Posted on 03/26/2002 10:38:41 PM PST by kattracks
Do states have a right of secession? That question was settled through the costly War of 1861. In his recently published book, "The Real Lincoln," Thomas DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence that virtually every political leader of the time and earlier believed that states had a right of secession.
Let's look at a few quotations. Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." Fifteen years later, after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in the union ... I have no hesitation in saying, ‘Let us separate.'"
At Virginia's ratification convention, the 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." In Federalist Paper 39, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, cleared up what "the people" meant, saying the proposed Constitution would be subject to ratification by the people, "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong." In a word, states were sovereign; the federal government was a creation, an agent, a servant of the states.
On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Maryland Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty." The northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.
Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. 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." 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 content." The New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go." DiLorenzo cites other editorials expressing identical sentiments.
Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."
In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision. Today, it's worse. Turn Madison's vision on its head, and you have today's America.
DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness and hypocrisy, and how historians have covered it up. The Framers had a deathly fear of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as a protection. That's why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments. They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington tyranny.
COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Contact Walter Williams | Read his biography
©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Yes, Madison said that, and some may find ways of reading a right to unilateral secession into those words regardless of other evidence to the contrary. How come the apostles of dis union never quote these words from Madison?
I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy.As to Northern politicians arguing for the right to unilateral secession in 1861, some very prominent Southern folks argued the opposite.
"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union" so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution.""The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision."
Exactly how was Washington ‘encroaching’ on the rights of the Southern States? Did South Carolina have a constitutional “right” to impose slavery on the people of Kansas? The only grievences mentioned in their resolutions of secession were slavery issues and the only question on slavery then was expansion!
The South wanted a Revolution so they could expand slavery. It was an economic necessity for them to continually expand slavery or they would be swamped with excess slaves and the value of their 'property' would colapse. They made very few bones about it at the time. Their revolution and that war was all about slavery. Williams should know better.
Of course that's just pure nonsense. The Confederate Constitution forbid the importation of anymore slaves. Zero Nada... But it was an economic necessity for the Northern states to contitune to collect the huge tariffs paid for by Southerners. That's why both houses of congress passed with the support of Lincoln the pro slavery amendment which guaranteed slavery forever.
Vinny, Vinny, Vinny. I'm not sure we should be getting into this here since you may be a minor --- but did you every hear of 'The Birds and the Bees"? Babies come from mommy's belly and stuff?
Slavery importation had been illegal since 1808. People caught bring new slaves in after that point could be hung as pirates! There were around 1 million slaves in the US at the 1810 census. By 1860, there were nearly 4 million slaves. The slave population doubled every generation of so, with no imports. (They did it the old fashion way.) By 1860, the last damn thing the slaveocrats needed or wanted was an infusion of fresh slaves from Africa (even if they could have made it past the British, French and American navies who would hang slavers if they caught them.)
What the Slaveocrats needed soon was more territory to open up for them to sell their own 'homegrown' excess slaves. The cotton plantations of the deep south were already approaching saturation and without new markets, slave prices would drop. That is why those old creeps you have been suckered into admiring wanted a revolution. Follow the money Vinnie.
Excuse me? Article 1, Section 9:
The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America , is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.
Rather than forbidding the importation of slaves the confederate constitution protected it.
Constitution of 1787, Article I, sec. 2 para 2 "No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States ..."
So am I to understand that Congress had to wait seven years for a single human being to be qualified to serve therein?
When the Virginia resolution was written, it was refering to the citizens of VIRGINIA. And no amount of deluded spinning on your part can change that fact.
From the VA ratification:
"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."
Are these historical enough for you?
Richard F.
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.
Come on. !!Of course it did with the encouragement of the slaveowners. But At no time in the south did the black population ever go over 30 percent. And do you really think the men behind the Confederacy really thought slavery would last forever. These weren't stupid men. As I've said many times in the past on this forum, slaveowners would use immigrants for really dangerous work than risk the life of one of their slaves. Immigration would have made slavery economically infeasible and everyone knew it. You had to pay immigrants, but you didn't have to feed, cloth and house them like you did slaves.
And so did the United States Constitution. What's your point.
Rhode Island attached a lot of conditions on to its acceptance of the Constitution. It's unclear just what status those provisions had in terms of law, but it looks like they may have provided much of the impetus for the Bill of Rights. The RI ratifying convention did specify "That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness," but it's not clear whether this refers to a specific right of secession, or the general right of revolution evoked in the Declaration of Independence.
One could talk for hours about this phrase would mean. Federalists and Anti-Federalists differed as to what was conducive to the people's happiness. There may be a more specific reservation asserting the right to secede in the ratifying convention's text, but I couldn't find it.
This guy may believe in it.
One thing about the ratification process. One could make an argument that the Constitution was sent to conventions, rather than to state legislatures for ratification in order to avoid the idea that the Constitution would simply be a compact of state governments or their creature. Of course the existence of the states had to be taken into account, and if a convention turned down the Constitution that state wouldn't be involved in the new government, but it looks as though they were aiming at something more than a confederation of independent states.
Perhaps in the morning you can turn it into a civil argument.
Goodnight
Look in the mirror. All the Virginia resolution reserved, if that, was a right to revolt. There is no legal right under U.S. for unilateral state secession. The men that attempted to rend the government were traitors as well as fools.
Walt
Be that as it may, one framer at least urged an immovable attachment to the national union.
"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole."
--George Washington, farewell address
Walt
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