Posted on 03/26/2002 10:38:41 PM PST by kattracks
Do states have a right of secession? That question was settled through the costly War of 1861. In his recently published book, "The Real Lincoln," Thomas DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence that virtually every political leader of the time and earlier believed that states had a right of secession.
Let's look at a few quotations. Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." Fifteen years later, after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in the union ... I have no hesitation in saying, ‘Let us separate.'"
At Virginia's ratification convention, the delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." In Federalist Paper 39, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, cleared up what "the people" meant, saying the proposed Constitution would be subject to ratification by the people, "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong." In a word, states were sovereign; the federal government was a creation, an agent, a servant of the states.
On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a right of states. Maryland Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel said, "Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty." The northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.
Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content." The New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go." DiLorenzo cites other editorials expressing identical sentiments.
Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry not logic; beauty, not sense." Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of self-determination -- government of the people, by the people, for the people should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people to govern themselves."
In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The South seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision. Today, it's worse. Turn Madison's vision on its head, and you have today's America.
DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness and hypocrisy, and how historians have covered it up. The Framers had a deathly fear of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as a protection. That's why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments. They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington tyranny.
COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Contact Walter Williams | Read his biography
©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFORM ADOPTED AT CHICAGO, 1860
Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Republican electors of the United States, in Convention assembled, in discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our country, unite in the following declarations:
2. That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the Federal Constitution, "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," is essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions; and that the Federal Constitution, the Rights of the States, and the Union of the States, must and shall be preserved.
3. That to the Union of the States this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for Disunion, come from whatever source they may: And we congratulate the country that no Republican member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of Disunion so often made by Democratic members without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of Disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendency, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant People sternly to rebuke and forever silence.
Case closed.
Verdict ... error.
Richard F.
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State of Maine
Resolves in favor of harmony and union
Resolved, That we the people of the State of Maine devotedly cherish the constitution and laws of the United States, and have ever been willing to assist in maintaining the National Union, and to respect faithfully the rights of all its members.
Resolved, That in the present attempt to coerce the government of the United States, and the will of the majority of the people thereof, to the will of the minority, by treason most foul, and rebellion the most unjustifiable, it is the right and the duty of the state to proffer to the national government for its own maintenance and for the suppression of this treason and rebellion all the means and resources which it can command. Resolved, That while as a member of the family of the states, we are ever ready to review our course in reference to any seeming infringement of the rights of sister states, still we can never so far forget the pride of our sovereignty, or the dignity of our manhood, as to hold parley with treason or with traitors.
Resolved, That whenever we shall see the sentiment of patriotism and devotion to American liberty manifested in the slave-holding states, we will vie with such states in the restoration of harmony, and will tender to such, every fraternal concession consistent with the security of our own citizens.
Resolved, That it is our right and our solemn purpose, with "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor," to defend to the last our Federal Government, and the strength and the glory of our national capitol, by whatever hands assailed,as the only hope of our own and of the world's freedom and progress.
*******
Now let's see, was this legislature composed of anything but Northern Democrats and Republicans? Did Maine vote for Breckenridge?
Cheers,
Richard F.
******
Joint Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, passed January 12, 1861.
RESOLVED by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, as follows:
1. That the people of Ohio, believing that the preservation of the Unity of Government that constitutes the American people one people, is essential to the support of their tranquility at home, of their peace abroad, of their safety, of their prosperity, and of that very liberty which they so highly prize, are firmly and ardently attached to the National Constitution and the Union of the States.
2. That the General Government cannot permit the secession of any State without violating the obligations by which it is bound, under the compact, to the other States and to every citizen of the United States.
*********
There are more from other states, all to the same effect.
I consider this point settled.
Richard F.
Wonderful!
There will no doubt be many points to discuss. On this thread, if you find an answer to my question, please let us know.
Here was the question:
"Is there any direct and explicit statement of a legal right of secession in the whole Founding Era, from 1774 to and including the Hartford Convention? I don't mean such cloudy things as the Virginia "reservation," cited in Williams column, which is, to put it mildly, easily read as a notice of the natural right of Revolution. I seek instead a simple and direct statement of a legal right of secession, preferably using the term itself. If so, could we see get it sourced?"
Regards,
Richard F.
Oops ...Could we get it sourced?
Great. But please answer me something. I confess to being a bit discouraged by the sequence of debate over the two published DiLorenzo pieces, for the following reason.
In my and rdf's first column, we said that Lincoln spoke hardly at all about economics in any form throughout the '50's. DiLorenzo replied that Lincoln had "championed his corrupt economic agenda" in "virtually every one of the Lincoln Douglas debates" and that he "bitterly denounced" the bank decision of the Supreme Court. in the Peoria speech.
DiLorenzo established the first point by citing a speech in which Lincoln accuses Douglas of a double standard for today demanding acquiesence in a Supreme Court decision, while he had earlier approved of President Jackson's exercise of independent judgment in opposition to a Supreme Court Decision.
He established to the second point by citing another speech in which Lincoln accuses Douglas of a double standard for today demanding acquiesence in a Supreme Court decision, while he had earlier approved of President Jackson's exercise of independent judgment in opposition to a Supreme Court Decision.
A simple reading of these two texts reveals that they are the equivalent of one of Reagan's 3x5 cards, that Lincoln found it useful to cite Douglas's response to the Bank decision to show that Douglas's demand for everyone to accept the Dred Scott decision was inconsistent. And yet these two references were DiLorenzo's exhibit A and B to prove that Lincoln was obsessed with economics.
We have not needed to wait for the book to settle this matter. DiLorenzo cites, not just carelessly but upon a challenge to his thesis, the Lincoln Douglas Debates and the Peoria speech as two places where Lincoln reveals his passionate support of Whig economics. Upon inspection, the passages prove to be about slavery. When this is pointed out in a second column, he refuses to acknowledge that the passages in question are simply not about economics.
You mentioned earlier that you had followed this discussion. Did you consult these two texts in Lincoln, and do you have any explanation for DiLorenzo's continued, public claim that Lincoln "championed" his economic agenda?
If we can't settle a matter so completely based on two simple texts in the public record, I don't see how we will be able to discuss an entire book in fairness and come to any agreement. What do you think?
I lost my temper on a previous thread after such provocation. I will never do it again, and I will not respond to such contentless and offensive posts again. If you have something reasonable to say, let us be friends and reason. If not, I am sorry to say, I will have nothing to say in response to you.
I invite you now to answer my question above, or to defend the disputed portion of Williams' article.
Hoping for the best,
Richard F.
June 1995
Volume 13, Number 6
The cords that bind the Union together are weaker than they have been in more than a century. Many states are entering into political revolt against federal encroachment. But this situation is no departure from American tradition. Revolting against consolidated government has been a key to keeping the government in check.
The Founders themselves provided criteria by which to judge the proper occasion for action--both in terms of empirical precedent during the American Revolution, as well as in terms of written, theoretical discourse.
In 1785, for instance, while still under the Articles of Confederation, the United States abandoned the Jay-Gardoqui Treaty because of Western secessionist threats. The U.S. in negotiations had agreed to relinquish all navigational rights along the Mississippi in return for trade with Spain. This was beneficial to the eastern Atlantic seaboard, but it locked out Kentucky, Tennessee, western Virginia, and the West generally from market access of any appreciable kind.
The treaty would have devastated Western development and limited U.S. economic potential. Leaders like James Wilkinson and Daniel Boone threatened to fight for independence or unite with Spain before they would adhere to such an agreement. The Jay-Gardoqui treaty would have been bad for half the States, which is why it had to be defeated through a conditional secessionist drive.
When the Federalists exceeded Constitutional authority by passing the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, similar threats were made, this time while the nation operated under the rubric of the Constitution. The Sedition Act was especially repugnant, in that, it violated the First Amendment restriction on the federal government. Moreover, it was employed for blatantly partisan political purposes against Democratic-Republican editors, ten of whom were imprisoned for criticizing official government policy.
In response, Jefferson and Madison wrote the Virginia and Kentucky Resolves. They detailed a doctrine of dual sovereignty, by which state sovereignty is as inviolable as the federal government's. Some historians have intimated that Jefferson and Madison, who were instrumental in the successful resistance to federal authority during the crisis, somehow wrote and said what they did out of sheer political expediency.
But Jefferson and Madison had utmost respect for the written word. Consistency between words and beliefs would have been matters of personal integrity for each. After all, the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Plan for the Constitution understood their relative positions in the eyes of fellow countrymen.
Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolves that the Union was a compact among States. The general government exists for express and delegated purposes only. Jefferson quotes the Tenth Amendment, saying that States are equal judges with the federal government on questions of Constitutionality. Jefferson writes further that "whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." Jefferson equates the Constitution with an "attachment...to limited government" and says that successive acts of tyranny ought to drive the States into "revolution and blood."
James Madison wrote in the Virginia Resolves that States acted Constitutionally when they blocked domestic federal aggression. Like Jefferson, Madison emphasizes the enumerated nature of federal power. In case of "dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil." He names any device "so as to consolidate the states, by degrees, into one sovereignty" as the sort of dangerous and undelegated exercise of power he means.
Madison is more tentative and incremental in his approach than Jefferson. But Madison uses Constitutional language to confer on States the same power to maintain their part of dual sovereignty as he attributes to the federal government to maintain its part. Namely, Madison says the States must take all "necessary and proper measures...in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties, reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
The issue was finally resolved through the Jeffersonian political revolution of 1800. The election was an overwhelming repudiation of the extreme Federalist party position of unitary federal (versus dual state and federal) sovereignty. Americans were gratified that secession or civil war was unnecessary. But the backdrop of revolutionary political commitment was essential to producing the first peaceful transition of power between parties in American history.
After Jefferson's and Madison's trade policies had disproportionately hurt states involved in shipping and overseas commerce, the New England states seriously entertained secession at the Hartford Convention in 1814. Massachusetts responded in nearly the same manner as South Carolina did later in the Nullification Crisis. The Hartford Convention failed to endorse secession outright, but it did adopt nullification measures.
In this century, such threats have been silenced. The growth of government has evolved through force and the threat by activist Presidents; by micromanaging Congressmen and bureaucrats; and by activist judges with social agendas.
The people are now reduced to having to overcome the burden of Constitutional amendment just to restore the original intent: to have a government that balances its budget; to control schools at the local level; to have safe and moral neighborhoods; to exercise the people's better judgment; to restate the 10th amendment in so many ways that even a lawyer--and perhaps the Supreme Court--can understand it.
It is uncertain whether that burden will or can be overcome. Nor is it necessary, if the Constitution were properly observed. Yet American history teaches us that rebellion is not only conceivable; it may be a duty incumbent. And the threat itself may be enough to cause the federal government to return to its proper role, and thus reinstate the desired vertical balance within the federal system.
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Wesley Allen Riddle teaches History at West Point
But note your title ..."When To Revolt"
Revolt, not secede. Do you agree there is a difference?
Also, you say they "taught it at West Point." But your article is from 1995. I assume you have in mind an earlier teacher at West Point. Do you have anything on him?
Cheers,
Richard F.
There is no way to have a useful discussion unless one keeps on the subject.
Let's do the "March to the Sea" another time, and for now, ask whether it is true that the American Founding enshrined a legal and peaceful right to secession.
Regards,
Richard F.
Good. We agree. To revolt is not a right under positive law, in the United States or anywhere else, but it may be just according to the laws of nature and of nature's God.
Are we still in agreement?
Richard F.
I see you have no answer yet, but perhaps folks are out West fighting the Indian wars on another thread.
Here is what I think.
Silence implies consent.
On the threads you mention, no one, not one freeper, defended DiLorenzo's claims about the two points you mentioned. So I assume them settled against him. Lincoln did not insert passionate Whiggish views into the debates or into the Peoria Speech, and Dilorenzo was, in public print, wrong.
Of course, better than silence would have been public admission by some of his friends, but silence will do.
Now we wait, with patience and goodwill, for similar results in the current dispute.
I am content with this.
Cheers,
Richard F.
Setting aside the gratuitous insult, may I say that the Virginia "reservation" sounds to me like a recognition of the natural right of rebellion against injustice, not a positive right under the Constitution, and, as WhiskeyPapa has already noted, it seems to be said of the people of the United states, not the People of Virginia.
That the text is genuine is, indeed, a fact. What it means is, IMHO, probably unhelpful to those who would make the Union a mere alliance.
I hope that clarifies my previous post.
Regards,
Richard F.
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