Posted on 07/22/2020 3:14:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Confederacy has been the excuse for some of today's rioting, property destruction and grossly uninformed statements. Among the latter is the testimony before the House Armed Services Committee by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley in favor of renaming Confederate-named military bases. He said: "The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought, and it was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution."
There are a few facts about our founding that should be acknowledged. Let's start at the beginning, namely the American War of Independence (1775-1783), a war between Great Britain and its 13 colonies, which declared independence in July 1776. The peace agreement that ended the war is known as the Treaty of Paris signed by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens and by British Commissioner Richard Oswald on Sept. 3, 1783. Article I of the Treaty held that "New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States."
Delegates from these states met in Philadelphia in 1787 to form a union. During the Philadelphia convention, a proposal was made to permit the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, rejected it. Minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: "A union of the states containing such an ingredient [would] provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
During the ratification debates, Virginia's delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments; namely, they held the right to dissolve their relationship with the United States. Ratification of the Constitution was by no means certain. States feared federal usurpation of their powers. If there were a provision to suppress a seceding state, the Constitution would never have been ratified. The ratification votes were close with Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts voting in favor by the slimmest of margins. Rhode Island initially rejected it in a popular referendum and finally voted to ratify -- 34 for, 32 against.
Most Americans do not know that the first secessionist movement started in New England. Many New Englanders were infuriated by President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which they saw as an unconstitutional act. Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who was George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state, led the movement. He said, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." Other prominent Americans such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III, and Joseph Story shared his call for secession. While the New England secessionist movement was strong, it failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a state's right. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty." New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent." The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
Confederate generals fought for independence from the Union just as George Washington fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who label Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals as traitors might also label George Washington a traitor. Great Britain's King George III and the British parliament would have agreed.
The only way that power could be reserved under the tenth amendment is if the states had that power before the adoption of the constitution. They did not have that power because of their ratification of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. They agreed to form a perpetual Union(or country if you will) and from that point on could not leave without the consent of the other states.
Your analogy is wrong. America is nothing like the EU. The EU is a league among sovereign nations with a procedure for leaving it. The constitution is fundamental law with no procedure for leaving.
Then we should stop all efforts to eliminate the killing of unborn children? SCOTUS is the final word, and they say killing unborn babies is legal. Further, any attempts to make it more difficult to kill an unborn baby are illegal. We should just give up and accept the killing of unborn babies? Or perhaps, SCOTUS gets it wrong sometimes. Perhaps too SCOTUS was influenced more by the war result than the actual Constitution when they ruled secession illegal? SCOTUS does get it wrong sometimes.
They were defending slavery.
Well than you’re calling me a ‘’Paddie’’ as that is where my ancestral people came from. Names, sticks, stones.. etc.
Some people confuse love of country with love of government.
Then abortion is legal. We should stop debating it and save such talk for church? Are you sure you’re posting on the right website? The SCOTUS says it’s legal and morality doesn’t matter.
Yes, enforcing laws and suppression of rebellion is within the Federal purview, but the question is whether a state can legally secede or not. If so, then there’s no state of rebellion and the laws no longer apply following a secession. The matter was settled by the war as a practical matter, but that doesn’t help us judge the legality of Lincoln’s actions. His predecessor took a different view: secession is illegal, but so is Federal military action to prevent it. Even in the North, there was no widespread consensus. There was certainly a large portion of the population who favored allowing the South to leave peacefully.
That’s a funny interpretation of 10A you got there. “Reserved to the states” does not mean a majority vote. Frankly that’s a ridiculous and dangerous idea. Just about any issue can be construed as effecting all the states. Either a government is sovereign or it isn’t. It either has the authority to do something or not. A sovereign government does not need majority approval of other governments to act. Quite simply, it’s not a sovereign government if it can’t act unilaterally.
The states ARE sovereign governments. The Constitution is a compact between these sovereign governments where they agree to delegate certain powers inherent in that sovereignty to a central government. Some of these they give up entirely (enumerated powers), and some they give to the FedGov but still retain (shared powers). The Temth Amendment concerns the powers of government that are neither enumerated nor shared. Those powers belong to the state. Essentially it means that the FedGov is NOT an inherently higher authority. It is a creation of the states and only has the powers granted to it by the states. (Don’t be misled by the supremacy clause. It exists because of shared powers. Since some powers are shared, there can be conflicting laws. This clause makes Federal law applicable; it is not infdicative that states derive their authority from the Feds — the opposite is in fact true).
Obviously, for better or worse, we’ve moved away from this concept of the FedGov. That in large part occurred during the war. (The transformation was continued during the progressive era and finished by the time of the Depression and the New Deal). That doesn’t change the legal and Constitutional arguments, though. It only means that secession is dead as a practical matter.
This can be a fatal mistake.
Where have you been for the last 47 years?
We should stop debating it and save such talk for church? Are you sure you’re posting on the right website? The SCOTUS says it’s legal and morality doesn’t matter.
Did people stop debating segregation after the Plessy v. Ferguson decision? Did they stop working to end it? Or was Brown v. Board of Ed a figment of my imagination?
Yes, enforcing laws and suppression of rebellion is within the Federal purview, but the question is whether a state can legally secede or not.
A question which was answered by Texas v. White. States can leave the Union with the consent of the other states. I thought you were the history whiz in this discussion and I was the one who hadn't read anything?
If so, then there’s no state of rebellion and the laws no longer apply following a secession.
There was a rebellion. It was in all the history books.
Even in the North, there was no widespread consensus. There was certainly a large portion of the population who favored allowing the South to leave peacefully.
A consensus that changed overnight once the South fired on Sumter.
That’s a funny interpretation of 10A you got there. “Reserved to the states” does not mean a majority vote.
Not quite as funny as yours. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The power to admit a state and approve any change in status once its joined is a power delegated to the United States by the Constitution. By implication that includes the power to approve leaving.
Frankly that’s a ridiculous and dangerous idea. Just about any issue can be construed as effecting all the states.
I think you're exaggerating there.
The Temth Amendment concerns the powers of government that are neither enumerated nor shared. Those powers belong to the state.
No argument.
Essentially it means that the FedGov is NOT an inherently higher authority.
Does it now?
Don’t be misled by the supremacy clause.
Yeah who needs that dumb ol' supremacy clause anyway. </sarcasm>
Obviously, for better or worse, we’ve moved away from this concept of the FedGov.
And all y'all would have us believe it was all Lincoln's fault. I guess there is absolutely nothing that you won't blame on him.
As opposed to the other 27 times Williams has written pretty much this same article.
But that was from 1869, after the war.
During the victory dance on the South.
I like Ike...I like Lee...
The American DisunionLondon, September 6, 1861
The founders of the American constitution doubted whether the Federation of no more than the thirteen original States was not too large to retain identity of interests and stay under one rule. “But let experience,” said Washington in one of his letters, solve the question; to listen to speculation in such a case was criminal.” Sixty years ago, Jefferson, who in some respects represents more than Washington the present mind of the republic, touched on the possible event that now has happened. In eighteen ’three, when some expected from the acquisition of Louisiana, further division of the Union into an Atlantic and a Mississippi Confederacy, he said—what a year ago there was no statesman in the North wise enough to repeat after him—“Let them part by all means if it is for their happiness to do so. It is but the elder and younger son differing. God bless them both, and keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if better.” And again, forty years ago in eighteen ’twenty, the Missouri question produced from him these pregnant word. “Although I had laid down as a law to myself, never to write, talk or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs, and therefore had ceased to read newspapers, yet this Missouri question aroused and filled me with alarm. The old schism of Federal and Republican threatened nothing because it existed in every State, and united them together by the fraternism of party; but the coincidence of a marked principle, moral and political, with a geographical line, once conceived, I feared would never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion, and renewing irritations until it would kindle such mutual and mortal hatreds as to render separation preferable to eternal discord. I have ever been among the most sanguine in believing that our union would be of long duration; I now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance. My only comfort and confidence is that I shall not live to see this.” What Jefferson expected, has occurred. . . .
All matters before the court are after the fact. Courts cannot issue advisory ruling on something that hasn't happened.
During the victory dance on the South.
Same old Lost Cause song-and-dance.
its just the Brits who call us “Yanks”More correctly, “its just the folks of the British Empire who call us “Yanks”.
Add the Irish. They call us Yanks and they are not British, not even the ones in Northern Ireland.
"wanting it more"? LOL! Yeah....I'm sure that massive material support from the rival superpower and them providing troops and even lending the colonial secessionists their navy had nothing to do with it. It was all about "wanting it more".
No there wasn't. Some are too historically ignorant or dishonest to admit that.
Nobody is questioning the outcome. We are discussing the legality and legitimacy of it.
Thereby demonstrating the Yankee understanding of how constitutional law works. I expected nothing better.
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