Posted on 02/02/2020 9:52:53 AM PST by Sean_Anthony
Are Battle Lines Being Drawn?
What started in whispers is now appearing in print…American Thinker, Market Watch, Huffington Post, Washington Times, National Review, Daily Wire, Breitbart, Real Clear Politics, and The New Yorker, among others. They are writing about the possibility of a second civil war in this country, a redo of Democrats’ nullification of federal law, the insistent opposition and rejection of the lawful election of a president, the movement of many of our citizens to a more agreeable state, and acts of violence.
These elements of civil war are now with us once again…nullification, separation, rejection, and violence. We can argue on the order, but the same elements that 159 years ago transported this country from peace and unity into the hell of armed conflict have reappeared, complete with a great social issue of our own…abortion.
I think that you nailed it. The coming civil war will not last very long, because it will become an international war very quickly, with the commie side luring foreign communists into the fray. Mexican narcotrafficantes, sex traders for one. After all, just compare the American Commies to the Mexican drug runners, sex traders, and open border agitators. They are already THE SAME PEOPLE. And the American commies know they don’t stand a chance against us bitter clingers of 95% of the guns and ammo (and bibles) and all of us delporables. So a civil war quickly becomes a conventional international war. There are a lot of other commie countries who would be very interested to helping the American commies.
Madison did not say that until DECADES AFTER the constitution was ratified. He certainly wasn’t saying that before ratification.
Here’s what Hamilton said BEFORE ratification:
“To coerce the states is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself, a government that can only exist by the sword?” Alexander Hamilton
Another who agreed that states did have that right was Ulysses S Grant:
“If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers.” (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint, p. 131)
“If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted.” (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, p. 130)
President John Tyler likewise believed a state had the right to leave the Union. So did President John Quincy Adams who tried to organize the New England states to secede in the 1820’s.
The Northern Federalists’ Hartford Convention declared in 1814 that a state had the right to secede in cases of “absolute necessity” (Alan Brinkley, Richard Current, Frank Freidel, and T. Harry Williams, American History: A Survey, Eighth Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991, p. 230).
Here’s what this guy had to say about the subject of secession:
“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.” Abraham Lincoln January 12, 1848 in a speech in the US House of Representatives.
I’ve already provided Jefferson’s statements evidencing his opinion that states had the right of unilateral secession.
As to the 3 states’ express provisos made at the time of constitutional ratification reserving their right to secede, they are prima facia evidence as to what the parties to the compact agreed to at the time. They clearly thought they did have the power to unilaterally secede. Under the Comity Principle, every state understood itself to have that right. Nobody at the time said a state did not have that right or that reserving that right in any way clashed with the constitution.
If say, the citizens of Vermont democratically choose to leave, why should the rest of us use threats, force and violence to compel them to stay? Should marital partners be able to use violence to force their spouses to stay in a “perpetual union” they no longer wish to be a part of?
Doesn’t government derive its legitimacy from the consent of the governed as the Declaration of Independence proclaims?
I would let them depart in peace, wish them well and offer to set up mutually beneficial trading arrangements. I’m not an authoritarian. I have no wish to dictate to others - I just don’t want others trying to dictate to me.
It’s OK if you can’t provide the evidence - I understand.
Its OK if you can’t read. I understand.
It just seems like what would be the natural progression of events.
Oh I can read just fine. As a matter of fact I can read right through your PC revisionism.
In #102 you post a line you lifted from one of those lost cause sites misrepresenting US Grant:
“If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers.”
What he actually said contradicts your premise of advocating secession:
“If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted. The problem changed on the ratification of the Constitution by all the colonies; it changed still more when amendments were added; and if the right of any one State to withdraw continued to exist at all after the ratification of the Constitution, it certainly ceased on the formation of new States, at least so far as the new States themselves were concerned. It was never possessed at all by Florida or the States west of the Mississippi, all of which were purchased by the treasury of the entire nation. Texas and the territory brought into the Union in consequence of annexation, were purchased with both blood and treasure; and Texas, with a domain greater than that of any European state except Russia, was permitted to retain as state property all the public lands within its borders. It would have been ingratitude and injustice of the most flagrant sort for this State to withdraw from the Union after all that had been spent and done to introduce her; yet, if separation had actually occurred, Texas must necessarily have gone with the South, both on account of her institutions and her geographical position. Secession was illogical as well as impracticable; it was revolution.”
You also lift the claim that “The Northern Federalists’ Hartford Convention declared in 1814 that a state had the right to secede in cases of “absolute necessity””. Had you looked closer you would have seen that in truth an author of a book claimed that was a determination of the convention (it wasn’t).
As far as the Lincoln quote goes, you are wrong again. Lincoln was speaking to revolution, not secession. And his considerable qualifier “...and having the power” supports that.
Lincoln was speaking out against the then current president, “declaring that the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President”. The quote in question comes into play when discussing the on-going dispute over international boundary lines. Look at the sentence that precedes the infamous passage:
“The extent of our teritory(sic) in that region depended, not on any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it) but on revolution.”
Then comes the money-quote:
“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,-—a most sacred right-—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.”
He sorta re-phrases it next:
“Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory(sic) as they inhabit.”
This is interesting:
“More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the Tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones.”
See what he did? He bookcased the whole proposition to be one of revolution, not secession.
Look what comes next if you doubt me:
“As to the country now in question, we bought it of France in 1803, and sold it to Spain in 1819, according to the President’s statements. After this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and still later, Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so far as she carried her revolution, by obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling, submission of the people, so far, the country was hers, and no farther.”
It is unmistakable that he is referring to armed, hostile rebellion against arguable authority (Mexico). Not secession.
Reading is fundamental ;’}
But you haven't posted anything yet that actually shows him advocating secession - especially unilateral secession.
So let’s see.....
Grant thought the right to unilateral secession did exist at the time of ratification of the constitution. I’d say he was correct in that as would anybody who read the provisos of the 3 states which issued them expressly reserving that right. I disagree with him that the right of each state to unilaterally secede somehow disappeared later....even though nobody actually agreed to that. Oh, and under the Comity Principle, every state is equal to every other state. Therefore any claims that states which were not among the 13 original states somehow had lesser rights is a non starter.
I then correctly cited the fact that the Northern Federalists thought they had the right to secede in the Hartford Convention. You have nothing to refute that.
As for Lincoln’s quote, res ipsa loquitor. It speaks for itself. Your attempts to weasel by claiming some imaginary semantic difference between revolution and secession is ridiculous. Just read what he wrote. He was plainly talking about secession. Americans had long championed secession as “a principle to liberate the world” as he put it. After all.....the 13 colonies seceded from the British Empire. I was right again.
Reading is indeed fundamental.
Oh but I have provided Jefferson’s quotes which show he supported the right of states to secede. He was the author of the Declaration of Secession (Independence) after all.
No he didn't.
No you didn't. You mindlessly parroted something you found online. You didn't cite a specific person, much less provide a link to their saying such a thing.
No he wasn't. If you knew anything about the context you wouldn't be embarrassing yourself right now.
Yes he did. Read the quote.
No you haven't.
Yes I did. Are you denying the Northern Federalists thought they had the right to secede at the Hartford Convention?
(this should be really funny). Provide evidence to back up your claim which runs contrary to the evidence.
Hilarious! You’re desperately trying to weasel by claiming he was talking about “revolutionizing” rather than secession when he openly talked about people throwing of government and making away with a portion of the land if not the whole country. What would that be called?
The one embarrassing himself here is clearly you.
Right after you provide evidence in the first place.
Evidence that the Northern Federalists thought they could secede?
Very first page of a duckduckgo search.
And before you make some lame attempt at argument here, no they did not secede but they thought secession their right. It was quite openly discussed there.
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