Posted on 07/10/2002 4:22:48 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
Murder isn't illegal under the Constitution. It's illegal under State Law.
Answer the question. Where is murder prohibited in the Constitution?
U.S. law requires that U.S. law operate in all the states.
Don't ya hate it?
Walt
Because those states had dissolved the institutions of the Federal government in their areas of control and engaged in war with the both federal authority and their fellow states. They were not "re-admitted" but instead "certified" by Congress to have re-established the proper laws, state constitutions, recognition of federal courts and other areas that brought them back into compliance with the constitution. They were never out of the Union from the standpoint of federal law, but they were out of conformity with the constitution and until they reestablished the US Constitution as their supreme law, they could not send representatives to congress.
Yes I have
The ninth does not talk of the States
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The tenth does talk of the States
Amendment X
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.
With the statment "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states" you must look an the Constitution in total to see what is delegated to the United States by the Constitution & prohibited by the Constitution to the states
That is in part the question on Article IV Section 4.
The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
What powers does Article IV Section 4 delegated to the United States?
To what level does the Constitution empower The United States to guarantee to every state in this union(and therfore the people of that state) a republican form of government?
If a state went communist (Hey I live in California it could happen) does the fed intervene, can I ask the fed to intervene, can other states demand the fed intervene?
Why don't you ask Tim McVeigh about that? Oooops.... too late. He was tried and convicted of murder in Federal Court! He never had a state court trial.
President Lincoln refused to even consider whether or not the so-called seceded states were ever out of the Union. He indicated it was immaterial, as they had found their way safely back into the Union of states. He had already vetoed harsh legislation that would have disenfranchised anyone ever in service of the so-called CSA. That was the Wade-Davis bill of 1864.
Instead he offered to recognize reorganized state governments where 10% of the voters would agree to new state constitutions. His position was that only high military and civilian officials of the so-called CSA not be allowed to vote. It was in a speech on the reorganized Louisiana government that he said he favored the franchise for black soldiers. It was this speech for which John Wilkes Booth vowed to kill him, which three days later, he did. As is well known, President Lincoln refused to sanction Secretary of War Stanton's plan to have treason trials for the leading confederates.
Without Lincoln's kind heart, great political acumen and steady hand, Congress was faced with a serious problem. If everything were left just as it was -- if it was assumed that nothing had changed after all the bloodletting brought on by the slave power, then the same (in some cases the exact same, as in the case of Alexander Stephens) people would occupy seats in the Congress. And the great progress seen during the war might abate. This is where the concept of re-admission of the states came from. When President Johnson tried to oppose the Congress he was impeached.
It is not for nothing that Winston Churchill referred to President Lincoln as the last protector of the prostrate south.
Walt
Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That until the people of said rebel States shall be by law admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil government which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the same;--Reconstruction Act of 1867
A claim for the immediate admission of senators and representatives from the socalled Confederate States has been urged, which seems to your committee not to be founded either in reason or in law, and which cannot be passed without comment. Stated in a few words, it amounts to this: That inasmuch as the lately insurgent States had no legal right to separate themselves from the Union, they still retain their positions as States, and consequently the people thereof have a right to immediate representation in Congress without the imposition of any conditions whatever. . . . It has even been contended that until such admission all legislation affecting their interests is, if not unconstitutional, at least unjustifiable and oppressive.---Report of the Joint Comittee on Reconstruction, June 20, 1866
Why don't you see if you can find some of this 'certification' you speak of. From documents above the rights that are inherent within these United States did not apply and were subjectable to military law. Sorry but no dice. They had to be readmitted into the union
There is no basis for that in the -record-. It is a fantasy you prefer to the truth.
George Washington, as president of the Constitutional Convention, in his letter to the Congress on 9/17/87, stated that it was the -unanimous- wish of the delegates to the CC that the Union be consolidated. It's in the record. You ignore it at your peril, if you wish to show that your mind is not stuck totally in concrete.
Walt
They were states and as such they did not need to be re-admitted to the Union. But Congress does have the authority, rightly or wrongly, to admit or not to admit members. Ask the Southern legislatures who refused to seat duly elected blacks representatives. Congress simply turned the game around on those states who used their black codes to disenfranchise black citizens.
They didn't 'surrender'. They were defeated --- decisively!
Hmmmmmmmmm....
Walt
Which Black Codes are you speaking of there Ditto? The ones up north? The ones in effect before, during, and after the War? Or the ones that appeared after the war in the South that mysteriously lasted all throughout military rule? You'd think that if these saviours from the north gave a d#mn about blacks, except to use them of course to stay in political power, they would have made sure some of those laws disappeared. But they didn't did they? Why? Because yankees could care less about the former slaves!! And you still haven't covered the military issue. If these states didn't need to be re-admitted into your all glorious union then they were already apart of it. Which meant the Third Amendment and Fourth Amendments had to apply. And that all laws and rights that applied to states, except representation somehow, would have been in effect which gasp...they weren't!! It wasn't a time of war those ten years. It was a time of military occupation!!
That's the ones. The ones that attempted to re-establish slavery which showed that the Southern slaveocracy still had no respect for the constitution and intended to piss all over the 13th amendment. It was those laws that lead directly to the 14th Amendment and reconstruction. Those black codes were overturned ---- blacks did vote and they did send representatives to congress and their state houses and the slavocracy responded by creating terrorist gangs such as the Klan. With the end of reconstruction, the black codes were revived in a little less harsh form --- Jim Crow, and in much of the South, blacks were again disenfranchised until the 1960s.
The context suggests that it was southerners avowing they had a right to be seated inasmuch as they were never out of the Union at all. Ouch.
That's how this have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too deal works, beaudreau.
If they were never out of the Union, then yes, they had a right to seat congresspersons. But I thought you said, and have said, and have maintained against all law, logic and common sense that they -were- out of the Union.
Can't have it both ways, slick.
Walt
Hey, wait a minute......
Walt
Of course they did, immediately after the War. However the Radical Republicans claimed they did not, they had to meet certain requirements before they had the right to seat Congressman, one of those requirements being told to vote a certain way on Amendments. Interesting isn't it that New Jersey and Oregon finally hit a breaking point and changed their vote only to have it not counted the second time around. Those Republicans had an agenda didn't they? Just ignoring Constitutional law and passing Amendments regardless.
The South saw that on the signing of the surrender papers they were back in the union. Until that time they were a separate nation.
Huh? What surrender papers did Jeff Davis or the CSA Congress ever sign?
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