Posted on 09/30/2003 12:19:22 PM PDT by sheltonmac
The South's unconditional surrender in 1865 apparently was unacceptable to today's Neo-Confederates.
They'd like to rewrite history, demonizing Abraham Lincoln and the federal government that forced them to remain in the awful United States against their will.
On top of that, now they are opposing the U.S. Navy's plan to bury the crew of the CSS H.L. Hunley under the American flag next year.
The Hunley was the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. In 1863, it rammed and fatally damaged the Union warship USS Housatonic with a fixed torpedo, but then the manually driven sub sank on its way home, killing its eight-man crew.
It might have been a lucky shot from the Housatonic, leaks caused by the torpedo explosion, an accidental strike by another Union ship, malfunction of its snorkel valves, damage to its steering planes or getting stuck in the mud.
In any case, the Navy found and raised its remains and plans a full-dress military funeral and burial service on April 17, 2004, in Charleston, S.C. The four-mile funeral procession is expected to draw 10,000 to 20,000 people, many in period costume or Confederate battle dress.
But the Sons of Confederate Veterans, generally a moderate group that works diligently to preserve Southern history and heritage, has a radical wing that is salivating with anger.
One Texas Confederate has drawn 1,600 signatures on a petition saying "the flag of their eternal enemy, the United States of America," must not fly over the Hunley crew's funeral.
To their credit, the funeral's organizers will leave the U.S. flag flying.
After all, the search and preservation of the Hunley artifacts, as well as the funeral itself, were paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
Also, the Hunley crew was born under the Stars and Stripes. The Confederacy was never an internationally recognized nation, so the crewmen also died as citizens of the United States.
They were in rebellion, but they were still Americans.
This whole issue is an insult to all Southerners who fought under the U.S. flag before and since the Civil War.
But it isn't the only outrage by rabid secessionists.
They are also opposing the placement of a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Richmond, Va., the Confederate capital.
According to an article by Bob Moser and published in the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine "Intelligence Report," which monitors right-wing and hate groups, the U.S. Historical Society announced it was donating a statue of Lincoln to Richmond.
Lincoln visited that city in April 1865 to begin healing the wounds caused by the war.
The proposed life-sized statue has Lincoln resting on a bench, looking sad, his arm around his 12-year-old son, Tad. The base of the statue has a quote from his second inaugural address.
However, the League of the South and the Sons of Confederate Veterans raised a stink, calling Lincoln a tyrant and war criminal. Neo-Confederates are trying to make Lincoln "a figure few history students would recognize: a racist dictator who trashed the Constitution and turned the USA into an imperialist welfare state," Moser's article says.
White supremacist groups have jumped onto the bandwagon. Their motto is "Taking America back starts with taking Lincoln down."
Actually, if it weren't for the forgiving nature of Lincoln, Richmond would be a smoking hole in the ground and hundreds of Confederate leaders -- including Jefferson Davis -- would be hanging from trees from Fredericksburg, Va., to Atlanta.
Robert E. Lee said, "I surrendered as much to Lincoln's goodness as I did to Grant's armies."
Revisionist history to suit a political agenda is as intellectually abhorrent as whitewashing slavery itself. It's racism under a different flag. While it's not a criminal offense, it is a crime against truth and history.
I'm not talking about re-enactors here. These folks just want to live history. But the Neo-Confederate movement is a disguised attempt to change history.
In the end, the Confederacy was out-fought, out-lasted, eventually out-generaled and totally over-matched. It was a criminal idea to start with, and its success would have changed the course of modern history for the worse.
Coming to that realization cost this nation half a million lives.
So I hope that all Neo-Confederates -- 140 years after the fact -- can finally get out of their racist, twisted, angry time machine and join us here in 2003.
BINGO.
Wrong again. The Militia Act states that it is only applicable “in any state” of the union which is subject to the laws of the United States – which would quite obviously not include any State that had retired from the union. And it nowhere mentions secession.
By the way, the Militia Act must have been “made in pursuance” of some specific provision of the Constitution, or the “supremacy clause” you cited would be completely irrelevant. Care to name the clause, and show us how it supposedly prohibits the formal withdrawal of a State from the union?
;>)
WIJG: ...show which specific clause of “this Constitution” expressly prohibits State secession...
WP: Show which clause expressly allows it.
The Tenth Amendment reserves ALL powers not delegated or prohibited by the Constitution, to the individual States or their people. Since you can show no constitutional delegation or prohibition of the power of secession, that power is therefore reserved.
;>)
The Supreme Court referred to the secessionists as traitors.
And under the terms of the federal Sedition Act, Supreme Court justices tried, convicted, and sentenced American citizens simply for criticizing the president. The judges of the high court may be well intentioned (or not ;>), but they are certainly not infallible - no matter what you may believe.
All your blue smoke and mirrors won't make secession legal under U.S. law.
I’m still waiting for you to cite a federal law that prohibited secession in 1861, “made in pursuance” of some specific clause of the Constitution. Or are you referring to some kind of ‘unwritten law?’ Where do you find your ‘unwritten laws:’ written in “blue smoke” on your magical “mirrors?”
;>)
The federal government belongs to all the people.
Really?
”The Constitution simply does not recognize any mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, 'U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton', 1995
As I said, judges are not infallible. In this case, however, a judge adopted an impregnable position, built on a mountain of documented, historical fact. But by all means, feel free to prove Mr. Justice Thomas wrong...
;>)
Thanks for proving my point. Because secession was legal, the Confederates had every right to remove foreign trespassers from Confederate soil in Charleston harbor.
;>)
That's not what you said in 682.
Bingo my ass. Wishful thinking and tortured twisting is more like it.
I think that the fact that Lincoln never endorsed forced deportation, never proposed forced deportation, never enacted forced deportation are all indications that he did put a stop to it.
Now, can we assume that since President Bush has not spoken out against your scheme to forcibly deport every muslim in the country is an indication that he approves it?
N-S, if one of your subordinates did the same in your name, and you did NOT disavow it, would that mean you supported it or disagreed with the policy?
Are you suggesting that legal precedent 'trumps' the specific written terms of the Constitution? Which is the “supreme law of the land:” judicial ‘opinion’ or the Constitution?
As you well know, the Constitution is absolutely silent on the issue of secession. Therefore, it is within the jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court to interpret the original intenet of the Founders.
As Mr. Justice Thomas noted:
“[W]here the Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by the States or the people.”
Mr. Thomas’ position is logical, historically consistent, and entirely in keeping with the written terms of the Constitution. Your position is not.
John Taylor observed that the power to interpret the Constitution could not possibly be separated from the power to amend it, or the power of amendment would be completely nullified. Think about it: if the Constitution was amended to require that certain crimes be punished by death, but such punishment was subsequently ‘interpreted’ to be unconstitutional (despite the clear language of the amendment), the power of amendment would be utterly destroyed. If you think such a case is unrealistic, consider this: Mr. Justice Scalia has noted recently that there are already three or four high court justices who consider the death penalty to be unconstitutional, despite direct and indisputable references in the Constitution itself to capital punishment.
The Constitution is absolutely clear regarding the power of amendment: only the States, and not the federal government, may amend the compact. The Constitution says absolutely nothing regarding interpretation of the Constitution. Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson, and many others as well, insisted that the States retained the right to interpret the Constitution, “in the last resort.” That position is both logical and consistent with the history of the early Republic.
(1) The states could have proposed and tried to pass secession legislation in the US Congress. This would have provided a framework within which a State could leave the Union with the consent of the other States.
Why were a “framework” or “consent” required?
(2) The secessionists could have tried to pass a Constitutional Amendment that dealt with the issue (2/3rds approval by each House of congress and ratification of 3/4ths of the States)...
(3) The secessionists could have attempted to call a Constitutional Convention for the purpose of proposing a secession amendment...
Which clause of the Constitution do you suggest they should have amended? Please be specific.
...or even dissolving the Union.
Secession did not require the dissolution of the union: there was nothing preventing the ‘rump’ States from retaining their preferred form of government.
(4) The secessionists could have passed within their State(s) secession resolutions and sued in Federal Court to enforce the resolutions.
Do you suggest that States routinely file suit in federal court regarding matters that are not prohibited by federal law? In any case, the court would not be under any obligation to hear the case, as the Southern States discovered shortly after the war:
”In Mississippi v. President Andrew Johnson, where the suit sought to enjoin the President of the United States from enforcing provisions of the Reconstruction Acts, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the President could not be adjoined because for the Judicial Department of the government to attempt to enforce the performance of the duties of the President might be justly characterized, in the language of Chief Justice Marshall, as ‘an absurd and excessive extravagance.’ The Court further said that if it granted the injunction against the enforcement of the Reconstruction Acts, and if the President refused obedience, it was needless to observe that the Court was without power to enforce its process.
”In a joint action, the states of Georgia and Mississippi brought suit against the President and the Secretary of War. The Court said: The bill then sets forth that the intent and design of the Acts of Congress, as apparent on their face and by their terms, are to overthrow and annul this existing state government, and to erect another and different government in its place, unauthorized by the Constitution and in defiance of its guaranties; and that, in furtherance of this intent and design, the defendants, the Secretary of War, the General of the Army, and Major General Pope, acting under orders of the President, are about setting in motion a portion of the army to take military possession of the state, and threaten to subvert her government and subject her people to military rule; that the state is holding inadequate means to resist the power and force of the Executive Department of the United States; and she therefore insists that such protection can, and ought to be afforded by a decree or order of this court in the premises.
”The applications for injunction by these two states to prohibit the Executive Department from carrying out the provisions of the Reconstruction Acts directed to the overthrow of their government, including this dissolution of their state Legislatures, were denied on the grounds that the organization of the government into three great departments -- the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial -- carried limitations of the powers of each by the Constitution. This case went the same way as the previous case of Mississippi against President Johnson and was dismissed without adjudicating upon the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts.”
Looks like, from time to time, the judicial ‘watchdog’ simply refuses to leave his ‘dog house.'
(5) The secessionist states could have tried negotiating their exit(s), possibly "buying" their way out or entering into treaty-like agreements with the remainder of the Union.
The Southern secessionist States did none of these things. They did not even attempt to do these things.
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the history of Confederate attempts to negotiate with the union government:
From the letter by Jefferson Davis to the President of the United States, February 27, 1861:
“For the purpose of establishing friendly relations between the Confederate States and the United States, and reposing special trust, &c., Martin J. Crawford, John Forsyth, and A. B. Roman are appointed special commissioners of the Confederate States to the United States. I have invested them with full and all manner of power and authority for and in the name of the Confederate States to meet and confer with any person or persons duly authorized by the Government of the United States being furnished with like powers and authority, and with them to agree, treat, consult, and negotiate of and concerning all matters and subjects interesting to both nations, and to conclude and sign a treaty or treaties, convention or conventions, touching the premises, transmitting the same to the President of the Confederate States for his final ratification by and with the consent of the Congress of the Confederate States. “
“[A]ll matters and subjects interesting to both nations” would seem to cover just about everything.
From the letter by Crawford & Forsyth to the U.S. Secretary of State, dated March 12, 1861:
”With a view to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of this political separation, upon such terms of amity and good will as the respective interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare of the two nations may render necessary, the undersigned are instructed to make to the Government of the United States overtures for the opening of negotiations, assuring the Government of the United States that the President, Congress, and people of the Confederate States earnestly desire a peaceful solution of these great questions; that it is neither their interest nor their wish to make any demand which is not founded in strictest justice, nor do any act to injure their late confederates.”
“[A]ll questions growing out of this political separation” would seem to allow quite a degree of latitude in terms of negotiations, don’t you agree?
And now for the union response, dated March 15, 1861:
”...the Secretary of State, whose official duties are confined, subject to the direction of the President, to the conducting of the foreign relations of the country, and do not at all embrace domestic questions, or questions arising between the several States and the Federal Government, is unable to comply with the request of Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, to appoint a day on which they may present the evidences of their authority and the objects of their visit to the President of the United States. On the contrary, he is obliged to state to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford that he has no authority, nor is he at liberty, to recognize them as diplomatic agents, or hold correspondence or other communication with them.”
‘It takes two to tango,’ and only one was interested.
They chose revolution instead.
Actually, they chose secession, which was long recognized as something completely different than “revolution.” As the man who prosecuted the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion noted:
”If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth to subdue it [on the application of the constituted authorities of each state].
”Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the, express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code...
”The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so construed. It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.
”The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union...
”The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state... But in any manner by which a secession is to take place, nothing is more certain than that the act should be deliberate, clear, and unequivocal. The perspicuity and solemnity of the original obligation require correspondent qualities in its dissolution. The powers of the general government cannot be defeated or impaired by an ambiguous or implied secession on the part of the state, although a secession may perhaps be conditional. The people of the state may have some reasons to complain in respect to acts of the general government, they may in such cases invest some of their own officers with the power of negotiation, and may declare an absolute secession in case of their failure. Still, however, the secession must in such case be distinctly and peremptorily declared to take place on that event, and in such case — as in the case of an unconditional secession, — the previous ligament with the Union, would be legitimately and fairly destroyed. But in either case the people is the only moving power.”
William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, 1825
Rawle was the United States Attorney for Pennsylvania, and a friend of Washington and Franklin. The text book quoted above, by the way, was used to teach constitutional law at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Clearly, secession should not be confused with rebellion or revolution.
;>)
Are suggesting that the Constitution 'delegates' to the federal government the power to expel a State? Or perhaps that the Constitution explicitly 'prohibits' a State from "expelling" itself? If neither, then perhaps you should read Amendment X.
;>)
Justice Clarence Thomas, 'U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton', 1995
As I said, judges are not infallible. In this case, however, a judge adopted an impregnable position, built on a mountain of documented, historical fact. But by all means, feel free to prove Mr. Justice Thomas wrong...
Thomas's was the dissenting opinion, so his view doesn't have the status of law. Even if we accept Justice Thomas's view, it doesn't follow that secession was justified or legal. For if there is no "mechanism for action by the undifferentiated people of the Nation," there most assuredly are other "mechanisms" or institutions of self-government on the national level: Congress, the Electoral College, the Presidency. Justice Thomas's argument does not affect the legitimacy of these institutions or elevate "state's rights" above them. He can make the case that Arkansas voters have the right to impose term limits on their representatives, but it's not a case for nullification or secession. The supremacy clause of the Constitution makes unilateral secession an impossibility.
Can "the states" dissolve the union through the amendment process? The union could be dissolved by such a process, but for the process to be successful, it has to reflect more than the will of "the states." By virtue of calling a national convention and having its resolutions ratified by popular conventions in 3/4 of the states, the process has become a national one, and reflects a national consensus. The founders did not simply allow states to opt out of the union. Nor did they allow state legislatures the option of dissolving the confederation on their own. They required that Constitutional changes reflect something approaching a national consensus.
In their wisdom, the founders avoided a centralized national model and allowed much leeway to the states. To assume that this meant absolute sovereignty for the states is to fall into another mistake which they also wished to avoid after the crises of the 1780s.
Ships under construction were regularly inspected, and any found fitted out for the slave trade were seized, but there were southern interests represented in NY who still had them built. No slave ship ever sailed with the a promise guaranteed profits for bringing slaves in the south, and as you have well documented, the south continued to illegally import slaves all the way up to the Civil War, and even after for prostitution in cities like New Orleans.
Mondale?????
Well, I won't knock you for that, but you still quote Wilson chapter line and verse. Why do you hold so dearly to the basic tenets of the Democratic Party? You should know that the primary reason Wilson implemented the IRS was to eliminate tariffs and vice versa. It was done under the basic Free Trade mantra of Gladstone, Jefferson Davis and Grover Cleveland. A fine situtation this country would be in, just exported farm produce. Get a grip Democrat boy.
I know, it was poured into your head as a child and you have no control over it, but still, you should try.
Wrong again. The Militia Act states that it is only applicable “in any state” of the union which is subject to the laws of the United States – which would quite obviously not include any State that had retired from the union.
No state has been out of the Union for an instant.
A state would have to fight its way out, and no state or group of states has been able to muster the power for that.
Ever.
Walt
Secession contained no right to steal and welch on contractual arrangements. It's not the smae thing as bankruptcy, even if, it did bankrupt the south even more than it was already. A common thief is common thief no matter where he is or who he claims to be.
There is nothing that prevents it. According to Ariticle IV Congress can create a state. In fact according to the Constitution only congress has a role in creating a state, not the President, not the courts, not even the people of the state itself. So where does it say that Congress can't uncreate one?
Did what? Mitchell wrote a proposal and submitted it to the President. It was internal to the administration. Had he submitted the proposal to Congress then one might say that he was acting in the President's name. But he addressed the proposal to the President alone. Since none of the features of the proposal were adopted then it's pretty clear that they did not meet with the Presidents approval.
Turn it right-side up and re-read it. That's not how it works.
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