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

The Patriotist ^ | 2003 | Al Benson, Jr.

[Lunatic Fringe]

*yawn*

Are we fighting the Civil War again?

[Aurelius]

BUMP

[TomServo]

Dixie Ping!

[JohnGalt]

Ping.

[Darheel]

Land-O-Lincoln ping

First Republican President ping

[conservativemusician]

Didn't the Civil War end some time ago?

[TomServo]

Dixie Ping!!

[stainlessbanner]

Good Follow Discussion from the recent Jeff Davis threads:

• A Truly Remarkable Man
• The Jefferson Davis Funeral Train Story

[Zavien Doombringer]

Moving on...

[ought-six]

Note the following comments about Union that were made back in the 19th century by non-Southerners:

"Union depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the sovereign people of each state, and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their Union is gone. A state coerced to remain in the Union is a subject province and can never be aq co-equal member of the American Union." 1860, newspaper editorial from Maine.

"The Union was formed by voluntary agreement of the States; and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality....If one of the states chooses to withdraw from the compact...the Federal Government woul dhave no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right." de Tocqueville, in DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA. de Tocqueville, although a Frenchman, was considered to be one of the foremost experts on American government.

I mention these simply because there are posters on this site who admantly hold the position that there was nothing voluntary about being in the Union, and that NO state ever had a right to secede.

[steve50]

[T]he individual states of the American Union . . . could not have possessed any state sovereignty of their own. For it was not these states that formed the Union, on the contrary it was the Union which formed a great part of such so-called states."--Adolf Hitler

The Northern supporters have strange allies.

[Mr. Bird]

It's an academic exercise only. Regardless of whether the states had rights to secession (which can only be implied), the "Union" went to war to prevent it. So, you can say the North was wrong, but it doesn't matter much now, does it?

The shame, I think, is that so many men died fighting the inevitable. Had the South successfully separated, I believe there would have been a reunion within 50 years, if only for economic reasons.

[Capriole]

Grand Old Partisan! Walt! You're on, boys--post something bitter, irrational, and hate-filled to contribute to the conversation.

[LibKill]

I'm Texan. Some of my ancestors fought for the South.

That said, I consider the issue closed.

Southern Culture is just fine by me, but re-fighting the late unpleasantness is getting to be a waste of bandwith.

[Non-Sequitur]

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.

But the Supreme Court did declare secession as practiced by the southern states unconstitutional in 1869? Didn't Mr. Benson do any research in this?

[Capriole]

Didn't the Civil War end some time ago?

In my garage I have two bricks that are all that's left of a fine family home in the Shenandoah. That house belonged to my people until Sheridan's men burned it. They also dragged a kinswoman of mine from her childbed and gang-raped her when she had recently given birth. Her injuries were severe. These events had implications for my family that have lasted to the present day. Under these circumstances it's sort of hard to simply forget the War.

With this background, maybe you can understand the mental set some Southerners have. It's understandable that many of us of Southern heritage wonder about the rights and wrongs of the War, try to figure out how it came about, and try to comprehend what justice was, what God's will was, how we should feel about our ancestors. That combination of confusion and righteous anger at injustice form the basis for many of the discussions of the War on this site.

In addition, you know, we feel our culture under attack from the centralization of the federal government as well as from left-wing influences. Many of the best aspects of Southern life and culture are being lost along with the bad. For some of us, discussing the War is part of an attempt to rekindle Southern pride and fight off the forces of destruction that began to attack us in the late 1850s and continue to do so today.

[Aurelius]

"Didn't Mr. Benson do any research in this?"

I can't read Mr. Benson's mind but I would assume that he considered it irrelevent. Mr. Benson was concerned with what was the case in 1860 and up to the time of Davis' release in 1867. The 1869 decision had no relevence to that. The 1869 opinion on secession merely provided a convenient way for the Chase court to protect a favoured moneyed interest. It has no relevence to the larger question of the right of secession.

[southland]

I have read "The South Under Siege" and found it to be a very excellent book. I recommend it to all people to learn what transpires in the United States and why things are as the are now in the South.

[Aurelius]

"Didn't the Civil War end some time ago?"

If you don't know the answer to that, I think you'd better go back and study some history.