Posted on 04/01/2018 9:05:49 AM PDT by Simon Green
Have you read it? It’s a mess of contradictory statements and needless verbiage.
“Adams never got over his experience leading an African-American regiment in the war. He became a convinced racist and a bitter opponent of Reconstruction. So he wasn’t necessarily an unbiased analyst”
Which if that’s the case still has nothing to do with Adams’ essay.
It doesn’t deal with race or African-Americans at all.
It’s entirely about the legitimacy of secession as seen by the founders and the South, and how that opinion was abandoned for compulsory union in the North.
x: "Adams never got over his experience leading an African-American regiment in the war....
So he wasn't necessarily an unbiased analyst."
Everybody is familiar with the dishonest spin our pollsters can put on their results simply by changing the wording or sequencing of questions, or bias in selecting which citizens to ask.
Well, the same is true regarding the so-called "right of secession" in our Founders' minds.
So let me present you with two assertions which I say are fact and absolute truth:
So, where did each individual Founder draw the line between "necessity" and "at pleasure"?
There's no way for us to know, except by the actions they took when faced with it:
Point is, our Founders knew full well the differences between necessity and at pleasure as well as between mutual consent and unilateral declarations of nullification or secession.
They all supported necessity and mutual consent, they all opposed at pleasure and unilateral declarations.
Concerning barter. Your reply 161: "...and thus the overwhelming majority of imports since the cash crops were exchanged for manufactured goods the Southern owners of those cash crops having already paid for the ships." Reply 444: "No. They exchanged their cash crops for manufactured goods."
Concerning consumers. Your reply 225, et. al.: "As Adams notes, the South paid an undue proportion of federal revenues derived from tariffs, and these were expended by the federal government more in the North than the South: in 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860."
How was the Southern crop exchanged for manufactured goods if not through barter? Who in the South paid 87% of the tariff if not consumers?
South Carolina Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000. South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties. In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000. When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Succession Charles Adams
And in January 1861 Alexander Stephens gave a speech where he said the North was responsible for three quarters of all foreign trade. So which is right?
There were several Northern newspaper articles at that time saying the same thing. For example here is one though there are many more:
LOL! And there has never been a time in recorded history where news paper editorials didn't stretch the truth, right?
You keep saying I don't understand basic economics, but it all comes back to the question of if Adams and Rhett and you are true and the South accounted for 87% of all imports then why did those imports go to Northern ports and not Southern ones? Where is the economic or business sense in that? Does Adams have an answer?
The siege of Paris began in September 1870 and ended in January 1871. The Communard uprising was a couple of months later.
Regardless, Prussia set out to starve the city - and it's civilians - into surrender and bombarded the city repeatedly, killing hundreds. All in violation of these international agreements you insist were in place for 220 years. Odd.
“They are described as such in the 1783 treaty of paris. They are described as such in the federalist papers. They have been described as such in numerous supreme court cases right up to the modern era.”
Yes the states were sovereign republics in 1783 and gave up that sovereignty years later by ratifying the Constitution.
Answer the question: If the states are sovereign, why don’t any of them have a law against treason?
Answer the question: If secession was a unilateral right reserved by the states, why wasn’t secession included in the Constitution of the Confederate States of America?
https://undergod.procon.org/sourcefiles/Constitution_of_the_Confederate_States.pdf
It’s not there.... What were those secessionists afraid of?
The Federalist Papers were opinion letters sent to ratifying conventions to convince them to ratify. Even they only mention secession once, per my previous post.
Answer the question: If the Supreme Court “described” the states as sovereign, what about Texas vs. White?
“Secession does not destroy the federation. It merely makes it smaller.”
Come on, how do you make anything smaller without destroying the original union? Again, the Constitution was not a treaty between republics, it was a compact.
Then, do you support California Law that declares it to be a sanctuary state? A law that makes it illegal for CA police to hold suspects to hand over to federal law enforcement officers with warrants?
Peaceful secession? Who shot first?
Rapid collapse of slavery? Who would have compensated slave owners for freeing the most valuable property in the entire US?
Thank you for mentioning the Fugitive Slave Clause. If states are sovereign, as you say, how could supposed “sovereign” Northern States, where slavery was illegal, be compelled to return slaves, per the Constitution?
Witness Somerset v Stewart, while a Brit ruling, it caused great concern among slaves and slave owners.
Come on, how do you make anything smaller without destroying the original union? Again, the Constitution was not a treaty between republics, it was a compact.
A compact between sovereign states. One state leaving does not destroy the whole nor does a few leaving. The rest remain in if they so choose.
Yes peaceful. Who shot first? As a matter of fact it was the Federals at Ft Pickens in Pensacola, Florida. An aggressor is one who invades the land of another - not one who fires to drive an invader away.
Yes rapid collapse once there is no effective enforcement. That is exactly what happened in Brazil. As for who would have compensated slave owners. Obviously the whole country as was done elsewhere. Who compensates a property owner when his property is claimed under eminent domain and the government has to pay fair market value? The taxpayers pay.
That was what they agreed to when they ratified the constitution. If they were unwilling, they could have chosen not to ratify or they could have chosen later to secede if they found it intolerable.
Yes the states were sovereign republics in 1783 and gave up that sovereignty years later by ratifying the Constitution.
No they didn’t. Madison and Hamilton make it quite clear they were not surrendering their sovereignty in the Federalist Papers. Nowhere in the constitution does it say states surrender their sovereignty. States passed express reservations of their right to secede when they ratified the constitution. The USSC has repeatedly ruled that states are sovereign. There is simply no argument to be made that they are not in fact sovereign.
A law specifically against treason is not a necessary prerequisite of sovereignty. As it happens, treason is the one crime actually defined in the constitution since in the past, this has been abused so frequently by oppressive governments.
https://undergod.procon.org/sourcefiles/Constitution_of_the_Confederate_States.pdf
It’s not there.... What were those secessionists afraid of?
It was not necessary to include. You have it exactly backwards. It is not the federal government which created the states and which retains all powers it did not delegate to them. IT is the states which created the federal. Anything not given to the federal is retained by the states. The constitution would have to say that states may not secede for them not to have this right. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that.
The federalist papers were published and discussed widely in public in the lead up to ratification of the constitution. They offer an insight into what the parties were actually agreeing to when they ratified the constitution. It is well settled in law that you cannot go back later and read all sorts of terms into a contract that were not there originally. What the parties at the time agreed to when they entered into a contract is what governs.
The Chase court....ie a USSC headed by Lincoln’s former treasury secretary after the war claiming secession was unconstitutional. This is simply laughable. Firstly what did anybody expect them to say? Did you expect them to say “no, the federal government which just fought this long and bloody war was wrong and legally has to give back what it just won at great cost”? They would not have lived the night after issuing such a ruling. Secondly, since the court was packed with Lincolnites afterwards this is a might makes right argument. Hey if I come in with an army, conquer washington DC, lay waste to all who oppose me and their land and put a few of my flunkies on the court, I’m pretty sure the court will not be stupid enough to rule that I was in any way wrong. They would know the consequences even if they wanted to rule against me. This is not a ruling anybody is bound to respect.
Regardless, Prussia set out to starve the city - and it’s civilians - into surrender and bombarded the city repeatedly, killing hundreds. All in violation of these international agreements you insist were in place for 220 years. Odd.
I said convention....as in widely accepted practice. I did not say agreements. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.
Concerning barter. Your reply 161: “...and thus the overwhelming majority of imports since the cash crops were exchanged for manufactured goods the Southern owners of those cash crops having already paid for the ships.” Reply 444: “No. They exchanged their cash crops for manufactured goods.”
Correct! That was the trade exchange. They sold something (cash crops). They bought something (manufactured goods). I never said they bartered. Sheesh.
Correct! Southerners owned the manufactured goods they had bought abroad. They paid the tariff on them.
Asked and answered above.
I would highly doubt Stephens’ numbers here given all the other accounts of it being precisely the opposite. Do you have a link to this speech so I can see what he said?
Odd then that so many newspapers North, South and Foreign all said it.
Because shipping was centered around New England/New York. It had been from early on and various subsidies and navigation acts modeled on the British ones were passed to build up the Northern shipping industry.
Where goods land says nothing about who owns those goods and thus who pays any tariffs. A crapload of for example Wal-Mart’s goods get landed at Long Beach California. Its not like California pays the tariff. Its not like the city of Long Beach pays it. Obviously Wal-Mart pays it. It was the same then.
“But on June 2, 1924, Congress granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S. Yet even after the Indian Citizenship Act, some Native Americans weren’t allowed to vote because the right to vote was governed by state law. Until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting.”
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_citizens_1.html
Sounds to me like there’s e tough blame to go around for all parties.
You're just making crap up as you go along.
You’re just making crap up as you go along.
No you’re just trying to make straw man arguments and failing miserably.
CFA Jr. wasn't a constitutional scholar or a historian. He just jumps from the notion that people in the different states had reservations about the Constitution to the assumption that states could leave the union at any time.
Point is, our Founders knew full well the differences between necessity and at pleasure as well as between mutual consent and unilateral declarations of nullification or secession. They all supported necessity and mutual consent, they all opposed at pleasure and unilateral declarations.
Well said.
Likewise, the southern slave states chose to ratify a constitution that did not have a mechanism for leaving.
Likewise, the southern slave states chose to ratify a constitution that did not have a mechanism for leaving.
It didn’t need a mechanism for leaving. It would have needed a mechanism for keeping them in against their will had the states intended that. All powers not delegated to the federal government are retained by the states.
Preposterous. Show me a contemporaneous document that spells out such restrictions. Yu cannot because none exist. It is interesting to note however, that they did signify the permanence of the union in the Articles of confederation (bold mine):
To all to whom these Presents shall come, we, the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting. Whereas the Delegates of the United States of America in Congress assembled did on the fifteenth day of November in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy seven, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of Newhampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhodeisland and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia in the Words following, viz. “Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of Newhampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhodeisland and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
And later alluded to that same permanence in the Preamble to the United States Constitution (bold mine):
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
None of this was done haphazardly; every word was deliberate. They may have well put "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not put asunder" because what they described as a permanent union they meant as a permanent union.
All powers not delegated to the federal government are retained by the states.
And the power of disposition of the states is delegated to Congress.
Preposterous. Show me a contemporaneous document that spells out such restrictions. Yu cannot because none exist. It is interesting to note however, that they did signify the permanence of the union in the Articles of confederation (bold mine):
Ridiculous. The states created the federal, not vice versa. The states retained everything they did not delegate to the federal and the definitely did not delegate a power to prevent secession.
Have you noticed that they deliberately left out the phrase “perpetual union” from the Articles of Confederation when they wrote the Constitution despite the fact that other whole passages were lifted? OOPS! Yet another failed argument for you.
Yet nowhere in the Constitution is the power to prevent a state from seceding. Remember every word was deliberate and yet they did not put that in there.
Non sequitur
The states retained everything they did not delegate to the federal and the definitely did not delegate a power to prevent secession.
They delegated the disposition of states to Congress. That doesn't in and of itself preclude the act of secession, but it certainly gives power to congress to fight states in a condition of insurrection - which occurred in 1861.
Yet nowhere in the Constitution is the power to prevent a state from seceding.
No need.
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