Posted on 12/21/2004 7:01:52 AM PST by cougar_mccxxi
Parting Company Is An Option
by Walter E. Williams
My last essay in Ideas On Liberty, "How Did We Get Here?", provided clear evidence that Congress, the White House, as well as the Courts, had vastly exceeded powers delegated to them by our Constitution. To have an appreciation for the magnitude of the usurpation, one need only read Federalist Paper 45, where James Madison the acknowledged father of our Constitution explained, "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. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."
Short of some kind of cataclysmic event liberties lost are seldom regained but there is an outside chance to regain them if enough liberty-minded Americans were to pursue Free State Project's proposal to set up New Hampshire as a free state. Free State Project (www.freestateproject.org) intends to get 20,000 or so Americans to become residents of New Hampshire. Through a peaceful political process they hope to assume leadership in the state's legislature and executive offices and reduce burdensome taxation and regulation, reform state and local law, end federal mandates that violate the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and restore constitutional federalism as envisioned by the nation's Founders.
Since there is only a remote possibility of successful negotiation with Congress, the Courts and White House to obey the U.S. Constitution, it is my guess that liberty could only realized by a unilateral declaration of independence - namely, part company - in a word secede. While our Constitution is silent about secession, there is clear evidence that our Founders saw it as an option.
On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Senator James R. Doolittle (WI) proposed a constitutional amendment that said, "No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States." Several months earlier Representatives Daniel E. Sickles (NY), Thomas B. Florence (PA) and Otis S. Ferry (CT) proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. One is immediately faced with the question: would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional? There's more evidence. The ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said that they held the right to resume powers delegated should the federal government become abusive of those powers.
There's more evidence. At the 1787 constitutional convention a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it saying, "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
Professor Thomas DiLorenzo, in his revised The Real Lincoln, provides abundant evidence in the forms of quotations from our Founders and numerous newspaper accounts that prove that Americans always took the right of secession for granted. Plus, secession was not an idea that had its origins in the South. Infuriated by Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, the first secessionist movement started in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and other New England states.
The preponderance of evidence shows that states have a right to secede. The Constitution probably would have never been ratified if the states, sovereign nations as per the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the war of independence with Great Britain, did not believe they had a right to secede. The only barrier to secession is the brute force of the federal government as witnessed by the costly War of 1861 that produced only one decent result - the elimination of slavery. Since the issue of secession was brutally settled, it left a devastating legacy for future generations of Americans. The federal government is free to run roughshod over the restrictions and safeguards the Framers imposed on the federal government.
Self-determination is a human right we all should respect. If some people want socialism that is their right but it is not their right to use force to make others who wish to be left alone be part of it. By the same token, liberty-minded Americans have no right to impose their will on socialist-minded Americans. A far more peaceful method is for each to simply part company.
One wonders whether the brutality witnessed in 1861 would be repeated if New Hampshire seceded - massive troops along with today's deadly modern military equipment and Americans killing Americans.
Walter E. Williams Ideas on Liberty #25 February 26, 2004
Very thought-provoking!
Dixie Ping, Sir...
10th Ammendment: 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.
I don't think it can be much clearer.
Our "representatives" have serially violated our laws.
Most of the government agencies are illegal: NEA, Social Security, Income Tax (should never have been put in the Constitution), HUD, HHS, most of them except Defence and Commerce are illegal.
We need to get our country back.
bump
Federal, state, local, and FICA taxes; upwards of 40% of your income.
Gas, cigarette, sales and consumption taxes; you know the story.
Work permits, building permits, drivers license, compulsory insurance; it goes on and on.
Getting the federal, state and local governments out of our pockets and off our backs? Priceless :)
If probably would if New Hampshire shelled U.S. troops in a U.S. facility on her way out.
Dixie Ping
Thanks for the ping Sir!
That would be a certainty. It would no doubt also be a certainty, shot or no, with a Clinton as president.
Thanks for the ping . . .
Through a peaceful political process they hope to assume leadership in the state's legislature and executive offices and reduce burdensome taxation and regulation, reform state and local law, end federal mandates that violate the Ninth and Tenth Amendments . . .
Couldn't help but think that this is what has taken place in the "solid South" since '68. It's gone from all blue to all red? Of course none of that was due to "imports" but rather good 'ol boys in pick-ups with Rebel flags on the window. ;^)
BUMP!!!
Glad to see you back at the keyboard.
Glad to see you back at the keyboard.
But then Lincoln would use any port in a storm to promote war. And the Yankees had the temerity to call us ignorant!
Thanks for the Ping. Dr. Williams is great. I love it when he does his radio show. Wish he'd stop letting that Limbaugh fellow guest host so much!
Just clarification here:
When South Carlina seceded in December of 1860, all (previously) federal properties within her borders returned to the State.
Fort Sumter was OUR property, NOT federal property. It was within OUR territorial waters according to all international law.
For the tyrant Lincoln to reject Confederate peace emmissaries, then notify them that he would reinforce the troops was an act of war.
We drove the invaders out.
The tyrant Lincoln wanted a war, and he got a war.
Walter Williams is simply the best! A true 'black Confederate', and one of my heros!!!
Based on what rule of law?
Ah Colt .45. Clueless as ever.
Please explain to me how a US Fortification on Southern soil in 1861, with no treaty recognizing it by the Confederate Government AS AN AUTHORIZED FOREIGN MILITARY FORTIFICATION was legally exempted from being fired upon?
I guess it isn't, if you are out to start a war. Which is what the Davis regime did.
No, it was Lincoln's attempts to re-supply and reinforce the fort which were the cause of it. Being fired upon was only the effect. But then the Yankees always played by two sets of rules. One for themselves, and a completely different set for everyone else. Now days we call this type the liberal left.
The confederate forces had been firing at anything flying the U.S. flag long before Lincoln's resupply effort. On at least two prior occasions they had tried to initiate hosilities by firing on unarmed ships. In the end, they came to the conclusion that the only way to get their war was to bombard the fort itself.
Concurring bump.
BTTT.
Notice that author Williams is at George Mason University. Mason was one of the greatest of the Antifederalists, as were Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Also, for a long time, John Hancock of Massachusetts, although the Federalists finally won him over (having made winning him over a major project).
Overcharacterization for polemical effect -- how well you do it.
The Southerners were concerned only with the possibility -- the probability (about which they guessed aright) that Lincoln had been lying to them and would attempt to reinforce the garrison with more troops. He did.
In the end, they came to the conclusion that the only way to get their war was to bombard the fort itself.
Oh, I'm sorry, but "getting their war" was Lincoln's purpose -- and will you insist I quote Lincoln's personal secretary, John Nicolay, to you to prove it?
Starting a war was Lincoln's idea. I think he wanted a war all along --ever since 1856, when he finally concluded that there was no constitutional way to abolish slavery. (So, he decided on an unconstitutional one -- a civil war.)
Thank you for your support! Non-Sequential will always try to attempt to re-establish some moral high ground where there is none.
Yeah we do. Now try telling that to all the Bush suckups and Big Stupid Government Excusers here on FR.
I'm sick of this BS government.
To keep the equities of the American Civil War straight, it's only necessary to remember a) there was no rebellion, b) there was no insurrection, c) the People, not their servant officeholders, are Sovereign and answer only to the ineffable Who Am, and d) who invaded whom.
Everything else is excuses and eyewash -- excuses for killing 620,000 men in the field, and almost a million people overall, over politics.
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence. "
Art4 Sec4 U.S. Constitution
I think you have a point.
Brewing up a pot of Columbian and can't wait to dive into dessert for breakfast!
God Bless Walter Williams and Merry Christmas BTTT
They had fired on the Star of the West and the Rhoda Shannon.
The Southerners were concerned only with the possibility -- the probability (about which they guessed aright) that Lincoln had been lying to them and would attempt to reinforce the garrison with more troops. He did.
It didn't have to happen. Lincoln's intentions to reinforce only if the resupply effort was opposed was made cleart to Governor Pickens and Major Anderson.
Starting a war was Lincoln's idea. I think he wanted a war all along --ever since 1856, when he finally concluded that there was no constitutional way to abolish slavery. (So, he decided on an unconstitutional one -- a civil war.)
Overcharacterization for polemical effect -- you do it well yourself. Ending slavery was never an overriding goal of the Union. Preserving it was an overriding goal of the confederacy.
Moral high ground? Are you claiming the moral high ground for the Davis regime? Once again we see where Colt .22 insists on laying blame everywhere except where it is due.
The southron myth machine at work yet again. Yes, there was a rebellion. Yes there was an insurrection. Whatever the hell 'c' means. You don't invade your own country so nobody invaded anyone.
When you don't have a Constitutional government in America, you have, in essence, a shadow of a government.
Watch the shadows...
One of those things FReepers never seem to get sick of.
But defense of the institution of slavery was by far the single most important reason why the south began the War of Southern Rebellion in the first place.
The former (powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, few and defined) will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected.
I'm afraid that WW is focusing too much on one aspect without regard to the fact that the nation changes with time. That even Madison and the Anti-federalists recognised one unescapable fact about the Constitution as opposed to the federation of state under the Articles of Confederation.
For there is more to the national government than the administration of "external objects".
- "The change relating to taxation may be regarded as the most important; and yet the present [Continental] sic Congress have as complete authority to REQUIRE of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future [Constitutional] Congress will have to require them of individual citizens;
- "The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character;"
A point of which even the Anti-federalists concurred:
Anti-Federalist Papers #3 NEW CONSTITUTION CREATES A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT;
- There are but two modes by which men are connected in society, the one which operates on individuals, this always has been, and ought still to be called, national government; the other which binds States and governments together (not corporations, for there is no considerable nation on earth, despotic, monarchical, or republican, that does not contain many subordinate corporations with various constitutions) this last has heretofore been denominated a league or confederacy. The term federalists is therefore improperly applied to themselves, by the friends and supporters of the proposed constitution.
For by no means was the national government expected to restrict itself to "EXTERNAL" sources of revenue:
- "The more intelligent adversaries of the new Constitution ...qualify ... by a distinction between what they call INTERNAL and EXTERNAL taxation. The former they would reserve to the State governments; the latter, which they explain into commercial imposts, or rather duties on imported articles, they declare themselves willing to concede to the federal head. This distinction, however, would violate the maxim of good sense and sound policy, which dictates that every POWER ought to be in proportion to its OBJECT; and would still leave the general government in a kind of tutelage to the State governments, inconsistent with every idea of vigor or efficiency. Who can pretend that commercial imposts are, or would be, alone equal to the present and future exigencies of the Union? Taking into the account the existing debt, foreign and domestic, upon any plan of extinguishment which a man moderately impressed with the importance of public justice and public credit could approve, in addition to the establishments which all parties will acknowledge to be necessary, we could not reasonably flatter ourselves, that this resource alone, upon the most improved scale, would even suffice for its present necessities.
- "The maxim that the consumer is the payer, is so much oftener true than the reverse of the proposition, that it is far more equitable that the duties on imports should go into a common stock, than that they should redound to the exclusive benefit of the importing States. But it is not so generally true as to render it equitable, that those duties should form the only national fund. When they are paid by the merchant they operate as an additional tax upon the importing State, whose citizens pay their proportion of them in the character of consumers. In this view they are productive of inequality among the States; which inequality would be increased with the increased extent of the duties. The confinement of the national revenues to this species of imposts would be attended with inequality, from a different cause, between the manufacturing and the non-manufacturing States."
- To form a more precise judgment of the true merits of this question, it will be well to advert to the proportion between the objects that will require a federal provision in respect to revenue, and those which will require a State provision. We shall discover that the former are altogether unlimited, and that the latter are circumscribed within very moderate bounds. In pursuing this inquiry, we must bear in mind that we are not to confine our view to the present period, but to look forward to remote futurity. Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities. There ought to be a CAPACITY to provide for future contingencies as they may happen; and as these are illimitable in their nature, it is impossible safely to limit that capacity.
- ``A CONCURRENT JURISDICTION in the article of taxation was the only admissible substitute for an entire subordination, in respect to this branch of power, of State authority to that of the Union.'' Any separation of the objects of revenue that could have been fallen upon, would have amounted to a sacrifice of the great INTERESTS of the Union to the POWER of the individual States. The convention thought the concurrent jurisdiction preferable to that subordination; and it is evident that it has at least the merit of reconciling an indefinite constitutional power of taxation in the Federal government with an adequate and independent power in the States to provide for their own necessities.
I love it when you do that...lol :)
Merry Christmas FRiend and a safe, blessed New Year...
The blame lies with the Northern Yankees for interfering in Southern States' internal affairs. I haven't ever heard of the Southern States trying to tell the Northern States how to run their internal affairs. But the reverse wasn't true, the Yankees were always meddling in Southern Affairs. So when the Southern States asserted their soveriegn rights as guaranteed under the 9th and 10th Amendments, all of a sudden its "Why you can't do that." So then the Southern States defend themselves, and they are labeled the culprits. No sir Mr. Non-Sequential, the North and you have no high ground. So much for the Bill of Rights, and the American Ideology. Lincoln would've made Joseph Dugashvili proud.
In what way?
First through shifting of taxes owed from the War For Independence. Secondly through abolitionists attempts to incite slave insurrections. Thirdly through Northern merchants putting all of their money behind getting certain trade laws inimicable to Southern economic interests passed through Congress. Lastly through illegal invasion of the Southern States by military force.
How did they do that?
The government didn't support that. They sent troops to put down Brown and let Virginia try him on those ridiculous treason charges.
Thirdly through Northern merchants putting all of their money behind getting certain trade laws inimicable to Southern economic interests passed through Congress.
For example?
Lastly through illegal invasion of the Southern States by military force.
There was nothing illegal and there was no invasion. One does not invade ones own country.
New Hampshire was a poor choice for the FreeState project because it is in the midst of the socialist states of New England. Indeeed, New Hampshire voted for Kerry. It is lost, do not look back nor waste any time on it. Pick a state in the Red Zone.
As for your other viewpoint about the South starting the war, I offer this as proof of Lincoln's perfidity and badgering of the South into war.
"It was his Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Wells, who wrote: " It was very inmportant that the Rebels strike the first blow in the conflict."
Lincoln assembled the squadron of warships and tugs, as recommended by Captain G.V. Fox. He placed Fox in command and sent the fleet to Charleston.
The reinforcement had been outlined by Fox: "I simply propose three tugs convoyed by light-draft men of war ... The first tug to lead in empty, to open their fire"
Before Fox could carry out the plan, the Southerners bombarded and captured the fort.
Did the failure of the expedition distress Lincoln? Not at all. On May 1, 1861, he wrote Fox: " I sincerely regret that the failure of the attempt to provision Fort Sumter should be a source of annoyance to you ...
You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result."
So if you were to have asked a Confederate Soldier why they seceeded, he would have told you these reasons:
1. Our States entered the Union with the understanding that they had the right to withdraw when membership proved unhappy.
2. We were tired of being gypped by unfair tariff laws.
3> we were fed up with insane abuse from South-hating fanatics.
4. We bought our slaves from the North, only to learn later that it proposed to free them without a penny of compensation.
5. Northern fanatics had inspired murderous slave uprisings. Why wait for more?
6. A rabidly-sectional party was in control at Washington.
We had no idea of making war. We planned to relieve the North from further association with us.
Sorry but your tired assed old arguments won't wash here. I know who the real culprits were - and they weren't from the Southern States!
Specifically?
As for your other viewpoint about the South starting the war, I offer this as proof of Lincoln's perfidity and badgering of the South into war.
So the gist of your arguement is that there was a war because the southern leadership was too stupid to see through Lincoln's plot? Doesn't say much about them, does it?
So if you were to have asked a Confederate Soldier why they seceeded, he would have told you these reasons...
If you asked the southern leadership why they sent those soldiers into war they would have told you this:
"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other -- though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."
Sorry but your tired assed old arguments won't wash here. I know who the real culprits were - and they weren't from the Southern States!
According to your lame-ass old southron myths.
Says you. Same old yadda-yadda! Nothing new to see here folks, time to move along.
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