Posted on 02/07/2009 7:45:28 AM PST by Loud Mime
Now you're just trying to change the subject. The Confederate constitution specifically enshrined the southern position in Sectional Crisis that ultimately led to secession.
To argue that a successful secession would not have led to war, is to ignore the warfare that had already taken place in Kansas; and it also ignores the fact that only the fraying bonds of union had prevented warfare both before and after that. Once those bonds were broken, the fighting in Kansas was sure to be repeated in all the territories.
I guess that tells us pretty much everything we need to know about you, FRiend. You're only a step away from telling us that Southern slavery was for their own good. Care to make it explicit?
In your opinion ... but not in the opinion of the author of the quote, who represented a fairly wide segment of southern opinion as to the institution of slavery. Remember: his goal was to defend the institution, and it is his opinion that must be considered when assessing the place of slavery in the Southern psyche, and thus among the underlying causes of the war.
I'm not changing the subject. You are trying to avoid a point that refutes your argument. Adding new states was going to be difficult for the Confederacy, and that would have abated the problems associated with territorial expansion.
To argue that a successful secession would not have led to war, is to ignore the warfare that had already taken place in Kansas; and it also ignores the fact that only the fraying bonds of union had prevented warfare both before and after that. Once those bonds were broken, the fighting in Kansas was sure to be repeated in all the territories.
Fighting took place in Kansas and Missouri because under the US constitution it was easy to add a new state, and so the political alignment of new states mattered. But with the Confederacy having a constitutionally difficult expansion process and no possibility of swinging a political majority by adding a new state, there would have been no reason for the violence on the frontier and no incentive for the Confederate government to get involved in such violence if it happened.
The Constitution is a legal contract, not a moral one.
Madison himself said the general government had no authority on the subject of slavery, but apparently the writer of the Constitution isn't a good enough source for you.
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And contradictory as well: to preserve their freedom to hold other men in bondage.
Since the government's solution was to subvert the Constitution and consequently enslave everyone, I hope your happy with the outcome.
"Every Person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States.
Senator Jacob Howard, co-author of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, 1866.
Call it immoral, reprehensible, abominable or any other adjective you like, slavery was LEGAL and anything other than the LEGAL means of changing it is not only illegal, but also immoral, reprehensible, abominable.....and Unconstitutional.
The original "slavery will wither" argument was based on an appeal to the supposed uneconomic aspects of slavery. However, the expansion of the Southern cotton economy was spurred by the invention of the cotton gin -- and slavery provided the free human labor needed to supply the gins.
And, given that the pre-eminent controversy leading up to the Civil War had to do with the expansion of slavery, it doesn't really make much sense to argue on a basis of its withering.
It may be argued from our post-industrial perspective that later technological gains would have obviated the need for human labor, but it is not a particularly compelling argument if seen from the viewpoint of those who were viewing slavery at first hand, in a time when human labor was the paramount source of production, and when the expansion of slavery was the political issue of the day.
And, moreover, one can easily imagine an industrialized South making use of slave labor in more industrial tasks, as well as continuing their agricultural work. There is little reason to suppose that slavery would have withered at all, but for the moral crusade to end it, and the war that eventually carried the point.
Difficult or not, the Confederacy clearly intended by its constitution to protect and even promote the expansion of slavery into both territories and, eventually, states. I think you overstate the supposed difficulty of getting the required congressional approval -- the Southern motivations for adding slave states to the Union would not have disappeared simply because the Confederacy was formed. (As an aside, the "two-thirds" clause is scattered throughout the Southern constitution, an apparent reaction to the narrow majorities by which their cause was being nibbled away. It evidently turned out to be a very serious hindrance to the Confederate government in their prosecution of the war....)
That it would be "difficult" for them in a more practical sense is beyond question: the chief difficulty being that they would be in competition with the North for those territories that would become states. In the end, it would have been nothing more than a different form of the Sectional Crises, which revolved around Southern attempts to admit new slave states to the Union, and Northern attempts to prevent it.
Given the certainty of competition, and the history already in-hand, it's easy to conclude that the "difficulties" of adding states to the Confederacy would almost certainly have included warfare of the sort that had already convulsed Kansas.
Yes there was.
They left the Union peaceably, as was their right.
Again, shooting up a fort is not a peacible action. And the right to secede unilaterally does not exist.
I didn't say you can't secede. You just can't secede unilaterally. Back to you.
>>>Context:<<<
I took nothing out of context. The fact that Lincoln was restrained by logistics does not alter the fact that he was a devout racist.
>>>Now, show me one political leader, north or south, who was on record as being more “enlightened” on the subject of race.<<<
How about any northern congressman who was an abolishionist? Lincoln was no abolishionist. Calling Lincoln an abolishionist would be like calling B. Hussein Obama a tax cutter.
>>>In your opinion ... but not in the opinion of the author of the quote, who represented a fairly wide segment of southern opinion as to the institution of slavery.<<<
Fairly wide? Please provide other sources.
>>>In your opinion ... but not in the opinion of the author of the quote, who represented a fairly wide segment of southern opinion as to the institution of slavery.<<<
Fairly wide? Please provide other sources.
The feds can't guarantee an action by a State.
Look at it this way;
on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive
Application- The act of making request or soliciting; as, he made application to a court of chancery.
If this clause is for the federal government, who are they to make this request of? The States?
It would be the same difference if the federal government was to request if a State needed assistance, but in the interest of being accurate, I submit that Article 4, being titled 'the States' indicates it is the States who must apply to the federal government for assistance.
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As the Debates, by their very nature covered multiple viewpoints, they give an idea of the Compact, but not the finished version.
IMHO, legal treatise written shortly after ratification have a clearer concept of Constitutional intent.
Sumter was built by the federal government on land deeded to it free and clear by an act of the South Carolina legislature. What rule of law magically transferred ownership to the confederacy?
The Union Army abandoned Fort Moultrie and occupied the previously unoccupied Fort Sumpter in the dead of night. That sounds like an Act of War by the Union Army, to me (and, I assume, to any reasonably unbiased person).
As commander of the army forces in the Charleston area, Major Anderson had authority of all the army facilities in the area. That included Moultrie and Castle Pinkney as well as Sumter. Under instructions given him by Major Buell in December, he was well under authority to move his troops to Sumter if their safety required it.
That sounds like an Act of War by the Union Army, to me (and, I assume, to any reasonably unbiased person)
I hope you're not including yourself in that description.
>>>I will. When you show me where it says we can’t secede.<<<
LOL. A perfect reply.
Where does it say we can't secede unilaterally?
OK, for the sake of argument let's take a look at that assertion. In the absence of an escape clause, it is not legal for one party to unilaterally withdraw from a contract; nor is it permissible for a party to withdraw on any basis not covered by the escape clause. The Constitution contains no such escape clause. Your "legal" argument fails.
That said, you yourself have admitted that the grounds for secession were rooted in the Southern desire to protect their right to own slaves.
slavery was LEGAL and anything other than the LEGAL means of changing it is not only illegal, but also immoral, reprehensible, abominable.....and Unconstitutional.
Ah, yes, but the problem was that the legal, political, and Constitutional process of ending slavery was well underway, and by the mid 1850s it was clear that the abolition of slavery was not only certain, but also would happen sooner rather than later. The South fully recognized that fact, and the southern response to that legal process, was to unilaterally repudiate a legal contract to which they had agreed.
There's very little that is honorable about what the south did, and why they did it. Their position is understandable, but it is not honorable.
"But the ability and the motives disclosed in the Essays induce me to say in compliance with the wish expressed, that I do not consider the proceedings of Virginia in ’98-’99 as countenancing the doctrine that a state may at will secede from its Constitutional compact with the other States. A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact, absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it." - James Madison, 1832
But what did James Madison know about the Constitution?
>>>The Constitution defines the course of US law. Where in the Constitution does it say that terrorists have no rights?<<<
The strict-constructionist Federal District Court said they have no right to Habeas Corpus, but that court was overruled by the left-wing nuts on the Supreme Court.
If you believe the District Court, then Bush did not suspend Habeas Corpus for the foreign terrorists because they had no such right.
The courts have spoken: if you argue for Habeas Corpus for foreign terrorists, you are a “living constitution” liberal, like the majority of the Supremes. If you argue against, you are a strict constructionist conservative, like the District Court. I, personally, am a strict constructionist conservative, and very proud of it.
Rather than provide those sources directly, I will direct you to James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, which provides a very large number of sources for the claim. Basedon McPherson's sampling, the author from whom Bubba quoted above is pretty typical. And, of course, the general opinion was enshrined in more than one declaration of secession -- showing that these opinions were at least broadly-enough held to result in the inclusion and approval of such statements by the secession conventions of those states.
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