Posted on 08/05/2010 6:01:30 AM PDT by Michael Zak
[by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine, CA), re-published with his permission]
For years I have admired Congressman Ron Paul’s principled stance on spending and the Constitution. That said, he really damaged himself when he blamed President Lincoln for the Civil War, saying, “Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war… [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic.”
This is historical revisionism of the worst order, and it must be addressed.
For Congressman Paul’s benefit – and for his supporters who may not know – seven states illegally declared their “independence” from the United States before Lincoln was sworn in as President. After South Carolina fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, four additional states declared independence...
(Excerpt) Read more at grandoldpartisan.typepad.com ...
I think we pick and choose what we are “allowed” by the federal government to do and what we are not allowed to do. Sorry. I don’t see any difference. Of course its for the betterment of the nation to forbid the southern states to secede. The southern states through their conservative voting somewhat keeps the feds in check. The sparsely populated western states (Bless them) couldn’t do it on their own. In 2008, the usually conservative states deviated somewhat and voila! We got Obama.
Lincoln had little to do with the initiation of the war. Slavers were so determined to keep slavery that they started long BEFORE Lincoln was even elected to effect secession. Buchanan’s cabinet was filled with men who transferred arms to Southern depots and dispersed troops to keep them from easy use against the South.
A Federal fort was attacked. A fort that was CLEARLY US property.
The South was better prepared for war than the Union was and had been long working just for that end.
Slavery was not as concentrated area-wise in other countries
and did not have pre-existing political institutions (separate semi-sovereign states) to aid a rebellion so it was easier to change without war. Nor was there as much economic power in the hands of domestic slavers. In other European countries the majority of slaves were outside the countries. Lincoln had nothing to do with the situation he inherited or his enemies’ reactions.
Hey cva, I see you're doing a little Liberal Projection already this morning!
I’d say you are more correct than the south-north kneejerk reactions.
Virtually every word of your post indicates that you do NOT know how the Constitution was created nor what it actually means.
Legislatures were DELIBERATELY kept out of the ratification process because the intent was to keep them from using the argument you use. A constitution is not an ordinary law which can be changed by legislative action. The founders made sure that was the case.
State legislatures in NO way approved entry into the Union. Their ONLY role was to establish CONVENTIONS within the states to decide the issue.
The “feds” sparked nothing. Lincoln had to defend US institutions and property ATTACKED by the slavers.
Nothing is contradicted. Self-rule is upheld by providing for the means of changing the constitution through amendment.
It cannot be changed by less than a majority of the states. It cannot be changed by armed rebellion against the legitimate government.
States never were “promised” any such thing. That is simply a falsehood.
Supreme power (of the federal government) was intentionally not made part of the Constitution because it would have never been ratified otherwise.
Slavery was not specifically cited in the Constitution for similar reason.
"Slavery in the territories" had been a federal power since the Northwest Ordinance which predated the Constitution. The issue was how, and therefore which, territories.
Taxation and allocation of the income from taxes were provided for in the Constitution and the south believed that both taxes and trade tariffs were being applied unfairly and to the detriment of agricultural (slave) states.
When South Carolina left the union, leaving a federal fort blocking Charleston harbor to be resolved, they hoped for the arrival of troop ships to remove that federal presence.
Instead, they got resupply ships enabling the union to retrench and remain.
SC considered that resupply as a use of force and intention to remain by threat of force and if force is legitimate to stop secession, then force is equally legitimate to bring secession about.
When they fired on one of those ships, and Sumter, they had no thought of treason because they held the union to have been dissolved by the act of secession.
The right to secede was then a 50/50 proposition and deciding that issue was the true cause for the unlimited extent and carnage of that war.
"Treason" became an accepted stigma as a means of sustaining adequate support for the war in the north.
It can readily be argued that northern abolitionists "caused" the war by limiting any president's ability to negotiate or conciliate, by encouraging revolt within the South, and by inflaming Northern emotions.
Since talk of secession is once again making the news here in the US, some here might want to reconsider their hard line beliefs regarding the war between North and South.
As to the question in #9:
I doubt such a deal was possible in 1861 but, given Sherman, Reconstruction, and the fact that this side of East Texas there was little geography that would be hospitable to a slave economy, I'd certainly rather they could have pulled it off by peaceful means a decade or so later.
Finally, Ron Paul and Chuck DeVore are both idiots.
Nice try but it does not provide cover for secession.
Without the discussion of WHY voters voted the way they did the excerpt is useless. You Defenders of the Indefensible are always trying to pull stunts like that to “prove” your point. Almost always when your quotes are analyzed in content they wind up proving the opposite to what you want.
Then the next thread even after being shown to be inappropriate the same quote will be used as though the prior discussion never took place.
Glad you mentioned divorce.
Divorce is NOT one party walking away and saying s/he is no longer married. At least in non-moslem countries.
Divorce is a LEGAL process accomplished through the courts.
Amendment of the constitution is ALSO a legal process.
The American People never signed on to the British Empire.
They, on the other hand, CREATED the Union along with the means of changing it should it become unsatisfactory.
I see some of both, and mostly from hot-heads hoping to agitate others to actually do the “heavy lifting”. Pity since it detracts from the serious business at hand.
Prior to the 10th Amendment, prior even to the Constitution, the perpetual union already existed, the states already had agreed to surrender any right to secede. If the 10th Amendment was intended to abolish the perpetuity of the union, the 10th amendment would have said so specifically. The founders were certainly very specific about Perpetual Union in the Articles of Confederation, and the founders were not big on “emanations from the penumbra”.
I also refer you to MNJohnnie’s post #78 above, where Madison trashes secessionism.
The Fort was clearly US property ceded by the State to the National government decades before.
If you want to declare war start shooting at federal property.
They did not have to. Just as no convention is necessary to grant rights, no convention is necessary to assert them.
It is precluded by the nature of the term “constitution” which was the FOUNDATION of the Union and could only be changed by the amendment process.
FYI - thousands of blacks in this country were slave owners. Some were slave breeders, selling their own offspring into slavery.
Slavery was about money and selfishness, not racism.
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