Posted on 04/28/2002 1:24:25 PM PDT by Ditto
Secede (v. i.) To withdraw from fellowship, communion, or association; to separate one's self by a solemn act; to draw off; to retire; especially, to withdraw from a political or religious body.
They did seceed. The fact that the British used force to attempt to deny the rights of the Americans to secede is not justification for the United States to do so. Oppression by the British does not justify oppression by the United States.
The Declaration of Independence says,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The people of the South believed that the "Form of Government" under the Constitution had become destructive to their rights to "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Therefore, they had the right to change their government -- to secede. And the North had no right to try to prevent it.
The evidence is against this conclusion. The states all considered themselves to be soveriegn entities. The Treaty of Paris recognized each of them as a soveriegn entity.
Jefferson and Hamilton did agree on at least one thing. They agreed that states could not be forced to stay in the union against their will.
Oh crap. The Treaty of Paris mentions the United States 18 times. It mentions Virginia once. There is no question in the mind of the British who or what the entity that they were negotiating with was. The United States of America.
The distinction you draw is illusory. You appear to be saying that if the Confederacy had called their act a "Revolution", they would have been within their rights to leave the union, but since they called it "Secession", they had no such right.
Surely this is putting form over substance. Surely you cannot justify fighting a long and bloody war over a word. This is absolutely absurd.
Take, for instance the Tennessee Ordinance of Secession. It reads in part,
"We, the people of the State of Tennessee, waiving any expression of opinion as to the abstract doctrine of secession, but asserting the right, as a free and independent people, to alter, reform, or abolish our form of government in such manner as we think proper, do ordain and declare that all the laws and ordinances by which the State of Tennessee became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America are hereby abrogated and annulled, and that all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of said laws and ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the United States, and to absolve ourselves from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred thereto; and do hereby henceforth become a free, sovereign, and independent State."
According to the theory you set forth above, Tennessee had the right to leave the union.
While South Carolina did not because their ordinance read:
We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved.
This appears to be an arbitrary distinction.
Article I of the Paris Peace Treaty Reads:
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof. (emphasis added)
This speaks of prudence. A virtue to be sure. But not a requirement. Remember that the sentence before that said,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Surely the people have the right to decide when the form of government has become destructive to those ends. The people of the South decided that the United States government had become destructive to their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. While you may not think they acted prudently, it is not for you to decide. Nor was it for Mr. Lincoln to decide.
Secession, as Calhoun invented it, simply said they could walk away for any reason or no reason. The Declaration made it perfectly clear that breaking established ties was a last resort, under "Nature's Law," not man's law, and only when faced with intolorable oppression and after failure of government to address their grivences. Did the Confederacy even meet one of those conditions?
Again, you confuse what Jefferson said was a prudent course with the only acceptable course. Read what the Declaration says again. It describes the right and then says that prudence will keep people from exercising it "for light and transient causes". It does not say that they may not do so.
Remember, governments "deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed". The people of the South no longer consented. Therefore, the power to govern was no longer operative.
It was no such thing and the Framers would laugh at anyone who suggested it was.
Jefferson on secession: "If there be any among us who wish to dissolve this union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments to the safety which errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason ios left free to combat it."
Jefferson when Northern states threatened to secede: "If any state of the Union declares that it perfers separation to the continuance in the union, I have no hesitation in saying 'Let us separate'."
John Quincy Adams on Secession: After saying there may come a time when the states no longer agree, he says, "Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form a more perfect Union by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center."
I don't think they laughed at Jefferson or JQ Adams.
Wrong. Three states signed the Constitution but their agreement was conditional that Congress add a Bill of Rights to the Constitution. Congress did so in their first session, 14 amendments, 10 of which were approved by the states. Not one of those 3 states got all the amendments they asked for in their ratification documents, but none attempted to withdraw their approval. The 10 amendments that survived ratification satisfied the conditions in their ratification documents. The Congress upheld their end of the agreement so there was not right to rescind agreement or "secede" as the Calhoun fanatics later misinterpreted those conditions.
From Virginia's Ratification: "WE the Delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly, and now met in Convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us, to decide thereon, DO in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that 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, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will: that therefore no right of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified, by the Congress, by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any capacity, by the President or any department or officer of the United States, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes: and that among other essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by any authority of the United States."
New York's Ratification said: "That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness; "
Rhode Island's said: "That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness. "
As you can see, these did not say that the people could not dissolve the government if there was a Bill of Rights. These are unconditional statements that the people reserve this right.
Virginia cited their reservation of this right in their Oridnance of Secession.
It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, arch- treasurer and prince elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc., and of the United States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and friendship which they mutually wish to restore, and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse , between the two countries upon the ground of reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience as may promote and secure to both perpetual peace and harmony; and having for this desirable end already laid the foundation of peace and reconciliation by the Provisional Articles signed at Paris on the 30th of November 1782, by the commissioners empowered on each part, which articles were agreed to be inserted in and constitute the Treaty of Peace proposed to be concluded between the Crown of Great Britain and the said United States, but which treaty was not to be concluded until terms of peace should be agreed upon between Great Britain and France and his Britannic Majesty should be ready to conclude such treaty accordingly; and the treaty between Great Britain and France having since been concluded, his Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, in order to carry into full effect the Provisional Articles above mentioned, according to the tenor thereof, have constituted and appointed, that is to say his Britannic Majesty on his part, David Hartley, Esqr., member of the Parliament of Great Britain, and the said United States on their part, John Adams, Esqr., late a commissioner of the United States of America at the court of Versailles, late delegate in Congress from the state of Massachusetts, and chief justice of the said state, and minister plenipotentiary of the said United States to their high mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands; Benjamin Franklin, Esqr., late delegate in Congress from the state of Pennsylvania, president of the convention of the said state, and minister plenipotentiary from the United States of America at the court of Versailles; John Jay, Esqr., late president of Congress and chief justice of the state of New York, and minister plenipotentiary from the said United States at the court of Madrid; to be plenipotentiaries for the concluding and signing the present definitive treaty; who after having reciprocally communicated their respective full powers have agreed upon and confirmed the following articles.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like the treaty was with the United States of America. and not with the individual states.
If you read what you posted, you'll see that the phrase "the United States" is treated as a plural --indicating that the treaty was between Britian and a collection of individual states. This agrees with Article I which clearly says they are independent soveriegn states. You should also remember that "states" meant "nations" back then.
Nice try. But you'll have to grasp at another straw.
I agree with your comments on the framers. Southrons have always been supporters of the founding fathers.
The right to revolution is not a right to alter or abolish one's government any old time one pleases. The right to self-government can be legitimately claimed only by men willing to grant it to others. Southern secession/revolution was illegitimate because it was a claim to exercise the sovereignty of a self-governing community -- to alter a fundamental political order -- precisely in order to avoid granting the right of self-government to others.
The Declaration is absolutely clear that revolutionary alteration or abolition of government is a profoundly serious act, justified ONLY by the honest judgment that the current government has manifested an undeniable resolve to tyrannize over a people. Tyranny is defined, in the Declaration, as a government which has become destructive of the rights government is instituted among men to secure, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rights which follow from men's equality before the Creator.
It is either naive or intentionally misleading to interpret the Declaration as declaring an absolute right to change governments at pleasure. It declares a right to change them, as a profoundly serious measure, when such a step is the only means remaining by which to secure the rights that are due to all men because of their equality.
It is no accident, in my opinion, that the Southern states do not make such a claim, having as they did no conceivable right to appeal to the rights of man, in order to alter their government to secure the right to own slaves.
It is simply a fallacy, a cheat of reason, to attempt to substitute the arbitrary right to change government for the right of revolution articulated in the Declaration. The South Carolina assertion of a right to leave the Union is a lawyers claim, presuming that acts of ratification are revocable at pleasure. The Tennessee document assumes that the right of revolution requires no defense in natural law, such as the Declaration clearly demands. Neither document, as quoted, offers any reason for the step taken. Neither was justified or licit. I would distinguish between them only by saying that South Carolina claims a non-existent legal right to alter the national government by departure, while the Tennessee document invokes the genuinely extra-legal right to revolution but omits to make a claim in justice to support such invocation, which is the whole point to the Declaration. Neither is, finally, more than acts of political will in the service of passion, as is clear from their careful avoidance of any REASON for the action taken.
"between the two countries"
The question of how and when and why, etc., the dual sovereignty of national and state communities was understood at the beginning is really fascinating -- it's too bad we have to be thinking about it almost exlusively in this silly argument. The United States is/are one and many, in its fundamental character as a sovereign entity, and we will never understand the mind of our Founders on this point if we keep snatching places where it is treated as one or as many and treating them as settling the matter.
The secessionists HAVE to win the argument if they wish to justify Southern actions of 1860-61. Because if there was any genuine national sovereignty, then its rupture except by action of the whole people was rebellion, or revolution. And if it was revolution, it requires justification according to the laws of nature and of nature's God -- which laws the Southern cause finds extremely awkward to invoke.
Then how do you explain this?
"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin." (Emphasis added; From the opening paragraphs of the Mississippi Declaration of Secession.)
Most of the people in the Southern Confederacy did not own slaves.
Roughly 1/3 of Southern white families were slaveholders. They were the richest people in the South and called most of the shots for the Confederacy. They also went to great lengths to try to convince the poor, nonslaveholding white Southerners that if negroes were free they would threaten the poor whites' social status and have sex with their daughters and sisters.
Secondly, he did not "push through" the 13th Amendment. He was killed before he could do any "pushing".
The Thirteenth Amendment was passed easily by the Senate on April 8, 1864, but it took a great deal of arm twisting by Lincoln to get enough Democrats in the House to pass it by the required 2/3 majority on January 31, 1865. (Source; see also McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 839.) John Wilkes Booth and his fellow Confederate conspirators saw to it that Lincoln did not live long enough to see it ratified by 3/4 of the states, but Lincoln's everlasting moral presence made that a mere formality which culminated on December 6, 1865.
As a hypothetical question, suppose secession was legitimate. Now, which branch or officer of the federal government would officially "certify" or notice this fact? Is the President supposed to be the one to decide? What if there is dispute in the "seceeding" state about the legitimacy of the action -- say, if a strong minority opposing secession claims the vote or convention was rigged -- is the President the judge of this? The Congress?
The question of the President's authority to determine that a state has left the Union is not a trivial one. It is difficult for me to understand how one can defend the claim that the President of the United States is supposed to abandon his oath to enforce federal law as soon as he decides that a state convention or referendum, having no explicit Constitutional standing at all, informs him that he should. It seems to me that at the very least he should await the confirmation of the Congress, as in the admission of new states. But that, at least, is a procedure which is defined in the Constitution.
Overall, it seems to me quite Constitutionally daring to suggest that the President can, on his own authority, recognize a secession without the Congress certifying it. But, of course, Congressional "certification" of secession is quite close to federal approval of secession. So I wonder what account secessionists give of how, actually, the federal government is intended by the Constitution to officially "notice" a secession?
In the absence of a clear answer to this question, it seems to me that the President had better keep enforcing federal law -- that, at least, is certainly his job.
Of course, who am I to quibble . . .
Different strokes for different folks.
This is, if you will excuse my saying so, an out of context snip. Are you quoting from your copy of the speech?
DiLorenzo quotes the same passage in his book, falsely suggesting that it supports a "right to secede." I wonder how many defenders of secession have ever - ever - even seen Adam's speech, much less read it.
First of all, he is speaking of a dissolution of the Union, not the secession of a state from it. In the preceding paragraph, he has said that the people of every state of the union possess "the same right . . . with reference to the General Government, which was exercised by the people of the United Colonies, with reference to the Supreme head of the British empire of which they formed a part." But he has made it completely clear that he is speaking of the right of revolution: "To the people alone is there reserved, as well the dissolving, as the constituent power, and that power can be exercised by them only under the tie of conscience, binding them to the retributive justice of Heaven."
Second, on the immediately preceeding page, Adams says this:
In the calm hours of self-possession, the right of a State to nullify an act of Congress, is too absurd for argument, and too odious for discussion. The right of a state to secede from the Union, is equally disowned by the principles of the Declaration of Independence."
I would be stunned if any of the authors who defend secession by quoting this one paragraph from one page of a 120 page speech by one the strongest defenders of national union in our history have ever read the entire speech. I had some trouble finding a copy -- it was published in 1839, and never, that I can find, reprinted until 1999, and Amazon has a five week wait to ship it. I don't think it's because of demand! Used copies of the reprint are non-existent, and of the 1839 issue are very expensive (I got one for $25 without a cover -- the next one was $60 and then up to $1000.)
I would love to ask DiLorenzo about his copy. I bet he's never laid eyes on it. His quotation from it in the book omits a key clause, without which the whole quotation is ungrammatical.
Sorry to go on about this. But this snip from a 163 year old speech that no one actually has or has read, contradicted (in its supposed meaning) on the facing page, is a kind of new low of secessionist "research."
DiLorenzo cites this one too, and then claims, as you do, that it is a defense of the right of states to secede, not of the advisibility of letting people say false things.
But what about this part: "or to change its republican form"?
Isn't it absolutely ironclad obvious that if you read this clip as defending the right to secede, you have to read it also as defending a right to "change" the "republican form" of the Union? BOTH are in the same SENTENCE, and those who assert BOTH are to be "let stand undisturbed." But it is absurd to say that Jefferson is defending the "right" to change the republican form of the Union! Nothing more impossible could be maintained (strong claim, but hey, this is Jefferson) than that President Jefferson, in his first inaugural, proclaimed the right to change the republican form of the Union. The Constitution commits the federal government explicitly to maintaining republican government in the states, and Jefferson would understand the alternative to republican forms to be monarchical, or tyrannical forms.
If he is defending the "right" to dissolve the union (not a secession, by the way, but a dissolution of the Union), then he is also defending a "right" to change its republican form of government.
How can people cite texts like this? I really don't understand. The really weird DiLorenzo quotes are not the ones he makes up, or lies about, but the self-refuting ones he leads with. This text is his exhibit A in the chapter on secession. Go figure.
There is a huge difference in the weight that is given to a Supreme Court decision and that given a decision of a single judge in a single circuit court. And note that in Ex parte Milligan not a single Justice (not even the Democratic appointees) took issue with Lincoln's 1861 suspension of habeas corpus or his refusal to abide by Justice Taney's decision in Merryman.
Could the Court or Legislature order the arrest of Lincoln, or in any way force him to abide by that decision?
Had they objected to his actions, Congress could have threaten to impeach him and/or cut off all funding for military activities they did not approve of (eg. detaining suspected traitors without indictment). The Chief Justice would of course have presided over such impeachment proceedings (and something tells me he would not have been as fairhanded to Lincoln as Rehnquist was to Clinton). Theoretically, the Supreme Court could also raise an army of federal marshals to try to arrest a President for contempt.
...if Lincoln objected to Taney's decision, the burden was on Lincoln to challenge it.
He did challenge it by retaining the arrestees in custody. Refusing to obey a court's decision is always one option available for challenging that decision (albeit a risky one). That puts the burden on the other side to seek an order to arrest you for contempt of court. For some reason that did not occur in Merryman. It may be that Merryman chose to use the threat of a contempt of court citation as a bargaining chip to secure his evential release when things cooled down a little. In fact, he apparently was indeed released from military custody after seven weeks and then indicted in the circuit court -- though his case never came to trial because his conviction by a Maryland jury was unlikely. (See McPherson, Battle Cry, p. 289.)
...once the Confederacy had seceded I would not expect a Northern legislature to protest Lincoln's actions.
Nor would I, though they (and eventually the Supreme Court) did refuse to give Lincoln all the authority he sought with respect to military tribunals, as the Milligan case reveals.
Ex post facto legislation is prohibited.
I do not believe that a Congressional bill/resolution to approve of a Presidential suspension of habeas corpus protection would run afoul of the ex post facto restriction, but I'll try to take a look at the "Prize Cases" when I get a chance.
Thanks for raising some interesting issues.
Article IV provides that "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several states." Note also the Full Faith and Credit clause of Art. IV, Section 1. In light of these provisions, it was only by preserving every state's membership in the Union that President Lincoln would be able to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States".
Unionists in the Confederate states were being persecuted for their loyalties to the U.S. and denied by the Confederates the opportunity to vote in U.S. elections, conduct interstate commerce, have debts to them recognized in all states, travel between states freely, etc. Lincoln had a Constitutional duty to attempt to relieve them of this persecution and restore their privileges and immunities as U.S. citizens.
He did things that were clearly unconstitutional.
Name one (and be sure to cite a U.S. Supreme Court decision, since the Supreme Court is the highest Constitutionally designated judicial authority in the U.S.)
Clearly the right to secession is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
Lincoln most emphatically agreed that a right to revolution did exist, but persuasively argued that the Confederates' stated reason for seceding (i.e. to preserve slavery) was not a grievance which justifies revolution under the principles expressed in the Declaration.
Habeas Corpus is the writ that gets people in front of the court. By suspending Habeas Corpus, Lincoln made sure no cases would reach the court.
No, habeas corpus is the writ privilege which requires the government to obtain an indictment for an arrest. Anyone within the jurisdiction of the United States can obtain access to a federal court at any time, even when they are detained without an indictment.
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