Southern Secession

And that they are no longer states, so they do not need continue to support the Constitution.

 

Damn... The "oath" only applies to states. By your logic, the oath taken by a soldier, doesn't retire when he does. For that matter: soldiers are supposed to be loyal to their units; so wouldn't that mean that they shouldn't be allowed to choose to retire, since that wouldn't acting loyally? You are using the ridiculous, circular thinking, I chided Grey Matter about:

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/southern-secession.611805/page-30#post-1074332212

The President takes an oath of office. It applies while he's in office, only. Policemen take an oath, which applies only as long as they remain policemen. Congressmen take an oath, which expires whenever they leave office. Are you catching on, yet, that your idea about "how oaths work," was wrong? Or should I keep giving examples?
"To love, honor, and cherish, till death do you part"-- or until you get a divorce.

Snip, from post:

If you read the rest of my linked post, you will see where the Constitution allows for any dispute between states, or with the Federal government, to be resolved in the Supreme Court. And FYI, not even the 1869 decision that said that Texas could not unilaterally secede (which is not the same as saying that it couldn't secede at all) does not base its decision on the Constitution. Go ahead-- read it.

 

None of that, to my mind, equates to giving the President dictatorial powers. Of course, he could use the military short term, as to repulse an attack. But to conduct major warfare, for four years-- regardless of what you call it-- is not supposed to be within the President's sole discretion. Other than those few forts it took, within its own borders, the Confederacy was no imminent threat, to attack the states of the Union. Certainly, if Lincoln's intent was to crush the South, writ large, he could have had Congress vote him the authorization, the way President Obama had gone to Congress, to get authorization for the war against ISIS.

My second point-- though Lincoln would have none of it-- was that, regardless of the poor way they'd handled it, if states did have a Constitutional right to sue for separation, it seems unfathomable to put the nation through such devastation as our Civil War, unnecessarily. I'm not saying that Lincoln should have just let the whole thing slide. I AM saying that he should have got a ruling on this, from the Supreme Court. And, if the Court ruled that states could do this, through a legally negotiated settlement, then Lincoln should have said to Jefferson Davis, "You guys can cancel your secessions, and come back to do this the right way, as ruled by the Court, or else we're going to have to destroy you."

I have made these straightforward points, this entire thread; and you have been replying to my posts, for a good part of this thread; yet, as with this current post of yours, that I'm answering, you have yet to ever really address my couple of points.

 

I think you are being too literal, in your critique of Chickpea's pointing out that the uniting of each individual "state" in a union, was essentially a treaty, between them-- not completely unlike the one that created the E.U. though, granted, more binding. Remember, this word you use, "state," had only recently come into use, in 1776, in the Second Continental Congress. Prior to that all the "states" were actually separate colonies. In fact, at the start of their revolution, the alliance against England was called not the United States, but the "United Colonies."

 

Now THAT is false.

American law is a direct lineal descendant and extension of English law, and it is quite different than Roman and French law. Furthermore, many of the individual rights that are affirmed in our Constitution, such as the right to bear arms, are rights that you will find in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and earlier English rights charters, which brings us to the grandaddy of them all -

About a year and a half ago I served on a grand jury, and before we began the proceedings in the courtroom we received a little history lesson from the judge who correctly pointed out that what we were doing was a legacy of the Great Charter of Freedoms, Magna Carta Libertatum, that the English barons forced King John to sign at Runnymede in 1215.

Due process, trial by jury, etc., etc., all of that was handed down to us by the English, and they remain fundamental features of American law. In fact, one could describe our law as Anglo-American law.

It most certainly was reasserted and it's still here to this day.

I think it would be more accurate to say we didn't create much of anything. The Founders made some important alterations to the existing legal system and left much of it intact.

Yes, we have a Constitution, and do you think that idea just popped out of the thin air?

If it wasn't for wannabe dictator Oliver Cromwell and the so-called Grandees who refused to share power with the "commoners", the English would have had that and a republic over a century before we formed our own - it's called The Agreement of the People:

1648/9: The Agreement of the People
https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/1648-9-the-agreement-of-the-people

1647: The Agreement of the People, as presented to the Council of the Army
https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/16...eople-as-presented-to-the-council-of-the-army

Leveler - 17th Century Reforms, Leveller Movement & Civil War
https://www.britannica.com/event/Leveler-English-history#:~:text=The Civil War had been,Parliament should make that legislative

In Pursuit of Liberty: The Levellers and the American Bill of Rights
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1747&context=concomm

The ideas embraced and espoused by the proto-libertarian, republican Levelers would go on to influence the Radical Whigs, amongst them Algernon Sydney and John Locke, who in turn influenced the Founding Fathers in the United States. All of this is part of the Anglo-American legal and rights tradition and continuum.

Oh, and by the way, one of those Levelers, Richard Overton, is cited in my signature asserting the fundamental right to self-proprietorship in 1646, a right that was famously promoted decades later by Locke in the second of his Two Treatises of Government.

We have a bicameral legislature (Congress) that was patterned after the bicameral legislature (Parliament) in Great Britain....

We have a Bill of Rights that is patterned after the aforementioned English bills of rights and charters of freedoms...

Indeed, we do, much as executive authority was vested in the monarchs of Great Britain, with the important difference being that our president is elected...

Indeed we do, and while Montesquieu's tricameral structure of republican government could be considered novel at the time, the concept of a high court was not:

Edward Coke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Coke

No, we didn't. We made some changes to the English law that existed in the Colonies and formed a constitutional republic with a tricameral system of government.

I asked that question for a reason, and it's because Abraham Lincoln (and others) believed that the South had broken the social contract by refusing to abide by the outcome of the 1860 election, and I happen to agree with him.

I'm well aware of all that, Will, which is why I referred specifically to the brief initial "liberal phase" of the French Revolution in 1789, which consisted of the reorganization of the Estates General into the National Assembly, legal reforms, the decree abolishing seigneurialism, the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. etc., before the sans-culotte mobs in the Paris Commune screwed everything up and set the nascent republic down the path to civil war and dictatorship.

 

As you can see from the Founders' comments on the General Welfare Clause, they opened no such door, and the people who claim that they did are, as Madison stated, interpreting the term in a manner that qualifies as "a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

I don't need to imagine them. They are listed in the Constitution.

And one needs to keep in mind what Hamilton meant when he made his comment in Federalist 83 - the Constitution was written for the express purpose of limiting the power/powers of government. If the Founders wanted to write the federal government a blank check - "general authority" - they wouldn't have bothered to enumerate and thus limit its powers.

 

Where in this,
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed83.asp,
does Hamilton assert that the Constitution was written for the express purpose of limiting the power of the Federal government?

 

Better read Article VI of the US Constitution. And yes, they are the ultimate arbritrators of what the US Constitution says or does not say. Second, the US Constitution is not a dead document. Supreme Court justices use a variety of materials from the Federalist Papers, to the arguments and debates in Congress, to precedent, and so forth, along with their theory on how to interpret the US Constitution to render its decision when brought before the court.

In Texas v White, the Supreme Court used the ARticles of the Confederacy as a backdrop, not a reason in their decision, at least not the majority decision.

In reality, even the nost conservative states will not secede. The talk of secession is mostly used as a donation argument for their political party, at least for the GOP. The Texit bill never even made it out of committee in the house, and the House is very conservative with almost a supermajority in the making. And support for the Texit bill is about 20% in Texas overall. Not very popular even in Texas where we too have had our share of disagreements, mostly on land and water rights, with the Federal government. Article III defines what the Supreme Court is, and article VI says the Constititon, the 6 articles, the 27 amendments, and even the Supreme Court rulings are the supreme law of the land. This also includes all federal laws.

 

No, my argument is that Lincoln greatly expanded the powers of the Presidency during the Civil War. I gave you some examples of what that power entailed when it came to the Executive Branch. And my other argument is that none of this would have been possible if the southern States never seceded at all. With the Southern States seceding, and predominately of the Democratic Party, Lincoln even got the Northern Democrats on his side in that expansion of his powers during the Civil War. Further evidence is in the links below.

President Lincoln is the only president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in the border states, including Maryland BTW. No other president did that, not even FDR when we had WW2 going on. He created the emancipation proclamation in 1863, which basically freed any and all states controlled by the union. This was transformed into the 13th amendment shortly before the war ended and was ratified pretty quickly, except for those southern states who seceded.



https://millercenter.org/president/lincoln/impact-and-legacy
https://www.hudsonrivervalley.org/d...llo1.pdf/174fad7f-9d03-4ef4-bd41-813922df57b2
https://theimaginativeconservative....ln-growth-of-government-larry-schweikart.html
https://academic.oup.com/book/7309/chapter-abstract/152044759?redirectedFrom=fulltext

 

Violating their commitment.

 

Those with the "psychic" neon sign in their front window are also in the same business. Like politicians, their business is to take our money in exchange for BS. People come to the forum to defend their party and attempt to portray it as "the party of freedom". I don't buy it any more than I buy claims of mind reading abilities.

 

Then, my question becomes, why are you arguing this, to me? Is there a grander point?

I see that there are many different arguments going on in this thread-- not surprisingly, since the thread's premise was extremely thin: that the cause of the Southern states seceding, was slavery. That seems obvious to most people, so there's hardly anything to be said on that point, though Grau brought us a different, supposed culprit: tarriffs. I confess I haven't yet gotten to his links, but I am curious to to do so.

The only other part to the OP, was yardmeat's asking why so many conservatives want to hide slavery's role. But I haven't seen much denial of it, or that much speculation as to why "so many" conservatives try hiding slavery's central cause in Southern Secession. So, the thread had nowhere to go, other than to be a free for all, about slavery and the Civil War (with the OP writer, himself, jumping into laying blame for the war, despite claiming that he had wished to limit the thread, only to the cause of secession, "full stop").

What I am getting to is that I have had one consistent point, about what the Constitution prescribed for that circumstance, and based on this, what I believe President Lincoln should have done. Whatever point you are making, does not seem to respond to my points. In other words, simply "expanding" the powers of the Presidency, is too general of a claim. That is why I'd asked, if you were trying to suggest, that this justified what Lincoln had done. But you, once more, avoided directly confronting my argument. As a reminder, I have been saying that it was not for Lincoln to judge whether secession was a constitutional option-- though he did-- nor had a President the power to wage full-on war, for four solid years, without some authority voted by Congress (especially as most of the war took place on Confederate soil; that is, the Union was not under constant attack, for those four years). I have given an abbreviated version of those two ideas, because I'm frankly getting a little bit tired of having to restate them, so many times, with barely anyone who addresses my posts, getting my points correct. So, if you have some counter argument to my summary, please look back to a more thorough treatment, of all the little caveats-- which I think was just this morning, to Will Readmore-- so that I will not have to, once again, say that, of course, Lincoln had to defend the country, or that he had a right to recover the Union forts, but that this does not justify anywhere near the offensive employment of the military, Lincoln wielded, and so on. If you are not saying that somehow, President Lincoln had the right to wage unlimited war for four years, then I don't see how your post addresses my arguments.

 

You are often very vague, in your meaning; and at the point where I saw this topic come up, you were bouncing back and forth, between talking about the Confederate states and talking about hypothetical generalities, regarding seceding. I believe, though, it was in the latter context, that you made your unsupported claim:

Chickpea said: ↑
By states who are members. Not those who might leave.


yardmeat said: ↑
Leaving means they no longer support the Constitution.


If that is what we are talking about, that it would be a violation of any state's commitment, or would have been one, in 1860, then no-- you don't have a clue about which you speak. But both Chickpea & I have explained that the commitment ends, with the area's statehood; the commitment does not deprive a state from using the courts to pursue legal secession. But all you can retort are those same words, without explanation, adding no clarity to either your perspective, or to how or why it differs from the one that we have expressed (in my case, with examples, demonstrating the concept). It is therefore pointless to "debate" this further with you, if all you are going to repeat is, in effect: "yes it is; yes it is; yes it is; Yuh- huh. Yuh-huh. Yuh-huh."

Great argument, yardmeat.

 

Funny. Reminds me of Doc Holiday's line in Tombstone, "You are a rock Sir"

Nope, if the 10th is all you've got, then you may as well have nothing.

This is all basically moot if persons or people are willing to die in opposition to their government.

From my earlier links to the declarations of secession by the South, I do not find any fault with their complaints other than 1 fault, which is what they were ultimately seceding for, f'g slavery ffs.

But, being new here, you may not know that I am, among other things, a Led Head.

So, of course, as all GX folks like me are obligated to do, I've had to familiarize myself with Jimmy P's Aleister C interests.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law....


Maybe just be careful not to "bite off more than you can chew"
I think this phrase is known for its meaning in both the North and the South.....

***
Ah, more importantly: would there have been a Led Zeppelin if not for US slavery? Louie Armstrong?

 

The quotes you cited suggest the Founders were concerned "general welfare" could be used to justify government going further than they hoped. I think their fear was justified, but their willingness to put their faith in future generations to use it wisely has been for the most part rewarded. How could they ever have imagined the beginning of the modern era a century later, or what government was needed then?

Hamilton's constitution still limits the power of government.

 

You misspelled Madison..., and there are no longer any practical Constitutional limits on the power of the US Federal government, and there haven't been, even before the keys to the nukes were given to the President.

 

The constitution contains no prohibition on any state leaving. Therefore, the power to leave is reserved to the states.

 

Nope

 

Nope doesn’t really help here.

Why is it not among the reserved powers?

 

Because it’s not

 

Is it true that leaving a union of states is a thing that could be done by a state (i.e. a power)?

Is it true that there is no language in the constitution forbidding a state from leaving the union?

Two simple questions for you to answer.

 

Declarations of war come from congress. The USA did not declare war in Korean, Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq. Our action in the Balkans was presidential. Our contribution to the war in the conquest of Libya.

The president of the USA has always had significant war powers as commander in chief of the US military.

About one month after being inaugurated, Lincoln faced numerous states that had seceded after long negotiations, serious considerations in congress during the previous presidency. One month later, the secessionists took Fort Sumter by military force, capturing the US Troops there, as well as taking a number of other smaller US forts.

Lincoln ordered the minimum legitimate military response given his duty as president. Suggesting he was despotic is ridiculous.

His representatives, including his defense minister Seward, met in secret with representatives chosen by Jefferson Davis. I've never heard what was discussed, but it did not bear fruit.


As for constitutionality, I don't see any indication of there being a legal basis for a state or states to secede.

Lincoln wasn't hell bent on immediately ending slavery, but expecting him to take action in favor of that division of America, slavery, the continuing wars in the American expansion, the economic and defense ramifications ... the very idea that Lincoln would take effort to SUPPORT that direction is ridiculous.

It was just a totally unacceptable direction.

 

Nope. Treaties are between sovereign states. You are right that the colonies were referenced as states at that time and were already united to significant extent - they just hadn't chosen their constitution. They were not seen as being sovereign. They were not seeking individual recognition from foreign entities. They had accepted that they were going to be a republic of states, with decisions made by representative democracy as we see it today.

Notice that the ratification process had been agreed by the 13 states, and it did NOT require agreement from all. Only 3/4 were needed to bind the 13 states to the proposed constitution.

This is not like a treaty, which is between sovereign states. The 13 states were not considered individually sovereign, and they were subject to decisions on which they did not even concur.

 

The broader picture for why the Civil War happened was the long-brewing feud between Federalists and Anti-Federalists since before the Constitution. True, slavery is a predominant theme in the official writings to separate, but that is because slavery was the most controversial difference. It was so controversial, in fact, that people, including women and children, were killed by the likes of John Brown over slavery. Radical abolitionists would send literature to slaves to get them riled up to foment a slave revolt. Consequently, slave revolts did occur, which, again, lead to the deaths of women and children. Passions were high. So high, in fact, that the Civil War was started, resulting in the deaths of over 600,000 Americans. With passions so high, I think it would be silly for those succeeding from the Union to give equal attention to all the reasons that they were leaving the Union. No one was killed, women were not raped, because of differences of opinion about tariffs, for example. The reasons for the Civil War are very nuanced. We clearly don't teach the nuances of how the Civil War started. We certainly don't do it in our culture. For example, it seems every year there is a movie about slavery. But how many show the slave master as black? There were black slave masters when slavery existed. However, if you were to get all your education about slavery from the public school system and Hollywood, you'd probably be ignorant of that fact.

 

It wasn't just "A predominant theme". It was THE predominant theme. And what women and children did John Brown kill, by the way? You may be right, but I've asked this question before, and people always run away. And, sorry, but a slave revolt would have been COMPLETELY justified.

The reasons for secession were not "nuanced." They were explicit. The reason was slavery.