Posted on 04/16/2009 6:50:11 AM PDT by rrdog
Sure it is. The Constitutionality of denying seats to the representatives from the rebelling states can by justified through Article I, Section 1, Clause 1 and Article III, Section 3, Clause 2.
Before they were allowed back in, they were forced to vote to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments.
The 14th Amendment only. The 13th had been ratified and adopted before Reconstruction began.
WHAT? You're going to have to provide the entire detailed argument for that one. That statement is really out there in left field.
I will, but first tell what gives you, and you alone, the authority to declare that the Constitution has been violated? Never mind my opinion on the subject, what makes you right and those that say the government did NOT violate the Constitution wrong? For you it is all one sided. You're right, everyone else is wrong, the Constitution is voided, and that gives you the authority to secede or whatever. Well that hardly the case, because for every clause of the Constitution you say has been violated, every single illegal act you care to mention, there will be someone somewhere who disagees with you and will tell you that you're wrong and exactly why you're wrong. So why are they right and you wrong, or why are you right and they're wrong?
That's why the Founders never meant for secession to be unilateral. To do so guarantees acrimony and conflict, the kind of bloody conflict the South launched 148 years ago last Sunday. Both sides must agree that the compact is broken, or have a third party rule on the question. Both sides must agree to the partition in order to guarantee that all interest are protected.
There are a lot of sources you can find by googling that seem to say the former Confederate States had to vote to ratify the 13th as a condition of readmission. President Johnson insisted, it seems.
You’ll have to ask Gov. Perry for that.
Only if the compact allows for it. Anything else is a breach of the compact.
My point about the reabsorption of the South into the North was that the speed of it was due to pragmatic concerns. The North was just as sick of war as the South by this time. After the 1864 election, it was obvious that the appetite for war was diminished even in the North. In the mercy shown to the South, Grant and Lincoln proved to be great statesmen and practical men.
Regardless of who was behind the original decision, the speed and ease of the reabsorbtion was due just as much to the willingness of the Southern states to rejoin and it was to the Northern state desire to put the rebellion behind.
You cannot deny that the South suffered. Many in the North felt it was justifiable. Whether or not is was, it was horrible suffering that crippled them for decades afterwards economically. There was no equivalent damage done by the South to Northern civilian populations even when Lee invaded the North.
Please. War, as Sherman pointed out, was the remedy that the South chose. And having decided on war to further its aims, the confederacy alone was responsible for keeping the opposing armies at bay and out of their own back yard. They failed at that, and paid the consequences. But even the destruction that did occur was insignificant when compared to other campaigns in other countries of the era. Look at the European wars in the 18th and 19th centuries and what happened to civilians and cities during those. Nothing on that scale was inflicted on the South, and it could be argued that the war lasted as long as it did precisely because of the Union's desire to avoid lasting damage or civilian casualties.
Your view of the shallowness of the South’s rebellion is quite evident, but to them at the time, it was the key issue of the survival of their way of life. There are endless arguments about the rightness or wrongness of their point of view, but there was something there that men died for.
I would amend that to say that the threat to their way of life didn't exist. There were no plans to interfere with slavery where it already existed. The emphasis was on denying slavery's expansion, and the only threat to the South was to their already disproportionate representation in Congress. It was lack of absolute power that they feared, and nothing in the Constitution guaranteed them that.
That you diminish that is unfortunate. 11 States felt moved enough to rebel—no small feat at a time when the telegraph was not even in wide use, and the only communication was a newspaper with week old news for most of the country.
I don't diminish them, but I don't hold them up as some sort of heroes for having done so. The South made their decision and paid the price. I don't rejoice at the pain they suffered, but I don't apologize for it either. It was their choice.
At the beginning of those two conflicts, the end was not predetermined. If anything, the colonists had no chance to win, and the South had an even chance to win, or better.
Agreed.
Whether secession is legal or not has no bearing. People will do what they feel compelled to do to protect their own self interests. Except for four years, we have for 232 years managed to find common ground in spite of regional and local differences to advance our greater self interests as a free nation.
People should also be prepared to live with their decisions as well.
The 13th Amendment was ratified in December 1865. The Reconstruction acts that stripped the South of its representation weren't passed until 1867.
I doubt he knows either.
A simple reading will do. Article I, Section 5, Clause 1: "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide." Congress decided, correctly IMHO, that those men who had just spent 4 years waging a bloody rebellion against the U.S. should not be the same ones to send Senators to Washington or sit in Congress. Congress has the right to decide on the qualifications of their own members.
Article III, Section 3, Clause 2: "The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted." The Southern states, and their people, waged war against the United States. Their acts were, in all definitions of the word, treason. Congress ruled that one of the wages of treason was being barred from future positions of trust in the U.S. or representation in Congress until certain criteria was met.
In your other post you had a typo that showed the reference as Article I, Section 1, Clause 1. That’s why I raised my voice questioningly.
My error.
.....And that differs from expelling how?....
It does not.
A previous poster (112) indicated that there should be a Constitutional Convention. My response was that such would result in failure. A simpler, more direct action would be better.
For the purposes of this theoretical discussion, purge and expel are synonyms in my view
Now to the substance. I’ve never heard of or seen anything that Congress passed or declared that was a judgment of disqualification of any representatives of the former Confederate States. Have you found such a thing?
When were the elected Congressional representatives of the Confederate States tried for Treason and found guilty?
Not off hand. I've got a couple of books on Reconstruction at home that I'll have to check.
When were the elected Congressional representatives of the Confederate States tried for Treason and found guilty? Most were covered by Johnson's amnesty acts and couldn't be tried. That doesn't mean their actions weren't treasonous under the definition in the Constitution.
OK, we can continue this after you’ve had a chance to check those books. I did a bit of googling before I asked the question.
As for Treason, if the men were not convicted, then they would not be Constitutionally disqualified on that count.
Nothing in the Constitution prevents them from holding office even if they had been convicted. But I believe the House and Senate both passed laws allowing for that, and I'll have to do some digging over the weekend to find that.
I never said me and me alone. Secession or rebellion occurs whenever a significant segment of the population doesn't like the way things are going. In the case of the present discussion, many people don't like the present unconstitutional course of the federal government.
Never mind my opinion on the subject...
We sure as hell never hear your opinion on the subject, since you're stuck between your usual Scylla and Charibdes. You can't assert that the present activities of the federal government are constitutional because that would expose you as a leftist. Nor can you say they're unconstitutional because that would blow your entire argument that we have to obey the Constitution when it comes to secession out of the water. So you simply duck the issue, and condescendingly lecture people for wanting to secede.
....what makes you right and those that say the government did NOT violate the Constitution wrong? For you it is all one sided. You're right, everyone else is wrong, the Constitution is voided, and that gives you the authority to secede or whatever. Well that hardly the case, because for every clause of the Constitution you say has been violated, every single illegal act you care to mention, there will be someone somewhere who disagees with you and will tell you that you're wrong and exactly why you're wrong. So why are they right and you wrong, or why are you right and they're wrong?
Because in case you haven't noticed, we're in a post-Constitutional era in which sociological jurisprudence has supplanted the rule of law, and in which leftist concepts of "social justice" are routinely substituted for the clear language of both statutes and the Constitution.
If you're going to seriously contend that there's a legitimate constitutional case to be made for Roe vs. Wade, or for the impending same-sex "marriage" fiat, give it your best shot. Are you really going to tell us that the pro-Roe or pro-same sex "marriage" constitutional arguments have any legitimate basis in reality whatsoever? That a reasonable and honest person can read the Constitution and conclude that there's a right to abortion and same-sex "marriage"?
You know as well as anyone here that those rulings are deliberate perversions of the Constitution.
Or better yet, give sanctuary cities your best shot. Or the federal government's clear refusal to enforce immigration law. Justify Nancy Pelosi's recent assertion that immigration raids must end.
Or just tell us all that Obama, Pelosi, and company love the Constitution just as much as we do, and any discrepancy between what they're doing and what we desire is just an honest disagreement. They honestly love the Constitution and are trying their damndest to bring it to life and abide by it, but they just happen to honestly interpret it differently. Nancy Pelosi honestly believes that the border is a fiction and that the law prohibiting people from illegally squatting here doesn't exist.
That's why the Founders never meant for secession to be unilateral. To do so guarantees acrimony and conflict, the kind of bloody conflict the South launched 148 years ago last Sunday. Both sides must agree that the compact is broken, or have a third party rule on the question. Both sides must agree to the partition in order to guarantee that all interest are protected.
A third party? The UN maybe?
We're only one weak Supreme Court justice away from losing nearly all of our constitutional liberties. Do you really think a court composed of five or six Souter clones will respect the Constitution one bit? The constitution guarantees religious liberty, but what will happen to that liberty when the federal government passes the "gay rights" law they're sure to pass soon? Want me to post the link again to the examples of religious freedom already being crushed in deference to homosexuality?
I'd like to imagine there would be some point when you conclude that the federal government has gone beyond the scope of its constitutional authority and has broken its compact with the people, and so the people who recognize this breach may wish, as Gov. Perry suggested, to leave the union. But as I said earlier, I don't think that would happen unless a right-wing cabal took over the government. As long as it's leftists trashing the Constitution and building a massive federal leviathan, you'll always find wiggle room to excuse their power grabs.
A better phrasing would be: “You can't assert that these lawless activities of the federal government are unconstitutional....”
We thankfully aren't at the point yet where the government is fully operating outside its constitutional scope.
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