If Secession Was Illegal - then How Come...?

The Patriotist ^ | 2003 | Al Benson, Jr.

[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.

[Grand Old Partisan]

By voting to secede, rebel members of the Virginia state convention lost their legitimacy, leaving the loyal delegates as the true state convention of Virginia. Under the Virginia state constitution at the time, the loyal state convention then excercised its power to abolish the rebel legislature and constitute themselves as the legitimate state government, which then elected Governor Pierpont and two U. S. Senators, who were seated. This reasoning was accepted by the President, Congress, and the U. S. Supreme Court, as well as the Commonwealth of Virginia today.

[safisoft]

I said nothing insulting to you personally

What, you think that if insulting, demeaning comments are not personally directed EVERY time, you are excluded from the common rules of civilized behavior?

You may not intend to insult everyone, but maybe you do. Quit while you are behind.

[Non-Sequitur]

Forced to remain in a "voluntary" contract, isn't that oppression?

States don't "volunteer" themselves into the Union, they are admitted with the approval of the other states. In fact, if you read the Constitution you would see that no input of any kind - vote of the territorial legislature, petition from the people, approval of the president, anything like that - is required before Congress can approve a state. Why shouldn't the other states have a say if a state wants to leave? What is to prevent a cabal of a few men from taking a state out of the Union in spite of the wishes of the people of the state?

So then there is no state sovereignty?

This has nothing to do with state sovereignity.

State rights are subject to congressional approval?

If you will read the Constitution you will find quite a few things that states are forbidden to do without Constitutional approval. Article I, Section 10 if you care to look.

Didn't they address that situation some where?... I believe they did.

Where?

[safisoft]

Your thinking has no impact on the truth. Re-read the thread, I said nothing insulting to you personally until you started slinging the...

Maybe you need to as reread it. You did in fact start the insults directed at the original poster:

Is there anything in that article which does not fit the catagory of BS?

Oh, BTW, I forgot to list another evidence of justshutupandtakeit's seriousness on this thread:

It is IMPOSSIBLE for YOU to waste your time on ME. Inhaling my flatulence would not be a waste of YOUR time.

Now there is a comment befitting a serious person.

[Grand Old Partisan]

The Confederate rebels claimed not to be citizens of the United States while at the same time claiming supposed rights under the U.S. Constitution.

You have already been cited the one relevant passage of the Constitution, that each house of Congress can judge whether a particular congressman could be seated. In this case, Congress decided, quite properly, that rebels were not qualificed to be seated. Remember, this problem would never have arisen if rebel Congressmen had not walked out of Congress in the first place.

[Aurelius]

"Aurelius, some here are not worthy of discourse. "

In my past experience with you, you have shown yourself to be one such. You don't frequent these threads to learn, because you think that you already know it all. You are here simply to insult those who hold views different from yours and to try to reinforce your own more or less absurd beliefs (constantly threated by ever present "cognative dissonance") by perpetually expounding them.

[Aurelius]

Well, I have made a bad mistake. In a hurry I mistook your post for one from justshutupandtakeit. I should have seen that was wrong from the absence of hostility. Please accept my apology.

[RenegadeNC]

I understand that...but if "a particular congressman" could no longer be seated, someone else would have to be put in that seat unless the seat itself was considered invalid. And I don't see how any congressional seat can be considered invalid for any state that is part of the Union.
Here's the problem I have with your arguement. The passage from the Constitution addresses the judgement of INDIVIDUALS in congress...but the situation following the war was that there were no congressional SEATS...no representation at all for those states that you say never left the Union. I'm not asking how individual congressmen can be removed from congress...I'm asking where the authority is for completely removing the congressional seats which are representative of U.S. citizens.

[tet68]

if you read the Constitution you would see that no input of any kind - vote of the territorial legislature, petition from the people, approval of the president, anything like that - is required before Congress can approve a state. Why shouldn't the other states have a say if a state wants to leave? What is to prevent a cabal of a few men from taking a state out of the Union in spite of the wishes of the people of the state?

So congress could accept say Taiwan as a state with out petition? Can't say that makes any sense to me, and as to a cabal of a few men taking a state out of or into the union against the peoples wishes, that in itself would be tyranny and would be cause for rebellion in any event.

[Grand Old Partisan]

The reasoning of Congress was that until there was a loyal state government in place, there could be no qualified congressmen from that state. Remember, Senators were elected by state legislatures, of which there weren't any in the rebel states. This position evloved over time, as for a while Louisiana had two Unionist Representatives in Congress, but they were expelled after it became clear that the supposedly loyalist state government was not all that loyal. Each House judged member qulaifications separately, so the two Virginia Senatores remained seated.

[safisoft]

Well, I have made a bad mistake. In a hurry I mistook your post for one from justshutupandtakeit. I should have seen that was wrong from the absence of hostility. Please accept my apology.

I would have known it was not directed at me, but thanks for a public expression of what civilized behavior looks like.

Good article by the way. No matter what other serious people think. < g >

[billbears]

is not consistent with their character just as it is not consistent with the character of the Union soldiers

Perhaps you need to reread the official record of the War before you start posting on the 'character' of union soldiers

[AnalogReigns]

Hello M, hope you are well.

It seems to me--from a non-scholarly Southern point of view--that the lawfully elected governments of the Southern states lawfully...chose to secede. Naturally that was never recognized by the United States government... Yes, nearly 1/3 of the Southern men (the slaves) had no voice...(not to mention the women) but by the law in force then, the state governments which chose to secede were legitimate.

If the union was inviolate...the logic undermines the legitimacy of the birth of the United States to begin with. After all, the British government did not recognize our rebellion too, in 1775--up to the Treaty of Paris--or in practice, after the War of 1812. The War of Independence was legitimate by traditional standards in that it pitted the legitimate lawful local governments (colonial and county) vs. the British Crown. One could be loyal to one's country--as ones country then was the colony you were in--and colonial legislatures rebelled against the central government.

Similarly, attitudes in the antebellum days were State first, then the federal government. Considering the smallness (compared to modern times) of the old Union government (and its constitutionality, I might add) this was logical. The Feds protected us from international (and Indian) threats, and regulated (real) interstate commerce, and westward expansion...beyond that, the Union government didn't do that much--as is constitutionally mandated.

The founders love of union, Andrew Jackson's promise to hang rebels, or the fact that "if a state can secede, it can be expelled" just all don't seem relevant to the fact that lawfully elected state governments chose (for the wrong reasons--and to their harm, admittedly) to leave the United States. Yes, legally speaking they never did leave...but I place that in the category of legal fiction, as that "fact" was only brutally hammered in place by the Northern Vulcan--at the cost of 3/4 a million men.

[ought-six]

"Hitler's racial views were totally consistent with the Slaverocracy and totally opposed to Lincoln's."

Absolutely false! Read the transcript of the first Lincoln-Douglas debate in September, 1858 for an example of Old Abe's thoughts on the matter. Abe was a white supremacist to the core!

[ought-six]

"A state has no right to tell the US Army what it can and can't do. What bizarre interpretation of the Constitution gave you THAT idea."

Spoken like a true fascist.

[ought-six]

"They won't since their hatred of the United States knows no bounds. Amazing irrationality and gullibility abounds with that bunch."

Foolish and childish comment. I can love my country but disagree (or even detest) its government at any given time.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Federal law, per the Constitution, is the supreme law of the land, so a state government has no jurisdiction over the U.S. Army or any other department or agency of the Federal Government. If you want to call that fasicst, your complaint is with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Fascists don't support the Constitution of the United States
nor do they oppose the suppression of a rebellion by the racist tyrants who ran the Slaverocracy.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Why should I coddle the Defenders of Slaverocracy when they have repeatedly posted the same lies after they have been shown to be false?

"Grant owned slaves."

"Northern states allowed slavery."

"The Founding Fathers supported the idea of secession."

All these are lies and all are regularly trotted out by the D.S.s.

When a person posts a remark that is not an obvious distortion or outright falsehood I gently try to post the truth. To a person such as Aurelius who doesn't care and believes he can just insult one away from the truth I have no regard whatsoever. One posting in good faith always gets a courteous response. Others I enjoy kicking around.

As regards my screenname perhaps a look in the dictionary under "irony" might help.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I have no tolerance for insulting liars. But I didn't even start with the insults until you initiated it. Not that I really care and in fact I enjoy it when they are clever and to the point.

Bitter? Not hardly. Although I am sick and tired of anti-American liars.

Your suggestions are of no value to me since you don't know what in hell you are talking about either politically, historically or personally.

Why would you even think I care what YOU think of me in any event?