Posted on 03/26/2002 10:38:41 PM PST by kattracks
A just cause would be when the the government betrays its principles. Then the people of a state have a right to leave.
Was the south's cause a just one? I don't claim to know enough to answer that. People here seem to know a lot more about this than I do. I am just stating my general belief on succession.
I'm not sure what that means. Governments operate on laws. Nations can have 'principles' as embodied in culture or in the people themselves, but governments can only work to those principles within the law. In 1860, we had a "Nation Principle" that all men were created equal under the law. The "law" under which the government operated, however, said something else.
The "Government" has not promised anything. The government is bound to respect the Constitution, not make ‘promises concerning basic civil liberties’ It is not about promises like tax cuts, a new road, or whatever. It is law and we are a nation of laws, not promises.
Further, when we talk of 'Government" in the Federal sense, were must remember the Separation of Powers that the Framers build into the Constitution to help protect our liberties. Congress can pass a law that is unconstitutional, such as they did last month on CFR. They have often passed laws that ‘revoke’ civil rights. The executive can refuse to enforce that law, or the judiciary can overturn it. The executive branch can exceed their constitutional authority in enforcing laws. Congress can pass new laws or cut off funds to the executive in response. And the Judicial branch to rule on the constitutionality of both the laws congress passes and the actions of the executive in enforcing laws. Congress and the Executive very often get whacked by the Judicial, but by the same token, the Judicial can overstep its authority which then can be circumvented by new laws from Congress. It is a dynamic tension between branches that has served us remarkably well. When serious conflicts arise such as Roe v Wade, it is up to us as a people to address then in a political setting.
From your statement, however, you seem to imply that the state governments are more trustworthy than the Federal government when it comes to civil liberties. Historically, the opposite is true. The most common civil liberty abuses in our history have been committed by state governments, not the federal. The Judicial can and often does strike down state laws on Constitutional grounds which is where most of our serious constitutional disputes arise be it Dred Scott, Roe. V Wade or Brown v Board of Education.
If this is the case, a state elected civil government can vote to leave and that is moral.
If the situation arises where the Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches all conspire to deprive liberty, have all violated their oaths to defend the Constitution, and the people have failed to change that condition through the political process, then resistance or even revolution are morally justified. But when you say it is ‘moral’ to ‘leave the union’ that does not mean it is as simple as walking away. Think about it. If the government refuses to respect the basic liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, and refuses to abide by the restriction on government action in the Constitution, why would you expect them to simply allow you to walk away. That is why people as diverse as James Madison and Robert E. Lee both said the secession at will in non-sense. It is the state then violating their duty to the constitution. If there are intolerable abuses such as you envision in your reply by an oppressive government, resistance or revolution is the only way out.
Ditto, I think you are misunderstanding me. I agree with you for the most part. State governments have restricted liberties more often in the past. My arguement is (and you agree with it) is that if the federal government does not follow the RULES it is supposed to, then the states have a right if they wish to leave.
Here is the problem with the federal government today. It is not challenged at all by the states. The states are merely a puppet of the federal government. Roe V. Wade is clearly unconstitutional, but the Federal government has allowed this law to stay in place. The states should have a right to nullify this, but they cant. So what is happening today is the federal government is getting stronger and stronger and it is taking away liberties guaranteed to all people.
The fed's today go unchallenged and THAT is not what the constitution set out to do. Extreme State Right's advocates are wrong in believing that states are supreme. But on the flip side their opponents are wrong that the Fed's are always supreme. The system was set up to make the states and fed's compete with eachother so as neither one would gain dominance.
I dont think we are in disagreement here though.
I don't disagree with you, but in the end, the people are getting exactly the government they are asking for. Our mission as Conservatives is to change people's opinions, (and in the case of Roe, change their hearts as well) to bring government back into its proper relationship with the Constitution, the states and the people.
People like DiLorenzo with his crackpot theory that it is somehow Lincoln's fault and his distorted and dishonest interpertation of history, do not help in that effort.
I think Richard and David can elaborate better than I on why these 'Civil War' debates are material to the challenges we face today.
You ask why we care about Lincoln. Lincoln saw himself as measured by the Declaration in all his political acts.
Here is a "Declarationist" manifesto from a soon to be launched web site.
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In our day, it can sometimes seem that what we call "politics" has become so complicated, technical, and contentious that only experts or scholars are really qualified to keep the ship of state on course. But in politics, as in everything else, real wisdom is not found in technical details, but in the fundamental principles from which everything else follows. From Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Reagan, to the humblest citizen today, the American heroes are those who resolve to put the truths of the Declaration at the heart of all they say or do in American politics. This is the wisdom that conceived America in liberty, has kept her in liberty for more than two centuries, and can keep her free for many more.
By becoming a member of the Declaration Alliance, you will join your efforts to ours in the perpetual labor of renewing America on the basis of this essential wisdom. Your membership signifies your determination to actively help advance the principles of the Declaration of Independence throughout American political life.
Our allegiance to the God-given truth of these principles makes us Declarationists.
Expressed most perfectly in that timeless statement of our national beliefs, the Declaration of Independence, these principles are also prudently applied in the instrument that founded the government of this country--the Constitution of the United States. Our allegiance to the Founders' incorporation of Declaration principles into the U.S. Constitution confirms us as Constitutionalists. We understand that the framework of government our Founders bequeathed us in the Constitution finds its justification and explanation--its most profound anchor and defense--in the vision of justice that is succinctly articulated in the Declaration. The Constitution is the noble attempt of our Founders to clothe the spirit of the Declaration in the flesh and bone of an actual republic.
And as with the human body, judging the significance and purpose of the parts of the Constitution without reference to the animating spirit which gives it life can lead to misunderstandings, and dangerous errors. Without the Declaration, the Constitution is too easily reduced to a procedural agreement reached by a group of men, long dead, who happened to live more or less where we live today. Why should it bind us now, we might ask? Indeed, are not the outrages of infamous Supreme Court decisions, recent presidential abuses of power, and apparently unlimited Congressional spending and regulation, just so many instances of today's elites refusing to be bound by the Constitution to which they give nominal allegiance? Openly or with sophistical rationalizations, our political leaders have long been tempted to replace the governmental order of the Constitution with other, less free modes and orders more to their liking. And as uncomfortable as it may be, we must face the fact that mere veneration of the Constitution is not a sufficient answer to such tyrannical ambition.
The Constitution does not contain its own defense; it is not self-evident that we should have a bicameral legislature, that the Congress should have the power to declare war, or that presidential vetoes should be overridden by a 2/3 majority. It is not even self-evident that the federal government should share sovereign authority with the state government, or that powers not specifically delegated to the federal government should be reserved to the states and the people.
All these things are like finely-engineered machine parts, components of a delicate engine of governance which we appreciate, venerate, and wish to defend, but which we cannot protect without looking beyond it to the purposes it serves, to the reasons it was constructed. To defend the Constitution, we must understand the principles that animate it. We must look to the Declaration. To be Constitutionalists, we must be Declarationists.
A Declarationist is one who holds that the political and philosophical truths in the Declaration are the touchstone of American political life, and that our common assent to them is the most profound ground of our union as Americans. Consequently, the truths of the Declaration are the authoritative principles to be used in interpreting the Constitution, our positive law, and our public policy. The Declaration provides the wisdom by which everything in American political life can be judged.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Consider, for example, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which states: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Note first that the operative clause of the amendment, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed," is preceded by a clause that gives the reason for it: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State." What is perhaps most striking about the Second Amendment is that it is so unlike almost everything else in the Constitution--it contains a reason for the determination it contains. We really should turn in wonder at the rest of the document, asking as if for the first time--what are the reasons for its parts?
But even here, when we attempt to understand the reason offered for the right "of the people to keep and bear arms," we should be struck by its evident assumption of larger goods, larger purposes, than that which the right itself concerns. Freedom to keep and bear arms is necessary because a well-regulated Militia is necessary, and a well-regulated Militia is necessary "to the security of a free State." But what is a "free State?" And why should we want one? The Constitution is silent.
It is to the Declaration that we turn to learn that a free state is a self-governing community of free men, and that the principal danger to such free self-government is from the possibility of tyrannical government. Free states are desirable because the equality in which God has created man implies that the responsibility for government is possessed equally by all, not assigned by human force or divine will to a chosen few. The freedom whose purpose the Second Amendment exists to protect is freedom from the tyranny of our own government, so that we can all join in our duty to govern our own affairs. The purpose of the right to keep and bear arms, accordingly, is revealed by the Declaration to be the preservation of the means necessary for the people to accomplish the duty of self-government, should their government be tempted to tyranny.
The Right to Life
An even clearer example of the crucial importance of the Declaration for Constitutional interpretation arises in the case of abortion. The Declaration teaches that we are all created equal. It makes explicitly clear that government power exists for the sake of securing the rights that we share by virtue of our equal status as human creatures of God. The very notion of a "right" to determine that another member of the human species—even if only an embryo—is an unequal bearer of the rights government exists to protect, and so can be legitimately killed in order that the rights of another person can be sustained, is an absurdity according to the teaching of the Declaration.
Since the Declaration makes clear that our rights arise from the dignity that we share equally with all humankind, he who would claim the right to treat another person unequally repudiates, by that very claim, the doctrine of human equality. The claim to an abortion "right" is thus a renunciation of membership in the community which the Declaration declares to be equal and self-governing. But it is this community for which the Constitution "constitutes" a government. A Constitutional right to abortion is thus untenable--for the man who claims the right to abort another under the Constitution declares, at the same time, that he is not a member of the community governed by the Constitution.
The Income Tax
Our Founders' prohibition of an income tax in the Constitution is explained by the tendency of such a tax to make government the master of the material basis of our liberty, enslavement the Declaration clearly will not tolerate. How can a people retain their power to discipline government if the government has the right to demand not only control of their every dollar, but minute accounting of every aspect of their material circumstances? But an income tax requires just such governmental control and personal accounting. Accordingly, the 16th Amendment which authorizes a Federal income tax is seen to be inconsistent with the underlying principles of the Constitution.
On issue after issue, we find that particular matters of policy are illuminated, and particular policy disputes are clearly solved, once the Declaration is restored to its rightful place as the bedrock of all American political reasoning. Again and again, we find that apparently insoluble disputes can in fact be reduced to the simple choice for or against the self-evident truths of the Declaration. And we believe that today's citizens will confirm the Founders' brave decision to take their stand with the laws of Nature and Nature's God if the particular policy disputes of our time are again effectively presented in terms of the logic of the Declaration. It is our duty to our fellow citizens, and our duty to the God who gave us the capacity for self-government, that we strive to present all these issues again in terms of that logic. This is the crucial duty of the thoughtful American citizen today, as it has been since the beginning of our blessed liberty.
The Declaration Alliance will strive to help illuminate the political questions of the day by the light of the principles of the Declaration. Our work is to help citizen and politician alike understand the reasons for the policy positions that we must take if we are to remain faithful to the founding promise of the American republic--to build a political order that will effectively secure the rights we receive from the hand of the Creator. Above all, we will stand and defend the Founders' articulation of the paramount principle of human equality--that whatever our condition or status of life, we are all perfectly equal in our human brotherhood before the Fatherhood of God Almighty.
We cannot force our fellow citizens to accept this principle again. But we can, and will, spend ourselves, our treasure, and our talents, to make sure that all Americans again remember and understand the lasting stakes of the political battles of the moment. We can, and will, do everything in our power to make sure that the great people of the United States recall the high duty that Providence has placed upon them for deliberating upon such questions--not in the base and dim light of passing material passion or interest, but in the enduring and enobling light of the Declaration's liberating principles. If we can succeed in casting this noble light on the political discussions of our time, we believe we can still trust the American people to decide aright, and to preserve liberty for generations yet to come.
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Was that to the point?
Cheers,
Richard F.
Very nicely put.
Plus, there is lovely new evidence and argument on the dreadful Dr. DiLorenzo that you must see.
Click Here
Regards,
Richard F.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo's book "The Real Lincoln" claims to provide a "new look" at Abraham Lincoln. It does no such thing. It is instead a rehash of Confederate propaganda spiced up with touches of Marxist economic analysis.
The book's thesis can be summed up by a passage from a speech delivered by the archsecessionist Roger Atkison Pryor in Charleston, S.C., just before the attack on Fort Sumter. He thanked South Carolina for annihilating "this accursed Union, reeking with corruption and insolent with excess of tyranny." Continue at the Washington Times
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