Posted on 04/03/2002 9:52:50 AM PST by r9etb
In other words, they knew the South had the right........but they couldn't afford to let them go, as a practical business matter.
Thought so.
I agree.
"What stronger evidence can be given of the want of energy in our government than these disorders? If there exists not a power to check them, what security has a man of life, liberty, or property? To you, I am sure I need not add aught on this subject, the consequences of a lax or inefficient government, are too obvious to be dwelt on. Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin to the whole; whereas a liberal, and energetic Constitution, well guarded and closely watched, to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence, to which we had a fair claim, and the brightest prospect of attaining..."
George Washington to James Madison November 5, 1786,
"I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several states. To be fearful of vesting Congress, constituted as that body is, with ample authorities for national purposes, appears to me to be the very climax of popular absurdity and madness."
George Washington to John Jay, 15 August 1786
"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily to our view, that which appears to the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds, led each state in the Convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude, than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution we present is the result of a spirit of amity, and that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible....
George Washington to the Congress 9/17/87
If you are a true American -- at least by George Washington's lights, you won't have a problem with the ultimate supremacy of the federal government.
Walt
Sigh. A dignified opening, to be sure.
They meant what they meant - period. Then they provided a method to change the document if we thought ourselves wiser than they.
Fine so far. Of course, it requires all sides of the argument to abide by the result, once it's decided. Secession renders that wonderful method moot, of course -- which means that all of the hard work of the Founders was in fact pointless.
And it's important to remember that the real issue was: "Let us keep people as slaves, or we'll leave." The slavery issue was nothing new: it had been threatening the Union for decades. How ironic that those manly champions of "states rights" stated their case primarily in terms of keeping people in bondage. One might almost think that they cared very little for states rights, and very much for their own riches....
The Constitution does not prohibit secession - and the 10th Amendment reserves any rights for the States that are not implicitly stated.
However, the Constitution clearly sets out the MANY constraints that the Federal Government can place on the individual states.
Take Article VI, for example, which specifically say that the laws and constitutions of the states are INFERIOR to the Constitution. A state law that declares that state to be no longer bound by the Constitution is invalid.
It is, in fact, an act of insurrection, which the Constitution explicitly empowers the Federal Government to suppress. (This leaves you to defend a weak claim that secession was not insurrection.)
Just like the rights of the People, they are not GRANTED by the Constitution - instead the Government is limited by the Consitution - likewise the rights of the sovereign States are reserved for the States themselves unless otherwise agreed to in a previous article.
Article VI, for example....?
Be careful of the "speck in your eye, log in my eye" kind of moral equivalence.
You might convince some people with this argument, but I doubt, for example, many Black Americans would find this argument persuasive.
Glad you brought that up. Let's just talk about practical business matters for a moment.
As a practical business matter, the South could not free its slaves. To free the slaves meant bankruptcy.
Instead, the South worked very hard to ensure that a balance between the number of slave and free states was maintained when new states joined the Union. This was driven by practical business considerations: they knew that eventually the free states would outnumber the slave states to the extent that slavery would be Constitutionally abolished.
It's worth repeating: left to their own devices, most new states would have been created as free states. It is rather telling that those worthy advocates of "states rights" worked so hard to ensure that new states could be forced to be slave states -- and that they considered slavery a good enough reason to leave the union.
One is hard-pressed to defend a group of people who are willing not only to maintain slavery, but to spread it. And with that in mind, the underlying reason for this particular act of secession is a rather damnable excuse for secession, whether or not it be legal.
How do you figure? How can a document that declares independance from Britain trump the document that lays out the shape, scope, and form of our government? That's ludicrous to me.
The laws passed in pursuance to the Constitution are also the supreme law of the land. This includes the Militia Act of 1792 as amended in 1795. That act empowers the president to ensure that the laws of the United States are duly followed in all the states.
The 10th amendment never really comes into play.
Walt
Actually they don't. The Constitution 'trumps' as you say ANY law, therefore the 10th Amendment applies over any of your 'perceived' powers that lincoln might have had. And even you have to admit going back 80 years to pull up that argument is pretty weak considering the actions of the northern states during the war of 1812. Also it could be argued that the nullification of the Alien and Sedition Acts passed AFTER the Militia Act virtually nullified the teeth in that Act as well.
Actually they don't. The Constitution 'trumps' as you say ANY law, therefore the 10th Amendment applies over any of your 'perceived' powers that lincoln might have had.
The Supreme Court failed to find such logic compelling when it cited the Militia Act as empowering the president to act, or when they referred to the "So-called Confederate States" as being in rebellion.
Walt
And what you're failing to understand here is that this ruling occurred in '62? What kind of demoralizing statement would that have been to the troops, let alone the entire establishment of the government of the United States? The entire administration would have been run out on a rail. It virtually would have destroyed what little was left of the Constitution. While the Supreme Court decided lincoln had the power to do so(it's a maybe anyway, you know what I think of that sitting of the Court and their decisions), the moral decision would have been for lincoln to call the troops home at that exact point (as if he should have sent them out in the first place). He would have saved face, probably wouldn't have been hung, and maybe not even have been impeached. We would have had two nations that would have quickly become friends, slavery would have been abolished peacefully as it had in the three major empires of the world by 1860 within the next twenty years, oh but of course the US wouldn't have been as rich as it was before the war now would it?
If you want to make that argument, the flipside to that coin is that there's nothing in the Constitution that says that the Federal Government can't wage a war to return the seceeding states back to the Union.
The Union Army said otherwise.
Walt
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