You repeatedly misinterpret the article of the Constitution known as the the slave clause. The point of it isn't that slavery must be a perpetual institution throughout the land, as you like to put forth, rather the point of it is that yes there existed ownership of men by other men and State rights needed to honor and respect the rights of other States. Obviously, in contradiction to your twisted interpretations, this readily acknowledged that at that point in time there were States that tolerated the practice and States that did not.
I know this is falling on deaf ears and that you will either skip back to the Magna Carta or fast forward to the 14th Ammendment. But just for once, please think about the Confederate Flag. God forbid that it should ever be wrested from those who nobly fought to protect hearth and home with a true patriotic spirit while being misled by their misguided political leaders. Blame your 750,000 dead on the Slave Aristocracy. It was they who made the peculiar institution a cause for declaring independence. Slavery was the reason for the Confederacy. Slavery of the Blackman by the Whiteman was the reason d'etre of the Confederacy.
Where you also fall flat is in your monomaniacal insistence that South had a natural law right, a God given right, whatever you call it, to declare themselves independent. Nobody denies that. I believe it is historically accurate to say that the real SlaveHolding states did secede. They formed their own separate government, elected leadership, chose a capital, money, foreign and domestic ambassadors, etc, etc. They called themselves the Confederacy. But it didn't work. Independence is something you have to fight for and win.
No. I utterly reject your premise. There are no "Conditions" on the right to independence.
You repeatedly misinterpret the article of the Constitution known as the the slave clause.
No, it is your side which refuses to acknowledge it for what it is. The Founders were loath to put the word "Slavery" into the constitution, but the Slave holding states would have balked at agreeing to it without some safeguard for their concerns.
It *IS* a runaway slave clause. That is EXACTLY what it is, and it was routinely broken by most of the Union States because they didn't like it. Joseph Story gave them a legal "fig leaf" for doing so with his Prigg v Pennsylvania ruling; a ruling that has caused a lot of damage way beyond just the issue of slavery.
Blame your 750,000 dead on the Slave Aristocracy.
They didn't invade anyone. They didn't even kill anyone until they were invaded. The blood shed started with the Union trying to stop Independence for people who had a right to it.
They called themselves the Confederacy. But it didn't work. Independence is something you have to fight for and win.
Not when it is supposed to be the accepted foundational law of the existing Nation.
Fighting for independence from a Monarchy which never recognized such a right is one thing, but fighting for independence from a nation that explicitly states this right as justification for it's own Independence is simply bizarre.
And what did Abraham Lincoln have to say about this right to Independence?
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,-- most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.
He was of course, speaking about Texas, who's independence he supported when it was breaking away from Mexico, but who's independence he absolutely opposed when it was breaking away from him.
You have no moral argument for killing people who sought independence, and you and your side are constantly trying to trump the greater moral issue of a right to Independence with the lesser moral issue of slavery, because it is the only weapon you have in your arsenal.
You are desperate to justify the murders committed by a despotic and tyrannical government in suppressing the rights to independence for others, and so you keep coming back to the tired old "But... but... Slavery!" argument.
No, a johnny come lately after the fact justification based on slavery does not absolve you of the murders committed for what was really a case of power and money.
Good post HD.
DegenerateLamp is the only person I’ve ever encountered that holds the asinine assertion that anyone can quit at any time and for any reason and not call that anarchistic rebellion. His is an outlier opinion among outliers.
When the Colonialists finally rebelled they did so honestly stating that what they undertook was openly illegal. They chose the divine right of rebellion and self-defense. And they were frank about their chances - they knew that, should they fail, they would all hang. They accepted the risks with eyes open and hearts steeled.
Likewise, the southern slavocracy knew the writing on the wall. They knew that the civilized world was turning away from the insidious practice of slavery. They knew that sentiment against slavery in America was mounting. Of course they also knew that it was sentiment not expressed by action. Beyond limiting expansion of slavery into the west northerners were more or less content to cluck-cluck about their southern neighbors and otherwise maintain the status quo.
So southern leaders had a couple of choices they could make. They could have responded to the writing and worked on mitigation plans so that they could minimize their eventual losses of “property”. They could continue to ignore the 500 gorilla and do nothing to plan for the future. They could orchestrate a PR campaign to try to increase the favorables on the Peculiar Institution.
Or they could mount a rebellion of their own and couch it in rhetoric flourishes about “secession” in order to assuage their guilt. That’s the long & short of it. They had a hissy fit over an election and set on a ruinous course that resulted in the terrible loss of American lives.