Posted on 08/27/2007 1:37:39 PM PDT by BnBlFlag
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Copperhead Chronicle Al Benson, Jr. Articles
Guess What Folks--Secesson Wasn't Treason by Al Benson Jr.
More and more of late I have been reading articles dealing with certain black racist groups that claim to have the best interests of average black folks at heart (they really don't). It seems these organizations can't take time to address the problems of black crime in the black community or of single-parent families in the black community in any meaningful way. It's much more lucrative for them (and it gets more press coverage) if they spend their time and resources attacking Confederate symbols. Ive come to the conclusion that they really don't give a rip for the welfare of black families. They only use that as a facade to mask their real agenda--the destruction of Southern, Christian culture.
Whenever they deal with questions pertaining to history they inevitably come down on that same old lame horse that the South was evil because they seceded from the Union--and hey--everybody knows that secession was treason anyway. Sorry folks, but that old line is nothing more than a gigantic pile of cow chips that smells real ripe in the hot August sun! And I suspect that many of them know that--they just don't want you to know it--all the better to manipulate you my dear!
It is interesting that those people never mention the fact that the New England states threatened secession three times--that's right three times--before 1860. In 1814 delegates from those New England states actually met in Hartford, Connecticut to consider seceding from the Union. Look up the Hartford Convention of 1814 on the Internet if you want a little background. Hardly anyone ever mentions the threatened secession of the New England states. Most "history" books I've seen never mention it. Secession is never discussed until 1860 when it suddenly became "treasonous" for the Southern states to do it. What about the treasonous intent of the New England states earlier? Well, you see, it's only treasonous if the South does it.
Columnist Joe Sobran, whom I enjoy, once wrote an article in which he stated that "...Jefferson was an explicit secessionist. For openers he wrote a famous secessionist document known to posterity as the Declaration of Independence." If these black racist groups are right, that must mean that Jefferson was guilty of treason, as were Washington and all these others that aided them in our secession from Great Britain. Maybe the black racists all wish they were still citizens of Great Britain. If that's the case, then as far as I know, the airlines are still booking trips to London, so nothing is stopping them.
After the War of Northern Aggression against the South was over (at least the shooting part) the abolitionist radicals in Washington decided they would try Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States as a co-conspirator in the Lincoln assassination (which would have been just great for Edwin M. Stanton) and as a traitor for leading the secessionist government in Richmond, though secession had hardly been original with Mr. Davis. However, trying Davis for treason as a secessionist was one trick the abolitionist radicals couldn't quite pull off.
Burke Davis, (no relation to Jeff Davis that I know of) in his book The Long Surrender on page 204, noted a quote by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, telling Edwin Stanton that "If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion...His (Jeff Davis') capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason." Burke Davis then continued on page 214, noting that a congressiona committee proposed a special court for Davis' trial, headed by Judge Franz Lieber. Davis wrote: "After studying more than 270,000 Confederate documents, seeking evidence against Davis, the court discouraged the War Department: 'Davis will be found not guilty,' Lieber reported 'and we shall stand there completely beaten'." What the radical Yankees and their lawyers were admitting among themselves (but quite obviously not for the historical record) was that they and Lincoln had just fought a war of aggression agains the Southern states and their people, a war that had taken or maimed the lives of over 600,000 Americans, both North and South, and they had not one shread of constitutional justification for having done so, nor had they any constitutional right to have impeded the Southern states when they chose to withdraw from a Union for which they were paying 83% of all the expenses, while getting precious little back for it, save insults from the North.
Most of us detest big government or collectivism. Yet, since the advent of the Lincoln administration we have been getting ever increasing doses of it. Lincoln was, in one sense, the "great emancipator" in that he freed the federal government from any chains the constitution had previously bound it with, so it could now roam about unfettered "seeking to devous whoseover it could." And where the Founders sought to give us "free and independent states" is anyone naive enough anymore as to think the states are still free and independent? Those who honestly still think that are prime candidates for belief in the Easter Bunny, for he is every bit as real as is the "freedom" our states experience at this point in history. Our federal government today is even worse than what our forefathers went to war against Britain to prevent. And because we have been mostly educated in their government brain laundries (public schools) most still harbor the illusion that they are "free." Well, as they say, "the brainwashed never wonder." ___________________
About the Author
Al Benson Jr.'s, [send him email] columns are to found on many online journals such as Fireeater.Org, The Sierra Times, and The Patriotist. Additionally, Mr. Benson is editor of the Copperhead Chronicle [more information] and author of the Homeschool History Series, [more information] a study of the War of Southern Independence. The Copperhead Chronicle is a quarterly newsletter written with a Christian, pro-Southern perspective.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Copperhead Chronicle | Homeschool History Series | Al Benson, Jr. Articles
What automation? The first commercially successful mechanical cotton harvester didn't come along until the 1930's.
Sure it can. But it cannot do so unilaterally while part of the U.S. It is an example of the fact that the Constitution forbids the states from taking unilateral actions which may have a negative impact on the interests of the other states. By implication those forbidden actions include leaving unilaterally as well.
That is the opposite of how the judiciary works. No court, especially the Supreme Court, can rule on something that hasn't happened. And it goes further than that, no court can rule on a matter that has not been brought before it. Since secession had not been attempted before the court had not had a chance to rule on its legality. And the matter was never brought before the court until Texas v White.
How can the men living in 1861 be blamed for not following the reasoning of a Supreme Court ruling made in 1869?
I don't think anyone is blaming them, merely pointing out that they were mistaken in their belief that unilateral secession was legal.
The reasoning of Texas v. White went like this...
I think you missed the reasoning entirely. The heart of the decision is in this quote here: "The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States." In other words, the same method used by the majority of states to join in the first place.
In my view, if the Constitution is supposed to "say" something, I want to see it in plain English and not have a Supreme Court Justice playing word games with the Constitution as if he were a High Priest at the Oracle of Delphi reading chicken entrails or Justice Douglas divining "penumbras and emanations".
As Chief Justice Marshall pointed out, "A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would, probably, never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires, that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects, be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves. That this idea was entertained by the framers of the American constitution, is not only to be inferred from the nature of the instrument, but from the language." Where is he wrong?
Alternate Conclusion: The South is easier to beat up than Vermont.
(kidding - more or less)
Which is what I've been saying all along. Under the Constitution, states are admitted with the permission of other states as expressed by a vote in Congress, there is no reason at all that they shouldn't be permitted to leave through the same process. But that's not what the Southern states did. They walked out without discussion, and in the process they repudiated responsibility for a share of the national debt, walked out on treaty obligations, and took everything they could get their hands on without compensation. Now how fair is that?
Compared to Gettysburg, Operation Iraqi Freedom is a teddy bear picnic.
“The United States of Hotel California.”
That gave me a chuckle as the song’s words went throught my head.
throught=through
SELF-PING.
Excuse me, but I don't think you read it very carefully. New Jersey didn't declare a state out of the Union. New Jersey clearly recognized the statehood of the 11 states. New Jersey was complaining because the federal congress withdrew recognition, for the singular purpose of eliminating opposition to the 14th amendment, after more than a quarter of the existing 37 states rejected it.
(Actually, IIRR, Congress declared these 11 states to be "non-states." As a precondition for re-entering the Union, these "non-states" had to ratify the 14th, yet Congress neglected to explain how a "non-state" could legally ratify a constitutional amendment.)
Your recollection is slightly flawed. In the reconstruction acts, Congress withdrew Southern congressional representation until such time as those states could demonstrate that their governments were not controlled by the same men who had launched a bloody rebellion and who were trying to negate the 13th Amendment. Ratification of the 14th Amendment was one of the guidelines to demonstrate that. They were never 'non-states' or 'ex-states' or anything but actual states. Their readmission was the readmission of their delegates to Congress, not as states to the Union.
"Guidelines?" Interesting way of describing it.
They were never 'non-states' or 'ex-states' or anything but actual states. Their readmission was the readmission of their delegates to Congress...
I eagerly await your explanation as to how this comports with Article 5's, "...that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."
By the way, I cheerfully recognize that a state cannot rescind an earlier ratification vote. But it's worth noting that in addition to New Jersey, the states of Ohio and Oregon also rescinded their ratifications of the 14th; not because of any inherent opposition to its content, but because of the unconstitutional manner in which Congress was acting with regard to the 14th.
How else would you measure compliance? Right after the rebellion those who led the South into war stepped right back into state government. Among their first acts was the passage of legislation meant to keep the black population in a state as closely approximating slavery as possible. It was these kinds of actions, a deliberate attempt to avoid the law, that led to reconstruction.
I eagerly await your explanation as to how this comports with Article 5's, "...that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."
No problem. By freely entering into rebellion, the Southern states freely accepted the consequences of their actions. And I would point you to Article I, Section 5: "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members..." If the Congress and Senate decided that leaders of the rebellion would not be seated as members then they were free to do so.
By the way, I cheerfully recognize that a state cannot rescind an earlier ratification vote. But it's worth noting that in addition to New Jersey, the states of Ohio and Oregon also rescinded their ratifications of the 14th; not because of any inherent opposition to its content, but because of the unconstitutional manner in which Congress was acting with regard to the 14th. On the one hand you admit that states cannot rescind their ratification, and on the other hand you claim New Jersey, Oregon, and Ohio did so. It's one or the other.
It's "one."
I'm not claiming that the rescissions were valid. I'm simply pointing out that these states -- not Southern states, you'll note -- felt a moral obligation to protest what they perceived as illegal maneuvering by Congress for the specific purpose of passing the 14th amendment. The texts of their rescission proclamations make that very clear.
But this undercuts your argument. I agree that the Articles stated that it was a perpetual union, but that just demonstrates that the framers, if they were so inclined, easily could have so specified in the Constitution. But they did not. The framers were all bright, intelligent people. If they had meant for the Union to be perpetual, why did they not specify that in the Constitution as they had the Articles?
Because a basic rule of construction is to assume that the inclusion or absence of clauses is deliberate, why do you think that the framers specified a perpetual union under the Articles and the deliberately chose not to specify that under the Constitution? This certainly points to the conclusion that our Constitutional union is not perpetual, but is rather one that can be exited (though not entered) at the will of the states.
That’s what Ken Burns would lead you to believe. Lincoln was sending a fleet to blockade and run troops into Charleston Harbor. Firing on the fort was the “response”.
Thoughtful post, but I think a couple of your questions are from a wrong perspective or premise.
“Dividing up our country would not have been good. Had the South won, would it have endured, or would Texas have eventually withdrawn from the Confederacy.”
Even if Texas withdrew, it would not necessarily preclude the end of the Confederacy, just as the southern states withdrawing from the Union would not have caused it to cease existence.
“Would the South have joined in with the North in fighting tyranny in WWI and WWII?”
I believe, if there were a Confederacy and a Union, the Union’s entry would follow that of the South’s, if at all.
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