Lost Cause: What Were They Thinking?

[JakeStarkey]

You're failing junior. ok I guess I'll have to talk down to you.
If the states were not considered individual sovereign nations why did they have state Constitutions? After all with the U.S. Constitution and it being the law of the law there would not be any need for another Constitution? Right?
They would have suspend the state Constitution wouldn't they have?

Of course they would have kept the state governments to maintain the everyday busniess of the states, but to have a state constitution seems kind of a waste wouldn't you agree?

You plan to do this again? Ask the same question over and over after it has already been answered? I note your pattern of turning to obvious trolling when you've run out of things to say.

OK since you have failed at proving your point and refuse to answer this question you just concede defeat.

If you can't answer the question just say you can't. Or even better stop making these knee jerk reaction threads if you can't handle those tough questions.

Only you fail to understand national and state constitutions and their roles in a federal government.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

You plan to do this again? Ask the same question over and over after it has already been answered? I note your pattern of turning to obvious trolling when you've run out of things to say.

OK since you have failed at proving your point and refuse to answer this question you just concede defeat.

If you can't answer the question just say you can't. Or even better stop making these knee jerk reaction threads if you can't handle those tough questions.

Only you fail to understand national and state constitutions and their roles in a federal government.

Well sport explain it.
Explain why the states have a constitution when the U.S. Constitution over rules the state constitution? That is if the states did not recognize the sovereignty of the other states.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Answer the question, bigrebnc: what are there state constitutions as well as a national one.

Your asking me to answer the question that I asked?
You said I was wrong so instead of trolling why don't you answer it?
Unkotare now here is what a troll is defined as Jake starkey.

 

[paperview]

OK since you have failed at proving your point and refuse to answer this question you just concede defeat.

If you can't answer the question just say you can't. Or even better stop making these knee jerk reaction threads if you can't handle those tough questions.

Only you fail to understand national and state constitutions and their roles in a federal government.

Well sport explain it.
Explain why the states have a constitution when the U.S. Constitution over rules the state constitution? That is if the states did not recognize the sovereignty of the other states.

This is a guy who calls himself a "historian."

lol.

 

[Unkotare]

My rebuttle [sic]
EACH STATE did recognize the sovereignty of thee individual states that is why they have state constitutions and did not do away with them when they created the U.S. Constitution. There is no reason for a state to have one
Now you.

That's not a rebuttal, dope. You merely restated your first mistaken assertion. You want to just go round and round endlessly?

No, you have failed in your assertion of treason. It was a stupid fight to pick in the first place.

The "assertion" is proven by the simple facts of history. The traitors made themselves such when they committed an act of war against the United States. And just to save you the time, NO, they were not a separate country. The imaginary status of the rebellious states was not recognized by the United States or any other major power. They were rebels and traitors and that's a fact. A relative few arrogant fools sealed the fate of scores of men on both sides by their traitorous act. And for what? In the name of an indefensibly evil institution.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Only you fail to understand national and state constitutions and their roles in a federal government.

Well sport explain it.
Explain why the states have a constitution when the U.S. Constitution over rules the state constitution? That is if the states did not recognize the sovereignty of the other states.

This is a guy who calls himself a "historian."

lol.

Don't teachers ask questions of the student?

 

[gipper]

It is very clear, to anyone who has studied the TRUE meaning of the Constitution and not the bastardized one of Lincoln, that the individual states were sovereign BEFORE and AFTER the ratification of the Constitution.

The traitor was NOT the seceding states, but Dishonest Abe. That is clear.

Sadly, many Americans have been brainwashed by the central State to believe Lincoln's lies. Those lies resulted in the deaths of 850,000 Americans, the destruction of half the nation along with incredible suffering and deprivation....merely to impose, by force of arms, a BIG LIE.

It is all right here for the LEARNING...Were the States Sovereign Nations? ? LewRockwell.com...and I quote from the article.

A defining — but so far unasked — question regarding the Civil War is the political status of the states: specifically, was the “United States of America” indeed, as our popular Pledge of Allegiance claims, “one nation, indivisible?” Or was it, rather, a union of sovereign nations, bound only to each other by mere treaty, as with any other treaty – such as the current United Nations? (As a point of fact, the term “union” is the only term used in the text of the Constitution to refer to the United States, while the word “nation” never appears a single time).

This question seems to be the proverbial “elephant in the room” of American law and history, for its answer is key in defining a state’s right of secession: this question marks the difference between, for example, Boston seceding from Massachusetts, and Spain seceding from the United Nations. While in the first instance, few would question the legal right of state officials to use force in preventing local urban inhabitants from seceding with a state’s city, such an exercise against a sovereign nation in the latter example would be (hopefully) viewed as nothing short of ruthless imperialism equivalent to that of Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler or Genghis Khan.

Lincoln was an imperialist tyrant not unlike those mentioned above.

Please read and comprehend...embolden type by Gipper...

Lincoln and his defenders, then, must believe that the states somehow “surrendered” their status as sovereign nations, in the act of ratifying the Constitution (or, as Lincoln added in his First Inaugural, "the union matured&#8221. However this is negated by the 10th Amendment specification that powers were merely delegated, i.e.,

“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” (emphasis added).

In this context, therefore, powers were delegated to the federal government via the Constitution by the states ratifying it, not out in the interest of any sort of collectivism, but merely for the purposes of practical harmony in co-existence – with both union and non-union nations – solely for advancing the individual benefit of the respective delegating state.

Meanwhile, the 9th amendment likewise states that:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Since the term "others" as used here, clearly refers to rights not enumerated in the text of the Constitution, then it thus implicitly preserves those rights enumerated via prior documents – such as the Articles of Confederation, which specifically retains the “sovereignty, freedom and independence” of every state – which the Constitution does not exclude anywhere (but rather preserves, since states would have to retain their sovereign powers in order to delegate them).

Here the term “the people” must likewise be defined, with this term referring to the same “people” referenced initially in the Constitution’s preamble — and which, as has been well-established elsewhere, did not refer to all persons in the United States collectively; rather, the term "the people" refers solely to the citizens of the states individually and respectively, speaking through their elected officials — and even then, only those states ratifying the Constitution at the time.

This is further implied in the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 2, statement that:

“The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.”

Clearly, separate reference to "citizens of each state,” as opposed to “citizens in the several states,” clarifies that citizenship was strictly state-specific and derived, and not union-related in any way whatsoever: in fact, the term “Citizen of the United States” was never known prior to the passage of the 14th amendment following the Civil War – being a pure post-Lincoln invention – , and would have no more meaning prior to that war, than “Citizen of the United Nations” in today’s context to imply similar supremacy.

As such, it is clear that the Ninth Amendment implicitly reserved the right of every state, to the same sovereignty, freedom and independence which existed previously, i.e., no less than that of any other nation in the world.

Finally, even when admitting all of the above, anti-secessionists almost unanimously claim their proverbial "trump-card" in the Constitution’s so-called “Supremacy clause” of U.S. Constitution Article VI, which states that:

“This Constitution… shall be the Supreme Law of the Land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the laws or constitutions of any state notwithstanding.”

The level of absurdity in declaring any sort of logical victory, based on such an obviously flawed argument is astounding; for here the explicit language regarding this “Supreme Law” clearly, specifically and unmistakably states – in plain English, no less – that this “law” is binding on “the judges in every state — ” and only the judges.

In contrast, the remainder of the Article omits all other officials from any such bond, using very different language in describing its relation to them; to wit:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Any person literate in the English language — not to mention the language of law and logic — should be able to recognize that such explicitly omissive and separate treatment, translates to the fact that the Constitution does not claim any legal binding effect whatsoever, on anyone but state judges; rather, such language merely implies recognition of the Constitution by officials as a mere mutual good-faith agreement. It is simply absurd, after all, to claim that the phrase “state judges shall be bound by law, while all others shall be bound merely by a promise or agreement to support the law,” somehow translates to the notion that “all officials are bound by law – ” particularly when the final clause specifically precludes any religious test from implying the term “oath or affirmation” as binding via any common "higher law," such as an oath specifically to God, Allah or the Buddha – even allowing religions for which oath or affirmation has no higher context.

As such, the implication here is that the Constitution is a mere treaty between separate and sovereign nation-states — a treaty which state officials simply agree to “support,” as opposed to being bound to obey such as a law, under penalty of such. Rather, this treaty is written as merely a bi-lateral agreement, with each side bound solely by its own conscience and good reputation – and as such, may be thus dispensed with entirely, if either side believes a breach of faith has been committed by the other.

To claim otherwise, i.e., that every state committed itself to the supreme and final binding arbitration (and mercy) of the Federal government in settling disputes – under force of law wielded by such – would not only be nonsensical for the purposes of protecting the states from possible abuses by this same Federal government, but moreover is nowhere expressed – or even implied – in the Constitution or any other document.

With the Constitution thus expressing nothing contrary to individual states retaining their status as sovereign nations, Lincoln found it thus necessary to invent such, claiming in his First Inaugural Address that “Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.”

Here Lincoln commits a pure logical fallacy – if not an outright deception – via switching context and assuming, outright, that the Constitution defines a “national government.” This assumption is not only supported nowhere in the Constitution or prior documents, but in fact his statement “implied if not expressed” specifically contradicts Ninth and Tenth Amendment reservations that all un-expressed rights and powers — including those of state sovereignty, freedom and independence — were retained by the states; even expressed powers of the United States were likewise mere delegations of state authority – thus implying their status as separate sovereign nations.

In conclusion, I cannot imagine why anyone would imagine that separate nations, would knowingly and willingly surrender their individual sovereignty — particularly, as in the case of the United States, after their having just won it via bloodshed from centralized and consolidated tyranny firsthand, against all believed likelihood of success; perhaps such persons believe Lincoln’s claim – which he makes in his First Inaugural Address once again – that “All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties [sic] and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them” (emphasis added).

In like manner, I cannot answer how any rational or thinking person can be so naive, as to actually believe that any laws or order can be made so perfect as to preclude any incidence whatsoever of government breaches or excesses – to the extent of such "never arising" – so that the supreme protection of national sovereignty was no longer considered necessary or even desirable to the people of any state in the Union. Rather, I can only prove that such supreme national sovereignty was established and recognized by law for each and every state – and that no law or document that surrendered or compromised it in any manner whatsoever, was ever passed or ratified by them.

How Americans continue to believe the absurdity of Lincoln's position and tyrannical actions, is beyond me. The consequences of Lincoln's actions have turned a nation based on individual liberty and the Rule of Law, into an uncontrolled government run by elites who impose their rule as they see fit.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

It is very clear, to anyone who has studied the TRUE meaning of the Constitution and not the bastardized one of Lincoln, that the individual states were sovereign BEFORE and AFTER the ratification of the Constitution.

The traitor was NOT the seceding states, but Dishonest Abe. That is clear.

Sadly, many Americans have been brainwashed by the central State to believe Lincoln's lies. Those lies resulted in the deaths of 850,000 Americans, the destruction of half the nation along with incredible suffering and deprivation....merely to impose, by force of arms, a BIG LIE.

It is all right here for the LEARNING...Were the States Sovereign Nations? ? LewRockwell.com...and I quote from the article.

A defining — but so far unasked — question regarding the Civil War is the political status of the states: specifically, was the “United States of America” indeed, as our popular Pledge of Allegiance claims, “one nation, indivisible?” Or was it, rather, a union of sovereign nations, bound only to each other by mere treaty, as with any other treaty – such as the current United Nations? (As a point of fact, the term “union” is the only term used in the text of the Constitution to refer to the United States, while the word “nation” never appears a single time).

This question seems to be the proverbial “elephant in the room” of American law and history, for its answer is key in defining a state’s right of secession: this question marks the difference between, for example, Boston seceding from Massachusetts, and Spain seceding from the United Nations. While in the first instance, few would question the legal right of state officials to use force in preventing local urban inhabitants from seceding with a state’s city, such an exercise against a sovereign nation in the latter example would be (hopefully) viewed as nothing short of ruthless imperialism equivalent to that of Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler or Genghis Khan.

Lincoln was an imperialist tyrant not unlike those mentioned above.

Please read and comprehend...embolden type by Gipper...

Lincoln and his defenders, then, must believe that the states somehow “surrendered” their status as sovereign nations, in the act of ratifying the Constitution (or, as Lincoln added in his First Inaugural, "the union matured”). However this is negated by the 10th Amendment specification that powers were merely delegated, i.e.,

“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” (emphasis added).

In this context, therefore, powers were delegated to the federal government via the Constitution by the states ratifying it, not out in the interest of any sort of collectivism, but merely for the purposes of practical harmony in co-existence – with both union and non-union nations – solely for advancing the individual benefit of the respective delegating state.

Meanwhile, the 9th amendment likewise states that:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Since the term "others" as used here, clearly refers to rights not enumerated in the text of the Constitution, then it thus implicitly preserves those rights enumerated via prior documents – such as the Articles of Confederation, which specifically retains the “sovereignty, freedom and independence” of every state – which the Constitution does not exclude anywhere (but rather preserves, since states would have to retain their sovereign powers in order to delegate them).

Here the term “the people” must likewise be defined, with this term referring to the same “people” referenced initially in the Constitution’s preamble — and which, as has been well-established elsewhere, did not refer to all persons in the United States collectively; rather, the term "the people" refers solely to the citizens of the states individually and respectively, speaking through their elected officials — and even then, only those states ratifying the Constitution at the time.

This is further implied in the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 2, statement that:

“The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.”

Clearly, separate reference to "citizens of each state,” as opposed to “citizens in the several states,” clarifies that citizenship was strictly state-specific and derived, and not union-related in any way whatsoever: in fact, the term “Citizen of the United States” was never known prior to the passage of the 14th amendment following the Civil War – being a pure post-Lincoln invention – , and would have no more meaning prior to that war, than “Citizen of the United Nations” in today’s context to imply similar supremacy.

As such, it is clear that the Ninth Amendment implicitly reserved the right of every state, to the same sovereignty, freedom and independence which existed previously, i.e., no less than that of any other nation in the world.

Finally, even when admitting all of the above, anti-secessionists almost unanimously claim their proverbial "trump-card" in the Constitution’s so-called “Supremacy clause” of U.S. Constitution Article VI, which states that:

“This Constitution… shall be the Supreme Law of the Land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the laws or constitutions of any state notwithstanding.”

The level of absurdity in declaring any sort of logical victory, based on such an obviously flawed argument is astounding; for here the explicit language regarding this “Supreme Law” clearly, specifically and unmistakably states – in plain English, no less – that this “law” is binding on “the judges in every state — ” and only the judges.

In contrast, the remainder of the Article omits all other officials from any such bond, using very different language in describing its relation to them; to wit:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

Any person literate in the English language — not to mention the language of law and logic — should be able to recognize that such explicitly omissive and separate treatment, translates to the fact that the Constitution does not claim any legal binding effect whatsoever, on anyone but state judges; rather, such language merely implies recognition of the Constitution by officials as a mere mutual good-faith agreement. It is simply absurd, after all, to claim that the phrase “state judges shall be bound by law, while all others shall be bound merely by a promise or agreement to support the law,” somehow translates to the notion that “all officials are bound by law – ” particularly when the final clause specifically precludes any religious test from implying the term “oath or affirmation” as binding via any common "higher law," such as an oath specifically to God, Allah or the Buddha – even allowing religions for which oath or affirmation has no higher context.

As such, the implication here is that the Constitution is a mere treaty between separate and sovereign nation-states — a treaty which state officials simply agree to “support,” as opposed to being bound to obey such as a law, under penalty of such. Rather, this treaty is written as merely a bi-lateral agreement, with each side bound solely by its own conscience and good reputation – and as such, may be thus dispensed with entirely, if either side believes a breach of faith has been committed by the other.

To claim otherwise, i.e., that every state committed itself to the supreme and final binding arbitration (and mercy) of the Federal government in settling disputes – under force of law wielded by such – would not only be nonsensical for the purposes of protecting the states from possible abuses by this same Federal government, but moreover is nowhere expressed – or even implied – in the Constitution or any other document.

With the Constitution thus expressing nothing contrary to individual states retaining their status as sovereign nations, Lincoln found it thus necessary to invent such, claiming in his First Inaugural Address that “Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments.”

Here Lincoln commits a pure logical fallacy – if not an outright deception – via switching context and assuming, outright, that the Constitution defines a “national government.” This assumption is not only supported nowhere in the Constitution or prior documents, but in fact his statement “implied if not expressed” specifically contradicts Ninth and Tenth Amendment reservations that all un-expressed rights and powers — including those of state sovereignty, freedom and independence — were retained by the states; even expressed powers of the United States were likewise mere delegations of state authority – thus implying their status as separate sovereign nations.

In conclusion, I cannot imagine why anyone would imagine that separate nations, would knowingly and willingly surrender their individual sovereignty — particularly, as in the case of the United States, after their having just won it via bloodshed from centralized and consolidated tyranny firsthand, against all believed likelihood of success; perhaps such persons believe Lincoln’s claim – which he makes in his First Inaugural Address once again – that “All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties [sic] and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them” (emphasis added).

In like manner, I cannot answer how any rational or thinking person can be so naive, as to actually believe that any laws or order can be made so perfect as to preclude any incidence whatsoever of government breaches or excesses – to the extent of such "never arising" – so that the supreme protection of national sovereignty was no longer considered necessary or even desirable to the people of any state in the Union. Rather, I can only prove that such supreme national sovereignty was established and recognized by law for each and every state – and that no law or document that surrendered or compromised it in any manner whatsoever, was ever passed or ratified by them.

How Americans continue to believe the absurdity of Lincoln's position and tyrannical actions, is beyond me. The consequences of Lincoln's actions have turned a nation based on individual liberty and the Rule of Law, into an uncontrolled government run by elites who impose their rule as they see fit.

Someone has been doing some research.

 

[g5000]

Unless something decisive is done, I again ask, What is to stop this agitation before the great and final object at which it aims--the abolition of slavery in the States--is consummated? Is it, then, not certain that if something is not done to arrest it, the South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession?"

- John C. Calhoun, March 4, 1850

Source: John C. Calhoun on the Clay Compromise Measures - 1850

Anyone who thinks that slavery had nothing to do with Civil War is wrong and anyone who thinks that slavery had everything to do with it is just as wrong.

Let's take a look at those states who filed their reasons for secession, shall we? When we do, we find that in four declarations, slavery is mentioned no less than 82 times!!!

They literally could not write three sentences without mentioning slavery at least once.

Declaration of Causes of Secession

We'll start with Georgia:

For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact.

This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States.

The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity.

We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end.

Slavery was forbidden in the country northwest of the Ohio River by what is called the ordinance of 1787.

They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves).

In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution. After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and outside of Missouri.

The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time.

That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists.

Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.

It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property.

The non-slave-holding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act, and imposed penalties upon those citizens whose loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their duty.

Yet it stands to-day a dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slave-holding State in the Union.

These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates.

On to Mississippi:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.

These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

Now South Carolina:

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right.

The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.

The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

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.

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.

The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

The great state of Texas:

She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

When we advert to the course of individual non-slave-holding States, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions-- a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. 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.
For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States.
By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.

They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.

They have sent hired emissaries among us to burn our towns and distribute arms and poison to our slaves for the same purpose.
They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.
They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State.
And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States.

That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

 

[Dante]

Pardons: we pardon criminals.

Did President Johnson pardoned all the traitorous rebels excepting their Confederate leaders?

I think so. Hmm...

 

[JQPublic1]

The OP labels them traitors ignorant of the fact that since the beginning of the Republic the allegiance to the states trumped that of the Federation.

The American Civil War did not take place at the beginning of the Republic, nor were we governed under the Articles of Confederation at that point. Playing the apologist for traitors only demeans you.

I am not an apologist. There is no reason to be. They identified with their states and were patriotic to them. It is akin to calling Washington and those who fought alongside him traitors.

You are the one demeaned.

Washington should not be called a traitor by a fellow American. Leave that up to the British. Victors, though, are hardly seen as traitors. The Confederate anarchists, OTOH, were secessionists who originally were part of the Union and decided to form a hostile sovereign nation on Union property. The Confederacy lost the war and are aptly called what they were: TRAITORS!

 

[Meathead]

The American Civil War did not take place at the beginning of the Republic, nor were we governed under the Articles of Confederation at that point. Playing the apologist for traitors only demeans you.

I am not an apologist. There is no reason to be. They identified with their states and were patriotic to them. It is akin to calling Washington and those who fought alongside him traitors.

You are the one demeaned.

Washington should not be called a traitor by a fellow American. Leave that up to the British. Victors, though, are hardly seen as traitors. The Confederate anarchists, OTOH, were secessionists who originally were part of the Union and decided to form a hostile sovereign nation on Union property. The Confederacy lost the war and are aptly called what they were: TRAITORS!

Then, as now, they were called traitors only by the most ignorant of the victors.