“All Lincoln wished to do was perform his Constitutional duties. What’s so oppressive about the US Constitution that it led to several states seceding even before Lincoln took office.”
I don’t know perhaps you should ask Lincoln when he couldn’t bring himself to allow the south to leave in peace but instead had to insist upon his right to rule them without their consent to be governed.
No where in the Constitution does it mention secession or revolution, and technically that fact alone should be enough for you to know its a right reserved to the people and their states.
The Constitution but the reason why it is unmentioned is because as the 13 colonies declared and demonstrated on July the 4th 1776 such is an inalterable and unceedable right of the people.
To place it in the constitution is to imply that you could amend the document as to give up such a basic right. But such a right cannot be given up no matter what because such a right is so intrinsically to the very existents of any free people!
The Union, like any government, exist only for the mutually shared benefit of its members. So its members have not a reason to leave until such time that it is no longer mutually beneficial and has in fact become abusive to them.
This is something only they(each minority individually and separately) can decide. For in a union where the majority be the abuser what reason does the majority have to give up their subject? Why would they with power admit to their own abuses of power to justification the loss of their own power?
Unilateral secession, is the only useful form of secession which protects the rights of the individual and the minority.
There are many things that are funny about the north’s arguement that the south was mearly attempying to protect slavery. Just as there are things that are a bit funny about the argument that secession was the only way to preserve slavery.
Indeed secession would only accomplish one thing for the south, separate themselves from the taxation, law making, and spending powers welded by the northern majorities.
It would not and could not preserve slavery, it would only firmly relieved the north of their (ignored and resisted) constitutional obligation to return escaped slaves. Thus accelerating the death of slavery in the south.
Why did the South feel the need to initiate a war in order to gain possession of Fort Sumter? Was it worth it in the end?
No where in the Constitution does it mention secession or revolution, and technically that fact alone should be enough for you to know its a right reserved to the people and their states.
Actually it does. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power to call up the militia to suppress insurrections.
Unilateral secession, is the only useful form of secession which protects the rights of the individual and the minority.
Unilateral secession says that only the seceding states have any Constitutional protections and that the remaining states have none. That idea is ridiculous, and is one reason why the Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession unconstitutional in 1869.
There are many things that are funny about the north’s arguement that the south was mearly attempying to protect slavery. Just as there are things that are a bit funny about the argument that secession was the only way to preserve slavery.
There is nothing funny about the truth.
Indeed secession would only accomplish one thing for the south, separate themselves from the taxation, law making, and spending powers welded by the northern majorities.
Look at your history and you'll see that's ridiculous.
It would not and could not preserve slavery, it would only firmly relieved the north of their (ignored and resisted) constitutional obligation to return escaped slaves.
Nonsense. Congress went above and beyond the call to protect slavery, to the point where they freely trampled on the rights of the non-slave states. (Where were Southern calls for 'states rights' when that happened?) Every Supreme Court decision under the Taney court came down squarely on the side of slave owners. The government did all the South could have expected, and more, to protect slaves and return runaways.
Thus accelerating the death of slavery in the south.
I cannot think of a single quote from a single Southern leader of the rebellion who believed in 1861 that slavery was doomed for extinction. They all expected it to be passed on to their children and grandchildren, for generations yet to come.