Posted on 07/13/2015 8:05:28 AM PDT by HomerBohn
Those signing statements have no force of effect in law.
Fort Sumter belonged to the federal government of the United States of America. The South Carolinians had no claim to it.
There is no “right of secession”, although Madison did remark that there were two ways that a state cold withdraw: the same way they came into the nation (through congress) or through rebellion.
The United States won its’ fight for independence. The Confederate States never did win their independence and where invaded and subjugated by the Northern States.
Prior to winning it's fight for independence, the United States put forth a Declaration which asserted it had a God given and Natural right to gain it's independence. This assertion was contrary to the laws of Great Britain, but it is presumed that if we advocated these ideas for our own Independence, we would also accept them and abide by them, and make them part of our own law.
In other words, Independence was Illegal under British Law, but was completely Legal under our own cited "Laws of Nature, and of Nature's God."
How can you argue that a principle which we expected others to respect should not being respected by ourselves?
Why should it require a military battle to get our government to agree to an idea that is it's principle foundation?
So you would agree that the slave owners of 1776 were also not engaged in a legitimate rebellion against tyranny, right? Why was the Confederacy’s bid for self-determination any less valid than that of the British colonies? Both nascent nations embraced slavery.
Washington didn't kill all that many of his fellow British Subjects. Of course, King George III was not as fanatical about subjugating a populace as was King Lincoln I. He quit after 15,000 casualties for the entire war.
Lincoln would accept that many for a single battle.
“That record stands with jeff davis who instigated and waged war against his fellow Americans.”
I always enjoy reading the Lincoln fan club shift the credit for the war.
You’d think that it was Jeff Davis who had called for an army of 75,000 troops, for the purpose of invading the north and forcing them into the Confederacy.
And that the bulk of Civil War battles occurred in northern states with Union troops fighting invading Confederate armies. Poor Lincoln- he had to fight off those invaders.
Yes. Ever hear of a document called the Constitution?
I think we sort of seceded Panama from Columbia on their behalf so we could build the canal. You could mention Singapore or the fifteen republics that came out of the USSR. And the American War of Independence was nothing if not a war of secession.
And while we're at it let's also remember that Tennessee seceded from North Carolina, Kentucky seceded from Virginia, Maine seceded from Massachusetts, and Vermont seceded from both New York and New Hampshire.
They certainly did not believe him.
What doesn't get as much air time is the Southern states insistence that Lincoln not allow slavery in the new states as they were admitted to the Union.
Not sure if this interpretation is consistent with Lincoln's proposed 13th amendment. Lincoln himself said during his campaign for President that a state had a right to chose to give up slavery. Presumably he would for the sake of consistency presume a state had the same right in reverse.
No ifs, ands or buts about it. And THAT is why they seceded.
I keep pointing out that their reasons for seceding are immaterial. They had a right to leave, and the Union didn't have a right to force them to stay. At the time, Slavery was legal in the Union, so it is really irrelevant to their right to leave. They had that right, regardless of their reasons for wanting to.
The monstrous bureaucracies that grew out of D.C. employ so many unionized federal employees that live in Virginia I doubt secession would ever be a serious issue there.
There is every bit the right to leave the union, just like the right to murder the unborn. when the U.S. government is the oppressor we have a duty to resist. Btw once sc left the union the Feds should have left.
For a person that doesn't seem to remember what he says from one day to the next, I think you need to be concerned with your own possible drug usage.
The Colonialists of 1776 were engaged in a rebellion against tyranny. Whether or not their cause was legitimate is in the eye of the beholder (I am of the opinion that it was). The fact that many of them were slave owners is immaterial to their cause or their struggle. The fight in 1776 wasn’t about slavery - it was about representation and determination.
The south chose to institute war against it’s fellow states because it perceived a shift in the balance of power represented by the 1860 election. They feared that this shift in power would result in the abolishment of slavery. They had representation in congress and SCOTUS and had enjoyed “ownership” of the presidency in 8 out of the last 15 presidents (9 if you count the feckless buchanan).
Their cause was not just and certainly not legitimate and their course of action was ruinous.
I'm surprised to see a Texan try to get away with that argument:
Second Flag of the Republic of Texas
Texas state flag:
Benjamin Harrison was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. His great-grandson was the 23rd President.
I’m sure there is more than one person named Megyn Kelly. But I have read most of the arguments presented in the article numerous times from what I consider reliable sources.
Slavery was slowly going away everywhere. At the time the Nation seceded from the British Union and formed a Confederacy, all the Colonies were slave states. As time passed, states slowly shed slavery.
It was far easier in the North, because labor intensive work was less of an issue in that more industrialized society, but in the South it was virtually essential to their economy, the bulk of which depended on labor intensive agriculture.
I think the same social forces that were abolishing it in the North would have eventually done the same in the South. It would have just taken longer because so much of their wealth and production was tied up in the industry.
Abolishing slavery in the southern states of that time would be like abolishing fossil fuels in our day and time.
Sure, nowadays the wealthy North Eastern liberals are trying to force us all to do this without any rational consideration of the costs to the people heavily dependent on cheap fuel, but back in those days they were trying to do the same thing over slavery, and for the same reasons.
Banning fossil fuels is today's equivalent moral crusade, but it doesn't have the emotional impact they had with slavery, and so it's not going very well for them.
Which makes of it a cynical tactic. It's release was intended to aid the war effort and rally support for a very unpopular war. It was such a transparently fake attempt that even Lincoln's own secretary of state criticized it.
William H. Seward said:
"We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
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