"Pro slavery forces cause worst civilian atrocity of the war"

[ironfoot]

STILL waiting for one of the northern apologists to post the Article of the Constitution, or even the federal law that, in 1860 or 1861 prohibited a state from leaving the Union.  Again, until you can show that, all your arguments and calling it treason are just so much hot air and wishful thinking.

Show us a provision in the Constitution that provides for secession.
There isn't any.
Show us a provision in the Constitution that would allow a seceding state to occupy a federal fort and seized federal arms.
There isn't any.
The Union was perpetual, and no country recognized the Confederacy.



Lincoln's first inaugural address:

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

"I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."

But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances."

[williamlayton]

Let's not look at this by law, for just a minute.
let us look at the reality of the situation.
It matters not, really, the letter of the law. The forces intertwined in this whole affair would force this war.
The Federals were fighting for a republic. They wanted no one to be subjecting us. It is plain to see, well, I say that but it is surely plain for me to see that there were Europeans who were waiting in the wings to gain a control in America.
There were those in the South who favored a re-union with GB or France. It was a shorth sided viewand seen thru rose colored glasses.
This Nation had fought these powers to become a Republic and there were those who would not let that go.
I think it is good that we maintained the Republic.
I don't think I would enjoy living under British rule today.
Blessings

[ironglow]

Good analysis William; as in many situations, neither side was completely right or completely wrong.

[billy_56081]

Apologist? No need to apologise when you are in the right.

[subdjoe]

Ah...so there is nothing in the Constitution or the law that says a state, or several states can't leave.  Thank you all for finally admitting that.   Willy, if the law and Constitution don't matter, then why bother with either?  In fact, if they don't matter, then there would be nothing wrong with states leaving the Union, would there? 


Amazing the sophistry and contortions you all go through to justify illegal actions by the federal government.

[ironfoot]

Ah...so there is nothing in the Constitution or the law that says a state, or several states can't leave.  Thank you all for finally admitting that.   Willy, if the law and Constitution don't matter, then why bother with either?  In fact, if they don't matter, then there would be nothing wrong with states leaving the Union, would there? 


Amazing the sophistry and contortions you all go through to justify illegal actions by the federal government.

So there was no provision in the Constitution for secession of states or for dissolution, and the Union was meant to be perpetual. The secession was illegal, and that is why no nation recognized the Confederacy. Thank you for admitting that.

[Casull]

Ironfoot, that is another good example of the contortions Joe mentioned.  Thanks.

[subdjoe]

Iron obviously doesn't know what the Constitution does.  Nor has he read the Bill of Rights.

Heck, I'll help him out since he can't seem to figure it out himself.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

A right to pull out doesn't have to be spelled out, IF.  It was not prohibited, that is all that matters. 

[Brewster]

I believe secession is something that the Supreme Court would have weighed in on.  I also believe that the secessionists, having read the following by Justice Marshall in Cohen v Virginia in 1821, recognized that they would not have prevailed:

"It is very true that whenever hostility to the existing system shall become universal, it will be also irresistible. The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will. But this supreme and irresistible power to make or to unmake resides only in the whole body of the people, not in any subdivision of them. The attempt of any of the parts to exercise it is usurpation and ought to be repelled by those to whom the people have delegated their power of repelling it."

The key words are "universal" and "the whole body of the people..."

Davis and the Confederate leadership knew they couldn't win in the courts,  or on the battlefield so they bet on a defensive war stategy in the hope that the north would tire of war and just let them go.  The secessionists badly miscalculated.

[ironfoot]

Sudjoe
Maybe you missed this part of the Constitution:


"I cannot find anything in the Constitution that gives the South the right to secede from the Union, however:
 Article 1, Section 10 of the US Constitution states, "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Allaince, or Confederation;grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money;...No state shall, without the Consent of Congress,...keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement of Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
 Once they had seceded, their actions were unconstitutional. So the Union had an absolute right to fight them. The South may also have been guilty of treason according to Article 3, section 3, but you should look at that yourself and decide.
 According to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the US Gov't can "provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions"
I understand this to mean that if a rebellion occurs, the "Union" can repress it. I would consider the South seceding to be an Insurrection."
 



http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071005090456AABWWaH

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061123153403AAawQdS

http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2007/01/14/did-the-south-have-the-right-to-secede/

[subdjoe]

Well, geee.....individual states left the Union, IF.  The did not "enter into any Treaty, Allaince, or Confederation" until after they left the Union.  Neither did they, until after their state legislators issued their bills of secession, try to issue letters of marque, coin money, etc.  Do try to keep up.

Brewster, what bearing do you think Cohens has on this?  That case was about someone being fined in VA for violating state law by selling federally authorized lottery tickets. 

From the textbook on Constitutional law "A View of the Constitution of the United States of America" that was used at the USMA before the War:

If a faction should attempt to

subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its

republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called

forth to subdue it.


Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition  would be

justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from

the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of

government, or if they should, with the, express intention of seceding,

expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby

incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now

prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United

States.



The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best,

is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of

the Union, it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so

construed. It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the

principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it

will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be

inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are

founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to

determine how they will be governed.

http://www.constitution.org/wr/rawle_32.txt

So it looks like the US government itself was teaching that

The Union is an association of the people of republics;

  (note that Justice Rawle calls the states 'republics.') and that those 'republics' had the right to withdraw from  the Union.


But I'm sure you will keep spinning and contorting.

[ironfoot]

On the issue of the legality of secession, intelligent people disgreed then, and we disagree now.
But I find it ironic that a people who fought to keep others enslaved claim victim status for themselves.

[subdjoe]

On the issue of the legality of secession, intelligent people disgreed then, and we disagree now.
But I find it ironic that a people who fought to keep others enslaved claim victim status for themselves.

Again with the revisionist view - they fought to keep an invading army off their soil.  If it was, as you keep claiming, only about slavery, all the southern states had to do was to revoke their bill of secession and ratify the Lincoln supported Corwin Amendment.

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

[Brewster]

As far as Cohens goes, I'm speculating as to why the secessionists didn't try the court system.  They took just 3 months after Lincoln's election to manifest their treason, and now people like you have spent the last 150 years making up excuses and fairy tales as to why the rebs lost their insurrection and trying to make the south out as poor victims.  Time to end the pity party.

[subdjoe]

As far as Cohens goes, I'm speculating as to why the secessionists didn't try the court system.  They took just 3 months after Lincoln's election to manifest their treason, and now people like you have spent the last 150 years making up excuses and fairy tales as to why the rebs lost their insurrection and trying to make the south out as poor victims.  Time to end the pity party.

Hmmm.....Dec. 1860 was not three months after Lincolns election. 

Treason?  As shown above, the federal government itself was teaching its military leaders that individual states could indeed withdraw from the Union.  They were not helping a foreign power overthrow the federal government.  Nor were they trying to take it over themselves.  All they wanted to do, all they did, was withdraw from a voluntary association of "republics" (per Rawle).  You, and others, are redefining 'treason.'

And, you supposition is wrong.   They did not take it to the Court because the seven states saw the 10th Amendment as protecting their right to withdraw.  The legislatures drew up and passed bills of secession, all nice and legal.  Do states, even now, go to the courts for every bill that comes before their legislatures?  No. 

[sidewinder319]

One story you never read is the fact that the Cherokee NDNs were slave holders. The NDNs in Ok. refused to surrender to the Union at the wars end. They did no want to give up thier slaves. Standing Waite CSA was the last to surrender. 

[subdjoe]

A little correction.  Not "Standing."  Stand. 

Stand Watie (December 12, 1806 – September 9, 1871) (also known as Standhope Oowatie, Degataga (Cherokee: ᏕᎦᏔᎦ) “stand firm” and Isaac S. Watie)

[rio grande]

As far as Cohens goes, I'm speculating as to why the secessionists didn't try the court system.  They took just 3 months after Lincoln's election to manifest their treason, and now people like you have spent the last 150 years making up excuses and fairy tales as to why the rebs lost their insurrection and trying to make the south out as poor victims.  Time to end the pity party.

Why would you go to the courts if you had an opponent like Lincoln, would cared nothing for the Law or Justice?  http://www.civil-liberties.com/pages/did_lincoln.htm
Lincoln suspended the habeas corpus, civil law, and had thousands of peaceful political northern opponents arrested and imprisoned.

Everyone knows why the South lost the war, and it had nothing to do with morality or Justice.  It was all about money and industrial power.

Brewster, I enjoyed your post.  Helps me to understand how 'winners' think.
But being on the losing side of war helps one to avoid the arrogance and meanness that always seems to accompany 'victory'.

[williamlayton]

My post must have gone to cyberspace.
Let's ignor the law and look at reality.
There was a conflict brewing. The folks who wanted to keep this a Republic without outside interference from Europe----remember we had two fights with England already----would not let there be another. The South would have become a nation vying for the same territory as the Union---most probably with the help from England or France.
It was not going to happen.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

My post must have gone to cyberspace.
Let's ignor the law and look at reality.
There was a conflict brewing. The folks who wanted to keep this a Republic without outside interference from Europe----remember we had two fights with England already----would not let there be another. The South would have become a nation vying for the same territory as the Union---most probably with the help from England or France.
It was not going to happen.
Blessings

Yeah, ignore the law - exactly what Lincoln did.  And reality?  You seem to not have good relationship with that either.  You take supposition, treat it as fact, and build assumptions from there.  Willy, the way you make assumptions, I would love to have you as an executive chef - you could make 5 gallons of stew from one oyster.

[williamlayton]

Assumptions---there is no need of assumptions.
What are you referring to?
Were most folks wanting to develop this nation as an independent Republic?
Did we not want to be free of European intervention as a Republic?
Was France, in the recognitnition of America after the War of Independence, wanting to gain influence in America.
Was not that the one great point that America demanded most from England in this treaty, was non intereference?
Was Not France agast when they were almost shut out of America after the War of Independence?
Did the Union want all of the territory from the Atlantic to the pacific?
Did the Union not recognize that the South was seeking recognition from not only England but France also?
Was not the South counting on support--monatary and financially from England>
It takes no assumptions to see screws turning. 
Blessings

[SouthernByGrace]

Gentlemen,
   This is the ONLY Warning I will give in this thread and it applies to this entire forum. I have read the posts here and I don't like the tone. Even the thread title is inflammatory, by design I suspect. I WILL NOT tolerate any further posts suggesting treason or traitors or any language that becomes inflammatory in any way, about North OR South, from anyone. I like a lively discussion but when tensions are flaring this much, it's time to move on to something else. If you cannot abide by these rules I will have no choice but to lock this thread.

SouthernByGrace

[subdjoe]

Sorry, SBG. 

[ironfoot]

On the issue of the legality of secession, intelligent people disgreed then, and we disagree now.
But I find it ironic that a people who fought to keep others enslaved claim victim status for themselves.

Again with the revisionist view - they fought to keep an invading army off their soil.  If it was, as you keep claiming, only about slavery, all the southern states had to do was to revoke their bill of secession and ratify the Lincoln supported Corwin Amendment.

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

South Carolina was the first state to secede. You can read it's justification for secession here:

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

Here is a quote:
"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. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; 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.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "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."

It was about slavery all right.

[subdjoe]

I have said that one of the top reasons for secession was slavery.  But that was not the main reason for the war.  Don't conflate the two issues.  I'll also point out that one of the concerns in that was the federal government illegally interfering with the laws of the individual states.

The only reason Lincoln was massing troops to force the secesseded states back into the Union was for federal revenue.

And, even if the only reason for any of it was slavery, with the Corwin Amendment PASSED in Congress, Lincoln willing to sign it, and awaiting only the ratification of the state legislators, why withdraw if, as you keep claiming it was ONLY about slavery? 

 

[williamlayton]

Let's try on both pair of shoes.
Revolution happen all the time--some work and some fail.
I don't have a particular disagreement with revolutions---they hapeen.
The fact is one side wins and the other looses. Happens every time.
Now you can call it whatever name makes you happy. you can blame the win or lose on anything or anybody but the winners and loosers are still the same.
Blessings

[ironfoot]

I have said that one of the top reasons for secession was slavery.  But that was not the main reason for the war.  Don't conflate the two issues.  I'll also point out that one of the concerns in that was the federal government illegally interfering with the laws of the individual states.

The only reason Lincoln was massing troops to force the secesseded states back into the Union was for federal revenue.

And, even if the only reason for any of it was slavery, with the Corwin Amendment PASSED in Congress, Lincoln willing to sign it, and awaiting only the ratification of the state legislators, why withdraw if, as you keep claiming it was ONLY about slavery? 

 

I don't understand your question:

"...with the Corwin Amendment PASSED in Congress, Lincoln willing to sign it, and awaiting only the ratification of the state legislators, why withdraw if, as you keep claiming it was ONLY about slavery?"


http://www.lib.niu.edu/2006/ih060934.html

[subdjoe]

From your link, IF:

In his inaugural address, Lincoln noted Congressional approval of the Corwin amendment and stated that he "had no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."

Yep, Lincoln, the great emancipator, was willing to make slavery perpetual and permanent in the US. 

So, again, I have to ask you, in light of that, how can you keep up your chant of "It was only about slavery!"?

[SouthernByGrace]

I have a question for ironfoot and WL. If secession was illegal, why was it not expressed that way in the constitution? The 10th Amendment makes it pretty plain; "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
The POWER of secession was clearly left to the states and is not up to the federal government.
And if the federal government really believed, in their heart of hearts that secession should be illegal, WHY was the Constitution NOT amended after the War was over, to MAKE secession illegal? The 10th Amendment allows for this to happen. Was this short-sightedness on their part? I don't think so.

According to the 10th Amendment, it was legal then, and it still is.

SBG

[ironfoot]

From your link, IF:

In his inaugural address, Lincoln noted Congressional approval of the Corwin amendment and stated that he "had no objection to its being made express and irrevocable."

Yep, Lincoln, the great emancipator, was willing to make slavery perpetual and permanent in the US. 

So, again, I have to ask you, in light of that, how can you keep up your chant of "It was only about slavery!"?

Subdjoe

You claim I said "It was only about slavery!"
Please show me where you find that quote that you attribute to me.

Lincoln was against slavery.
He said he had no power to end it where it already existed, but would not allow its expansion.
Read his Coopers Union speech.

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm



He also tried to show that the Southern demand to secede from the Union if a Republican were to be elected president was like robbing a man with a gun: "the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle" from that of a robber.
 The third section, addressed to fellow Republicans, encourages level-headed thinking and cool actions, doing "nothing through passion and ill temper."
 We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them.
 Lincoln states that the only thing that will convince the Southerners is to "cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right" and to support all their runaway slave laws and the expansion of slavery. He ends by saying that Republicans, if they cannot end slavery where it exists, must fight through their votes to prevent its expansion. He ends with a call to duty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union_speech

http://history1800s.about.com/od/abrahamlincoln/a/lincolncooperu.htm

Ironfoot