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The Economics of the Civil War
LewRockwell.com ^
| January 13, 2004
| Mark Thornton and Robert Ekelund
Posted on 01/13/2004 9:01:35 AM PST by Aurelius
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To: aristeides
To repeat, I am more interested in the morality and legality of actions by my government than I am in the morality and legality of actions of another government. I repeat, what other government? If it was legally doubtful, and made no attempt to establish its legitimacy, we can not recognize it as a government.
As to your concern about "your government" allow me to turn it around on you. Would they not have been derelict in their legal, moral and sworn constitutional duty to allow a legally doubtful regiem to assume control over 40% of the nation's territory without offering resistance?
I know damn well I'd be calling for impeachment if that were to happen today.
What would you do?
581
posted on
01/20/2004 12:37:19 PM PST
by
Ditto
( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
To: 4ConservativeJustices
Three states - New York, Virginia and Rhode Island & Providence Plantations - explicitly reserved the right to resume the powers of self-government at their pleasure in their ratifications. They reserved that right only if a Bill of Rights were not amended to the Constitution. The BOR was passed by the 1st Congress, and radified by the states, including those three.
582
posted on
01/20/2004 12:40:45 PM PST
by
Ditto
( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
To: Ditto
If the Confederacy was, as you argue, no government at all, then it was even further from being my government.
I believe the Confederacy as it existed prior to Lincoln's provoking the secession of the Upper South by resisting the secession of the Lower South occupied nothing close to 40% of the territory of the U.S. As a matter of fact, I suspect the Lower South, by itself, could not have made a go of it, and would eventually have sued for readmittance to the Union. Without a war. When the Upper South refused to secede, Lincoln won a great victory, which he then proceeded to throw away. All of this is not just my opinion. Seward thought the same at the time.
To: 4ConservativeJustices
There is a big difference between dissolving a political entity by mutual consent and leaving a political entity.
The Aticles were dissolved. There was no secession involved. There was nothing left to seceed from.
To: hirn_man
The Aticles were dissolved. There was no secession involved. There was nothing left to seceed from. I don't think that's what North Carolina and Rhode Island thought.
To: hirn_man
And even one state -- never mind two -- had the right to prevent the dissolution of the Articles, which proclaimed themselves perpetual and which, under their terms, could only be modified by a unanimous decision of the states.
To: aristeides
I believe the Confederacy as it existed prior to Lincoln's provoking the secession of the Upper South by resisting the secession of the Lower South occupied nothing close to 40% of the territory of the U.S. Whatever. If it was only 2%, would that be ok to just forget about?
As a matter of fact, I suspect the Lower South, by itself, could not have made a go of it, and would eventually have sued for re admittance to the Union. Without a war. When the Upper South refused to secede, Lincoln won a great victory, which he then proceeded to throw away.
He threw it away when Davis fired on Sumter? As you said, the lower south itself was a very economically and politically shaky confederation. Davis is the guy who needed a war to move the upper south to his side. Should Lincoln's response have been to back down from the illegitimate regime in the lower south, by abandoning its soldiers, surrendering property and turning its cheek when the flag was fired upon?
Is that what you would do as President today?
What was and is the government's moral, legal and Constitutional duty when faced with open insurrection?
587
posted on
01/20/2004 1:02:34 PM PST
by
Ditto
( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
To: Ditto
If I had been president, I would have followed Seward's advice. And there would have been no war.
To: aristeides
Gosh I was unaware that those two states hadn't joined the Union.
What country did North Carolina and Rhode Island form?
To: Ditto
They reserved that right only if a Bill of Rights were not amended to the Constitution.No. New York said, 'That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness ... Under these impressions, and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated".
"[I]n confidence that the amendments which shall have been proposed to the said Constitution will receive an early and mature consideration." They trusted that the proposed amendments (following their ratification) would be addressed, they did not state that "the rights aforesaid could be abridged or violated" upon ratification of a Bill of Rights or were superseded.
Virginia declared and made "known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression", that "whatsoever imperfections may exist in the Constitution, ought rather to be examined in the mode prescribed therein, than to bring the Union into danger by a delay, with a hope of obtaining amendments previous to the ratification". Again, nothing contingent upon ratification of a Bill of Rights
Rhose Island wrote, "That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness", "Under these impressions, and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated, and that the explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution, and in confidence that the amendments hereafter mentioned will receive an early and mature consideration, and, conformably to the fifth article of said Constitution, speedily become a part thereof." Ditto.
590
posted on
01/20/2004 1:06:33 PM PST
by
4CJ
(||) Dialing 911 doesn't stop a crime - a .45 does. (||)
To: hirn_man
North Carolina and Rhode Island eventually joined the new Union, after they had been forced to do so by the -- technically illegal -- adhesion of the other states. Rhode Island did so a year or so after the new federal government was up and running, and Washington occupying the presidency. Their hand was forced.
To: hirn_man
The Aticles were dissolved.Please post, for our reference, the documents signed by each of the states, formally dissolving the Articles and rendering it null and void. It required unanimous consent to do so.
592
posted on
01/20/2004 1:10:09 PM PST
by
4CJ
(||) Dialing 911 doesn't stop a crime - a .45 does. (||)
To: 4ConservativeJustices
If New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia were so insistant that they could seceede, maybe they should have got it written in the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND.
You know the constitution. That thing that neo-confederates think should be used to toilet paper when it doesn't suit them.
Words have meaning despite mystical mumbo jumbo like secession where things that are given away freely are really retained and not given away.
To: nolu chan
While I agree that a Circuit Court may rule on cases in its district, I find the idea that something may be Constitutional in the 2nd District and not Constitutional in the 9th to be suspect. Only the Supreme Court can determine that.
To: aristeides
Can you point me to a source showing that I am wrong? Read Taney's decision.
To: hirn_man
If New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia were so insistant that they could seceede, maybe they should have got it written in the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND.'This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.'
Federal laws pursuant to the Constitution have legal status - please cite one prohibiting secession. Cite one requiring states to petition for permission to leave.
The 10th Amendment - a part of the Constitution,states, '[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'
There is no delegtion from the states to the federal government to bar secession, nor are the states prohibited from leaving. It looks like it is written into the Supreme law of the land.
596
posted on
01/20/2004 1:20:41 PM PST
by
4CJ
(||) Dialing 911 doesn't stop a crime - a .45 does. (||)
To: 4ConservativeJustices
Well I would say the Constitution of the United States, ratified by the 13 entities that had been governed under the Articles of Confederation(I spelled Articles right this time) pretty well rendered them null and void without HAVING to formally disolve them.
But thats just me.
To: 4ConservativeJustices
There you go again with you mystical power of secession.
It is a power that only exists in the fevered minds of secessionists.
Much like when Saddam Hussein declared the laws of gravity inoperable in Iraq.
To: 4ConservativeJustices
My take on the 10th amendment was it is a safegaurd against intrusion by the Feds into state matters which the Fed had no business interfering in. It wasn't a license for the states to destroy the nation.
To: Non-Sequitur
The commander of the fort, Gen. George Cadwalader, by whom he is detained in confinement, in his return to the writ, does not deny any of the facts alleged in the petition. He states that the prisoner was arrested by order of Gen. Keim, of Pennsylvania, and conducted as a prisoner to Fort McHenry by his order, and placed in his (Gen. Cadwaladers) custody, to be there detained by him as a prisoner. Doesn't sound ex parte to me.
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