Posted on 07/01/2003 6:12:02 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
In the days of the American War for Independence you would have been called a Tory because of your beliefs of who holds power. Thomas Jefferson said "This government is ruled by the People, no longer will the priviledged few ride booted and spurred over the backs of the many" (or something similar to this statement).
Your assertion that discretionary power rests in the hands of the Government is in direct contravention to the cornerstone of American beliefs (i.e. The DOI) ... you know ... '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 (meaning limited)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.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.'
Because Lincoln abused his authority to call up the Federal Army to forcibly keep the South in the Union, he invalidated the DOI as our cornerstone of uniquely American beliefs.
But since our laws are founded on English law, and Ancient Roman and Greek law ... if you would bother to research it, you would find out that the South had every right to secede (i.e. NATURAL LAW) and under articles 9 and 10 of the Bill of Rights, which was a prohibition on the Federal Government when written. Yes, the North won and forcibly repatriated the Southern States ... but it doesn't make what that government did right, or just, it only makes the supposed limited Federal Government the anti-thesis of what the Founders' intended. And don't try to sell me the horse crap about what the Supreme Court ruled in 1869 either. The bottom line is that in 1865 the Supreme Court became the tool of governmental policy rather than the arbiters of "equal protection under law". The Supreme Court Justices are human, and as such they have the human frailties of fear, and they wouldn't dare go against a government who appointed them, and had just ground the Southern people under their booted heel.
And your assertion about "We don't like this game, so we're taking our ball and going home" treason is crap, because the Founders intended for the People, thereby the States, to have the right of self-determination. And if the government, or the Northern merchants using the Federal Government as a tool of oppression against Southern economic interests, was indeed being abusive of that very right of self-determination ... then indeed the South was legitimate in its bid to withdraw from the Union, and to establish its own form of Government which would secure its economic prosperity ( i.e. Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness).
I would strongly suggest that you read 'A Constitutional History of Secession' by John Remington Graham (a Minnesota Lawyer) written in 2002.
Absolutely!! There were no charges brought, because there were no grounds. They held Jeff Davis for two years and WOULD NOT bring him to trial. Why?? Mr. Davis wanted to be tried, but they would not. Again why??? NO GROUNDS!
Oh. Our bad.
Yes. Of the People...All the people, in the free exercise of Democracy (Not just the half that lost. You do not shatter a country over the poor electoral results, te secessionists are like Sore Losermen, with their own armies FCOL), and even a cursory glance at the treasonous secessionist documents tells you, flat out, that it was simply "we dont like this so were taking our ball and going home..."
Like the DOI says, governments should not be changed ad hoc for transient causes....
There was no Long train of injuries and usurpations....the founding fathers spent more time cajoling, begging and pleading with england, than the south did whining about lincolns election.And Lincoln, two months into that term would hardly have had the opportunity to enjoin the same manner of desptism as King George had.
So, I would think that absent the Lincoln=King George axiom, the Founding Fathers would have seen it Abes way.
As history does.....
The Whole argument falls, because you cannot make the case that that is true, therefore the conditions existant when the DOI was brought forth are NON EXISTENT in this case.
Slavery and secession are not tied together. There are examples of slavery ending without secession; there are examples of secession without slavery. Unfortunately, our history books tie the two together in a nice story.
Examples of Secession
Here are some other talking points
Man, you really are short on the Southern cause, aren't you.
The nation almost saw war in 1828 when the Tariff of Abominations was enacted. Then President Jackson made a bold statement that he'd have to back up with force had those tariffs not been drastically cut. It would only postpone the inevetable. It was the passing of the Morrill Tariffs shorlty after Lincoln's inauguration which sharply increased those duties, and his intent to enforce that tariff that sparked the War of Northern Agression. Whether out of fear on the North's part that an industrialized South, with slave labor would harm the Northern industries, or providing a monitary source to fund Northern economic expansion, or as punitive to slave-holding states as a means to end slavery, or maybe a sum of all combined is moot because the increased tariffs only after Lincoln took office sparked the conflict.
Time after time in the previous decades to 1860, Southern state represenatives, along with some of the Northern states made pleas in Congress to establish a more fair and equally just duty assessment - without any progress. So, there were from the second decade to the sixth of "cajoling, begging and pleading" with the government to equally tax. That's about the same time span of oppression from England the assembled colonies suffered. That's upon the same cause the American Patriots of the 18th century made their stand.
Again, to define "treason" best is dependant upon which side of liberty one stands.
Read post 90.
The colonies did not "seceed" from GB. They rebelled against it. By any legal definition they were guilty of treason against the Crown, and they knew and accepted that fact. Secession is a legal question. Rebellion is always illegal even when justified or "legitimate". The south in 1860 made no attempt to justify rebellion on moral grounds as the colonies did in 1776. They made no attempt to have a legitimate secession process by gaining the agreement of the other parties to the constitution on the question of disolving the union. They simply rebelled thinking they could get away with it. They guessed wrong.
Well said and to the point! This country never has shown the Native Americans any Liberty!
Many? How many is "many'? I only recall one who said that after the war, not in 1860. Advocating abolition could get you killed in many areas of the south back then.
Fight or flight? Which do you think is better? And when do you think the next war will begin?
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