Posted on 04/24/2017 5:49:29 AM PDT by rktman
According to the father of the constitution, James Madison, I am right. Here is a letter(emphasis mine) he wrote during the nullification crisis;
Montpellier, Dec 23, 1832.
Dr. Sir I have received yours of the 19th, inclosing some of the South Carolina papers. There are in one of them some interesting views of the doctrine of secession; one that had occurred to me, and which for the first time I have seen in print; namely that if one State can at will withdraw from the others, the others can at will withdraw from her, and turn her, nolentem, volentem, out of the union. Until of late, there is not a State that would have abhorred such a doctrine more than South Carolina, or more dreaded an application of it to herself. The same may be said of the doctrine of nullification, which she now preaches as the only faith by which the Union can be saved.
I partake of the wonder that the men you name should view secession in the light mentioned. The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of –98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. In the Virginia Resolutions and Report the plural number, States, is in every instance used where reference is made to the authority which presided over the Government. As I am now known to have drawn those documents, I may say as I do with a distinct recollection, that the distinction was intentional. It was in fact required by the course of reasoning employed on the occasion. The Kentucky resolutions being less guarded have been more easily perverted. The pretext for the liberty taken with those of Virginia is the word respective, prefixed to the “rights” &c to be secured within the States. Could the abuse of the expression have been foreseen or suspected, the form of it would doubtless have been varied. But what can be more consistent with common sense, than that all having the same rights &c, should unite in contending for the security of them to each.
It is remarkable how closely the nullifiers who make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal for their colossal heresy, shut their eyes and lips, whenever his authority is ever so clearly and emphatically against them. You have noticed what he says in his letters to Monroe & Carrington Pages 43 & 203, vol. 2,1 with respect to the powers of the old Congress to coerce delinquent States, and his reasons for preferring for the purpose a naval to a military force; and more over that it was not necessary to find a right to coerce in the Federal Articles, that being inherent in the nature of a compact. It is high time that the claim to secede at will should be put down by the public opinion; and I shall be glad to see the task commenced by one who understands the subject.
First, three of the original thirteen states-Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island-ratified the U.S. Constitution only conditionally. Each of these states explicitly retained the right to secede. By accepting the right of these three states to leave the Union, has the United States not tacitly accepted the right of any state to leave?
Second, over the years numerous states have nullified acts of the central government judged to be unconstitutional. These instances where national laws have been nullified give credence to the view that the compact forming the Union has already been breached and that states are morally and legally free to leave.
Third, and most importantly, the U.S. Constitution does not forbid a state from leaving the Union. According to the tenth amendment to the Constitution, anything that is not expressly prohibited by the Constitution is allowed. Therefore, all states have a Constitutional right to secede.
Unfortunately because of your misguided attitude the only way to decide this question is on the battle field.
If somebody reduced your own ethnic group to that kind of offensive stereotype, you'd probably complain, wouldn't you?
The North didn’t ‘’invade’’ the South Lampster. It was the other way around.
What part of the geographical territory of the North did the South invade first? This is new to me. I hadn't heard this one.
Was it Maryland? Pennsylvania? Do tell.
That was something they were capable of doing and something Davis and his armies and agents attempted to do on several occasions.
Moreover it was panic and paranoia that drove the slaveowners to secession and war. If panic and paranoia were good enough for them, why is such emotionalism off limits for free Northern men?
And elements in the South absolutely despised the North. Wealthy Charlestonians certainly felt justified in talking down to New Yorkers. Why don't you do a little reading. Here's as good a place as any to start: Madness Rules the Hour: Charleston, 1860 and the Mania for War.
One of your comedy gems was saying that Chicagoans were elitists who looked down on the South. Chicago had been a tiny village -- pretty much a swamp -- thirty years before. They weren't snobbishly looking down on Richmond or Charleston or New Orleans. It was the other way around.
Another hilarious thing you wrote:
According to the North, Slavery wasn't under any threat, so your claim doesn't even make sense on the face of it.
On the contrary, it's your denial that makes no sense. Republicans said they weren't threatening slavery where it already existed, but the slave owners didn't believe them. They felt that any admission that slavery was wrong or morally questionable weakened their economy and society to the breaking point. For some Southerners the fact that the government wouldn't be in favor the expansion of slave territory was enough of a threat or an insult to justify secession.
Not true at all. The slavocracy could have gone to Congress where the matter truly belonged, or even SCOTUS (where they had the deck stacked heavily in their favor). But their pride and their tempers wouldn't allow them to settle themselves long enough to exhaust those avenues.
Your point only makes sense if we conclude that the Northerners didn't believe them. It was obvious that the Southerners didn't believe them, but if they were going to keep their word, slavery would have remained in the United States for much longer than it did.
They felt that any admission that slavery was wrong or morally questionable weakened their economy and society to the breaking point. For some Southerners the fact that the government wouldn't be in favor the expansion of slave territory was enough of a threat or an insult to justify secession.
It was more than just their desire to believe Slavery was morally correct, there was real political power attached to this. Slave states could be counted on to vote as a coalition regarding matters beyond just slavery. The Southern states wanted newly added states to vote along with the Southern states in congress, and they believed that this would happen naturally if those states became slave states. So too did the Northern states believe this, and that is exactly why they didn't want slavery in the new states. They wanted to keep the political power that they had finally obtained.
Each side wanted the new states to side with them politically in Washington, and I dare say none of them gave a crap about the actual slaves themselves. The slaves were merely pawns in a larger game of political power.
This is one of the reasons that Southern independence was a grave threat to the political and financial interests of the North East. If the South seceded successfully, they could eventually buy influence in the new states and get them to join the Confederacy. They could have supplied goods and services to the entire area by way of the Mississippi.
They would not only take those markets away from the New York coalition, they would gain those lands and that future population. The Confederacy may have eventually grown to be the larger of the two countries, and that just couldn't be allowed by those who had the controlling interests of the Northern one.
Your response doesn't make any sense. Besides there was something called the "Civil War" that speeded up the process of change.
There was also a little something called the "Dred Scott Decision." Northerners had to worry about slavery being imposed on their states against their will. It was a real fear at the time that the Supreme Court would overturn anti-slavery laws.
Here's what I find really odd about at least one Lincoln Hater. Virginia 1861 - tariffs bad. central-va 2017 - tariffs good. Go figure.
Given that Article IV, Section II pretty much made all anti-slavery laws pointless, I can see why they would be worried. Their position had no legal leg to stand on.
Maryland in September of 1862. For a guy who makes up his own history and then has it refuted here my myself and others you certainly are an stiffnecked type.
Okay, now you are making me think you are irrational. 1861 comes before 1862.
After the Union sent armed troops into the South to subdue them, of course they retaliated.
You don't get to count an invasion in 1862 as starting a war that began in 1861. The North invaded in 1861, and that is what caused men in the South to take up arms and fight. That is what caused a war in which 750,000 people died to reestablish control from Washington D.C. and the North Eastern elite.
Not really. Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk counties in Virginia were all excluded from the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery was legal there until the ratification of the 13th Amendment.
Major Anderson commanded all the army forces and facilities in Charleston. That included Sumter.
The people of Charleston woke up one day to discover that a Union Army detachment had taken up residence in the Fort overlooking their harbor and city.
They had already been in a fort that overlooked their harbor and city.
Now you may not be aware of this, but I have read a newspaper editorial in which the Northern Editor urged them to take over Ft. Sumter and turn it's guns upon the City. (to prevent them from engaging in European trade.) No doubt, people in Charleston had been appraised of this suggestion as well.
And I've read accounts of Southern newspapers advocating seizing Sumter, Moultrie, and Castle Pinkney. And Anderson was aware of that as well.
They had been led to believe that Union military people would eventually be engaging in an orderly withdraw, and yet Fort Moultrie was left in ashes, and now they had taken over Fort Sumter, which was far more threatening if their intentions were hostile. (Which they appeared to be.)
What hostile act did they take?
And so it is. That makes it even stranger. Why would certain counties be left out? Are not their slaves just as deserving of freedom? It almost makes you think it wasn't about the Freedom of Slaves at all.
Okay, so tiny pieces of the Confederacy had slavery for just as long as the Union did, but it was abolished in the vast majority of the confederacy before it was abolished in the Union.
You win your point on a technicality.
Not strange at all. Those counties, along with St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans parishes, had been liberated from the confederate forces. Since they were no longer in rebellion then the federal government couldn't legally end slavery there. That required the 13th Amendment or, in the case of Louisiana, an amendment to the state constitution ending it.
Okay, so tiny pieces of the Confederacy had slavery for just as long as the Union did, but it was abolished in the vast majority of the confederacy before it was abolished in the Union.
As it was in the Union states.
You win your point on a technicality.
A legality actually.
They burned the guns at Ft. Moultrie.
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