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
Sorry, but I stopped reading when you accused me of posting fiction. Considering the content of your posts you are the last person in the world to be accusing others of making things up.
On what grounds should such talk have been taken before the court? Courts rule on actions taken, not contemplated or talked about.
When Jefferson Davis gave his farewell speech to the U.S. Senate, he began by saying, "I rise, Mr. President [John C. Breckinridge], for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people in convention assembled, has declared her separation from the United States."
He then announced that since his functions were terminated, he would be going home to Mississippi. Foote writes that Davis stayed in Washington a few days afterward, hoping to be arrested for treason, thereby testing the doctrine of secession in the federal courts.
Was there not sufficient cause in Davis's announcement -- that he was resigning from the Senate to join a group of "rebels" -- to provide for a test case?
Sure it is. Ask the Nazis or the Imperial Japanese Navy. Or George III.
Actually that was the basis for the war, My point exactly.
Yeah, well there's a reason James Buchanan always lands near the bottom of the presidential rankings. His only agenda was to avoid doing anything until his term was up and he could get out of town.
Defeat in battle merely ilustrates the superior power. Right or wrong doesn’t enter into it. Viz: right of secession.
barbra ann
Which goes more towards pointing out Davis's abysmal understanding of the law and the Constitution tahn anything else. The Constitution defines treason. What exactly had Davis done that qualified? Resigning from the Senate isn't treason. Advocating secession isn't treason. The South hadn't started the war yet. What treasonous act had been committed?
Now assuming for the sake of arguement that Davis had committed treason. He would have been arrested, tried in federal court, convicted, appealed, conviction upheld, and appealed again before it would have gotten to the Supreme Court. The rebellion short-circuited that path just a little bit.
Is it available online?
That isn't what you contended. You said issues could never be settled by force of arms. That one side loses doesn't make the issue any less settled. When one side surrenders, it acquiesces to the rules and conditions of the winner, upon pain of enforcement. When one side loses a court battle, it is no different: they choose to abide under pain of enforcement by legal penalties. The point is that the issue is settled when the loser decided to acquiesce.
No, but many of Jefferson Davis's contemporaries claimed that actual secession was treason...and that's exactly what Davis said he was joining. Mississippi had already seceded.
Doesn’t work with me.
Treason agaisnt the United states is defined in the Constistution as "levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Now which one of those is Davis supposed to have done?
I recognize that this isn't your argument, but it isn't an argument at all. It is a statement that lacks in support or analysis and cuts against what are (at least now) standard tools for textual analysis. It is--at the very least--a stretch to think that the phrase "more perfect" means perpetual, but it is even a greater stretch considering that most of the exact same folks who wrote the Articles (and therefore were perfectly aware how to state that a union was perpetual) would suddenly, a little more than a decade later, take to what amounts to a coded message to convey the same idea.
I know I'm restating my argument, but the Framers wrote that the Union was perpetual once: if they wanted to do so again, they could have. But they didn't.
I cannot believe that given the other restrictions the Constitution places on the states and the powers granted to Congress to literally create states in the first place that the Founders meant for secession to be unilateral.
Why not? Again, the fact that all the other restrictions are spelled out so carefully tends to cut in favor of thinking that the Framers intended for the states to have the right of secession. When the Framers were drafting Art. I, Sec. 10--which are state prohibitions--do you think they just forgot to include secession? When they were drafting Art. IV, do you think the subject slipped their mind again? That would seem like a strange result, especially considering that the United States just fought a war of secession against England, don't you think?
Again, the Framers were intelligent people; we have to assume that any omissions were deliberate. If we don't do this, we needn't bother with constitutional interpretation at all: it becomes meaningless because anything omitted is just assumed.
“It flat out ain’t so”
Last year, you were heartily recommending “Days of Defiance” by Maury Klein, who carefully outlines Lincoln’s assault plans on Charleston Harbor. Now, you deny the plan ever existed. What’s it gonna be?
Yes, if you are a member of JSTOR.
The words "lightbulb", "goat", and "purple" are also not in that Amendment. So what? The intent was that powers not delegated to the United States are reserved to the states.
James Madison:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.
Paraphrasing Gen Eisenhower
Or is it as Chief Justice Marshall pointed out, that the authors of the Constitution gave the broad outlines and meant for much of the meaning to be interpreted based on those outlines. So if the Constitution gives Congress the power to admit states in the first place and to approve any change in their status or border once they're in then I don't think it's any real stretch to conclude that Congressional approval is needed for them to leave. If states cannot take steps which impact the interests and well-being of other states without consent of Congress while they are a part of the U.S. then why should we assume they can take those steps while leaving? To my way of thinking assuming that the founders meant for the Constitution to be used as a club to beat up remaining states if a particular state wanted to leave is too far fetched to believe.
I'm not sure. I've never heard of "Days of Defiance" OR Maury Kline.
That doesn’t prove anything. It is like saying Ohio would have beat Florida if Fred Gwinn hadn’t been hurt, because he would have run back every kickoff. However, it is the kind of speculation that sounds an awful like an excuse.
In the end all the “Facts” are just that, and they can’t be changed. When they all got added up, the south lost. BFD. I still don’t understand why it is still a current topic in the south.
Kindest Regards,
Boiler Plate
PS I went to HS with your great great grandson. He is a great guy and a world renown scientist. But you already knew that.
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