The Party of Lincoln AND Calhoun? The Right and the Civil War

The Imaginative Conservative ^ | November 3, 2015 | Tony Petersen

[Boogieman]

“I have never said that there could never be amoral basis for a state to secede from the United States. However (and over this we may disagree), I do not believe that the desire to preserve slavery constituted a moral basis for any state to attempt to secede.”

On this question, morality is also moot when talking about secession. Why? Because there is only one universal judge of morality, and that is the Creator. Every one of us humans is flawed, immoral and biased in those matters. So if we submit the exercise of rights to a moral test before we can avail ourselves of them, who shall we submit to?

Any person, or body of people that you picked to be the judge of such moral questions would make errors and those errors would necessarily result in the denial of rights that could otherwise be justly exercised. That is why there are no designated courts or judges we must ask permission of before we exercise our rights.

To demonstrate this principle, imagine, if you can, that we aren’t talking about the right to secede, or the civil war, or any of that. Imagine instead that we are talking about the right to bear arms. If you told me that you wanted to exercise your right to purchase a firearm to go hunting, there are some who would view that act, killing animals with firearms for sport, as immoral. They could argue (and in fact they do argue) that you should be denied your right because they think you are going to use it for immoral purposes. The argument those people make is no different, in principle, than the argument that the south did not have a right to secede simply because we view their reasons for seceding as immoral. In either case, the existence of the right is independent of, and cannot be denied based on the purposes for which it may be used.

[Tau Food]

I have no idea why you would say such a thing. There are literally thousands of laws regarding the relationship between the United States and each of the states. The Constitution itself is full of them. Of course, there is no prison for states, but most of our laws are not criminal laws.

Sometimes, you just seem to want to be contrary, whether it makes any sense or not. When I say that "I do not believe that there exists any legal basis for a state to unilaterally secede from the United States," I mean just that. I do not believe that there are any existing laws that authorize some state, county, city, water district or neighborhood to just unilaterally sever the legal/constitutional relationships/bonds that exist between the United States citizens in their geographical bailiwick from the other citizens of this country or their national government. There is nothing so mysterious or complicated that you cannot understand that. Basically, it means that your irrigation district has no authority to cancel your status as a citizen of the United States.

[DiogenesLamp]

Sort of like how we got the Panama canal. Yeah, that was perfectly legal. Just ask us.

[Tau Food]

Well, we disagree again. I do believe that people have the capacity to consider questions of morality. I believe that occasionally you rely upon the Declaration of Independence (do you remember that "all men are created equal" document?) and that declaration is full of moral judgments.

You raise the "right to bear arms" issue as an example of an issue where people might disagree. I pointed out for you that racism and slavery are also issues where people might disagree. The fact that there may be disagreement about an issue does not gut it of moral considerations.

[Boogieman]

“I do believe that people have the capacity to consider questions of morality.”

That’s not the point, of course people have the capacity. The question is whether our rights are subject to some external moral evaluation before we can exercise them. That assumption is implicit in your bringing up the subject of morality when the question of whether someone has a right of secession is raised. If you don’t address that question, then you’re just prevaricating, and your implicit assumption remains unjustified.

“You raise the “right to bear arms” issue as an example of an issue where people might disagree.”

No, I raised it as an example to illustrate the foolishness of subjecting rights to some kind of moral evaluation. That’s exactly what the left would like to do with the right to bear arms. Do you agree with that principle or not? Would you give others the chance to evaluate the morality of your purposes before they decide to allow you to exercise your right to bear arms? Or is that something you would object to as a serious violation of your rights?

[Boogieman]

“I have no idea why you would say such a thing. There are literally thousands of laws regarding the relationship between the United States and each of the states. The Constitution itself is full of them. Of course, there is no prison for states, but most of our laws are not criminal laws.”

Well, we’re talking about a fundamental right, those are not regulated by those “thousands of laws” you are talking about. Fundamental rights are by their nature protected from being regulated by those kinds of statutes. Those laws can recognize a right, but they can’t restrict it. Only criminal laws ever restrict those kinds of rights, that’s why I phrased it the way I did, to show how silly the idea is when you are talking about states and secession.

“I mean just that. I do not believe that there are any existing laws that authorize some state, county, city, water district or neighborhood to just unilaterally sever the legal/constitutional relationships/bonds that exist between the United States citizens in their geographical bailiwick from the other citizens of this country or their national government. There is nothing so mysterious or complicated that you cannot understand that.”

It’s not a question of not understanding your position, it’s a question of fundamentally rejecting it because it’s based on unsound principles. As the Declaration said, “we find these rights to be SELF-EVIDENT”, meaning that they pre-exist the laws of this nation or the laws of any nation on earth. One doesn’t look for laws to authorize rights, because rights exist independently of the law, which was a subsequent creation of man, whereas our rights were a creation of our Creator.

[DoodleDawg]

Like we did with England.

Yet another error on your part. We did not secede from England. We rebelled.

Again, Why do I bother talking with you?

Beats me. You initiated all this with your asinine post to me and the others. You must have been fishing for a response.

For another example, did West Virgina ask for permission to leave?

They didn't leave. Virginia split in two and the western part was admitted as a state.

[DoodleDawg]

Sort of like how we got the Panama canal. Yeah, that was perfectly legal. Just ask us.

Not sure how to break this to you but Panama is not part of the U.S.

[rockrr]

Yours is an interesting perspective. You dismiss the legality of the act of unilateral secession and poo-poo any consideration of morality. What does that leave but naked arrogance? They did what they did because they could. Might makes right - only they lacked the might.

They chose poorly.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yet another error on your part. We did not secede from England. We rebelled.

Oh, so rebelling is okay. Good to know.

A person needs a program to keep up with all your iterations of hair splitting.

So a bunch of Slave owning States Rebelled against the Union, Were led by a Slave owning General from Virginia, and the Union government offered freedom to any slave that would fight against the rebels.

Yeah, that's completely different from what happened in the Civil War.

[Tau Food]

It is not a question of not understanding your position, it is a question of fundamentally rejecting it because it is based on unsound principles. As the Declaration said, “we find these rights to be SELF-EVIDENT”, meaning that they pre-exist the laws of this nation or the laws of any nation on earth. One does not look for laws to authorize rights, because rights exist independently of the law, which was a subsequent creation of man, whereas our rights were a creation of our Creator.

I hope that I do not need to tell you that there never has been any natural right, either before or after the Declaration, for you and a few of your friends to dictate when an existing government must cease governing in your neighborhood. The Declaration merely stated the obvious - that, for reasons deemed sufficient by a group of people, that group of people may declare themselves to be independent of the authority of an existing government and if they are successful in preventing the existing government from continuing to exercise its authority, that group of people will win its independence. The Declaration does not pick winners or losers. The American colonists of the 18th century won (after pledging their lives, their property and their sacred honor) and the so-called secessionists of the 19th century lost. I accept those results. If you have trouble accepting those results, then you have trouble. There is no question that history has judged that the cause of the American colonists (independence from Europe) was morally superior to the cause of the so-called secessionists of the nineteenth century (the preservation of slavery). You are entitled to your own opinion as to the morality of each cause and you are entitled to decide for yourself whether it makes sense for you to share that opinion with others.

It is ridiculous, though, for persons living in 2015 to blame their current circumstances on either Lincoln or the Civil War. At post 239, you seemed to suggest that, because of Lincoln, the people of this country have lost political power vis-a-vis the federal government. Surely, the federal government has more power today than it did in 1859. But, it also had more power in 1989 (following Reagan) than it did in 1979. The power of the federal government has been steadily growing. Lincoln had little or nothing to do with any of this. Many of the alphabet regulatory agencies (the ICC, the TVA, etc.) began under FDR, Social Security began under FDR, the EPA began under Nixon, Medicare began under Lyndon Johnson, the Federal Reserve and the 16th Amendment began under Taft and Wilson. None of these could have even been predicted by Lincoln.

As to the theory behind growing federal power, the notion that the powers of the federal government as described by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution should be broadly construed because of he "necessary and proper" clause of that section began during the administration of George Washington, when Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton argued that because of the "necessary and proper" clause, the federal government could create a national bank even though the Constitution did not expressly provide the government with that power. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson argued very persuasively that if Hamilton's argument was accepted, there would be no practical limits to the scope of the federal government's power. President Washington adopted Hamilton's view of federal power and the Bank of the United States was created in 1791. Please note that President Washington adopted this broad view of the federal government's power 18 years before Lincoln was born.

In 1819, when Lincoln was ten years old, the United States Supreme Court decided McCulloch v. Maryland. The issue was more or less identical to the issue argued by Hamilton and Jefferson - could the federal government create a national bank even though the Constitution did not expressly provide the federal government with that power? Chief Justice John Marshall acknowledged that the federal "Government is acknowledged to be one of enumerated powers." He also acknowledged that "[a]mong the enumerated powers, we do not find that of establishing a bank or creating a corporation." Should that not be the end of the matter? Not according to Marshall. He ruled that because a national bank would make it easier and would facilitate the exercise of other enumerated powers, the federal government could create a national bank under the "necessary and proper" clause because the federal government found it to be convenient. Given that argument, the federal government can do just about anything it wants to do so long as the Constitution does not expressly forbid it. As Jefferson warned, the enumerated powers are nice, but not really limiting anymore.

So Washington was on board with this broad view of the federal government's power 18 years before Lincoln was born and the United States Supreme Court ratified that view when Lincoln was ten years old.

Thirteen years later, in 1832, President Andrew Jackson, in his Proclamation Regarding Nullification refuted the notion that there exists some natural right of "secession" and warned against the attempt to act upon that heresy:

"Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent upon a failure."

Lincoln was 23 years old when President Jackson expressly announced the policy of the federal government regarding secession. And, privately, he sent word that he would personally travel to South Carolina to personally conduct hangings if necessary.

So, Lincoln and the Civil War have little or nothing to do with the theory behind the growth of federal power or with the actual growth of the federal government over the past 100 years.

I will discuss now your suggestion that the individual has lost political power since the Civil War and because of Lincoln. Maybe we should begin with African Americans. Do you really believe that they have less political power now than they had before 1860? How about the one-half of the population that we call women? They could not even vote before the Civil War. Do you really think that they have lost political power since then? They had zero political power back then. Aside from wealthy white landholding men, who did have political power back then? I really do not see how you can possibly conclude that the average individual has lost political power since before the Civil War and then blame it on Lincoln. The whole proposition sounds crazy.

As I have said before, the great loser since the Civil War has been the "Corner Stone" of the Confederacy. Racism has indeed been repudiated by the dominant culture. And, I do think that you can hold Lincoln personally responsible for playing a big role in setting those particular events in motion. But that is about it. Is that the loss you mourn? And, could you say so if it was?

I think you ought to focus more on the "all men are created equal" part of the Declaration. America is a great country. It is a shame that you are unhappy. I think you should give this country and its history another look.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "It is my understanding of your position that you regard "secession" as illegal.
That a state cannot secede.
That the official Union position is that states cannot secede.
That there is no legal or moral basis by which states may secede.
That the Union's entire moral claim to waging war on the South was based on the premise that secession is illegal."

And that's your basic problem: despite uncountable efforts to educate you on real history, you refuse utterly to learn anything, and just keep repeating your propaganda points.

The first fact to remember is that from the beginning our Founders believed that "disunion" while highly undesirable could eventually prove necessary and doable under two conditions:

1. Mutual consent, just as the old Articles of Confederation were replaced by the new Constitution, by mutual consent, so disunion could happen.
   Mutual consent could mean the approval of Congress, same as Congress approves new states' admission, or by Constitutional Convention.
   "Mutual consent" never meant unilateral, unapproved declarations of secession.

2. Some material, in effect, breech of compact such as "usurpations", "abuses of power," or "oppression" making disunion necessary:
   "...the compact being among individuals as imbodied into States, no State can at pleasure release itself therefrom, and set up for itself.
   The compact can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect.
   It will hardly be contended that there is anything in the terms or nature of the compact, authorizing a party to dissolve it at pleasure." --James Madison, 1830

But unilateral secession "at pleasure" is precisely how & why the Deep South slave-power declared its independence.
Such process made their actions unconstitutional and illegal.

But again, let us remember:

1. Civil War did not start over slavery.
   
2. Civil War did not start over tariffs or taxes.
   
3. Civil War did not start over Deep South declarations of secession.
   
4. Civil War did not start over the forming of a new slavocratic Confederacy.
   
5. Civil War did not start with a Union invasion of the South.

Civil War only began when the Confederacy first seized dozens of major Federal properties, threatened Union officials, fired on Union ships, assaulted Union troops in Union Fort Sumter, formally declared war on the United States and sent military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri.
That's what started Civil War, and all the rest of our pro-Confederate arguments are nothing but smoke-screen.

DiogenesLamp: "If this is the Union position, and they actually believed this, then why did they accept the breakaway state of West Virginia?
On what legal basis could it separate from Virginia?"

FRiend, if you would ever actually read the Constitution you'll see that it provides for the formation of new states, so long as Congress, the old state and the new state all approve.
And that is just what happened in the case of West Virginia.

DiogenesLamp: "This simply demonstrates that their arguments about "UNION" are a pretense, and that it wasn't about the principle involved, but rather about the loss of power for themselves."

No, what it demonstrates is that DiogenesLamp is as dumb as a rock, and ignorant as a log.

You should be utterly ashamed of yourself for posting such garbage on Free Republic, FRiend.

[rockrr]

I don’t know which is sadder - DegenerateLamp trying to lecture us on things he doesn’t know, or imputing unto us things that we don’t espouse.

[Tau Food]

Good post, as usual, Joe.

I tend to agree with Patrick Henry about the basic structure of the Constitution. During the Virginia ratifying convention, the question arose as to whether the proposed Constitution would create a mere compact among states or a consolidated government of the people of the United States. In other words, was the proposed Constitution creating political bonds between sovereign states or instead creating new political bonds between, for example, each person in New York and each person in Virginia. Patrick Henry warned that because the Constitution began with the words "We the people of the United States," the proposed Constitution would create a consolidated government of the people and would create direct political bonds between the people Patrick Henry:

"And here I would make this enquiry of those worthy characters who composed a part of the late Federal Convention. I am sure they were fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated Government, instead of a confederation. That this is a consolidated Government is demonstrably clear, and the danger of such a Government, is, to my mind, very striking. I have the highest veneration of those Gentlemen,--but, Sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, We, the People. My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorised them to speak the language of, We, the People, instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics, and the soul of a confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated National Government of the people of all the States."

"We the people" created this government. "We the people" have direct political bonds with one another. No state, no county, no city has the power interfere with those bonds or to attempt to sever them. Patrick Henry, who opposed the proposed Constitution, clearly understood the significance of the document.

I do not live in Vermont, but the state of Vermont has no right to interfere with or to sever the direct Constitutional bonds between me and each citizen of the state of Vermont. Similarly, the state of Vermont has no right to interfere with or to sever the direct Constitutional bonds between each resident of Vermont and the government of the United States.

Any resident of the United States has the right to leave this country anytime he/she wishes, but no one has the right to try to force any of his neighbors to go with him/her.

[HandyDandy]

"No, what it demonstrates is that DiogenesLamp is as dumb as a rock, and ignorant as a log."

I disagree. I think it demonstrates this person is ignorant as a rock, and dumb as a log.

"You should be utterly ashamed of yourself for posting such garbage on Free Republic, Friend."

What this person should be most ashamed about is summing up our American Revolution like this:

So a bunch of Slave owning States Rebelled against the Union, Were led by a Slave owning General from Virginia, and the Union government offered freedom to any slave that would fight against the rebels.

If you want to have some fun, ask him what is this "Union" he refers to. Tsk. Tsk.

[BroJoeK]

HandyDandy: "I disagree. I think it demonstrates this person is ignorant as a rock, and dumb as a log."

Ha! Now there's a debate we could easily turn into another thousand-poster thread. ;-)

[BroJoeK]

Tau Food: " "We the people" created this government. "We the people" have direct political bonds with one another.
No state, no county, no city has the power interfere with those bonds or to attempt to sever them.
Patrick Henry, who opposed the proposed Constitution, clearly understood the significance of the document."

Thanks for a great point and great post, FRiend.
I am certain these are among the grounds on which President Lincoln maintained that Deep South declarations of secession were unconstitutional and illegal.

[Tau Food]

These threads have been educational and your many interesting posts have helped make them so. However, I cannot help but think that some of the participants do not feel free to fully express all of their views on these matters. If that is true, then it is indeed a shame.