Southern history and the truth

[BrianH]

My exact argument is show me where is says they can. I did emphasize in my last post the bit about reneging on a contract as it refers to the states which could be used to refute their right. However at the time the constitution was sufficiently ambigious on the matter that it could have gone either way. When the states did secede congress decided to act on the matter and said it was illegal.




You don't quit first then ask if you can quit. They should have pursued their case in a far more legal fashion that was not subject to the ambiguities of the constitution. They didn't. They started siezing federal forts and stores. They committed acts of war and gave Lincoln the US a casus belli. He didn't need to wait for them. He and the congress had the authority to act and they did.



What they debated about doesn't mean jack. What got put on paper and became the laws of the country does.




It wasn't a "little bit of trouble". The southern states had comitted acts of war against the union, their secession not withstanding. The border states were about to go. Riots were springing up due to drafting. Now compared to then would be like saying a social cat fight between two cheerleaders in beverly hills is equatable to sets of crips and bloods in compton having a gang fight.




It's not an opinion. As president lincolns job was to assert the authority of the federal government. The president isn't about the states. He's about the country as a whole and primarily about the fed. His job was to keep the country together, maintain the feds authority (the expansion thereof a side effect), and protect Americas soverignty over it's states. He did that. Whether or not people liked the fact that that was his job is open to opinion. But his job was his job and he did what he needed to do. The fact that congress, and the judiciary didn't stop him (attempts to notwithstanding) just means that in the end his mission as president was more important to them too.

While it is agreed that things obviously didn't turn out from the South, there was no rebellion. There was a secession. You speak of seizing federal property. The problem with this, is that this was not federal property. It was property that the states allowed the federal government to occupy. And when the states seceeded, it was no longer the Union's right, according to the southern states, for federal troops to occupy forts in the south. This is why during emergencies, the state has to ask for federal assistance or troops. Hence the big deal behind hurricane Katrina and the Governor waiting to ask for federal help. It would be the same concept of a foreign nation wishing the U.S. to leave the U.S. embassies because they did not want us there.

The states voluntarily became annexed to the United States.

The North relied on indudrialization for their profits and trade, the South relied heavily on agriculture, which increased the demand for (at the time) legal slavery according to the federal government.
The South seceded from the UNion before Lincoln became president, which leads to the illegal activity of Northerners during the Buchanan administration. Do we all remember the infamous John Brown and Harper's Ferry. Illegal activities by the Union involved the the illegal arming of slaves to start a rebellion against the South by John Brown. There were illegal things going on from both sides. You could only imagine the reception this would receive in the South.

The Civil War was not one sided by any means. The South were not simply a bunch of traitors that decided to rebel against the North. They felt like the federal government was intervening more than had been let on upon their annexation, and wanted no part of it. How else can you explain numerous U.S. generals serving in the Confederacy? It was POV conflict. The South believed they were being mistreated by the North, and the North felt the South was rebelling.

The Confederacy had no benefits from sending their secession to Congress for ratification, since the majority of COngress would not have voted for it.
As far as states rights are concerned, the states can do things that are not prohibited to them in the Constitution.

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

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.

So since secession was not prohibited to the states...they could reserve that right respectively.

 

[The_Hammer]

Again, you are incorrect and your analogy is nonsense. Obviously you did not read the links, and again, you obviously have not researched the topic very well.

Until the Southern states were subjugated by force of arms, even yankees believed states had the right to secede, and several northern states even threatened to at times prior to the US Civil War.

What people believed is moot. What matters is what was on the books.

The tactic of backwards logic doesn't play with me.

I'm sorry that I'm framing my arguments premise exactly on the same one that you framed yours. It's an example showing a counter point. If you're reading it as backwards logic then I'm sorry. Perhaps I should have said congress magically deciding to kick South Carolina out of the union.

The South did not seize Federal property. South Carolina seized SC property.

Brzzz. Wrong answer. The personel were US army. The cannons belonged to the army. The Fort was federal property. The government even made a request to the South Carolinans to let the fort be evactuated, which was turned down.


You said.

You are incorrect. Congress's authority over the states had NOT been established or there would have been no war. Get it?

from my response to

The Southern states had no reason to take it up with Congress since once they drew their terms of secession they no longer recognized the US Congress's authority. The issue of unequal representation in Congress was part of the basis of the South's argument and reason for secession. Seems rather ridiculous that they would then turn to that same Congress and ask for anything.

Like I said. It doesn't matter that they "no longer recognized the authority of congress". It doesn't matter if they don't recognize it. It was there because they'd given it authority. Now lets say that congressional authority hadn't been established. They still were violating their terms of contract. Their low population be damned. Their representation wasn't unequal. In fact they got a bigger slice of their populational pie than they deserved since under their laws the 3/5ths that were counted couldn't vote anyway. The fact that they got a handicap and still cried about unequality just means they didn't like a fair system. You have more people you get more say. Too bad your population is too low. That's the way equal representation works. Deal with it.

Nice try. No sale. I don't see where it says a state that voluntarily entered the Union could not leave in the same manner if it deemed it in its best interest.

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

Obligation of contracts. Contracts are entered in to voluntarily. There is no provision for leaving the union (a contract) but is there is a law restricting a state from passing laws that impare ones obligation to them. Like I said in my post it's significantly ambigious enough that one could use it against a state that tried to secede. I'm not saying it's solid, I'm saying that from a legal standpoint it can be argued. Most assuredly more so than that of the right to secede. Of which the constitution says nothing.

You just don't get it, do you? NOTHING precluded states from seceding from the United States. Your ultimate Federal authority is an assumption on your part, and ignores the facts that have been presented.

I agree. There was no solid law which said that the states couldn't secede. But there wasn't any stonger evidence to give the states the rights to secede either.

I see no point in responding to the rest. You are being obtuse. You have presented nothing to sustain your argument but your opinion the the Federal government has and had ultimate and unlimited power; which, it did not until it subjugated the Southern states by force and usurped those powers from all states by that precedent.

Do some research and get back to me.

I don't see why you shouldn't respond. You haven't presented anything or refuted what I've said. It's not my job to pick apart my own argument.

 

[Shogun]

This is an interesting thread. Good job people.



I'm putting Civil War books on the top of my list now.

 

[Swamp Fox]

My exact argument is show me where is says they can. I did emphasize in my last post the bit about reneging on a contract as it refers to the states which could be used to refute their right. However at the time the constitution was sufficiently ambigious on the matter that it could have gone either way. When the states did secede congress decided to act on the matter and said it was illegal.

Amendment 10 in the Bill of Rights - Those powers not specfically enumerated herein are reserved for the states and the people.

Since the people in the south voted for secession, they had the legal right to do so and Lincoln was acting outside of his constitutional authority when he called up the military to fight them.

You don't quit first then ask if you can quit. They should have pursued their case in a far more legal fashion that was not subject to the ambiguities of the constitution. They didn't. They started siezing federal forts and stores. They committed acts of war and gave Lincoln the US a casus belli. He didn't need to wait for them. He and the congress had the authority to act and they did.

This argument is nonsense. They're supposed to apply to a court in a system they no longer support to make it okay for them to leave? What kind of stupidity is that?

What they debated about doesn't mean jack. What got put on paper and became the laws of the country does.

See the answer above about Amendment 10.

It wasn't a "little bit of trouble". The southern states had comitted acts of war against the union, their secession not withstanding. The border states were about to go. Riots were springing up due to drafting. Now compared to then would be like saying a social cat fight between two cheerleaders in beverly hills is equatable to sets of crips and bloods in compton having a gang fight.

They told the US military to leave and it refused, thereby becoming invaders in their state.

It's not an opinion. As president lincolns job was to assert the authority of the federal government. The president isn't about the states. He's about the country as a whole and primarily about the fed. His job was to keep the country together, maintain the feds authority (the expansion thereof a side effect), and protect Americas soverignty over it's states. He did that. Whether or not people liked the fact that that was his job is open to opinion. But his job was his job and he did what he needed to do. The fact that congress, and the judiciary didn't stop him (attempts to notwithstanding) just means that in the end his mission as president was more important to them too.

Nowhere in the constitution does it state that the President is supposed to keep the union together. In fact, he was in direct violation of Amendment 10 when he ordered the military to resist leaving the south.

 

[The_Hammer]

Amendment 10 in the Bill of Rights - Those powers not specfically enumerated herein are reserved for the states and the people.

Since the people in the south voted for secession, they had the legal right to do so and Lincoln was acting outside of his constitutional authority when he called up the military to fight them.

There is nothing in the constitution that says you can vote to leave the Union. Nothing. Zip doo da. Power specifically not enumerated does not include forming your own nation. Because that means you're doing the following. The constitution was also significantly ambigious to give congress the right to claim that it was illegal also.

United States Constitution, Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

The claims of the United States comes first. If it claims that a state is part of it's territory you can't use the constitution against that claim. In addition Lincoln had every right to invade.

United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions

A popular or favored rebellion is a rebellion (an insurgency ursurping the authority of the United States) none the less. The military is under the command of the President. It's his job to curb stomp it.

This argument is nonsense. They're supposed to apply to a court in a system they no longer support to make it okay for them to leave? What kind of stupidity is that?

I wasn't saying it was smart. I wasn't saying it would work. I was saying that if they actually wanted to leave that was the legal way to go about it.

They told the US military to leave and it refused, thereby becoming invaders in their state.

The forts in which soldiers were stationed were Federal Property, not south carolinan. The fact that their government was illegitimate notwithstanding, the forts were federal property and any state that attacked or siezed them was comitting an act of war. You can't so "O well this belongs to you, but we now claim it as ours. So go." Even if they didn't recognize it as Federal property in the first place, it doesn't matter because it was federal property.

Nowhere in the constitution does it state that the President is supposed to keep the union together. In fact, he was in direct violation of Amendment 10 when he ordered the military to resist leaving the south.

See bit about insurrection.

 

[BrianH]

The South, at the time, was justified in seceding. Not only economically, but politically as well. What contracts have you ever entered into that were for life?

The South had an agarian economy vs the North's mercantilist economy. These two economies did not work well together at the time, one wins and one loses financially. The North won the majority of the time when it came to economic stability. The South owed huge debts to the North, debts that were growing every year. This is because the money flow went Northward. The South was paying an enormous amount of federal expenses.

So this leaves us to figure out why the South did not seek Congressional approval of secession. First, the North had a majority in both houses of Congress. When Abraham lincoln was elected, this did more (in the SOuth's eyes) to reinforce the Northern control of the government. So this leaves us at a potential compromise between the North and South...why did the South not seek to compromise?
Three compromises come to mind leading up to the Civil War: The Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Being a Southern minority in Congress, the territories were to become free, thus further increasing the North's power over the land.

Arguing the immorality to slavery is irrelevant to the topic of the South's secession...considering that slavery was still (by the book) legal when the states seceeded. Not to mention that there was a majority of non-slaveholders vs. slaveholders in the South. Large slave holders made up a meager percentage of the population as well as slaveholders being a minority to the whole population of the South. The South simply felt oppressed by the Union and were not represented well at the national level. It's the same concept of the American Revolution.

If a government is sucking money off of you while prohibiting your means of legal mass-production, you would have just cause for seceeding, then.
Amendment 10 is vague, but because there is no law prohibiting a state from seceeding, the state can reserve that power as stated by the 10th Amendment.

 

[Ravi]

Have you ever read any of Jefferson Davis's statements about the Civil War? He believed without slavery the South would wither and die. These nuts that pretend the Civil War wasn't about slavery are just that--nuts.

 

[manifold]

Have you ever read any of Jefferson Davis's statements about the Civil War? He believed without slavery the South would wither and die. These nuts that pretend the Civil War wasn't about slavery are just that--nuts.

I disagree so I must be nuts.

The Civil War was as much about freeing the slaves as WWII was about ending the holocaust. Tangentially related, but not the central purpose.

 

[Ravi]

I disagree so I must be nuts.

The Civil War was as much about freeing the slaves as WWII was about ending the holocaust. Tangentially related, but not the central purpose.

And the reason you believe that is because?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

And the reason you believe that is because?

Because the apologists for the South lose all moral rights to any claim of right if they accept that Slavery drove the South to rebel and the Civil War was in fact all about Slavery.

To claim slavery had nothing to do with the start of the Civil War would require one to be ignorant of the economic and political factors involved in the claim the Southern States used to explain a need to leave the Union, several of the States SPECIFICALLY state in the articles leaving the Union it was ALL about Slavery.

 

[manifold]

And the reason you believe that is because?

It makes a lot more sense than the bogus, propagandized notion that the Union invaded the South because of some noble, humanitarian endeavor to free the black man from bondage. Slavery may have been the issue du jour that prompted the South to secede, but it had effectively zero to do with why the North went to war to prevent secession. And in case you didn't know, it takes two to tango.

 

[Ravi]

Because the apologists for the South lose all moral rights to any claim of right if they accept that Slavery drove the South to rebel and the Civil War was in fact all about Slavery.

To claim slavery had nothing to do with the start of the Civil War would require one to be ignorant of the economic and political factors involved in the claim the Southern States used to explain a need to leave the Union, several of the States SPECIFICALLY state in the articles leaving the Union it was ALL about Slavery.

Hey, we agree on something!

 

[Ravi]

It makes a lot more sense than the bogus, propagandized notion that the Union invaded the South because of some noble, humanitarian endeavor to free the black man from bondage. Slavery may have been the issue du jour that prompted the South to secede, but it had effectively zero to do with why the North went to war. And in case you didn't know, it takes two to tango.

You're just spinning the issue. If the South hadn't seceded over slavery there would have been no civil war. Therefore, the war was about slavery.

I do agree that the North wasn't on a humanitarian mission.

 

[manifold]

You're just spinning the issue. If the South hadn't seceded over slavery there would have been no civil war. Therefore, the war was about slavery.

I do agree that the North wasn't on a humanitarian mission.

Wrong!!!!!

If the North allowed the South to secede, which was their legal right, there would have been no civil war.

You make it sound as if the North only intervened because the South's reason for secession wasn't a good one. And you accuse me of spin.

 

[Ravi]

What?

It wasn't a good reason but that's neither here nor there. I don't imagine there would have been any reason the North would have thought as good enough. That doesn't change the fact that the South seceded over slavery.

 

[manifold]

What?

It wasn't a good reason but that's neither here nor there. I don't imagine there would have been any reason the North would have thought as good enough. That doesn't change the fact that the South seceded over slavery.

That's not a fact. It's an opinion. And it doesn't matter how many sources you cite where this guy or that guy claims they seceded because of slavery. I can find a lot of quotes that say we invaded Iraq for a whole multitude of reasons that are total bullshit and propaganda, peddled specifically to engender support from the uneducated masses. Why do you think the colonists revolted against England? Because of the Stamp Act? No. Because of what the Stamp Act represented. And the groundswell of support that was growing for abolition, that would in all likelihood be forced upon the Southern states, REPRESENTED their loss of sovereignty. So they did the only thing they thought could preserve their sovereignty, secede.

To claim that the Civil War was ALL ABOUT slavery is to oversimplify the South's reasons for secession and to COMPLETELY misstate the North's reasons for conquering the South.

 

[Ravi]

That's not a fact. It's an opinion. And it doesn't matter how many sources you cite where this guy or that guy claims they seceded because of slavery. I can find a lot of quotes that say we invaded Iraq for a whole multitude of reasons that are total bullshit and propaganda, peddled specifically to engender support from the uneducated masses. Why do you think the colonists revolted against England? Because of the Stamp Act? No. Because of what the Stamp Act represented. And the groundswell of support that was growing for abolition, that would in all likelihood be forced upon the Southern states, REPRESENTED their loss of sovereignty. So they did the only thing they thought could preserve their sovereignty, secede.

To claim that the Civil War was ALL ABOUT slavery is to oversimplify the South's reasons for secession and to COMPLETELY misstate the North's reasons for conquering the South.

That's a valid point about Iraq except for the fact no one believes any of the multitude of reasons we were given any longer. Or at least very few people do.

If slavery was still acceptable there would not have been a reason for the South to secede. If the South hadn't seceded over slavery there would have been no reason for the North to conquer. There was no other compelling issue that represented a loss of sovereignty to the Southern states.

 

[manifold]

That's a valid point about Iraq except for the fact no one believes any of the multitude of reasons we were given any longer. Or at least very few people do.

We'll see about that in ~150 years.

 

[BrianH]

The immorality of slavery is not the issue here. We'll all agree that it's not a good thing.

The fact is, the Civil War was fought many years by two-sides that legalized slavery. The south was not exercising illegal activities. Slavery did have something to do with the Civil War, but it was not the only reason, nor a more important one. Economics and politics also plays a big role. The problem with the North and the South, was that they had two different economical systems that did not work well with one another. Agriculture vs. Mercantilist systems. The reality of this, was that if one did good, the other did bad, and more times than not, the North did well and the South did bad. Not to mention that the South owed huge amounts of debt to the North. The majority of money drifted northward because of this economic relationship. The South was significantly poorer than the North, and the North began advocating restricting means of productivity (slaves),not only restricting their economy, but incinuating the lack of sovereignty of the Southern people. (I'm not advocating any side here, but just presenting the facts). It was perceieved by the SOuth, that economic oppression was occuring among other things.

Congress held a northern majority, so action through the government was out of the question for the South. This was proven by the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which garaunteed the acquisition of new "free" territories. To add to tensions, we have the incident involving John Brown and his attempted armed revolution of slaves at Harper's Ferry involving Federal Arms that never turned up. This was during the Buchanan admin. This was backed by numerous abolitionists and Republicans from the North. One could only imagine how this was recieved by the South.

As far as legality to secession...the 10th Amendment answers this question.

"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."

Because there was no law prohibiting the states' secession, they were perfectly legal in doing so.

Some would argue that the Fort Sumpter incident justified causes for the North to attack. The siege of Fort Sumpter was in 1861, South Carolina seceeded in 1860, which means their lands belonged to them. The Federal refusal to leave the Fort prompted the bombardment. South Carolina had signed an Armistice with U.S. as well as Florida. After promising that troops would soon leave the fort, and that they would not be resupplied, the North began a secret operation to resupply the Fort using private vessels. The provocation of Fort Sumpter was done by the North after the Confederacy had waited patiently for the Federal troops to withdrawl...only the North never intended on doing so.

I'm not saying I agree with slavery, but as far as legal justification and POV by the South, they were justified in seceding. They believed they were being economically opressed and unrepresented in the government. Much like the colonists felt unrepresented at the onset of the American Rev.

 

[Ravi]

Because there was no law prohibiting the states' secession, they were perfectly legal in doing so.

There also is no law saying the USA can't invade and conquer another country.