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To: MamaTexan
True. The fact there were no provisions in place did not supersede the slave-holding State from voluntarily leaving a voluntary compact.

Aren't there? The 10th Amendment says, "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." A clear reading of Article I, Section 10 and Article IV, Section 3 shows that the power to admit a state and to approve any change in its status once it was allowed to join are clearly powers reserved to the United States. By implication this would include the power to approve a state's leaving as well.

No, the Orwellian spin comes from thinking rights can cancel rights.

But that is exactly what you are saying. The rights of the seceding states overrule the rights of the remaining states. Only those states leaving have any protections. Only those leaving have any rights. Those remaining have none, so you are telling us that rights of the leaving states cancel the rights of the remaining states. When the spinning stops, the Orwellian arguement lies in your court.

Your agreement is immaterial. Up until the change in government, Supreme Court decisions said otherwise.

True, though it's arguable that the bulk of Chief Justice Taney's bizarre decision was actually made in dicta. And that is no doubt an arguement that would have been used to challenge the Scott decision in future legal cases. There can be no doubt that a Lincoln Attorney General would do everything possible to aid such challenges as well. So the Scott decision would have been under attack from day one. Something the South could not stomach. So they rebelled.

No. The general government OWNED nothing. Everything was held and operated under the delegated trust given by the authority of the States.

With the original 13, no, the government owned nothing that had not been deeded to them by the states themselves. But for those states created out of territory purchased or acquired by the government through other means then the federal government owned a great deal. And in many states they still do.

But my statement was in response to your remark "that which you create you have the right to control." Since that Congress has created 27 out of the 50 states through the powers given them by Article IV then does it control them as well?

Again, NO ability to exercise an authority concerning slavery as that was to be left to the respective States. The federal government is not a State, it is a municipal entity inside areas of enumerated jurisdiction and an administrative one in the other areas given to it by the Constitution.

And the territories were not states, either. They had no government, no representation in Congress. The Constitution gave Congress the power to make all needful rules and regulations for the territories in Article IV, Section 2. Now once Congress created a state out of any territory, then it also gave up the power to interfere in what that state chose to do, within the restrictions outlined in the Constitution. If the new state chose to legalize slavery then there wasn't anything Congress could do to prevent it. But before that, Congress had the full authority to ban slavery. Up until Taney's judicial activism, that is.

Lincoln, being a lawyer, knew exactly what he was doing....using an emotional concept concerning a moral issue to alter an established legal concept. I can't make it any plainer than that.

If Lincoln wanted to make a moral issue out of slavery then he was very late to the game. Slavery had been an emotional issue for decades prior to his election, and I'm at a loss to understand what he could possibly had said that hadn't been said before. There is nothing Lincoln could have done to interfere with slavery where it existed. I know that. You know that. Lincoln sure knew that. The South knew that. It was his threat to the expansion of slavery that caused their anger and which led to their decision to rebel.

There's plenty of 'blame' to go around.

Well, we agree on that at least.

174 posted on 02/13/2009 11:38:15 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur
The 10th Amendment says, "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."

Fine. Show me the word secession.

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A clear reading of Article I, Section 10 and Article IV, Section 3 shows that the power to admit a state and to approve any change in its status once it was allowed to join are clearly powers reserved to the United States.

T admit a State, yes. To create a State, no. The territory organized as a State, and Congress says we recognize your statehood, and admit you to the Union.

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By implication this would include the power to approve a state's leaving as well.

No, by insinuation it would, but we're not taking about implication, we're talking about the original intent of the Constitution.

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When the spinning stops, the Orwellian arguement lies in your court.

Believe as you wish.

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But for those states created out of territory purchased or acquired by the government through other means then the federal government owned a great deal. And in many states they still do.

That sort of thing happens when you have a consolidation of government's powers.

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It was his threat to the expansion of slavery that caused their anger and which led to their decision to rebel.

That's right...it's called exercise of an unconstitutional authority, and one Lincoln supported wholeheartedly.

Since the Constitution is not a suicide pact, the South decided to leave. Better a chance at survival than none at all.

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Well, we agree on that at least.

LOL! It's nice to find some common ground. I enjoy our discourses immensely.

178 posted on 02/13/2009 1:07:59 PM PST by MamaTexan (I am NOT an administrative, collective, corporate, legal, political or public ~entity~!!!)
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