Posted on 11/06/2003 7:31:54 PM PST by republicanwizard
Ditto, that is exactly how I took this poster's response, without knowing anything about him (her?, sorry) or the previous debate between you two, if there was one. And labard1 is not the only person to ever have this thought; I've heard others point out this irony.
He had no legitimate reason in the world to believe that he would be allowed entrance to Charleston harbor with a fleet of warships. That would be like you coming to my front door at 2 AM with a shotgun over your shoulder demanding "peaceful" entrance and, when I denied you as any sane person would, you started threatening to kick the door in on your own and fight your way through me with your gun.
The good people of Charleston percieved Lincoln's fleet as a very real and very hostile threat to their safety and well being so they preempted it before it had a chance to sting them. How you fail to see this is baffling considering that this exact same strategy was used to remove Saddam from power for the exact same reasons only a few months ago.
On a personal note my grandfather's grandfather was a Pennsylvania blacksmith. In 1862 he was conscripted at age 41 and assigned to a Cavalry regiment. He was captured in May 1863 at Chancellorsville and did not survive captivity. This event started a cycle of poverty that took nearly 100 years to emerge from.
The war resulted in over 700,000 KIA, and nearly three times that number disabled, many of whom died soon after the conflict as a result of their infirmities. How many additional families were adversely affected too?
And be it further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state...
Since you have already admitted (months ago, maybe a year or so) that there was no explict federal law against secession, and you have also admitted that there is no explicit Constitutional prohibition against the act, you don't really have an arguement, unless you are stating that the president has dictatorial powers to twist and distort the meanings of words. But then again, being a big supporter of Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, and Gore, I'm sure you have no problem with that.
What power did Lincoln have to "end slavery" in any "Northern (sic) state"?
The Amacipation (sic) Proclamation only freed slaves in states in rebellion and was done primarily to foster popular support for the North in Britain.
You're a step above both the Lefties and the Neo-Confederates who always say it didn't free any slaves. As Commander In Chief, Lincoln, with a stroke of a pen (and the advance of Union troops) could free slaves in areas of rebellion as a war measure. He had no such constitutional authority in states or areas of states "loyal" to the Union (i.e. where the US Courts were functioning.) BTW. But as early as 1862, he began pleading with leaders of the 4 “Union” states that had slaves to end it in their states. Two did, and two didn’t. As an "extra credit" please tell us what "Northern States" had slavery in 1860.
The plight of northern factory workers, including child labor...
What exactly does that have to do with it? Lincoln had the vote and support of the majority of the "northern factory workers".
On a personal note my grandfather's grandfather was a Pennsylvania blacksmith. In 1862 he was conscripted at age 41 and assigned to a Cavalry regiment. He was captured in May 1863 at Chancellorsville and did not survive captivity. This event started a cycle of poverty that took nearly 100 years to emerge from.
The Union did not begin conscripting troops until 1863 and even at the height of the war did not draft 41 year-old men. (The Confederates began the draft in 1862 and by the end of the war were drafting men as old as 55.) In 1862, Pennsylvania had no trouble rasing regiments for the Union cause. There was no need for a draft and there was no time when the Union drafted 41 yewar-old men in any state. If your GG grandfather went to war at age 41, he was a volunteer and you should be more than proud of him. And if 5 generations of your family managed to stay poor through the greatest economic expansion in the history of the world, I would suggest that you look to other causes than Abraham Lincoln.
The war resulted in over 700,000 KIA, and nearly three times that number disabled, many of whom died soon after the conflict as a result of their infirmities. How many additional families were adversely affected too?
The war resulted in a little over 200,000 kia (approx. 110,00 Union and 94,000 Confederate) with another 400,000 who died of various diseases common to the day.
"How many additional families were adversely affected too?
Apparently not enough to keep the image of Lincoln from being the dominant political icon for several generations after the war. His party, that continually invoked his image, held nearly uninterrupted power for nearly 50 years after the war. The Americans who lived through the war and its aftermath considered Lincoln to be the savior of the Republic.
And be it further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state...
Since you have already admitted (months ago, maybe a year or so) that there was no explict federal law against secession, and you have also admitted that there is no explicit Constitutional prohibition against the act, you don't really have an arguement, unless you are stating that the president has dictatorial powers to twist and distort the meanings of words. But then again, being a big supporter of Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, and Gore, I'm sure you have no problem with that.
I'm just guessing there were laws on the books regarding the collection of tarrifs that were not being carried out.
In any case, section 3 leaves it to the president's judgement.
Walt
The war was initiated by the Davis regime. Had Lincoln landed supplies at Sumter then what? How would that have constituted a threat to the confederacy? Was Charleston blocked? No. Were the people in danger of being bombarded? No. Was the Davis regime threatened in any way whatsoever? No. There was no reason at all for Davis to open fire at Sumter except to begin the war that he wanted all along, the war he needed to induce the other slave holding states into the confederate fold.
So what is wrong with my expecting access to my property, regardless of the hour? Sumter was the property of the U.S. government. The Davis regime was attempting to starve it into submission. Lincoln did what any reasonable person would do, attempt to peacefully and openly deliver food to the fort. There was no threat to anyone in Charleston at any time.
1) Lincoln did not free the slaves in the union, nor did he attempt to.
2) The pressures of war production compelled more and more appalling and dangerous conditions in northern factories. Lincoln had no problems with the exploitation of children. Even though he had little authority in this area, he did not hesitate to act in areas where he had problems.
3) Although the Union did not enact a national draft until March, 1863 Pennsylvania enacted a state draft in 1862 because it had been unable to meet its quota through voluntary means.
4) The fatality rates in the civil war are widely published and acknowledged to be in excess of 700,000.
5) Lincoln was not universally admired. Had he not achieved martyrdom he would be more objectively percieved by history.
I believe that you are wrong in that. Lincoln was a strong supporter of what would become the 13th Amendment ending slavery. He supported in the the Senate, was instrumental in having it added to the 1864 Republican platform, and pressed for the House to pass the Amendment when they convened in December 1864.
Well, if the state seceded, it wouldn't owe tariffs, now would it? That was truly a weak rejoinder to what I stated, but I guess there really is nothing else you could say.
In any case, section 3 leaves it to the president's judgement.
And again, you as a lover of Constitution-mangling lefties like Clinton and Gore would certainly have no problem with a president practising dictatorial powers by mangling the meanings of words in the Militia Act.
States never paid tarifs in any case. Individuals did. But there laws covering how the tarrifs would be collected.
President Lincoln's 4/15/61 proclamation said something like, "the laws failing of execution in several states..."
And yes, the law leaves it to the president's judgment.
Unilateral state secession is revolution.
Walt
If (a) your claim to that property is disputed, (b) accessing that property requires you to first cross through my property, and (c) you insist upon crossing my property to reach the disputed plot upon demand and while showing overt and armed hostility towards me personally you cannot reasonably expect that I will acquiesce to your demands. Neither do you have a right to coerce my facilitation of your access to the disputed property on your own arbitrary whim. That is what is wrong with banging on my door at 2 AM with a shotgun in hand and demanding I let you cross my backyard.
Sumter was the property of the U.S. government.
That was a matter of dispute. Sumter was built their following a unilateral cession of the location to the federal government by South Carolina, yet in 1861 South Carolina adopted a secession ordinance and in doing so repealed all previous ties to the federal government. That would include Sumter. Sure, dispute this if you want and in fact a reasonable case could probably be made either way in a courtroom. That is why South Carolina sent diplomats to Washington to negotiate the property dispute with Lincoln. Lincoln would have none of it though, simply declared "it's all mine," and sent in the navy to blow up anyone who challenged that assertion.
The Davis regime was attempting to starve it into submission.
No they weren't. Food channels to Sumter had been handled for the previous several months by the South Carolina government. Up until a few weeks before the attack, a food arrangement had been made and they were being fully fed. Refusal of the Lincoln government to even so much as meet for the purpose of settling the disputed claim to the fort led to the food agreement being halted, however absolutely no reason existed as to why it could not and would not have been resumed if they would simply meet to negotiate the thing. But that ran contrary to Lincoln's "shoot first, ask questions later" philosophy of government.
Lincoln did what any reasonable person would do, attempt to peacefully and openly deliver food to the fort.
...yeah, on a fleet of heavily armed warships with explicit directions to fire upon anything and everything that denies them access to Charleston harbor.
There was no threat to anyone in Charleston at any time.
Lincoln's orders to fight their way into the harbor say differently.
Some have suggested that. But we also know for certain that he was a strong supporter of the other 13th amendment perpetuating slavery forever. So strong a supporter was Lincoln that he in fact helped draft the language of it, lobbied intensely for it in Congress, whipped the votes for it in both the House and Senate, and publicly endorsed the thing in his Inaugural Address.
Not really. Perhaps if he had a contested claim of ownership to that toilet, but even then the problem is not in his desire to access it but rather in the manner he attempts to do so. Showing up at 2AM with a shotgun on the shoulder and an open threat to break the door down would effectively preclude his right to access that toilet at the time, presuming it was even his to begin with, simply because the manner in which he desires to access it poses an immediate and real physical threat to both my person and my property.
Now perhaps if he rang the doorbell at 2 PM and politely asked to access the toilet I would have no problem letting him in. Or if he said "let's meet over dinner and resolve our dispute of the ownership over this toilet" I might be inclined to let him access it, or negotiate its transfer at a fair price, or whatever other possible compromises we could come up with. But showing up in the middle of the night with a shotgun and a threat simply doesn't cut it.
By the constitution, those forts were federal territory.
Wrong. The forts in Charleston fell into two categories under the law. In one was Sumter, in the other was everything else (Moultrie, Pinckney, and Johnson). The other 3 forts were all pre-revolutionary and revolutionary era structures that had been built by the British government, the colonial government of South Carolina, or the state government of South Carolina. The use of them was CONDITIONALLY placed under the care of the federal army around 1805 under an act of Congress, passed in the 1790's, that allowed states to do so. South Carolina built and paid for those forts, set the terms of their use, and accordingly had a strong legal claim to resuming control over them.
Sumter differed because it was built by the federal government, though in a location ceded by the state of South Carolina. Though this made it federal property, the cession was itself unilateral by an act of the South Carolina government which presumably could be repealed. The South Carolina government repealed all prior ties to the feds in their secession ordinance in 1861, which would have presumably included the Sumter cession. It should be noted that this is a weaker legal argument than with the other three forts, but nevertheless one of some soundness to it. That effectively made Sumter's property status "contested."
Not so. Lincoln sent the fleet a week before Davis fired.
Had Lincoln landed supplies at Sumter then what? How would that have constituted a threat to the confederacy?
Then the fort would have had greater ability to be used against Charleston. Your reasoning in this is quite amusing, BTW. Translate it into modern leftist context and you should see why: "Had Saddam Hussein simply bought a bunch of uranium then what? How would that have constituted a threat to the United States?"
Was Charleston blocked? No.
It could have been on a single command. The guns of Sumter controlled access to Charleston harbor.
Were the people in danger of being bombarded? No.
They could have been. A single command from Lincoln could have ordered Sumter's guns to fire on any civilian attempting to enter or exit.
You are right of course that the reinstatement of the seceded states into the Union was illegitimate. But when Lincoln was elected, secession hadn't taken place. Our country was one and would have remained one but for that tragic election result.
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