Posted on 01/24/2009 8:44:42 PM PST by rabscuttle385
Basically, in the end, the 101st Airborne has to show up if the state will not provide equal protection.So basically, you support the use of troops to imprison women who have had abortions.
Very few women perform abortions on themselves.
But in the final analysis, the law exists to protect the innocent, even if some break their teeth on it.
“Have had abortions” also is a weaselly way to put it, since no one is proposing to imprison women “who have had abortions.”
Which they regained with the 13th Amendment, a piece of legislation that passed WITHOUT the legitimacy of the votes of the Southern States even being questioned. Why? Because they agreed too it. Once the 14th was put up for a vote and they didn't agree...suddenly they were no longer 'legitimate'.
Sounds like a case of "We'll let you play as long as you play our way".
Can you source any Congressional legislation denoting such 'preconditions'?
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No one challenges the legitimacy of the state governments, or their post-war right to ratify amendments, or not, according to their perceptions of their states’ interests.
Sorry, but that seems to be exactly what you're doing. Pass the 13th, but balk on the 14th and POOF! we'll use federal force until you agree with us.
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The fact that those legislatures saw ratification of the 14th Amendment as part of a bargain to regain their states’ congressional representation does not make the ratification a compelled act.
LOL! You and I apparently have very different definitions of the word 'compelled'.
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You don’t seem to be following the argument.
BTW, I'm following the argument just fine. Insulting my intelligence may make you fell better, but it doesn't make my arguments any less viable.
LOL! Thanks for the reminder! I'd forgotten the rescinded votes issue.
No one questioned the legitimacy of the state legislatures.
Your argument against the 14th Amendment seemed to be its illegitimacy because the states of the former Confederacy had no representatives in Congress at the time it passed, and that those states’ legislatures were somehow compelled against their wills to pass it.
My reply is that the Confederate states voluntarily consented to their lack of representation by announcing their secession—whether or not such secession was legal, and that once representation was forfeited it was the prerogative of the remaining representatives to determine when or whether to readmit those states’ Representatives.
The legitimacy of the “votes of the Southern States” was not at issue in either case; the southern states were not represented in Congress for the passage of either the 13th of 14th Amendments, and the passage of legislation by Congress to provide incentives for those states to ratify the 14th Amendment does not amount to compulsion, since the military occupation of those states and lack of representation were both the direct consequences of insurrection and war against the U.S. within those states.
The fact that the Reconstruction Acts provided incentives for the state legislatures to ratify the amendments does not amount to compulsion to do so. Even if, or especially if, the Reconstruction Acts themselves were unconstitutional that would not invalidate the actions of the state legislatures.
The fact that two states attempted to rescind their approval would only affect the date the 14th Amendment became effective, since two more state legislatures ratified the Amendment by the end of July 1868.
No, that argument is yours.
My argument is that the federal government had NO authority to suddenly make the Southern States military provinces after the legitimate passage of the 13th. The war was over, the elected Southern representatives were legitimate at that point.
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The legitimacy of the “votes of the Southern States” was not at issue in either case; the southern states were not represented in Congress for the passage of either the 13th of 14th Amendments,
The 14th is in contention. By the end of 1865, eight of the eleven Confederate states had ratified the 13th, so your information is flawed.
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and the passage of legislation by Congress to provide incentives for those states to ratify the 14th Amendment does not amount to compulsion, since the military occupation of those states and lack of representation were both the direct consequences of insurrection and war against the U.S. within those states.
At the refusal of the Southern States on the occasion of the on the 14th, the federal government suddenly said "No soup for YOU!", tossed out the duly elected reps, turned the South into military provinces, and threatened the South with a perpetual state of federal rule.
How is that not compulsion?
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The fact that the Reconstruction Acts provided incentives for the state legislatures to ratify the amendments does not amount to compulsion to do so.
Apparently, ones person's incentive is another person's blackmail.
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Even if, or especially if, the Reconstruction Acts themselves were unconstitutional that would not invalidate the actions of the state legislatures.
Are you actually saying that any State should agree to an act they believe to be unconstitutional?
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Again, once the 13th passed, the Southern States had the same full authority they enjoyed prior to their Declaration of Secession, and at that point, there was NO lawful authority of the federal government to remove the States from that position and make 'conditions' for their return.
From this view of the powers delegated to the federal government, it will clearly appear, that those exclusively granted to it have no relation to the domestic economy of the state. The right of property, with all it's train of incidents, except in the case of authors, and inventors, seems to have been left exclusively to the state regulations; and the rights of persons appear to be no further subject to the control of the federal government, than may he necessary to support the dignity and faith of the nation in it's federal or foreign engagements, and obligations; or it's existence and unity as the depositary and administrator of the political councils and measures of the united republics.... Crimes and misdemeanors, if they affect not the existence of the federal government; or those objects to which it's jurisdiction expressly extends, however heinous in a moral light, are not cognizable by the federal courts; unless committed within certain fixed and determinate territorial limits, to which the exclusive legislative power granted to congress, expressly extends.
View of the Constitution of the United States Note D, Section 3.
Please provide an informational source showing where any conditions, provisions, or incentives were submitted to the Southern States for their approval along with any repercussions that might have ensued upon their failure to comply.
You’re simply wrong.
No southern representatives were expelled. They simply weren’t admitted from secession until after the 1868 elections (except Tennessee, I believe, which got back earlier because it was occupied earlier).
The 13th Amendment passed Congress during the time most southern Representatives were still absent. Some southern states protested the fact that their representatives had not been admitted, but a claim doesn’t constitute a right.
What I’m saying regarding the states’ ratification of the 14th Amendment was that ratifying it amounted to a concession that the process by which it had passed to that point was correct. The legislature can’t ratify an amendment and then later come back and say they didn’t really mean it.
I have provided a source for my standpoint, please be kind enough to provide one for yours.
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What I’m saying regarding the states’ ratification of the 14th Amendment was that ratifying it amounted to a concession that the process by which it had passed to that point was correct.
So your saying that [irregardless of the circumstances], that because the south passed the 14th, it was defacto acknowledgment that the federal government had the right to do what it did? Talk about twisted logic.
No, it was blackmail, pure and simple. Forcing any State to agree to what they know to be an unconstitutional exercise of power by the federal government is tyranny, pure and simple.
When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
Thomas Jefferson to Charles Hammond, 1821
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BTW, I'd like to that you for your responses. I've enjoyed the discussion immensely. :-)
I’ve made a mistake in attributing the 14th Amendment to the 40th Congress, which ran from 1867 to 1869. It, along with the 13th and 15th Amendments, was passed out of Congress in 1866 among the acts of the 39th Congress from which nearly all former Confederate states’ representatives were yet excluded:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/39th_United_States_Congress
As you have stated, former Confederate states began rejecting the Amendment in 1866, prompting the Reconstruction Acts to pressure them to ratify. Saying the federal government was exerting pressure on certain states no more amounts to compulsion, though, than the withholding of federal highway funds to states which didn’t raise their drinking ages or lower their speed limits. The Confederate states didn’t like the state of military occupation which had resulted from their acts of war against the federal government and so were forced to swallow bitter pills, but they did in fact choose to swallow them.
It’s no use going back now and saying that their ratifications weren’t binding because they had their fingers crossed.
This has indeed been an informative exchange; thanks very much.
Gadzooks. Wrong again.
The 13th Amendment was passed out of the 38th Congress—again without southern Representatives—and the 15th was passed out of the 40th.
But, as regards the 13th and 14th, in neither case were Southern representatives seated for the vote which passed the Amendments out of the Congress to the states for ratification. The former Confederate states were therefore presented with Amendments for ratification on which their representatives had not voted in Congress.
That the legislatures indeed ultimately did ratify them is sufficient evidence that they admitted the validity of the process by which the Amendments were presented to them, although they may not have much liked the circumstances under which they considered them.
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