Posted on 06/08/2002 7:06:31 AM PDT by Korth
Well, there are things wrong with it, but it is the best deal available. The devil is in the details. What does "within reason" mean? Who decides? Guess who. The majority. There are good and bad examples of majoritarianism. The Kansas Nebraska Act, IMO, is an example of the evil side of the coin. To have a small group of people decide by vote whether or not someone else may be free is sick. But it happened here in the USA.
Then again, the doctrine that any one state can withdraw from the united government whenever it chooses is minority power run amok. Why have nine states ratify the Constitution, why require 3/4's to ratify an amendment, if 1/50th may withdraw whenever it chooses? The doctrine flies in the face of republicanism, which is not majority rule. It is representative government by compact, which uses different majoritarian requirements to meet particular circumstances.
Which is why the premise for the piece being analyzed here is bogus. If secession was for the purpose of keeping southern slaves in bondage then perhaps there is a slim rationale for the argument. Otherwise it's simply historical revisionism with a new twist. It's meant to justify actions which were not otherwise justifiable.
So you would have agreed with Lincoln that the Kansas Nebraska Act was wrong. And you would have agreed with the abolitionists that the Congress should exercise its constitutional power to abolish slavery in the Federal district? And if certain southern politicos walked out on the job in response to these sensible, morally correct measures, you would have advocated their being sanctioned. Right?
How so? The seceding state is not in any way asserting power over the other states. That would be like claiming anyone who refuses to vote excercising "minority power run amok."
LOL. States' rights is just what you describe, as anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of history knows. The South seceded because their leaders wanted out. They had wanted out for a long time. Some of them never really wanted in. They never liked the Constitution. Patrick Henry was a typical slaver. He acknowledged early on that the Constituion spelled doom for slavery. He professed to hate slavery, but he practiced it, and thought it "imprudent" that it ever--ever--be abolished. It was men like him who seized whatever excuse was handy to try and destroy our government.
However should the groups holding the plurality in this nation wish to protest or curtail the smaller more active groups often working to undermine the will of the plurality or even at times the majority then we hear about the pitfalls of majority will like it's some kind of demon.
I disagree.
That is why the war was not strictly about slavery. It was just another incorporation of a region of the country into the Federalized Union. Sort of a rock rolling down a hill...the momentum carried the day....and the foolishness of many.
Majority rule is unavoidable under representative government -- though on important questions one could demand a 3/5ths, 2/3rds or 3/4ths vote, or a series of majority votes in consecutive years. Southern radicals made much of Calhoun's "concurrent majority" theory as a defense of Southern interests in the union, but did not offer similar measures to defend the interests of those who did not want to secede.
So if majority view and violence were used by both sides, why only blame one? Why does Ostrowski make majority rule a dirty word when used against him and expect it to prevail when it works for him?
If you want to secede to escape from the results of majority rule decisions, by what right can you compel others to live under your rule? What would prevent them from forming their own state, or remaining with the rest of the old country. In the Southern and Border states of the 1860s, the India and Palestine of the 1940s and in the Balkans and the Caucausus of our own time, secession and partition bring messiness, violence and war.
Secessionists absolutize state's rights in their arguments. States can leave any time they like for any reason or none, but any revolt against a state itself is illegitmate. Unfortunately, the text of the Constitution doesn't support such a reading.
Does that mean that political unions like ours are indissoluble? No, but breaking up countries and separating people who have grown together has to be done patiently over time with much effort, or it will bring war. This was recognized by Henry Clay and others in the second generation of the Republic: "The dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inseparable; they are convertible terms."
We'll never know. What we do know is that Jeff Davis and others in America were attempting as late as the 1850s to expand slavery not only across the rest of the North American continent, but also south into Cuba.
The United States Constitution is not a mere treaty, and the states are not sovereign nations.
But don't take my word for it. Maybe you have seen this before, but in case you haven't:
James Madison to Daniel Webster15 Mar. 1833Writings 9:604--5
I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former[Huck's note--this is secession he is speaking of now] answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. . The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy. Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the countenance recd from certain quarters, is giving it a popular currency here which may influence the approaching elections both for Congress & for the State Legislature. It has gained some advantage also, by mixing itself with the question whether the Constitution of the U.S. was formed by the people or by the States, now under a theoretic discussion by animated partizans.
It is fortunate when disputed theories, can be decided by undisputed facts. And here the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as imbodied into the several states, who were parties to it and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity. They might, by the same authority & by the same process have converted the Confederacy into a mere league or treaty;[Huck's note:--which is to say, they did NOT make a mere league or treaty] or continued it with enlarged or abridged powers; or have imbodied the people of their respective States into one people, nation or sovereignty; or as they did by a mixed form make them one people, nation, or sovereignty, for certain purposes, and not so for others.
He goes on....
The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons.But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism.
Obviously, the highlighting and comments are added by me. Madison's writing isn't as hard to understand as Shakespeare or Chaucer, but sometimes it is close.
But look at this again:
a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism.
The confederates are always going on about what a despot Lincoln was, are they not? And other folks argue he was the perfect magistrate. Let's split the difference and say he was sometimes despotic, just for the sake of argument. How did that come to pass? If you look at what Mr. Madison says here, he says that a revolt against the principle of the compact--that is, the obligations of the parties to the compact to exist within its forms and provisions--leaves but two choices: anarchy and despotism. Lincoln himself warned of the same thing in his first innaugural address:
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinins and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
Anyway, I consider Madison a competent authority on the subject. This letter, while occurring during the early days of the southern hothead movement, does touch on the major issues involved, constitutionally speaking. Naturally, I go with Madison on this one. On what authority is your understanding based?
Of course other forms of far worse slavery was practiced by the state in various totalitarian states in the 20th century and is even now practiced in chattel form on the very continent from which the trade in question originated. The book is not yet closed. I feel for sure that we have not seen the last of state slavery in totalitarian regimes for a long time to come.
In the case of benevolence...it could be said that is a strength. In the case of guilt, I have no doubt it is a spiritual weakness sprung forth collectively from a sense of self indulgence or gratification.
Sad but true. It's been many years since I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich , just to name one example among many. I should re-read it. I've been meaning to. Of course, all around the world, as we are all too aware these days, things are a damned mess.
Ick.
Pennsylvania also had abolution societies in 1774 and in 1780, once free from British domination, they ended slavery in that state. One must wonder, if the United States had not won its independence, would the Whigs have gained control over Parliment and brought on the reforms that ended slavery?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.