Posted on 03/26/2002 10:38:41 PM PST by kattracks
The 10th amendment argument, whatever its charm, is wholly dependent on whether secesseion is rebellion. There is adequate express language in the Constitution about the power to use force against rebellion.
We then recur to the main point. Is there, or is there not, a right of legal secession.
Regards,
Richard F.
I had used the word "segment" only to find something neutral to describe a portion of a people under one government, not intending any deprecation at all.
And I had thought that your argument in # 306 was meant to be universal, not grounded in specific American history. If I am wrong, we can return to American Principle, and leave abstract speculation aside.
I insist that Locke and the founders thought rebellion just, not "at will," but when reasonably shown to be in accord with the laws of nature and of nature's God. Princes, or governments, rightly resist rebellion when it is not just, and a rebellion to perpetuate and extend human slavery is plainly not just. and equally plainly, the rebellion of 1860-1 was exactly that, a rebellion for the sake of slavery.
All that is left for its defenders is to show that there was never a rebellion, since there never was an American nation. This they fight manfully to do. But they are wrong. Though we had a mixed regime, with residual state sovereignty, there was, in fact, a compact to make a national government, in a limited sense. That government was, in its sphere, supreme. In fact, it enjoyed all the principal marks of sovereignty, much more than did the states included in it. And seizing its property, disregarding its laws, and firing on its armed forces were acts of violent insurrection. Its chief executive, Abraham Lincoln, was bound by oath to take measures against such lawlessness, as he did.
It's as simple as that.
Cheers,
Richard F.
On the other hand, if you do not agree with the plain meaning of the 10th Amendment, then you must dismiss the 10th, and resort to contortions and feats of acrobatic prowess to force the Constitution to possess all powers not enumerated or reserved to the states.
I believe that the government of the United States was a government of limited and enumerated powers both before and after the adoption of the Tenth Amendment. However, I also believe that an act of unilateral secession constitutes an attempt to interfere with the United States Government's exercise of the enumerated powers that were delegated to it by the Constitution.
And you are still faced with the proving that the ratifications were permanent and irreversible. Obviously, the Constitution is not permanent and unchanging - states can be added, just as amendments can be added. Even an amendment that would DISSOLVE the union. As I've previously documented, ratifications failed only be accepted later - so obviously it's the LAST vote that counts because they were allowed multiple votes. Yet still there is no provision that prohibits a state from rescinding it's ratification.
Although I haven’t really given it a great deal of thought, I would suppose at first blush that the Union probably could be legally dissolved by way of Constitutional Amendment(s).
I am much less optimistic about the ability of anyone to construct a satisfactory theory upon which a state could claim a right to unilaterally rescind its ratification of the original Constitution or of any of its amendments. If there were such a right, it might provide a shortcut to eliminating certain amendments (like the 16th) that some of us might like to eliminate. All we’d have to do is get just a few of the states that ratified that particular amendment to rescind their ratification.
BTW, I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner on this, but I had some other business that just couldn't wait.
Marshall was a great, great player. He could bat to any field. LOL
I want to apologize for calling you, on another thread, a "Holy idiot." I meant it kindly, in a certain way, but I retract, utterly, the "idiot" part.
I don't retract, for a second, my view of your neo-Keyesian/paleo-Keyesian nonsense, and I reject your amateur psychologizing of Keyes, but on these issues of Federalism, secession, and the Constitution, welcome to the FR big leagues!
I'd be careful with Judge Holmes as an authority, though.
Warmest regards,
Richard F.
It is more than ironic how, when the honest and lucid Stephens is cited, silence falls over the Confederate host.
Here is a notion. Stephens was also a Whig, as was Lincoln in the old days. Wonder if he was a supporter of Henry Clay? If so, what happens to the idiotic DiLorenzo thesis that Lincoln was FDR in the 19th century, since he admired Clay?
Was there a New Deal mole in the CSA Administration, too?
After all, the CSA actually instituted a draft, suspended Habeas Corpus, suppressed the press, etc., etc.,
Sounds like Nationalists to me, just pro-slavery nationalists!
Well, let all this pass ... the key thing was, and is, and ever shall be human dignity. And on that, the Democrats were, and are, and likely will be, on the wrong side.
Liberty and Union forever!
Richard F.
And this fact shows beyond any doubt that we cannot rest our political thought on such a mutable text.
The argument is all in Plato ... form of justice and all that!
Cheers, and for the Declaration!
Richard F.
Well, Sir Richard, I've always suspected that, deep down inside, you're sort of partial to Amelia's theory about Dr. Keyes.
Thanks for the warm welcome.
That, IMO, is strong evidence that the other states assumed the same right for themselves.
But everyone here just needs to calm down. I have Dr. Dilorenzo as my American Economic History teacher this semester. He admits that the white plantation owners wanted to own slaves. Part of the "political" play that SOME southern politicians used was to curry favor with the plantation owners. No one cared about slavery. This was tragic.
However, the real reason the south succeeded was NOT over slavery. They refused to accept the mercantilist policies of the 19th century republican party. Dilorenzo says that Lincoln was perfectly willing to enforce slavery in the states. However, when it came to the tariff, he would use all means to make everyone pay. The south succeeded. There was no way the North could compete with the south when the south had "free trade" and the north didnt.
I would argue that if the Union exceeds its power delegated to it by the people, then the state has a right. However, this can invite anarchy, which inherently breaks down and is unworkable.
So there are times when a state SHOULD not succeed. I think a previous post alluded to the idea that "natural law" trumps the constitution and states right. Absolutely correct. The first job of a government is to protect the rights inherent to the people. Therefore, there needs to be a central, federal government.
But as I said before, the federal government can grow beyond its means. The (maintream) south claimed that the tariff exceeded the power of the federal government. But some (racist) southerners also used slavery as a justification for the succession. So the south is both right on one point and wrong on the other.
With that being said, I can now criticize Lincoln. Lincoln would have been completely justified in denying the southern states their right to succession if the war was to be fought exclusively on slaver. But it wasnt.
Lincoln first and foremost wanted to force mercantilism on America. He could care less about slavery. Only when it became politically feasable did he use it as a justification for the war.
So, if the modern northeren reading of the civil war is taken, then the north had a right to deny the right of succession to the south. If the south succeeded only because of slavery and nothing else, then it is the job and duty of the federal government to deny the south this right and force them to accept the natural law doctrine of equality of opportunity.
Unfortunately, the Civil War is much more complicated than that and both the North and the South made MAJOR mistakes!
You can perhaps share this with Mr. DiLorenzo, because that is woefully wrong.
Slavery was passionately debated and it was the cause of the war. The people of the day made their motives very plain.
"We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States... They have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
--from South Carolina Decl. of Secession
"...[the Northern States] have united in the election of a man to high office of the President of the United States, whose opinions and purpose are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that the `Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction."
"They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."
--Texas Declaration of Secession.
"Our cause is thoroughly identified with the institution of African slavery."
-Mississippi Declaration of Causes
Soon to be CSA congressman Lawrence Keitt, speaking in the South Carolina secession convention, said, "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."
"As soon, however, as the Northern States that prohibited African slavery within their limits had reached a number sufficient to give their representation a controlling voice in the Congress, a persistent and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern States was inaugurated and gradually extended. A continuous series of measures was devised and prosecuted for the purpose of rendering insecure the tenure of property in slaves. . . . Emboldened by success' the theatre of agitation and aggression against the clearly expressed constitutional rights of the Southern States was transferred to the Congress. . . . Finally a great party was organized for the purpose of obtaining the administration of the Government' with the avowed object of using its power for the total exclusion of the slave States from all participation in the benefits of the public domain acquired by al1 the States in common' whether by conquest or purchase; of surrounding them entirely by States in which slavery should be prohibited; of those rendering the property in slaves so insecure as to be comparatively worthless' and thereby annihilating in effect property worth thousands of millions of dollars. This party' thus organized' succeeded in the month of November last in the election of its candidate for the Presidency of the United States...
the productions in the South of cotton' rice' sugar' and tobacco' for the full development and continuance of which the labor of African slaves was and is indispensable.'
--Jefferson Davis
From the Confederate Constitution: Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 4: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."
Article IV, Section 3, Paragraph 3: "The Confederate States may acquire new territory . . . In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the territorial government."
From the Georgia Constitution of 1861:"The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves." (This is the entire text of Article 2, Sec. VII, Paragraph 3.)
From the Alabama Constitution of 1861: "No slave in this State shall be emancipated by any act done to take effect in this State, or any other country." (This is the entire text of Article IV, Section 1 (on slavery).)
Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, referring to the Confederate government: "Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition."
[Augusta, Georgia, Daily Constitutionalist, March 30, 1861.]
A North Carolina newspaper editorial: "it is abolition doctrine . . . the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." [North Carolina Standard, Jan. 17, 1865; cited in Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
Robert M.T. Hunter, Senator from Virginia, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?"
Alfred P. Aldrich, South Carolina legislator from Barnwell: "If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy? This is the great, grave issue. It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule -- it is a question of political and social existence." [Steven Channing, Crisis of Fear, pp. 141-142.]
Senator Hunter of VA. During the Negro Soldier Bill debate on March 7, 1865, the SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PAPERS notes him as stating his opinion of the Bill as follows:
"When we had left the old Government he had thought we had gotten rid forever of the slavery agitation....But to his surprise he finds that this Government assumes the power to arm the slaves, which involves also the power of enamcipation....It was regarded as a confession of despair and an abandonment of the ground upon which we had seceded from the old Union. We had insisted that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery, and upon the coming into power of the party who it was known would assume and exercise that power, we seceded....and we vindicated ourselves against the accusations of the abolitionists by asserting that slavery was the best and happiest condition of the negro. Now what does this proposition admit? The right of the central Government to put slaves into the militia, and to emancipate at least so many as shall be placed in the military service. It is a clear claim of the central Government to emancipate the slaves."
"If we are right in passing this measure we were wrong in denying to the old government the right to interfere with the institution of slavery and to emancipate the slaves."
"He now believed....that arming and emancipating the slaves was an abandonment of this contest - an abandonment of the grounds upon which it had been undertaken."
The cause of the war was slavery.
Tell that to Mr. Dilorenzo so he dosn't look such a fool.
Walt
The record simply doesn't support that.
Lincoln didn't give a fig about merchantilism compared to how he felt about slavery. But he can speak for himself:
"The monstrous injustice of slavery...deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world- enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites- causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundimental principles of civil liberty."
1854
More Lincoln:
"I confess that I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes and unwarranted toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no such interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union."
8/24/54
"If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. -- why not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A.? --
You say A. is a white, and B. is black. It is --color--, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be the slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.
You do not mean color exactly? -- You mean the whites are --intellectually-- the superiors of the blacks, and therefore, have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.
But, say you, it is a question of --interest--; and, if you can make it your --interest--, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interst, he has the right to enslave you."
1854
"I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."
August, 1858
"The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied, and evaded, with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they only apply to "superior races."
These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect. -- the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard -- the miners and sappers -- of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.
This is a world of compensations; and he that would -be- no slave, must consent to --have-- no slave. Those that deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it."
3/1/59
"This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men -- to lift artificial weights from all shoulders -- to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all -- to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life. Yielding to partial, and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existance we contend."
7/4/61
"We--even we here--bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
12/01/62
"But to be plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose that you do not.
8/23/63
"Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
11/19/63
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.
4/4/64
"it is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."
April 11, 1865
Also consider:
"After the interview was over, Douglass left the White House with a growing respect for Lincoln. He was "the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely," Douglass said later, "who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color." --"With Malice Towards None, p. 357 by Stephen Oates.
"Lincoln had Douglass shown in at once. "Here is my friend Douglass," the President announced when Douglass entered the room. "I am glad to see you," Lincoln told him. "I saw you in the crowd today, listening to my address." He added, "there is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours. I want to know hat you think of it." Douglass said he was impressed: he thought it "a sacred effort." "I am glad you liked it." Lincoln said, and he watched as Douglass passed down the [receiving] line. It was the first inaugural reception in the history of the Republic in which an American President had greeted a free black man and solicited his opinion."
Ibid., p. 412
Other sources: "Abraham Lincoln, Mystic Chords of Memory" published by the Book of the Month Club, 1984
and:
"Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1859-65, Libray of the Americas, Don E. Fehrenbacher, ed. 1989
You might want to share this also with Mr. DiLorenzo.
Walt
That statement is based on ignorance. Now there is nothing wrong with -being- ignorant. There is a great sin in remaining ignorant.
" It is useful when thinking about Abraham Lincoln's attitudes toward slavery and Blacks to remember that Lincoln was a Southerner born in a slave state to parents born and raised in slave states. His family shared some of their culture's bias toward individual Blacks, but opposed the institution of slavery. This background and the early move of the family to a free state shaped Lincoln's attitudes early in his adult life. Now consider several facts about Lincoln's political career:
1. While Lincoln was building political strength in local Illinois politics, he opposed the war with Mexico as inexpedient for several reasons, including that it was waged to increase the power of slave states in the institutions of Federal government.
2. During Lincoln's first term as U.S. congressman from Illinois in the late 1840's, he continued to criticize the Mexican war and worked out a bill (never introduced) calling for a referendum in the District of Columbia designed to free the slaves in that Federal enclave and compensate their owners.
3. His reentry into national politics in 1854 was clearly for the purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery into the territories under the provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He had his heart and soul involved with the idea of gradual emancipation to bring the fullest meaning to the words of Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.
4. From 1854 to his nomination for the presidency in 1860, as James McPherson noted in his DRAWN WITH THE SWORD, "the dominant, unifying theme of Lincoln's career was opposition to the expansion of slavery as a vital first step toward placing it in the course of ultimate extinction." In those years he gave approximately 175 political speeches.
McPherson notes that the "central message of these speeches showed Lincoln to be a "one-issue" man - the issue being slavery."
Thus, Lincoln's nomination to the presidency was based on a principled opposition to slavery on moral grounds, and that position was clear to voters both in the South and the North.
5. In his early speeches and actions as president-elect and president, he was clear in his opinion that he had no legal authority to interfere with slavery in the slave states. However, he was persistent and consistent in his efforts to encourage and aid voluntary emancipation in the loyal Border States, territories and the District of Columbia. These efforts predated his publication of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
In summary, I think one can safely say that Lincoln was clearly a gradual abolitionist from the beginning of his political career."
-Posted in the AOL ACW forum. Not written by me.
Walt
Based on President Lincoln's lifelong opposition to slavery, it might be more correct to say Lincoln would -allow- slavery in the states. After all, as president he had no power over slavery AT ALL in the normal course of events.
President elect Lincoln's bedrock position that the slave holders found so unpalatable was that slavery not be allowed into the territories.
That's all.
SPRINGFIELD, ILL., December 13, 1860
HON. E. B. WASHBURNE.
MY DEAR SIR:--Your long letter received. Prevent, as far as possible, any of our friends from demoralizing themselves and our cause by entertaining propositions for compromise of any sort on "slavery extension." There is no possible compromise upon it but which puts us under again, and leaves all our work to do over again. Whether it be a Missouri line or Eli Thayer's popular sovereignty, it is all the same. Let either be done, and immediately filibustering and extending slavery recommences. On that point hold firm, as with a chain of steel.
Yours as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
Even that was enough to set the slave holders on the path of rebellion.
Walt
Please tell the learned doctor that the word is secession.
You'll save him from even more embarrassment.
Walt
LOL! Don't we all (it's called work!) Thanks for your response.
Anybody that thinks the Constitution to be "perpetual" obviously misses the whole point - it could be replaced overnight. It's permanent as long as we allow it to be. It is not a "living" document.
With all due respect, if that is what DiLorenzo is teaching you, you have wasted your tuition money on historical distortions. Ask DiLorenzo to explain why the tariff (which was only 10% in 1860, not 47%) was not mentioned in the secession documents while slavery was declared to be the Cornerstone of the Confederacy in those same documents. Ask him to explain Alexander Stephens words from the Georgia Secession debate on tariffs.
You say DiLorenzo told you that Lincoln was willing to "enforce" slavery. What in the world does that mean. Slavery was already being "enforced" in the slave states and Lincoln had absolutly no power as president, or even a desire to change that status. DiLorenzo is commiting a gross distortion of history by not telling you what the Slave states demanded and what Lincoln refused to do concerning slavery --- that is expansion.
DiLorenzo claims to be an 'economic historian' but he completely ignores the economic imperatives that drove the south to insist on expanding slavery, which was the real cause of sectional friction in the proceeding decades, and ultimately the Civil War. He is telling you that "Southern Politicians" were just 'making nice' with the slaveocrats without telling you that those same Southern politicians were the slaveocrats with a greater investment in slaves than northern 'mercantilists' had in factories, mills, mines or railroads. Slavery was the biggest and most profitable 'industry' in the nation. Those slaveocrats masquerading as patriots needlessly tore this nation apart to advance their own selfish economic interests.
If you have taken a DiLorenzo course, you should receive reparations from the university.
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