abuse of executive power also relied on the understanding of that phrase in founding-era England. Although warning of the hazard of the inference that the framers “meant to transport [English practice] unreformed into their new republic,” 25 Sunstein asserted that “the term ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors’ ” under English law was generally understood to represent “a category of political crimes against the state.”26
Put differently, the English practice of impeachment leading up to the founding era suggests that impeachable conduct included “the kind of misconduct that someone could engage in only by virtue of holding public office,” such as unlawful use of public funds, “preventing a political enemy from standing for election,” or “stopping writs of appeal.”27
Joseph Isenbergh reached a similar conclusion, asserting that “[i]n the 18th Century the word ‘high,’ when attached to the word ‘crime’ or ‘misdemeanor,’ describes a crime aiming at the state or the sovereign rather than a private person.” 28 In support of this view, Isenbergh asserted that Coke distinguished “high” treason from “petit” treason in that the former was “against the sovereign,” and that Blackstone defined other “high” offenses as those committed “against the king and government.” 29
The perjury count against Clinton was for lying about adultery in a deposition during a civil lawsuit that stemmed from an incident that occurred before he was elected President. This misconduct did not flow from his holding the office of President of the United States, in fact one could argue that the civil suit for sexual harassment was brought against him only because he was POTUS.
It should become quite clear to someone who is even mildly objective, that were some serious constitutional questions about whether Clinton's crimes should be considered 'high' or 'petit'. I would further argue that recent events involving the plaintiff in that case make the 'petitness' of the misconduct even more apparent.
Gee, rereading your reply 1515 you could have fooled me, your most recent lame justification not withstanding.
...it is strange to see the Knoxville Whig boasting that Confederates have been shot and hanged, and basted nearly to death, without having been subjected even to the summary process of civilized law, and it is painful to read the advice of the revered editor of that paper forgetting that "vengance is mine, I will repay, sayth the Lord," and bounding on the thoughtless and the cruel "to shoot rebels on sight."
Not so with Blackstone! Blackstone did not regularly use the term "high crimes and misdemeanors," which as I noted previously comes from a 1386 case. INSTEAD he used the term "crimes and misdemeanors," "high misdemeanors," and "offences against public justice," among other things. Thus to suggest that he was making a distinction between the qualifier "high," when in fact he did not even use it in the form you describe, is a falsehood.
In this sense, 'high' acts as a restriction on the construct "crimes and misdemeanors" and distinguishes that type from other types of crimes.
Again, not so with Blackstone. Blackstone did not use any such restriction. The phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" is not inherently qualified but rather a legal term of art taken from the 1386 case. Blackstone developed and used his own terms of art to reference the same concept. The framers simply chose to use the former of the two.
You don't have to take my word for this however, you can read all about it from the Brigham Young University Federalist Society, who have nicely published a sixty page analysis of the subject.
Thanks but no thanks. I prefer not to employ the crutch of a second hand appeal to authority when I may easily access the real thing in its original form via Blackstone's commentaries.
Check out garbage_truck's comments in post 1631. Wlat's adoration of Clinton is evidently rubbing off on him. Ole mac is now arguing Clinton's side in impeachment! Witness the apprentice following in his master's footsteps:
"The perjury count against Clinton was for lying about adultery in a deposition during a civil lawsuit that stemmed from an incident that occurred before he was elected President. This misconduct did not flow from his holding the office of President of the United States, in fact one could argue that the civil suit for sexual harassment was brought against him only because he was POTUS. It should become quite clear to someone who is even mildly objective, that were some serious constitutional questions about whether Clinton's crimes should be considered 'high' or 'petit'. I would further argue that recent events involving the plaintiff in that case make the 'petitness' of the misconduct even more apparent." - mac_truck, post #1631
F.S. Key wrote the poem, not the music.
Key's son was killed by Union general Daniel E. Sickles.
In 1859 Sickles found out that Francis Scott Key’s son, Philip Barton Key, was having an affair with his wife. Enraged, he shot the younger Key dead in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House. Sickles’s lawyer, Edwin Stanton (later President Lincoln’s secretary of war), argued that his client could not be guilty because he was insane at the time of the crime. That was the first time the temporary insanity defense was used in America. Sickles was acquitted.
It [The Constitution] was drawn up or framed, as every one knows, by the Convention of 1787; in which the States, and the States alone, were represented. Every iota of the Constitution was decided upon, and found a place in that written instrument, by a vote of the States; each State having one vote; the little State of Delaware, for example, having an equal vote with New York, Pennsylvania, or Virginia. No fact should be more perfectly notorious, or well known, than this; for it stands out everywhere on the very face of the proceedings of the Convention, which framed the Constitution. Thus, for example, "On the question for a single Executive, it was agreed to -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, aye -- 7; New York, Delaware, Maryland, no -- 3."
In like manner, every other item of the Constitution was decided upon, and the whole instrument formed, by a vote of the states; acting as separate, independent, and equal bodies. ...
... the Constitution was first submitted by the Convention of 1787, "to the United States in Congress assembled"; and it was afterwards, in conformity with the opinion of the Convention, promulgated by the States "in Congress assembled." ...
In the Resolution . . . which were unanimously adopted by the Convention of 1787, we find this clause: Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention that as soon as the Convention of nine States shall have ratified this Constitution, the United States in Congress assembled should fix a day on which electors should be appointed by the States which shall have ratified the same," etc. Not one of the fathers of the Constitution ever imagined that it was not ratified by the States.
The War Between The States," Albert T. Bledsoe, pp. 47-8
If Mr. Justice Story's [or GOP's] view of the words, "We, the people of the United States," be correct, how did it happen that the opponents of such a mode of ratification said absolutely nothing? The whole instrument, as amended by the committee on style, was read in the hearing of the Convention, beginning with the preamble, and yet the words, "We, the people of the United States," now deemed so formidable to the advocates of State sovereignty, did not raise a single whisper of opposition.
How could this have happened if the words in question were supposed to mean the people of America, or the whole people of the United States as one political society? Were Mason, and Martin, and Paterson, and Ellsworth all too dull to perceive that meaning, which is so perfectly obvious to Mr. Justice Story, and which he imagines that nothing but the most purblind obstinacy can resist? Were all the friends of the States, as independent sovereignties, asleep on their posts while Gouverneur Morris thus transformed the nature of the Constitution, without knowing it himself, by causing it to emanate, not from the States, but from the people of America as one nation? No. Not one of these suppositions is the true one. The whole mystery is explained in the proceedings of the Convention of 1787, as exhibited in "The Madison Papers"; an explanation which, however, has hitherto been most unaccountably overlooked. We may there find the real meaning of the words in question, and see why they gave no alarm to the advocates of State sovereignty.
THE MODE OF RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION
If we cast our eyes all along the subject of "the mode of ratification," ranging from page 735 to page 1632 of "The Madison Papers," we shall perceive that the question, whether the Constitution should be ratified by the people of "the United States in the aggregate," or by the several States, was not considered by the Convention at all. No such question was before the Convention. It was neither mooted nor considered by them. The error of Story and Webster is, that they construe the first clause of the Constitution as if it referred to one question; whereas, in fact, I referred to quite another and a far different question -- that is, they construed this clause in profound darkness as to the origin of its words, as well as to their use and application in the Convention of 1787. If they had understood them as actually and uniformly used or applied by the framers of the Constitution, then they could neither have deceived themselves nor the people of the North.
If, indeed, they had been members of that Convention, or had only examined its proceedings, they would have seen why the staunch advocates of State sovereignty raised not even the slightest whisper of opposition to the words, "We, the people." Or, if Patrick Henry had been a member of that assembly, then he could not have exclaimed, as he did, "Why say 'We, the people,' and not We, the States?" -- an exclamation so often quoted by Story, Webster, and the whole Northern school of politicians as a conclusive authority -- for then he would have seen that "We, the people," in the language of the framers of the Constitution, meant precisely the same thing as "We, the States," and neither more nor less.
The question before the Convention was, whether the Constitution should be ratified by the legislatures or by the sovereign peoples of the several States. No one doubted that it was to be ratified by the States. This, as we shall see, was on all hands regarded as a settled point. The only question was, whether it should be ratified by the States, acting through their legislatures, or through Conventions elected to represent the people for that special purpose. In the discussion of this question, most of the members insisted that the Constitution should be ratified by the people, by the States in their sovereign capacity, or by their Conventions. These several modes of expression were, in the vocabulary of the Convention, used as convertible terms, as perfectly synonymous with each other. Hence the phrase, "the people of the United States," as used and understood by them, meant the people of the several States as contradistinguished from the distinct and separate sovereign peoples of the different States. This application of the words is the invention of theorists merely. It was unknown to the Convention of 1787, and has had no existence except in the imaginations of those by whom their labors have been systematically misconstrued and perverted from their original design.
Some members of the Convention were in favor of leaving "the States to choose their own mode of ratification"; but the great majority of them insisted that the Constitution should be referred to the States for ratification, either through their legislatures or through their people in Conventions assembled. It was in regard to these two methods that the Convention was divided. All agreed that it should be done by "the States," and the only question was as to how "the States," should do it. The idea that is was designed to be done, or that it was done, by the people of America as one nation, is the dream of a later day, and, as we shall see, is nothing but a dream.
Some insisted that is should be ratified by the States in their corporate capacity -- this is, by their legislatures; and others that it should be ratified by the States in their sovereign political capacity -- that is, by their Conventions assembled for that express purpose. Or, in other words, some contended that it ought to be ratified by their general agents, the legislatures; and others that it ought to be ratified by their special agents, the Conventions elected and assembled to perform that high act of sovereign power. In both cases, it was to be ratified by the States, but the opposite parties preferred different modes of ratification by them.
THE DEBATE ON RATIFICATION
In debating this question, as to the mode of ratification by the States (the only one before the Convention), some of the most inflexible advocates of State sovereignty insisted that it should be ratified by "the people of the United States." But then they understood this language, and every member of the Convention understood it to mean the peoples of the several States, as distinguished from their legislatures. If, for one moment, they had imagined that their language could have been construed to mean a ratification of the Constitution by the collective will of the whole people of America, they would have shrunk from its use with horror! for they dreaded nothing more than the idea of such an immense consolidated democracy. On the contrary, they clung to the States, and to their rights, as the only sheet-anchor of safety against the overwhelming and all-devouring floods of such a national union of mere numbers or individuals. George Mason, no less than Patrick Henry, would have exclaimed against the words, "We, the People," if, as a member of the Convention of 1787, he had no learned that they only meant "We, the States."
In discussing the question as to the mode of ratification by "the States," Mr. Mason said "he considered a reference of the plan to the authority of the people as one of the most important and essential of the resolutions. The legislatures have no power to ratify it. . . . Another strong reason, said he, was that admitting the legislatures to have a competent authority it would be wrong to refer the plan to them, because succeeding legislatures, having equal authority, could undo the acts of their predecessors. This argument was repeatedly urged by other members, and it was insisted that if the Constitution should be ratified by the legislatures of the States, instead of by the people of the States, it would rest upon a weak and tottering foundation, since the legislatures which had established might claim the power to repeal.
In like manner Mr. Madison said, "For these reasons, as well as for others, he thought it indispensable that the new Constitution should be ratified in the unexceptionable form, and by the supreme authority of the people themselves -- that is, as the context shows, by the supreme authority of the people of the several States in opposition to their "legislative sanction only." Not one word was ever said during the whole of the debate about referring the Constitution to the people of the whole country in the aggregate for ratification. This idea had not then risen above the horizon of the political world, though it afterwards became the great political sun of the Northern section of the Union.
Those who advocated the mode of ratification by the people, or by the Conventions of the States elected for that purpose, prevailed over those who urged the ratification by the legislatures. The majority favored the mode of ratification by the people or the Conventions. Accordingly, when the committee of detail reported a draft of the Constitution, we find these words: "Article XXI. The ratifications of the Conventions of ______ States shall be sufficient for the organization of this Constitution." Thus it came to be perfectly understood that it should be ratified by the Conventions or the peoples of the several States, and not by their legislatures.
But here the question arose, if the blank for the number of States should be filled with "seven," "eight," or "nine." The Constitution, as it stood, might, in the opinion of Mr. Madison, be put in force of "the whole body of the people, though less than a majority of them should ratify it." But, in the opinion of Mr. Wilson, "As the Constitution stands, the States only which ratify can be bound." In order to remove this difficulty, and settle the question, Mr. King moved to add, at the end of Article XXI, the words "between the said States, so as to confine the operation of the government to the States ratifying the same." Thus it was Rufus King, at first one of the most strenuous advocates in the Convention of 1787 for a strong national government, who introduced the words by which the Constitution was made binding "between the States so ratifying the same." These words proved acceptable to Madison and Wilson, though both were among the most zealous advocates of a strong general government in the Convention of 1787, and they became a part of the new Constitution.
Thus it was universally understood by the Convention, as so expressed, that the new Constitution was to be established "by the ratification of the Conventions of ______ States," and to be binding only "between the States so ratifying the same."
During all this time the name of each State still retained its place in the preamble to the Constitution, in which the committee of detail made no change; and if the party, with Gerry and Hamilton at their head, who wished to fill the blank with the whole thirteen States, had prevailed, we have no reason to believe that any alteration would in this respect have been made in the preamble to the Constitution. But when, after debate, the blank was filled with "nine," it became impossible to specify the States between whom the new Constitution might be established or the new government organized. Hence it became proper, if not necessary, to drop the specification of the States by name -- a change which, as we have seen, was first introduced by the committee on style, and read to the Convention without raising the slightest objection or murmur.
We are now prepared to see, as in the clear light of noonday, why the words, "We, the people of the United States," which have since made so much noise in the political world, did not make any whatever in the Convention of 1787. Why should George Mason, or any other adherent of State sovereignty, object to the words introduced by the committee on style? They merely expressed the very thing for which he had contended, and which had been fully expressed in the seventh Article of the new Constitution. For when it was determined that the Constitution should be ratified by "the Conventions of the States," and not by the legislatures, this was exactly equivalent, in the uniform language of the Convention of 1787, to saying that i shall be ratified by "the people of the States." Hence, the most ardent friend of State rights, or State sovereignty, saw no reason why he should object to the words, "We, the people of the United States," because he knew they were only intended to express the mode of ratification by the States for which he had contended -- that is, by the States in their sovereign capacity, as so many political societies or peoples, as distinguished from their legislatures.
The War Between The States," Albert T. Bledsoe, pp. 58-65
"The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and in uniting together, they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have the been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States choose to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or right."
~ De Tocqueville ~
"The Federal Government exists on sufferance only. Any State may, at any time, constitutionally withdraw from the Union, and thus virtually dissolve it. It was not certainly created with the idea that the States, or several of them, would desire a separation; but whenever they choose to do it, they have no obstacle in the Constitution."
Dr. Mackay (Oxford)
"There was no direct action of the people in the nature of a popular vote; nor were the respective Conventions elected by any uniform or unqualified suffrage. They met at various dates, without any co-operation."
The American Union, James Spence, Liverpool, British barrister, p. 205
Resolutions passed by the American Anti-Slavery Movement:
"Resolved, That secession from the United States Government is the duty of every Abolitionish, since no one can take office or deposit his vote under the Constitution without violating his anti-slavery principles, and rendering himself an abettor to the slaveholder in his sin."
Resolved, That the Abolitionishs of this country should make it one of the primary objects of this agitation to dissovle the American Union."
They were a band of traitors.
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