It was tested in 1776 and found in the affirmative.
Try not to bump into that elephant in the middle of the room.
Posted on 06/23/2016 2:04:08 PM PDT by ColdOne
A measure to bar confederate flags from cemeteries run by the Department of Veterans Affairs was removed from legislation passed by the House early Thursday.
The flag ban was added to the VA funding bill in May by a vote of 265-159, with most Republicans voting against the ban. But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both supported the measure. Ryan was commended for allowing a vote on the controversial measure, but has since limited what amendments can be offered on the floor.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
You may be aware that the first shots were fired by Federal troops on Florida civilian militia in the area of the old Spanish Fort San Carlos in Pensacola in January of 1861. The next day the Star of the West, a federal ship under contract to run supplies into Ft. Sumter received fire and retired from the area of Ft. Moultrie.
Following these events, nothing changed. No declaration of war, nothing.
The same is true of the firing on Ft. Sumter. The seceded states remained in place.
The only event related to a declaration of war was Lincoln's issuance of personnel call up and a blockade of Charleston. These commands were signed by President Lincoln on April 17-19, 1861, ordered the Secretary of State to affix the seal of the United States to his proclamation blockading the South, and thus made it official. Under international law of the era, declaration of a blockade is an act of war, and thus after the conflict the United States Supreme Court held the institution of the blockade to constitute the legal commencement of the Civil War.
No doubt you may be inclined to rely on your choice of historians for their opinions....the libraries and Google are full of them. However, for the purposes of consummation of war time issues, the United States government itself affixed the beginning on Lincoln's actions, with no transactional relationship to Charleston Harbor.
It's more than simply well founded - it's considered conventional wisdom.
As I have told you on this and other posts, the specie is not included in any of the export data from the US Statistical Reports from the Dept. of Commerce historical records.
Why....because it was external in origin and not intended to
be part of the trade purchases. In other words, it was not a part of US export trade. So, to include it is in error.
And it is spelled specie.
You said: “If, for example, a New York merchant buys up a ship-load of, say, coffee from Columbia, brings it to New York where he offloads half for US customers, refills that half-ship with cotton he purchased from the South and then sends the ship on to customers in Manchester, England, England, across the Atlantic... see, I believe one commodity is just as much a export as the other, at least in terms of profits received by that New York merchant.”
That is not a reexport. Now you are just making things up and thinking if you make the explanation long enough, it will be believed. WRONG
YOU AGAIN “So it is far from safe to assume that all non-cotton agricultural exports in 1861 came from future Confederate states.”
Your own data tables did not even include all the other southern exports.
YOU “Again, I'm saying they overstate the value of future-Confederate state exports while understating the value of total 1860 US exports.”
Your they is Kettel, DeBow, United States Treasury, Dept. of Commerce, Statistical History of the US and the US Census.
Are you saying all of them are making a mistake and you are not? Really? No kidding??
You: But “foreign countries” did not transship through US ports.
Wrong again. Western hemisphere shippers and destinations had their cargoes transported in a variety of ways. European shippers sometimes visited Canada first for offloading, and then on to New York to offload and pick up other goods. The offloads if destined other non domestic ports would be inventoried and temporally stored.
But the value of those products would not be entered into the US Treasury records as being part of US commerce.
YOU again: “In the process, the US merchants charged a profit, which was then used to help pay for imports from foreign countries, including tariffs for the US treasury.”
Absolutely and unequivocally wrong.
You end up with this conclusion based on your comedy of errors above: “But in reality, there was a much bigger picture here in 1860, of which future Confederate state exports were indeed important, perhaps 50+%, but were by no means the only games in town as represented by your 75% to 87% figures.”
Those figures are accurate. They originate with data from the US government.
And the percentages are accurate.
And Northern merchants knew it.
The Constitution talked about the admission of states. What it said there doesn't apply to exits. You make a very big logical leap by asserting that it applied to the opposite of what it covered. Since it didn't address secession, nor did anywhere else in the Constitution, the Tenth amendment which covers powers not prohibited to the states.
The NY and VA ratifications of the Constitution only occurred after the reassume or resume powers of government statements were added to the ratification documents.
In case you've forgotten, Jefferson Davis, a better Constitutional scholar than you, was never tried for treason. Treason against the United States only applies to what someone did while a citizen of the United States. Davis was no longer that during the war.
I have nothing but contempt for justice taney
I respect the unanimous decision of Chase et al after the war in Ex Parte Milligan that said the Constitution was for all times, including war. That decision was a rebuke to Lincoln's actions during the war, or at least what he permitted his military to do. That unanimous decision was delivered by Lincoln's close friend on the court, an executor of Lincoln's will.
It is a shame the Court did not have the moxie to reign in Lincoln's military during the war, like a Confederate District Court did the Confederate military. On the other hand, Lincoln would have probably thrown the Court into jail if they had done that. Court members probably remembered the threat to arrest Chief Justice Taney for opposing Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus and holding people in jail for more than a year without charges..
Chase's opinion in Texas v. White does have the force of law like we have both said, but I think it is one of the most wrongheaded decisions in the Court's history and an assault on the Founder's Constitution.
Well, I can see we live on different planets. Enough said. Be well, rockrr
You make interesting, if unpersuasive arguments Rusty. I know that we chew on these topics regularly but whatever argument we proffer it needs to reflect reality or it will simply be laughed away.
The legality of secession was largely untested in 1861. There were multiple points of view but all followed (more or less) the binary that either is was legal or it wasn’t. The plain unvarnished truth is that it was highly contested and emotions on the subject were intense.
I may not be the scholar that ol jeff davis was - especially when it comes to yanking Camels through the eye of a needle - but I know how foolhardy it is to risk war needlessly. The actions and mouth of jeff davis put an entire nation at mortal risk. Needlessly. Horrifically.
Instead of finding mutuality with the fellow states or at least confidence in his understanding of the law he brazenly struck out, breaking agreements and thrashing the constitution his ancestors swore to obey and defend.
A war was fought over his actions. His side lost. It is considered settled law in present-day United States that secession, as practiced by the confederates, is illegal. The insurrectionists had no legal right to do what they did, especially the way they did it. Yes, there was an entity called the confederate states of america but it was illegitimate and essentially stillborn.
Of course the true test of the things I’ve said is to put it to practice - mount a secession effort. Take a case to SCOTUS. Better yet, take your case to Congress where it rightly belongs. Do those things and who knows - perhaps you will prevail where the insurrectionists failed.
Or do it the way they tried and I guarantee that you will fail.
Yea, apparently we live on different planets. Mine is called Earth - what’s yours called?
You guys are great, thanks again for amazing discussions!
Your sentiments are reciprocal. (Not so sure about a GOP "leadership" that appear ambiguous over defending the USCON at best.
That said, though I'd enjoyed reviewing every assertion, re-assertion and bullet point rebuttal, aren't the "facts" and perception of "truth" relative to the respective source? Whereas I disgree vehemently with several positions and asserted "facts," I salute your stamina and commitment to the discussion and your position.
I will not belabor the primary points and observations of the Civil War:
It was a war waged over the definition of rights pertaining to Personal and State sovereignty and individual liberty -- whether one agrees with the premise or not.
Applicable then as now:
IS there a point at which Feral Gimmit indeed over-steps and violates its constitutional authority? Violates its original compact with the States? Violates the Bill of Rights and State & Personal Sovereignty to such a degree that we are no longer "governed" but illegally ruled by edict and tyranny -- without the consent of the governed?
Is there a peaceful resolution?
Stop. Just stop saying stupid things.
The Declaration of Independence, which is the *FOUNDATION OF OUR GOVERNMENT* makes any such conjecture silly.
All members of the Constitutional convention regarded it as an inherent foundational assumption that a states had a right to independence, because their very own legitimacy was based on this as a prerequisite.
They did not put in such a clause because the very idea of banning secession would not even have been regarded by them as a rational idea. It was completely contradictory to what they had just themselves done.
It would require a level of hypocrisy astounding in it's scope and irony.
The DOl isn’t the foundation of our government you dolt - it was a quit notice to the Brits.
The Articles of Confederation and later the United States Constitution are the foundations of our government.
You moron.
It was tested in 1776 and found in the affirmative.
Try not to bump into that elephant in the middle of the room.
I take issue with this statement. The evidence is slowly accumulating which points to the war being launched for economic, not moral reasons.
That map showing how New York was monopolizing European imports while the bulk of the value was produced from the South, was a real eye opener for me.
New England was making a fortune off of Slave produced products from the South. When the South seceded, not only did a large share of that existing money stream get cut off, but the Southern ports became low duty competition for high duty Northern ports. European factories could now compete directly with Northern factories in supplying goods and services to the people with the money to buy them, meaning the wealthy Southerners who's exports paid for the bulk of the European trade already.
Southern Independence became a massive economic impact to the income streams of the "Empire State." (Who were Lincoln's primary financial backers.)
Of course they weren't going to come out and say "We went to war with the South because they wrecked our pocket book." They had to gin up some other cover story, else what they wanted to do would simply not be possible.
The Articles of Confederation and later the United States Constitution are the foundations of our government.
You moron.
Articles of Confederation did not exist until 1781, so on what Authority did the Continental congress act between 1776 and 1781?
Here's a hint.
And you call *me* a moron?
Yes, I call you a moron because you are one.
Moron.
Yes, I understand. By which my point is again emphasized briefly and to the point: CW was waged over SOVEREIGNTY. Whether economic OR moral OR by whether metric you wish.
Moron.
About par for the course so far as your rebuttals go.
Yes. It was all about who would rule the South. Washington D.C., or themselves.
Agreed. Furthermore, that assumption of Independence -- personal as well as state and feral -- was a natural right acknowledged by our Founders that IT is bequeathed to all by our Creator.
FWIW, *neither* of you is a moron. If you were Dems, Progs, or the usual MSM suspects, that moniker *would* indeed apply.
;-)
Except I'd prefer to use the word, "govern" instead of "ruled."
These days we ARE "ruled"; Via judicial or un-representative fiat. The consent of the governed by damned.
This notion was slowly creeping all across the continent. Though there were many Southerners defending slavery, there were also many who were souring on it.
Charles Dickens wrote a chapter on the issue.
Given the one way nature of this social repugnance, the trend was steadily moving towards universal abolition, but was being held back by the economic benefits of the system. Even so, support for it was eroding, and it would have eventually become frowned upon by the majorities in the South.
The Cotton gin had made it economically profitable, and the tractor would eventually be along to make it economically unprofitable. All it needed was time.
I concur with your entire assessment.
Yes, it was called the Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression, take your pick.
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