Walter Williams: Wrong on Secession

vanity ^ | 4/3/02 | Self

[Non-Sequitur]

I guarantee you that if you were here you would not be so insolent or so disingenuous.

My, my, my, having a bad night are we? Am I supposed to be afraid now?

[The Raven]

No analysis or reading between the lines is necessary. The right to secede is granted to the States, in the 10th Amendment. The rights of the Federal government are few. The rights of the States approach infinity.

[The Raven]

>>...Your questioning of Dr. William's assertion is off-base. He is correct

Your post (except above) was a wonderful addition to the thread. You're dead on.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The Congress has the power to provide for the general welfare

I don't believe it has such a power.

Yes, it does; see Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution.

Jefferson Davis cited the --exact same language-- copied into the constitution of the so-called CSA in maintaining that the federal government could coerce the states in the matter of conscription.

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

Why would the Confederacy *want* to go to war with the Union, if secession could be done peacefully?

Good question. Why not give peace a chance, so to speak? Why go to war over Sumter which posed no real threat, militarily or economically, to the confederacy? Why go against the warnings of your own secretary of state when he warned that attacking the fort would be fatal? Was Davis stupid, desperate or both?

The likely reason is that Davis needed a war, badly. He was president of a seven state confederacy with no chance of thriving in the shadow of the much larger North. He needed the other slaveholding states to get off the fence and into the fold. Specifically, he needed Virginia, with the largest population of any slave-holding state and an industrial base larger than the seven original confederate states combined. But he knew that they wouldn't come in unless forced to choose sides, and the only way to do that is by provoking the North into military action. Davis banked that if he could bring in the 8 remaining slave-holding states then he could fight and win a war against the remaining United States. As it turned out, he only got half the remaining states and he lost the war, independence, the whole nine yards. Lincoln didn't kill the confederacy, it committed suicide.

[Non-Sequitur]

I will also point out that over the last week or so I have not addressed a single comment towards you without you having first addressed one towards me. Surely you don't think that I have been stunned into silence by your rapier wit and dazzling intellect, do you? </sarcasm>

[Non-Sequitur]

They were likely already uneconomical before the Secession War ever began, but certainly the handwriting was on the wall.

Do you have anything to support this?

[CharacterCounts]

Your thoughts on why the war was started is spot on. The deep South needed a war badly.

[WhiskeyPapa]

...Both the nineth and tenth amendments reserve the right to the people to maintain the Union.

Walt, no person, no state, no country has the right, to compel a behavior on another.

So you deny any laws at all? Are you an anarchist?

If we don't have laws, we are back in the state of nature where life is nasty, brutish and short.

"Nasty, brutish and short."

That is as good a description of the life of the so-called CSA as any I've heard.

Walt

[sheltonmac]

"...the secessionist states were not in revolt against civil authority, since the duly-elected governments of those states were the civil authority."

Excellent point!

[Non-Sequitur]

Who is 'Them'? Those giant ants in the Los Angeles sewer system?

[WhiskeyPapa]

There is nothing in the Constitution which prohibits a State from peacefully withdrawing from the compact. The Supreme Court decided otherwise in 1862.

They didn't say that secession was illegal, they said "[t]heir right to do so is now being decided by wager of battle."

Well, you've a quote here but you don't say where it came from.

That is the fly in the buttermilk on this history business. You can't just make things up, you have to build a case in the record.

And in the Prize Cases, the Court ruled that the president was authorized by the Militia Act to put down insurrrection against a state or the United States.

See how it works?

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

"...the secessionist states were not in revolt against civil authority, since the duly-elected governments of those states were the civil authority."

Excellent point!

The Constitution is the supreme civil authority; no state law or document can withstand the power of the COnstitution.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

your premise falters right from the beginning. You point to this clause "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions. "

1) The Militia could not lawfully be called forth because NO laws were violated by the secessions. NONE. There was NO LAW against secession.

Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, civil controversies between the states are to be adjudicated by the Supreme Court.

Under the Militia Act of 1792 as amended in 1795, the President is authorized to call out the militia of the several states to ensure that the laws are duly executed.

You can look it up.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Who is 'Them'? Those giant ants in the Los Angeles sewer system?

Yeah, that's a bad deal. And now the state of California wants to outlaw people having .50 cal machine guns. Bad timing. A .50 is just what you need for giant ants.

Walt