Posted on 08/25/2008 9:11:18 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Valdosta State professor pens ‘Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War’
Generations of students have been taught that the South lost the Civil War because of the North’s superior industry and population. A new book suggests another reason: Southerners were largely responsible for defeating the Confederacy.
In “Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War” (New Press, $27.95), historian David Williams of Valdosta State University lays out some tradition-upsetting arguments that might make the granite brow of Jefferson Davis crack on Stone Mountain.
“With this book,” wrote Publishers Weekly, “the history of the Civil War will never be the same again.”
Actually, historians have long fallen into two camps in explaining the Confederacy’s demise — one stressing the Union’s advantages, the other the South’s divisions. Williams gives vivid expression to the latter view, drawing on state and local studies done primarily in the past two decades.
The 49-year-old South Georgia native discussed his interpretations in an interview from Valdosta.
Q: You write that most Southerners didn’t even want to leave the Union.
A: That’s right. In late 1860 and early 1861, there were a series of votes on the secession question in all the slave states, and the overwhelming majority voted against it. It was only in the Deep South, from South Carolina to Texas, that there was much support for secession, and even there it was deeply divided. In Georgia, a slight majority of voters were against secession.
Q: So why did Georgia secede?
A: The popular vote didn’t decide the question. It chose delegates to a convention. That’s the way slaveholders wanted it, because they didn’t trust people to vote on the question directly. More than 30 delegates who had pledged to oppose secession changed their votes at the convention. Most historians think that was by design. The suspicion is that the secessionists ran two slates — one for and one supposedly against — and whichever was elected, they’d vote for secession.
Q: You say the war didn’t start at Fort Sumter.
A: The shooting war over secession started in the South between Southerners. There were incidents in several states. Weeks before Fort Sumter, seven Unionists were lynched in Tallahatchie County, Miss.
Q: Was the inner civil war ever resolved?
A: No. As a result, about 300,000 Southern whites served in the Union army. Couple that with almost 200,000 Southern blacks who served, and that combined to make almost a fourth of the total Union force. All those Southerners who fought for the North were a major reason the Confederacy was defeated.
Q: In the spring of 1862, the Confederacy enacted the first draft in American history. Planters had an easy time getting out of it, didn’t they?
A: Very easy. If they owned 20 or more slaves, they were pretty much excused from the draft. Some of them paid off draft officials. Early in the war, they could pay the Confederate government $500 and get out of the draft.
Q: You use the phrase “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight” several times. Does this history anger you?
A: I don’t think it would be unfair to say that. It seems like the common folk were very much ignored and used by the planter elite. As a result, over half a million Americans died.
My great-great-grandfather was almost one: John Joseph Kirkland. He was a poor farmer in Early County, no slaves. He was 33, just under draft age, and had five children at home. He went ahead and enlisted so he could get a $50 bonus. A year later, he lost a leg at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Q: One of the biggest problems for the South was a lack of food. Why?
A: That does seem strange, because we think of the South as a vast agricultural region. But the planters were growing too much cotton and tobacco and not enough food. Cotton and tobacco paid more.
Q: You say the Confederate army stripped the fields of much of the produce and livestock there was, leaving civilians hungry. That sounds like Sherman’s troops marching through Georgia.
A: It was very much like that.
Q: When they couldn’t feed their families, Southern women started food riots. There was a big one in Richmond. Were there any in Georgia?
A: Every major city in Georgia had food riots. We’ve documented more than 20. In Atlanta, a woman walked into a store on Whitehall Street and drew a revolver and told the rest of the women to take what they wanted. They moved from store to store.
Q: The deprivations at home led to a very high desertion rate among Confederates. How bad was it?
A: By 1864, two-thirds of the Army was absent with or without leave. It got worse after that.
Q: There was a sort of Underground Railroad for deserters?
A: Yes. It surprised me that many Confederate deserters could count on the support of slaves to hide them and move them from one location to another.
Q: How important were black Southerners in the outcome of the war?
A: They were very important to undermining the Confederate war effort. When slaves heard that Abraham Lincoln had been elected, many of them thought they were free and started leaving plantations. So many eventually escaped to Union lines that they forced the issue. As other historians have said, Lincoln didn’t free the slaves; the slaves freed themselves.
Q: If there was so much division in the South and it was such an important part of the Confederacy’s downfall, why isn’t this a larger part of our national memory?
A: The biggest reason is regional pride. It gratified white Southerners to think the South was united during the Civil War. It gratified Northerners to believe they defeated a united South.
Q: Why do you think so much Southern identity has been wrapped up in the Confederacy? We’re talking about four of the 400 years since Jamestown was settled. It seems like the tail wagged the dog — and now you tell us the tail is pretty raggedy.
A: I think popular memory got wrapped up in race. Most white Southerners opposed secession, but they were also predominantly racists. After the war, they wanted to keep it a white man’s country and maintain their status over African-Americans. It became easy for Southerners to misremember what happened during the war. A lot of people whose families had opposed the Confederacy became staunch neo-Confederates after a generation or two, mainly for racist reasons.
Q: Has this knowledge affected your feelings about Southern heritage? Did you have an opinion about the former Georgia flag?
A: I had a graduate student who did his thesis on that. He looked into the origins of the 1956 state flag and concluded that the Confederate battle emblem was put there not to honor our ancestors but as a statement against school integration.
Q: So you saw no reason to defend that flag?
A: No, not in the least.
Q: Have the Sons of Confederate Veterans been to see you?
A: Yes. They didn’t really deny anything I had to say, but they weren’t real happy to hear it. I told them, “Well, I’m not making this up.”
" I have requested at least that the prisoners I have taken be held, if not as traitors, as prisoners of war. To release them is ruinous. To convict them before a court is next to impossibility. But if they are kept in prison for six months, it will have a good effect."
Violation of habeas corpus having a good effect? Such are the fruits of civil war.
Thanks again for providing more material to study. It beats the invective that sometimes is the end result of Civil War threads. And it shows again that neither side had a monopoly on misdeeds and the conflict was often more complicated than a simple good versus evil struggle. I just think that Lincoln and the Union was fighting to preserve the best government the world has known while on the other side, the good instincts of many southerners were misused for the narrow interests of a gang of pp;iticans that had more regional influence than good sense.
Taney wasn't the only judge to protest the illegal suspension of habeas corpus, just the highest judge to do so. There were a number of US District Court judges who had the same problem with Lincoln's actions. Consider Judge Garrison of New York when the army blocked his call for a habeas corpus review of prisoners kept in Fort Lafayette. From the New Orleans Daily Picayune of August 16, 1861:
The Habeas Corpus Case in New York
NEW YORK, Aug. 15. -- Judge Garrison has made a formal application for forces to execute his writs.
The officials replied they could obtain about 1400 men, but that the county had no artillery sufficiently powerful to impress the walls of Fort Lafayette, and here the matter rests.
The courts in New York were operating, as of course were the courts in Maryland. It is the law of our country that civil courts rule, not the military. I've cited before on these threads a Confederate District Court case where the judge ruled in favor of civilian courts disposing of cases involving civilians, not the military. The judge took jurisdiction of the prisoner. That did not happen in the North until after Lincoln was dead.
Jefferson Davis was fully behind similar actions? As I know, Jefferson Davis never authorized the suspension of habeas corpus except when his Congress authorized him to do so. Not so with Lincoln.
I'll forgo objecting to your use of the term 'civil war' for now.
I just think that Lincoln and the Union was fighting to preserve the best government the world has known while on the other side, the good instincts of many southerners were misused for the narrow interests of a gang of pp;iticans that had more regional influence than good sense.
We can respectfully disagree. The withdrawal of states because the Union no longer served their interests did not end the Union. There were as many people in the North in 1860 as their had been in the whole country in 1850 (or thereabouts).
If it had been the best government, then its Northern members would have been obeying the Constitution with regard to the return of fugitive slaves and its chief executive during the war wouldn't have trashed the Constitution, which as the Supreme Court said was meant for war as well as peace.
Also, I'd be careful talking about a gang of politicians that had more regional influence than good sense if I were you. It is one of the chief complaints of the South against the North.
Respectfully, rb.
As I know = As far as I know
... it may be of interest to those who do not know the locality to state that Fort Lafayette stands about 200 yards from the main shore at Fort Hamilton. Fort Lafayette possesses comparatively but little strength; this part of the bay is protected by Fort Hamilton on this side and by Fort Richmond on the other, but little reliance being placed on Fort Lafayette, which in the event of a conflict between the forts and hostle vessels could hardly fail to be destroyed by the fire from Forts Richmond and Hamilton. ... it is said that the force now under control of the Government in the Bay could resist a State force of 10,000 men, should any such number be called upon to enforce the decree of the Court. ...
... The militia of the county is in peacetime about 1,500 men; one regiment from this district is at the seat of war, and the home force is now less than 1,000 men.
I made an error above. Judge Garrison was a state court judge, not a US District Court judge. But there were US District Ccourt judges who could not enforce habeas corpus rulings because of Lincoln's army. Judge Giles in Maryland was one in a case concerning an underage soldier, and there was a case in Missouri as I remember.
N-S: I'll be glad to quote his writings.
None of those "writings" were addressed to the People of the States (that he 'sold' the new Constitution to), or to the American public in general, of course...
Can you quote the passage from the Federalist Papers where Madison clearly states that unilateral secession is allowed? Or where he outlines the process for secession at all?
Allow me to refresh your memory:
WSJG: As you correctly note, Mr. Madison may well have been "the man who, more than any other single individual, was responsible for creating the document in the first place." And when he was selling "the document" to the American people, prior to ratification, he noted, in writing, in public, that the States would be justified in using military force (State militia) to oppose the new federal government by force, if the States thought it appropriate to oppose unconstitutional federal actions in that manner.
;>)
Allow me to quote (once again) the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people [of the States].
In reality, 'the question of whether secession is allowed or not' is the only issue. That right is nowhere prohibited to the States, nor is the power to prevent it delegated to the federal government. The question of 'how secession is to take place' is irrelevant at the federal level - the Constitution does not prohibit the action to the States, or empower the federal government to oppose such action.
You take the position that only the leaving states had any rights that needed to be respected or any say in the matter. Madison disagrees. He clearly states in his [private] letters that secession requires the consent of all the parties affected.
Obviously, the States were unaware of Mr. Madison's private opinions, voiced decades after he 'sold' the new Constitution to the people of the States, in part based on his public assurances that the States could decide for themselves whether federal actions were unconstitutional, and resort even to the use of military force to oppose such actions.
As for "the consent of all the parties affected:" are you suggesting that State sales taxes, or State speed limits, for example, are 'unconstitutional' because they 'affect all of the States as parties to the Constitution?'
His view that all states are equal parties to the Constitution seems contrary to your Orwellian view that some states are more equal than others.
Actually, I suggest (as did Mr. Jefferson, in his own words):
...that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each [State as a] party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
And I'll accept Madison's interpretation over your's, for the obvious reasons.
Have at it - my view is completely consistent with Mr. Madison's public writings, published during the period when the Constitution was actually ratified (and immediately thereafter)...
;>)
Now, if you have other documents from the period that seem to specifically support the concept of unilateral secession then by all means, trot them out.
I've posted them before (and you ignored them, as always). But because I'm feeling generous, here's a sample:
"The powers not delegated, to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people"...
All the powers of the federal government being either expressly enumerated, or necessary and proper to the execution of some enumerated power; and it being one of the rules of construction which sound reason has adopted; that, as exception strengthens the force of a law in cases not excepted, so enumeration weakens it, in cases not enumerated; it follows, as a regular consequence... every power which has been carved out of the states, who, at the time of entering into the confederacy, were in full possession of all the rights of sovereignty, is, in like manner to be construed strictly, wherever a different construction might derogate from the rights and powers, which by the latter of these articles; are expressly acknowledged to be reserved to them respectively.
I've quoted this source before (as has the U.S. Supreme Court, more recently ;>), so I will assume you are familiar with it.
Your not-so-humble opinions to the contrary notwithstanding, you would be incorrect.
It's happened many times before (although never with regard to debates here, regarding the issue at hand ;>)...
WIJG: "Illegality?" Wrong - that is precisely the issue.
N-S: Not at all. The question you posed is why anyone would believe a referendum would need to be held before secession could take place. The answer is obviously Virginia did, or else it would not have placed the requirement in the secession documents.
LOL! Are you suggesting that the federal government used military force to suppress the secession of the Southern States (resulting in the loss of 600,000+ American lives), because those States in some way violated State laws?
ROTFLMAO!
Actually, I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who observed that it is each American's right and duty to interpret the Constitution for themselves. And even were it not so, the fact that I hold a personal opinion (which, in fact, is entirely consistent with historical public documentation) in no way disqualifies that opinion.
The Constitution is indeed supreme - over all the branches of government as well as the states themselves. Article III gives the the jurisdiction for interpreting and applying the Constitution to the Supreme Court.
Can you be more specific? I don't see your language in Article III. Nor do I see any prohibition of the States, acting as parties to the compact, "interpreting and applying the Constitution" as the they deem fit.
The fact that you may disagree with their interpretation does not make you right and them wrong. Nor does it mean that their decisions are in keeping with the intent of the founders in every case. But their decisions are binding.
"Binding?" Not necessarily, according to Mr. Madison's 'public' opinion, voiced in his 'Report on the Virginia Resolutions.'
It is an imperfect system but what is the alternative? Hard as it may be for you to understand, not everyone is blessed with the same...unique view of the Constitution as you have. So what do we do? Allow Congress to have 535 interpretations? Allow the states to have 50? Leave it in the hands of the President? Or give it all to you?
"Allow the states to have 50?" Absolutely - that is the right the States as parties reserved to themselves. And what would the result be? A limited federal government, producing 'consensus' legislation, and a federal Republic where 'one size' did NOT fit all (by order of DC bureaucrats), where the citizens could still vote with their feet simply by crossing the State line...
Sorry, but those gentlemen were not parties to the contract. And the document they signed had no authority, based on their signatures, whatsoever.
The ratification documents were just that, assent to their decision and their declaration to ratify and abide by the Constitution. Their acceptance was not conditional.
The ratification documents represent the actual 'signature page:' as the Constitution itself notes, the compact had no power whatsoever until it was ratified by "the Conventions of nine States." The signatures of "men like James Madison, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Rutledge, and ben Franklin" were meaningless, absent the ratification of the individual States. And as I have noted earlier, the ratifications of several of those States were clearly and explicitly "conditional." If the other States as parties were unwilling to accept the conditions, they could have refused to accept the ratification(s), and denied admission to the subject State(s). And the fact that any State may not yet have acted on the basis of reserved rights does not, in any way, negate those rights...
But I doubt he thought of that amendment as a "Get Out of the Union Free Card" or a secret ace up the sleeve of secessionist movements or an Easter egg or Christmas present hidden by the First Congress for lucky rebel children to find.
Are you suggesting that Congressman Noell was "the person tasked with deciding what is Constitutional and what is not" (see your Post #213)?
Or did being "a member of the bar" or a "Congressman" give him some extra authority - in your opinion?
Just wondering...
;>)
Actually (as I have documented here, repeatedly, and as other historians have observed) the so-called "slave empire" had "right" on it's side, under the specific written terms of the Constitution (as it then existed). As for your suggestion that "right makes might," tell it to the subjects of the real 'slave empires' - Communist China, etc.
This isn't Democratic Underground, we know the basics of American history over here.
Not insofar as you ignore the specific written language of the Tenth Amendment. If conservatives treated the Tenth the way they treat the Second, we would not be having this discussion.
But that way of changing the laws of Union does not negate Lincoln's belief that there was no internal Constitution provision for dismemberment of the pre-existing Union by unilateral state actions.
So, Mr. Lincoln is another guy who, in your opinion, was "the person tasked with deciding what is Constitutional and what is not?" If we are to believe you, perhaps he should have obtained an opinion from the high court, before he took military action to prevent secession.
(But, then, we all know in what high regard Mr. Lincoln held opinions issuing from members of the Supreme Court. Need an example or two? ;>)
A gang of rebels can get together and say anything they want- even that they've "seceded. But that will not free them from the Constitutional restrictions that would prevent a secession from being more than a irksome political drama.
Which "restrictions" are you referencing? Please be specific.
;>)
The Constitution, not a gang of state politicians, is the supreme law of the land.
I agree that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. As for 'gangs of politicians,' I would suggest that those congregating in DC are less likely to feel themselves bound by the specific written terms of the Constitution, than any such 'gangs' located in the States...
But they did lay out his views on the illegality, the idiocy of the concept of unilateral secession. What difference does the audience make?
Allow me to refresh your memory...
Allow me to ask again, where in the Federalist papers or anywhere else does Madison make the case for unilateral secession or outline the process for secession? Can you provide such a quote?
But the power to admit states and to approve changes in their status once they are allowed into the Union is a power delegated to the United States, specifically the Congress. Obviously that includes leaving. Or so Madison thought.
He clearly states in his [private] letters that secession requires the consent of all the parties affected.
I will ask again, what difference does that make? Madison was laying out his considered opinion on the idea of unilateral secession. His opinions were clearly stated. The fact that it was done in a letter rather than some published work is totally irrelevant.
Perhaps if you could show where in his public writings Madison supported the idea of unilateral secession as forcefully as he dismissed the idea of unilateral secession in his private writings you may have a case for your claim that Madison said one thing in one situation and another thing under different circumstances. But you can't do that.
As for "the consent of all the parties affected:" are you suggesting that State sales taxes, or State speed limits, for example, are 'unconstitutional' because they 'affect all of the States as parties to the Constitution?'
No, because your claim is ridiculous. State sales taxes or state speed limits have no impact on other states. What Virginia charges its residence for its purchases has no bearing on North Carolina. What Texas sets as its speed limit doesn't affect drivers in New Mexico. If Mississippi leaves the Union and blocks access to the Gulf of Mexico then that does impact other states. If seven states leave and take all the federal property they can get their hands on, without compensation, then that impacts other states. If they repudiate responsibility for the public debt built up when they were a part then that affects other states. If they walk out on treaties the nation entered into while they were a part then that affects other states.
...but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each [State as a] party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
An equal right. But in the case of the rebelling states, those state took it upon themselves to descide the infraction and the redress. The other states had no say in the matter, all they could do in your scenario was bend over and take it. Madison disagreed with you when he noted, "The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains. An inference from the doctrine that a single state has a right to secede at will from the rest, is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late, have been palatable anywhere, on nowhere less so than where it is not most contended for."
Have at it - my view is completely consistent with Mr. Madison's public writings...
Hardly. No where in his public or private writings did Madison support the concept of unilateral secession.
I've posted them before (and you ignored them, as always). But because I'm feeling generous, here's a sample:
And where in that is the idea of unilateral secession supported? I must have missed it.
Not at all. The South resorted to military force when they bombarded Sumter and initiated the armed rebellion which followed. It was that rebellion that the federal government suppressed.
You believe? Or you know?
And even were it not so, the fact that I hold a personal opinion (which, in fact, is entirely consistent with historical public documentation) in no way disqualifies that opinion.
Nor does it qualify it. Your opinions are your's alone.
I don't see your language in Article III.
Article III, Section 2: "In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." The legal definition of 'jurisdiction' is the power to interpret and apply the law in a given area. In this case the area is outlined in Clause 1.
Nor do I see any prohibition of the States, acting as parties to the compact, "interpreting and applying the Constitution" as the they deem fit.
What part gives the states that jurisdiction?
Binding?" Not necessarily, according to Mr. Madison's 'public' opinion, voiced in his 'Report on the Virginia Resolutions.'
Binding, according to Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison.
Absolutely - that is the right the States as parties reserved to themselves.
Hardly.
Not me, that was nonsequitur.
But since you asked, did anybody say, when the 10th Amendment was debated, "Wow, this will secure our right to secede unilaterally!" (or words to that effect in the language of the day)?
Mr. Madison's published opinions helped 'sell' the new Constitution to the People of the several States - those opinions obviously carry more weight than any retrospective private communication of the 'salesman' in question. Or would you suggest (on a more mundane level ;>) that the private letters of a used car salesman, written 20-30 years after the fact, could somehow affect the terms of a sales contract for an automobile, agreed to 20-30 years before the opinion was voiced?
Allow me to ask again, where in the Federalist papers or anywhere else does Madison make the case for unilateral secession or outline the process for secession? Can you provide such a quote?
I have not suggested here that the Federalist Papers "make the case" for "unilateral secession." I have stated that Mr. Madison suggested that the States could use military force to oppose actions of the federal government, which they considered to be unconstitutional.
By the way, care to tell us where such State actions are approved, or prohibited, by the Constitution (in your opinion)? Take either side - a non-response will be considered 'unsatisfactory'...
;>)
So, are you suggesting that the Constitutional requirements for admitting a person to the US Congress also allow the federal government to prohibit a Congressman or Senator from resigning? Hmmm? Obviously so...
I will ask again, what difference does that make? Madison was laying out his considered opinion on the idea of unilateral secession. His opinions were clearly stated. The fact that it was done in a letter rather than some published work is totally irrelevant.
Wrong again, as I have addressed above.
Perhaps if you could show where in his public writings Madison supported the idea of unilateral secession as forcefully as he dismissed the idea of unilateral secession in his private writings you may have a case for your claim that Madison said one thing in one situation and another thing under different circumstances. But you can't do that.
Actually, I can. As Mr. Madison noted:
But it is objected that the [federal] judicial authority is to be regarded as the sole expositor of the Constitution, in the last resort; and it may be asked for what reason, the declaration by the General Assembly, supposing it to be theoretically true, could be required at the present day and in so solemn a manner.
On this objection it might be observed, first, that there may be instances of usurped power, which the forms of the Constitution would never draw within the control of the judicial department;4 secondly, that if the decision of the judiciary be raised above the authority of the sovereign parties to the Constitution, the decisions of the other departments, not carried by the forms of the Constitution before the judiciary, must be equally authoritative and final with the decisions of that department. But the proper answer to the objection is, that the resolution of the General Assembly relates to those great and extraordinary cases, in which all the forms of the Constitution may prove ineffectual against infractions dangerous to the essential rights of the [States as] parties to it. The resolution supposes that dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other departments, but that the [federal] judicial department also may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the [States as] parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated [federal] authority, as well as by another; by the [federal] judiciary, as well as by the [federal] executive, or the [federal] legislature.
All of which is completely consistent with Mr. Jefferson's observation that:
...the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, -- delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
Obviously, "the mode and measure of redress" mentioned by Mr. Jefferson (and necessarily implied by Mr. Madison) did not exclude State secession.
Care to address Mr. Jefferson's Declaration of 1825? Obviously not.
WIJG: As for "the consent of all the parties affected:" are you suggesting that State sales taxes, or State speed limits, for example, are 'unconstitutional' because they 'affect all of the States as parties to the Constitution?'
N-S: No, because your claim is ridiculous. State sales taxes or state speed limits have no impact on other states. What Virginia charges its residence for its purchases has no bearing on North Carolina. What Texas sets as its speed limit doesn't affect drivers in New Mexico.
Absolute bull crap! If one State charges a higher sales tax than neighboring States, the residents of the high tax State may cross its borders to purchase identical products at lower prices next door, depriving their State of tax revenue. And if one State imposes a reduced speed limit within its borders, it delays the delivery of (and increases the prices of) products delivered to other States through its territory. You would suggest, therefore, that the neighboring States would be justified in using military force against the high tax/low speed limit State. Congratulations...
An equal right. But in the case of the rebelling states, those state took it upon themselves to descide the infraction and the redress. The other states had no say in the matter, all they could do in your scenario was bend over and take it.
As Mr. Jefferson noted:
...to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party...
Sorry, compadre, but you would have us believe that a seceding State's "co-States" possessed some kind of superior, or supreme, right, to invade the seceding State's territory and kill the People thereof. That is not at all what Thomas Jefferson suggested. In fact, each State possessed rights equal to the rights of ALL of the other States, combined - and the remaining States therefore possessed no higher right to invade the seceding State's territory, and kill the People thereof...
Madison disagreed with you when he noted...
And he agreed with me on many more occasions.
No where in his public or private writings did Madison support the concept of unilateral secession.
Did he support the adoption of the Tenth Amendment? Or not? The amendment speaks for itself...
But just to pull your chain, I will offer the following:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
James Madison, Federalist No. 45
Tell us - where is your supposed federal power to prevent secession delegated to the federal government - i.e., "defined," among the "few" powers delegated by the signatory States? Hmm? And where is such an obviously "indefinite" power prohibited to the same States, by the same Constitution?
And let us not forget the secession of the ratifying States from the so-called "perpetual" union, formed under the specific written terms of the Articles of Confederation:
"The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States, ratifying the same."
This article speaks for itself [even though the Articles of Confederation required unanimous agreement by all 13 - not 9 - but 13 States who were parties to the Articles, to modify the terms thereof ;>]. The express authority of the people alone could give due validity to the Constitution. To have required the unanimous ratification of the thirteen States [as required by the Articles, to which all 13 States were parties;>], would have subjected the essential interests of the whole to the caprice or corruption of a single member. It would have marked a want of foresight in the convention, which our own experience would have rendered inexcusable.
Two questions of a very delicate nature present themselves on this occasion: 1. On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? 2. What relation is to subsist between the nine or more States ratifying the Constitution, and the remaining few who do not become parties to it?
The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed. PERHAPS, also, an answer may be found without searching beyond the principles of the compact itself. It has been heretofore noted among the defects of the Confederation, that in many of the States it had received no higher sanction than a mere legislative ratification. The principle of reciprocality seems to require that its obligation on the other States should be reduced to the same standard. A compact between independent sovereigns, founded on ordinary acts of legislative authority, can pretend to no higher validity than a league or treaty between the parties. It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties, that all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a breach of any one article is a breach of the whole treaty; and that a breach, committed by either of the parties, absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to answer the MULTIPLIED and IMPORTANT infractions with which they may be confronted? The time has been when it was incumbent on us all to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits. The scene is now changed, and with it the part which the same motives dictate.
The second question is not less delicate; and the flattering prospect of its being merely hypothetical forbids an overcurious discussion of it. It is one of those cases which must be left to provide for itself. In general, it may be observed, that although no political relation can subsist between the assenting and dissenting States, yet the moral relations will remain uncancelled. The claims of justice, both on one side and on the other, will be in force, and must be fulfilled; the rights of humanity must in all cases be duly and mutually respected; whilst considerations of a common interest, and, above all, the remembrance of the endearing scenes which are past, and the anticipation of a speedy triumph over the obstacles to reunion, will, it is hoped, not urge in vain MODERATION on one side, and PRUDENCE on the other.
James Madison, Federalist No. 43
So here we have Mr. Madison justifying the secession of any nine States from the union formed under the Articles of Confederation, even though said Articles required the concurrence of all 13 States before any legal change could be made therein.
Looks like Mr. Madison believed the individual States reserved the right of secession, even from a self-proclaimed "perpetual" union. Please note the term "perpetual," which the Constitution (unlike the Articles ;>) nowhere applies to any union formed under its specific written terms...
And where in that is the idea of unilateral secession supported? I must have missed it.
Obviously, you miss the "idea," no matter what historical documentation I post...
You assume that State secession was unconstitutional, when you use the term "rebellion." Unfortunately, you have yet to prove that your assumption is fact...
Are you suggesting that I am wrong? Or not?
;>)
Your opinions are your's alone.
Actually, they are consistent with the published views of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and others...
;>)
WIJG: Absolutely - that is the right the States as parties reserved to themselves.
N-S: Hardly.
I refer you (once again ;>) to the ratification documents of New York, Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations, and Virginia - not to mention the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution...
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