3 major U.S. Civil War movies due in 2003: Could Rebel Flag Revival Follow? (My Title)

I believe the South was goaded to secede to achieve that very end. Soon after the War the various amendments were passed and the States "voluntarily" ceded sovereignty to the central government.

You mean the 14th amendment, don't you Joe?

All you neo-rebs hate equal rights.

That's the basis for your whole hateful rant.

I said this the other day, and I think it an interpretation amply supported in the record.

The framers soft-pedaled the permanence and power of the Union. They euphemized it. That is why we are having this "discussion" now. Had they added language that said: "The states are absolutely subbservient" to the national union (although I refer you to the supremacy clause), that would have freaked people out. But we know that --enough people did adopt this view-- to preserve the Union. That view permeated the views of enough people so that when push came to shove, the slave power's revolution was thrown down.

Don't ya just hate it?

Walt

Your reading comprehension skills are a litle amiss it seems. What part of the term "freeport" did you not grasp? The Southern Ports, being tariff free would not add to shipping costs. The South had free ports, which scared the North, as they would have to lower their tariffs to compete.

My reading comprehension is fine, I'm having problems following the logic behind your arguements is all.

In the first place your idea of a duty free south is wrong. At the time tariffs were virtually the only source of government revenue and the south was faced with the need to fund, among other things, the huge army that they had authorized. So a tariff of some sort was a requirement and the confederate government, in fact, instituted one in May 1860. It was on a sliding scale from 25% on down to 5%.

But let's assume for a moment that there was no confederate tariff. Then what? What affect would that have had on the North? Import demand in the Northern states would most likely have remained the same so the goods would still have had to come in and they would have still come in at Boston or New York or Philadelphia, why wouldn't they? The Northern tariff would have been applied as soon as they crossed the border of the United States. So shipping goods destined for Illinois through Savannah or New Orleans would have meant nothing. They would have had to pass through a customs point sooner or later. The idea of a southern freeport undercutting Northern tariff is ridiculous.

But what about income from southern imports? A non-issue. There was little demand in the south for products covered by the tariff. The most effective indicator of this is the fact that about 95% of all tariff income was collected at three Northern ports. If the southern demand for imported goods was so high then why weren't those goods shipped directly to them?

As slavery would have became obsolete and out of step, the conflcit between the power hungry Federal government and the sovereignty of the States would have broken out over any number of other issues, for example the NWO scam of the central bank and income taxes in 1913 may have triggered secession, or just the continuing divergence of the two cultures would have precipitated going separate ways.

Then why didn't it?

Once the breach occurred, the offended States were no longer under obligation to stay in the Union, since the terms had been unilaterally changed, simple contract law, common sense stuff.

I would disagree that a breach occured. Return of runaway slaves was the law and was enforced to the best of its ability by the federal government and, to varying degrees, by the individual state governments. I think that where the southern states had issue was the idea that the runaway slaves had access to the legal system to fight their return to bondage.

If simply relocating your factory south of the border (as is happening now with Mexico)would give you a competitve manufacturing edge over your tariff ridden competitors eventually the northern businesses would lobby away the northern tariff, relocate, or perish.

Your logic seems non-existent, (normal for a Communist Dictator), because you are ignoring the conditions of the times. Any Northern manufacturer locating his factory down south would be shooting himself in the foot. The majority of his market was in the North so he just made his products liable for the Northern tariff. Southern railroad networks were poor and designed to get cotton to the ports, not goods up North. There was no supply of cheap labor from immigrants like there was up North. Your Northern manufacturer just bankrupted himself with your crazy scheme.

Regarding breach of contract

The Supreme Court upheld the fugitive slave law, the federal government spent thousands of dollars in enforcing it, and Lincoln pledged to continue enforcing it. No breach of contract at all.

Walt, OK let us assume for the moment, that the States transferred sovereignty to the Federal government.

Let's don't assume. Let's check the record:

"Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a state to govern themeselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is likewise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner. By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national Government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc."

Chief Justice John Jay, 1793

He used the same word you did.

However the only things transferred to the Federal government were " expressed".

That's not true either.

Let's check the record again:

"The subject is the execution of those great powers on which the welfare of the nation essentially depends. It must have been the intention of those who gave these powers, to insure, their beneficial execution. This could not be done by confining the choice of means to such narrow limits as not to leave it in the power of congress to adopt any which might be appropriate, and which were conclusive to the end. " --John Marshall, Chief Justice, writing in McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

So much for expressed powers.

BUT ODDLY ENOUGH -- Jefferson Davis seems to have had a copy of Mccullough in his back pocket!

"In reply Jefferson Davis donned the mantle of Hamilton. The Confederate Constitution, he pointed out to Brown, gave Congress the power "to raise and support armies" and to "provide for the common defense." It also contained another clause (likewise copied from the U.S. Constitution) empowering Congress to make all laws "necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers." Brown had denied the constitutionality of conscription because the Constitution did not specifically authorize it. This was good Jeffersonian doctrine, sanctified by generations of southern strict constructionists. But in Hamiltonian language, Davis insisted that the "necessary and proper" clause legitimized conscription. No one could doubt the necessity "when our very existance is threatened by armies vastly superior in numbers." Therefore "the true and only test is to enquire whether the law is intended and calculated to carry out the object...if the answer be in the affirmative, the law is constitutional."

--Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson P.433

He didn't care about expressed powers either.

Let's put the cherry on top:

"That the United States form, for many, and for most important purposes, a single nation, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people. In making peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same people. In many other respects, the American people are one; and the government which is alone capable of controlling and managing their interests in all these respects, is the government of the Union. It is their government and in that character, they have no other. America has chosen to be, in many respects, and in many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete; to all these objects it is competent. The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory.

The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of of the United States are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empire--for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate."

--Chief Justice John Marshall, writing the majority opinion, Cohens v. Virginia 1821

The Militia Act of 1792 requires that United States law operate in all the states. Is that well enough expressed for you?

Walt

I do not believe that Whiskey Rebellion was a State sanctioned movement, as was with formal secession.

Two of the ring leaders were convicted of treason against the United States.

The federal government is supreme.

"The words of the Constitution are explicit that the Constitution & laws of the U. S. shall be supreme over the Constitution and laws of the several States; supreme in their exposition and execution as well as in their authority. Without a supremacy in those respects it would be like a scabbard in the hands of a soldier without a sword in it. The imagination itself is startled at the idea of twenty four independent expounders of a rule that cannot exist, but in a meaning and operation, the same for all."

-- James Madison

President Washington pardoned the two traitors.

Walt

So the clause, "those powers not expressly granted to the Federal Government are reserved to the States" must have been meaningless drivel?

Yes.

The supremacy clause says that the Constitution --and-- the "laws" are the supreme law of the land.

If Congress passes a law, as they did with the Militia Act, that is the supreme law of the land.

Also, Article one, section 8 gives the Congress the power to provide for the common defense and general welfare. That is general enough so that the 10th amendment never comes into play.

I'm sorry you adopted the attitudes you hold based on an incomplete knowledge of the record and inadequate analysis. But there it is.

In any case, the Supreme Court was calling this "one nation" in 1821. I guess the rebels were a bit slow on the uptake?

Also note that Jefferson Davis cited the same concepts I did. Could he possibly have been wrong in sugesting the central government was empowered by language --in-- the Constitution to coerce the states?

Walt

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