Posted on 03/28/2008 12:15:10 PM PDT by cowboyway
It ain't that hard to understand. For example, it's like schools moving in and out of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The teams may come and go but the ACC remains.
With this example in mind, do you think that a school should be forced to remain in the ACC if the majority of the administrators, faculty, students and alumni want to leave?
Had the CSA won its independence, I suspect they would have regretted this clause very quickly.
Well, we had this:
"(1) Upon the demand of any three States, legally assembled in their several conventions, the Congress shall summon a convention of all the States, to take into consideration such amendments to the Constitution as the said States shall concur in suggesting at the time when the said demand is made; and should any of the proposed amendments to the Constitution be agreed on by the said convention — voting by States — and the same be ratified by the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, or by conventions in two-thirds thereof — as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the general convention — they shall thenceforward form a part of this Constitution. But no State shall, without its consent, be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate."
While you were at it, why didn't you mention the merits of the Confederate Constitution?
"invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God "-----It does, however, explicitly evoke God. So there would be no court challenges about the Pledge of Allegiance in alternate CSA-won-the-Civl-War-world.
"The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill."-----The Confederates alter this a bit, and give the CSA President the power to approve certain parts of a bill into law, and reject other parts. Today this power is known as a "line-item veto." Many US state governors have such a power, but the American President does not.
"but neither this, nor any other clause contained in the Constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors and the removing of obstructions in river navigation; in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof."-----The changes forbid Congress from spending money to "facilitate commerce." This can be seen as an early attempt to limit the power of big business in politics; Congress was only supposed to fund infrastructure that served the interests of the states and the people, not industry.
"(20) Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title."-----The Confederates add this little clause at the end of Section 9. This is quite an interesting addition, as it demands that all laws only relate to "one subject." This would prevent what we see today, where endless riders attached to bills can allow Congress to pass all sorts of extraordinarily complicated laws that regulate about 50 different topics at once.
"He and the Vice President shall hold their offices for the term of six years; but the President shall not be reeligible"-----The Confederate President can only serve a single, six-year term, unlike the US President, who (at the time) could be re-elected forever.
"but no person rejected by the Senate shall be reappointed to the same office during their ensuing recess."-----The CSA adds an additional check to prevent the President from exploiting recess appointments. If someone is rejected by the Senate, the President cannot weasel around it by just making that person a recess appointment.
If you mean The War of Northern Aggression, then yes.
Sorry but Jefferson Davis isn’t fit to shine Abe’s boots, to paraphrase scarlett o.
So sorry, but you obviously don't have a clue what you're talking about.
And calling him dishonest abe, really irkes me.
Perhaps you should consider increasing your meds..........(see post #66) Also see Lincoln Unmasked
And did you critize someones grammer and spelling? That is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Now that's just plain funny and if I get his goat as good as I've gotten yours, then Mission Accomplished!!!
I don’t care if a few of you dead-enders want to dream that the south shall rise again,
Just remember something, Einstein, those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. disHonest Abe centralized the government that now rules the roost over all the states which is exactly opposite of what the Founders had in mind.
and you can put those uppity blacks back in thier place.
thier = their (did you do that on purpose?.....you little devil you....)Black Man Proud Of Confederate Flag
Its just a dream.
Show one post, just one, where I, or any other Southerner, have defended slavery or ever used language such as "put those uppity blacks back in thier place".
I suggest that you've drawn your conclusions based on ignorance and regional prejudice.
Incorrect. South Carolina was taken out by her legislature. Missouri was. North Carolina was. Virgninia was, too.
You sure do like calling that kettle black, don't you pot?
Goes for you too, kettle.
Missouri was. A rump faction of the Missouri legislature, on the run from Union troops, voted MO out of the Union. While the CSA considered MO a Confederate state, most Missourians did not. Probably more than twice as many fought for the Union than for the CSA. A similar scenario played out in Kentucky.
North Carolina was. Nope. "We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention assembled..."
Virgninia was, too. Nope, again. I happen to be fairly familiar with the Virginia Convention, as it voted secession down by over 2:1 before Sumter, then reversed itself by the same proportion after Sumter.
The political theory of the time was that a Convention spoke directly with the voice of the People, whereas legislatures were composed of politicians. This theory appears to have largely disappeared without a trace. Also I believe Conventions were held to ratify the USA Constitution, so the theory was that a Convention was needed to secede from the USA.
Read some history instead of the preambles of the documents. South Carolina’s convention was selected by their legislature, not the people. North Carolina’s population voted against secession, the legislature took them out anyway. Missouri’s secession convention also voted against leaving the Union, which the governor tried to do anyway. Virginia’s legislature voted secession and the state was admitted into the confederacy before the popular referendum was held. In most cases ‘the people’ had little or no say in staying or leaving.
Since you brought Marx into the conversation, didn't he support the Union cause in the war? Was that vulgar?
War may indeed involve money or resources. Sometimes it involves freedom or religion. Read up on the French Wars of Religion sometime.
People do fight for self interest and often that involved money. The Southern economy was based on slavery. Their economy would collapse if slaves were freed. Cotton would certainly be more expensive to produce. Much of Southern wealth was tied up in slaves and it was the richest part of the country back then. Goodbye wealth.
Many large plantation owners were against secession. I gather they saw that the undermanned South with its relatively meager resources would probably lose the war, and they would consequently lose their slaves.
As I said earlier, Northern port cities wanted something done about the disparate tariffs so that their local economy and jobs would be safe. Manufacturers wanted a protective tariff to make more money. Southern consumers wanted lower prices.
Let us assume that the Union would have lost 50% of its revenue. They had the alternatives of finding another way to raise $25M or $30M per year, or getting into a war that would by anybody’s reckoning cost hundreds of millions. In theory they would have lower expenses, so maybe they wouldn’t need as much money to run the government.
US government spending had gotten out of hand right before the war and government would have to cancel projects or let some of their notes and loans go belly up without the revenue. From an old post of mine:
Representative Phelps speaking to the House on February 6, 1861 (paragraph breaks mine):
Then the existing debt of the United States is nearly seventy million dollars. The $10,000,000 Treasury notes recently issued were negotiated, a portion at twelve percent, and a portion at between ten and eleven. Your ten percent Treasury notes were sold in the market of New York below par; and if you authorize new loans that are not absolutely necessary, you cannot negotiate them except at ruinous rates.
I have made a comparison of actual debt created and proposed to be created by this Congress. The balance of the loan authorized under the act of 22nd June, 1860 is $13,978,000. If the amendment of the Senate be concurred in, that loan cannot be negotiated. I am in favor of that amendment.
The tariff bill, which will probably become law, authorizes the loan of $21,000,000. The Pacific railroad bill as it passed the House authorized an indebtedness of $96,000,000, and the Senate has put on an additional $25,000,000. In other words, the proposed indebtedness of the country is $167,000,000 [actually the figures above add to $165,978,000]; making with the present public debt and the loan already authorized, an aggregate of $250,351,649. With such indebtedness, how can you expect to raise a loan on favorable terms?
Reining in spending would have been a good thing. They could have canceled the railroad bill for one. Prior to the railroad bill, Congress had more than doubled the public debt between 1857 and 1860 and the railroad bill and others increased the public debt by a factor of ten over the 1857 figure. It was totally out of control. BTW, the train tracks were to be routed through the North despite a cheaper Southern route. More sectional aggrandizement. Senator Douglas had brought home the pork.
I've read somewhere the argument that Lincoln was facing the possible collapse of his government in March and April if nothing was done. He obviously did not choose a peaceful action. He wanted to occupy the South with US troops back in the forts that the South seized. He wanted to collect the revenue from ships headed to Southern ports. And he did not want Congress to have a say in what was he was planning for Sumter or doing afterwards. He didn't convene Congress until the Fourth of July. Davis convened his Congress in less than two weeks. Why did Lincoln wait that long given the crisis facing the country?
Southern states seceded to protect their “peculiar institution” against what they viewed as a threat.
Which Lincoln were they to believe? The Lincoln of the house divided speech: "I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free." or the Lincoln who supported the Corwin Amendment protecting slavery?
Northern states resisted their secession to preserve the Union, with the war goal of emancipation added later.
Before the attack on Sumter there were many in the North who said let the South go. Once the attack happened the issue became an attack on the flag and patriotism. "Preserve the Union" was the easiest thing to sell politically at that point in time. Making the war about emancipation then would have driven the border states and some regions of the North out of the Union.
The Union, of course, did not cease to exist without the South although they would have had serious economic troubles had they let the South go peaceably.
Others saw other purposes for the tariff. Witness what Henry Benning was telling the Virginia Secession Convention:
"Then the question is, will you have protection necessary to accomplish this result? I say I think you will. I do not come here, as I said at the outset, to make promises; but I will give my opinion, and that is that the South will support itself by duties on imports. It has certainly begun to do that. We have merely adopted the revenue system of the United States so far, and are now collecting the revenue under an old law. Our Constitution has said that Congress should have the power to lay duties for revenue, to pay debts and to carry on the government, and therefore there is a limit to the extent that this protection can go, and within that the South can give protection that will be sufficient to enable you to compete with the North. We have got to have a navy, and an army, and we have got to make up that army speedily. It must be a much larger army than we have been accustomed to have in the late Union-it must be large in proportion to the armv that it will have to meet. These things will require a revenue of about 10 per cent, which will yield an aggregate of about $20,000,000, and with this per cent, it would be in the power of Virginia to compete, in a short time, with all the nations of the earth in all the important branches of manufacture. Why? Because manufacturing has now been brought to such perfection by the invention of new machinery. The result will be the immigration of the best men of the North; skilled artizans and men of capital will come here and establish works among you. You have the advantage of longer days and shorter winters, and of being nearer to the raw material of a very important article of manufacture. I have no idea that the duties will be as low as 10 per cent. My own opinion is that we shall have as high duty as is now charged by the General Government at Washington. If that matter is regarded as important by this Convention, why the door is open for negotiation with us. We have but a provisional and temporary government so far. If it be found that Virginia requires more protection than this upon any particular article of manufacture let her come in the spirit of a sister, to our Congress and say, we want more protection upon this or that article, and she will, I have no doubt, receive it. She will be met in the most fraternal and complying spirit."
my family just watched a re-enactment of this on dvd last night...
"In January 1861, Governor Letcher called a special session of the Virginia legislature, which approved a plan for a state convention. ... (Conrad's) Unionist majority defeated an ordinance of secession on April 4 88 to 45. However just two weeks later the secessionists won out, carrying the Convention eighty-eight to fifty-five, a near complete reversal of Unionist fortunes. Two events sealed the fate of the Unionist cause at the Convention, the firing on Ft. Sumter, and Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops.
Men like Conrad had expressed the will of the majority of Virginians at the start of the Convention, to remain in the Union if Congress granted them concessions, but events outside of their control made peace with Abraham Lincoln seem impossible and secession the only solution."
The process was as follows:
The state legislature called for a special Convention to be elected by the people to consider secession. While it's likely a good many members of the VA legislature were elected to the Convention, it was legally an entirely separate body similar to those elected by other states at various times to create or change state constitutions.
The Convention was elected by the people on February 4, convened on February 13 and eventually voted to secede on April 17.
Virginia secession was not final until the people ratified secession on May 23, by a margin of over 3:1.
http://blueandgraytrail.com/event/Virginia_Secession_Convention
The Convention, not the legislature, also joined the CSA on April 23, subject to approval of secession by the voters.
The Virginia Convention, and I suspect the other state Conventions, were separate bodies from the state legislatures, elected by the people and similar in nature to the conventions used to create and rewrite state constitutions.
The timeline in VA was as follows:
January 7, 1861
Virginia calls a special session of its Assembly to consider convening a convention on the question of secession.
January 14, 1861
Virginia Assembly approves a convention to consider secession
February 4, 1861
Elections in Virginia create a pro-Union secessionist convention
February 13, 1861
In Richmond, former President John Tyler and former Virginia governor Henry Wise lead the notables who meet for the first time as Virginia’s secessionist convention.
April 3, 1861
A “test vote” in the Virginia convention shows a 2-1 margin against secession
April 4, 1861
Virginia’s secessionist convention votes 80-45 against secession.
April 17, 1861
Virgina Secession Convention approves the wording of a referendum of secession and calls for a popular vote to approve it.
April 23, 1861
Virginia secessionist convention ratifies a temporary union with the Confederacy and accepts the Southern Constitution, subject to approval of the ordnance of secession Virginia
May 23, 1861
Virginia ratifies the Secessionist Convention referendum by a vote of 132,201 to 37,451 Virginia
http://blueandgraytrail.com/event/Virginia_Secession_Convention
Interestingly, Virginia launched its treasonous assault on the USA before bothering to secede. Orders were issued to state forces to march on the USA installations at Harper’s Ferry and Norfolk on April 16, while the state convention voted to secede on April 17, and the people did not ratify secession until well into May.
If, according to you and other union sympathizers, secession was illegal, (and some of your peeps have even gone as far as to suggest that the South never seceded and there never was a Confederacy) why even make that a point of contention?
Just remember, if you're going to call someone a racist, you need to be able to back it up.
As for not having a clue and being a regionilist(is that a word?) I still do very well on jepordy when civil war is the catorgorey.
Congratulations.
Because Virginia initiated an attack on the USA before even pretending to secede? Because by the stringent definition in the US constition this constitutes treason?
I think there is a valid distinction to be made here between secession de facto and de jure.
It it quite obvious that for a period of 4 years or so a number of American states seceded from the Union de facto. I doubt even Lincoln would argue this point.
The question is thus one of whether this secession was valid de jure. In my opinion, and that of the US Supreme Court in Texas v White, secession was never valid de jure.
The CSA obviously existed. I don’t know of anybody who challenges that. The question is whether a US state can legally take itself out of the Union by secession. The states that seceded very stupidly chose not to argue their right to do so before the Supremes, who were dominated by southerners at the time. Had they done so and won their case, it would have put a serious dent in the Union war effort.
They chose to use bullets rather than legal briefs to argue their case. This turned out to be a Bad Idea.
Virginia, vacillating on the secession, decided to secede because of northern military attacks on the South.
It it quite obvious that for a period of 4 years or so a number of American states seceded from the Union de facto.
Precisely what 'period' are you referring to?
In my opinion, and that of the US Supreme Court in Texas v White, secession was never valid de jure.
The War of Northern Aggression produced 3 constitutional amendments. None of them dealt with secession.
It was a Lincoln packed SCOTUS, led by Chief Justice Salmon Chase (Lincoln's Treasury Secretary and long time hater of Southerners, who should have recused himself) that legislated from the bench, a method that conservatives usually abhor.
From Texas-vs-White (bold added): "The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States."
The above would suggest that the court allowed the possibility of divisibility of the union.
The question is whether a US state can legally take itself out of the Union by secession.
"revolution, or through consent of the States."
If the Supreme Court is the final word in the matter, then there is, and was, a legal path to secession.
Like Roe-v-Wade, Texas-v-White is a highly controversial case.
Had they done so and won their case, it would have put a serious dent in the Union war effort.
disHonest Abe would have used whatever means he deemed necessary to 'preserve the union'.
He ordered the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the waging of war on noncombatants (Shermans march) so, I have to agree that if the South had presented and won their case, it would have just been a 'dent' in Lincoln's plans.
He may have played the slavery card earlier or schemed for a legislative overturn of the Courts decision. It just wouldn't have mattered.
They chose to use bullets rather than legal briefs to argue their case.
By 'they', of course, you mean the yankees.
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