Posted on 07/27/2003 5:08:19 PM PDT by thatdewd
Edited on 05/07/2004 6:46:56 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Let's see. According to the confederate version of what happened secession was declared in Flordia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. So that would be 1...2...3...I make it 13 state and not 12. Or are you agreeing that the secession actions of the governor of Missouri and the partial legislature were illegal afer all?
I think nolu nailed congressional awareness of the unconstitutionality of Lincoln's actions in his post above. Here's a quote from Lincoln admitting he knew what he did was unconstitutional and providing his logic for doing so.
I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensabale means, that government -- that nation -- of which that constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation, and yet preserve the constitution? By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it.
You're cute when you go yip, yip, yip.
"That's not consistent with other things he said. And he grew in office and became a knight and a saint, and by the time the war was over he had spent his entire life fighting to free the slaves. Just like Lincoln."
The clerk in the welfare office overhears non-seq, standing in line during one of his regular visits, complaining about how he wants a job but can't find one. When non-seq gets to his window, the clerk asks him about it. Non-seq confirms there is nothing he wants more than a job... he will take anything. The clerk says "I may have just the job for you. There is this rich guy who wants someone to chaperone his beautiful daughter around Europe. She is a nymphomaniac and the father doesn't mind if you bed her as long as there is no public embarassment. The pay is $250,000 plus expenses. Are you interested?" Non-seq says, "You gotta be sh*!ing me!" Replies the clerk, "Well, you started it."
Actually, I'm not county Kentucky in that list. It's form of the old 11, 12, or 13 controversy on how to count it. I figure that since Missouri and Kentucky were split in loyalties, and since the rightfully elected Missouri legislature voted secession but Kentucky's did not, that's the fairest way to split it.
Thank you very much for this useful post, and yes, the presence of Trumbull in the opposition is significant. Lyman Trumbull was the old Chicago Whig who got the Senate seat that Lincoln was after when he originally challenged Stephen A. Douglas over Kansas-Nebraska in 1854. Lincoln was in the running into the late going but realized he'd topped out among the state legislators who were voting in the ballot rounds to fill the Senate seat, and so Lincoln threw his support to Lyman Trumbull and withdrew to begin his two years' wandering in the wildnerness as the Whig Party fell apart.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Trumbull made the transition to the Republican Party and became a Lincoln stalwart.
I don't know how long Trumbull survived, but a Lyman Trumbull -- whether it was this man or his scion I couldn't readily determine -- appeared as counsel for the appellant in the landmark Second Amendment case, Presser vs. Illinois, which finally was decided by the Supreme Court in 1895.
Oh, stop it. Southern cane plantations relied on steam engines and large rendering vats to reduce the cane syrup; this equipment was housed in large outbuildings of and was tremendously heavy and expensive equipment. In fact, it was so ponderous that a lot of it was abandoned in place, and some of it is still there, 140 years later -- not worth moving.
If this kind of high-performance equipment came from England, it was subject to the tariff. If it came from Pennsylvania instead, Philadelphia gentlemen got rich off Southern planters.
And if the Southern States left the Union, and built their own entrepot, or just reverted to using Havana, then both New York City and the United States Government were screeeewed!
Gee, do you think anyone might throw down a mailed gauntlet over stakes like that?
Nice post, thanks. Funny how little New York's angle on secession comes up in discussions of "causes of the Civil War".
What?!!
"But officer, I didn't know that "speed limit" meant the maximum speed limit! I took it to mean the minimum speed limit.........by interpretation!"
"Oh, well, bless you, my son -- that's all right, then! Have a nice day."
Yeah, right.
Dude, the man doesn't care......he's a true believer, an adherent of the Apparat. He's here to spread the message, and stay on message. You only think you're having a conversation with him.
JMHO.
Do you think their pointing out that Lincoln's own views on the subject of race and ethnicity are a form of argumentum ad hominem, rather than an attempt to correct the intellectually reductive atmosphere of deference?
They're saying that his views were not what people project onto him, and not, as Johnnie Cochrane said about Dennis Fuhrmann, his views are racist, and therefore he's a liar. They are not, I think, descending altogether into ad hominem -- although I see someone's taking a little license, under provocation, and trying to pay back your fellow sneerers in the same coin of despite that you've showered on "defenders of slavery".
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court let Mr. Lincoln know his actions were unconstitutional almost immediately. In writing. In the form of a legal opinion (Ex Parte Merryman, 1861). Lincoln knew. As to congress, they did eventually pass an act of suspension years later, but it did not include or even attempt to legitimise the previous actions taken by Lincoln. Also, I did not say that congress acted unconstitutionally. In fact, Section Two of that act contained language making it clear that the "States in which the administration of the laws has continued unimpaired" were not subject to the suspension, since it ordered that citizens of those States then held as "state or political" prisoners as a result of Lincoln's previous actions be immediately named and either be indicted by a Grand Jury or be released.
"...And in all cases where a grand jury, having attended any of said courts having jurisdiction in the premises, after the passage of this act, and after the furnishing of said list [of prisoner's names], as aforesaid, has terminated its session without finding an indictment, or presentment, or other proceeding against any such person, it shall be the duty of the judge of said court forthwith to make an order that any such prisoner desiring a discharge from said imprisonment be brought before him to be discharged; and every officer of the United States having custody of such prisoner is hereby directed immediately to obey and execute said judge's order; and in case he shall delay, or refuse so to do, he shall be subject to indictment..."In other words, Habeas Corpus was still in effect in "States in which the administration of the laws has continued unimpaired". A fact Mr. Lincoln ignored, in direct violation of not only the Constitution, but the 1863 Act of Congress.
To correct one minor error in my post, the final day of the session was August 6, 1861.
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