The Confederacy and States' Rights

[Kevin_Kennedy]

What everyone's ignoring is that slavery, which was considered repugnant even 150 years ago, was not nearly as big an issue as COTTON.

New England's economy at the time was very heavily dependent on its textile mills, along with cheap cotton from the south. An independent confederacy would have been devastating to them economically: they would have to bid against the English mills for higher-priced material.

They didn't call it "King Cotton" for nothing.

Are you saying that since the New England states needed cheap cotton the southern states had no right to secede?

Not at all: I'm just explaining the Union's motivation for going to war to keep the southern states from seceding.

There's no reason why the Confederate States and United States couldn't have had free trade with each other, however. It obviously would have been beneficial to both.

Nothing obvious about it at all. If English mills bid higher, the confederacy would simply have sold to the highest bidder. That's the free market we all love so much...

I see. Well you're right, that's likely a reason why they wanted to force the south to remain in the Union.

If English mills were willing to pay more than of course that's where the cotton would have gone. It's the right of a free people to be able to decide where they sell their goods and for what price.

 

[JBeukema]

WV seceded from Virginia and was accepted into the Union by Congress as a state. This is really your only case under statute and law for the legality of secession, though I happen to agree with you that it was legal. We just can't build a compelling enough case.

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Did Virginia vote to allow WV to split off?

The question of leaving the Union is not addressed by the Constitution. In Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869), the Supreme Court suggested that the Constitution ordained the "perpetuity and indissolubility of the Union" The court did allow some possibility of the divisibility "through revolution, or through consent of the States."[4][5]

Article Four of the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But the perpetuity and indissolubility of the Union by no means implies the loss of distinct and individual existence, or of the right of self-government, by the States. Under the Articles of Confederation, each State retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right not expressly delegated to the United States. Under the Constitution, though the powers of the States were much restricted, still all powers not delegated to the United States nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. And we have already had occasion to remark at this term that
the people of each State compose a State, having its own government, and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence, and that, "without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States." [n12] Not only, therefore, can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy to the States through their union under the Constitution, but it may be not unreasonably said that the preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government.

(emphasis added)

SCOTUS knew that the Constitution was clear on this matter, which is why they then tried to spin their statement by claiming something which the Constitution never says is somehow implied

The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States. [p726] When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation.... All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States. Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law.

Texas v. White
This assertion, however, is founded in no Constitutional text, and no phrase from the Constitution ca be cited to support it. Here we see that the entire matter was addressed not by the proper interpretation of constitutional law, but by the effective writing of new law from the bench- law that directly contradicts the text the court cites earlier in this publication.

America, if you recall, was founded in rebellion and built on the right to self-determination. The FF spoke oft of the rightfulness of armed rebellion and revolution in the face of tyranny. The only logical conclusion ios that both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution supports the right to secede as a less violent alternative to open revolution.

Here we see that the very purpose of this action was media spin and political correctness:

It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union. If this were otherwise, the State must have become foreign, and her citizens foreigners. The war must have ceased to be a war for the suppression of rebellion, and must have become a war for conquest and subjugation.

As you can see, the entire purpose for this illegal ruling was revisionism and the effort to make America look good, and avoid the stain of being called tyrants.

Of course, they had to admit that things had changed, lest it be said that they sent the army ofter American citizens

And it is by no means a logical conclusion from the premises which we have endeavored to establish that the governmental relations of Texas to the Union remained unaltered.

I find this tidbit of interest, as well

A great social change increased the difficulty of the situation. Slaves, in the insurgent States, with certain local exceptions, had been declared free by the Proclamation of Emancipation, and whatever questions might be made as to the effect of that act under the Constitution...

Point out in the Constitution where it says states can secede. You can't.

I already did. Tenth Amendment. The COnastitution describes what authrity is denied the member States. All other Authority, unless otherwise designates to the Central Authority, is theirs.

To remind you: slavery was the compelling reason for secession. Your counter arguments, respectfully, have been compellingly weak and ineffective.

Slavery was not the real issue. It was the battleground for it touched on all the underlying concerns. The North was acting in the interest of rich businessmen. Everything we see today started with the Union's refusal tto recognize the CSA and the Confederate War for Independence.

The states under the Constitution don't have the authority to decide which laws are or aren't constitutional. If a state thinks a law is unconstitutional their constitutional recourse is to challenge it in the courts, not secede.

Secession is prohibited de facto because secession requires breaking federal laws.

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.

That includes the right to tell the fed to fuck off and die. Only slaves are denied the right to leave. The right to secede is summed up in the need to refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

, there is no 'right' for states to secede. Any more than there's any right for counties to secede from states, or towns to secede from counties, or you and your half acre to secede from your town.

The tenth amendment says otherwise. Before the CWfI, the united States were. After the financial interests of the northern businessmen were deemed worth killing for, it became 'the United States is'. All these things continue to the modern day.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Slavery was the real issue. Tell you what -- post something from Davis, Benjamin, Stephens, Lincoln, Douglas, or someone important contemporary to the time that said it wasn't slavery. Go for it.

 

[JBeukema]

Just ask RGS. He posted the official statements before, and they listed all the underlying issues upon which slavery touched.

I notice you ignored the fact that your claim that people born in the US have no right to self-determination was refuted.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Slavery was the real issue. Tell you what -- post something from Davis, Benjamin, Stephens, Lincoln, Douglas, or someone important contemporary to the time that said it wasn't slavery. Go for it.

Here is Jefferson Davis' Inaugural Address.

Jefferson Davis's Inaugural Address

In it he doesn't mention slavery even so much as one time. However, he does say:

It is alike our interest, and that of all those to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon interchange of commodities.

As for Lincoln, he never opposed slavery. He supported an amendment, and some say he wrote it himself, that would make slavery a permanent institution where it already existed.

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." - Abraham Lincoln

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving alone I would also do that." - Abraham Lincoln

 

[JBeukema]

Slavery was the real issue. Tell you what -- post something from Davis, Benjamin, Stephens, Lincoln, Douglas, or someone important contemporary to the time that said it wasn't slavery. Go for it.

Here is Jefferson Davis' Inaugural Address.

Jefferson Davis's Inaugural Address

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Kevin_Kennedy again.

Our present position has been achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American idea that government rests upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish a government whenever it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established.

There you have it. If there is a right to revolt, then there is a right to secede, for what is cessation but a peaceable way of throwing off the chains of oppression while seeking to avoid the bloodshed of open revolution or violent rebellion?

 

[JBeukema]

Well, Jake asked and Kevin delivered.

The declared purposes of the compact of Union from which we have withdrawn were to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, to provide for the common defence, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity; and when in the judgment of the sovereign States now comprising this Confederacy it had been perverted from the purposes for which it was ordained, and had ceased to answer the ends for which it was established, an appeal to the ballot box declared that so far as they were concerned the government created by that compact should cease to exist. In this they merely asserted a right which the Declaration of Independence of 1776 defined to be inalienable. Of the time and occasion for its exercise, they, as sovereign, were the final judges each for itself.

 

[rightwinger]

West Virginia is the fifth border state.

There was no West Virginia until Virginia seceeded.

 

[JBeukema]

West Virginia is the fifth border state.

There was no West Virginia until Virginia seceeded.

Which means they recognized the sovereignty of the CSA. Else they would have recognized the delegates from the loyal areas of Virginia and declared the others under martial law and controlled by rebels and criminals. Instead they recognized the sovereignty of Virginia and the CSA as a separate entity and admitted the loyal regions as a new State. Legally, if Virginia was always considered a State like SCOTUS' ruling would state, then there can be no West Virginia,. as Virginia did not vote in the matter. Rather there is only Virginia, much of which was in chaos, but which was always a member of the Union.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Even though Virginia was in session at the time the creation of West Virginia was Un Constitutional and the Supreme Court agreed. The remedy was monetary rather then forcing West Virginia back into Virginia.

 

[JBeukema]

Even though Virginia was in session at the time the creation of West Virginia was Un Constitutional and the Supreme Court agreed. The remedy was monetary rather then forcing West Virginia back into Virginia.

Do you have a link to the SCOTUS decision?

 

[JakeStarkey]

I am waiting for a major speech by Jefferson Davis, Benjamin Judah, Alexander Stephens, etc., that denies that slavery was the reason for secession.

None of you have done that far, so we can accept that none of them every spoke anything of the sort.

Come on, guys, you have to better. JB, the Supreme Court and the Civil War scotch your entire convulsion of an argument. Try again, please.

 

[JBeukema]

Come on, guys, you have to better. JB, the Supreme Court and the Civil War scotch your entire convulsion of an argument. Try again, please.

Actually, genius, I've shown how their attempts to weasel oput of it demonstrate my point and how the their own words argue against their conclusion. Seems you've forgotten that SCOTUS is not charged with making law, though they love to try.

The only applicable law is the 10th amendment.

 

[editec]

Point out in the Constitution where it says states can secede. You can't. And if you want to do it by inference, then you just affirmed Lincoln's wartime actions.

Can't have it both ways. WV was a part of Virginia. It did not become a slave state until the North accepted it as a state, which has nothing to with the discussion.

To remind you: slavery was the compelling reason for secession. Your counter arguments, respectfully, have been compellingly weak and ineffective.

The Constitution does not have to spell out the powers of the states for them to be legitimate powers of the states. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution says this. Since the Constitution does not prohibit the states from seceding, they have the right to secede.

It has much to do with the discussion. It proves that slavery couldn't have been the only issue on the table since the Union had slave states.

Slavery was a reason for secession. Lincoln's promise of higher tariffs was another reason.

Tariffs had been going down under the political pressure the southern States were able to wield in Congress.

Tariffs had damned little to do with causing the warbut the slavers insistence that they had to expand slavery into the territories most certainly did.

Vile motherfucking slavers.

They should all have been hanged

 

[paperview]

Slavery was the real issue. Tell you what -- post something from Davis, Benjamin, Stephens, Lincoln, Douglas, or someone important contemporary to the time that said it wasn't slavery. Go for it.

Here is Jefferson Davis' Inaugural Address.

Jefferson Davis's Inaugural Address

In it he doesn't mention slavery even so much as one time.....

Yet you have the Vice President of the Confederacy stating slavery was the cornerstone of their new government:

"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other-though last, not least: the new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.

This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right.

...
...Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. [Applause.]
This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. "
​

Modern History Sourcebook: Alexander H. Stephens (1812-1883): Cornerstone Address, March 21, 1861

 

[JakeStarkey]

JB, you have shown nothing. Give us speeches from the slavers and their supporters that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. Should be easy if that is what they believed.

 

[paperview]

JB, you have shown nothing. Give us speeches from the slavers and their supporters that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. Should be easy if that is what they believed.

All anyone needs to do is look at the Slave States Founding Documents to see it was primarily about slavery.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I am waiting for a major speech by Jefferson Davis, Benjamin Judah, Alexander Stephens, etc., that denies that slavery was the reason for secession.

None of you have done that far, so we can accept that none of them every spoke anything of the sort.

Come on, guys, you have to better. JB, the Supreme Court and the Civil War scotch your entire convulsion of an argument. Try again, please.

I linked you to Jefferson Davis' Inaugural Address where he made no mention of slavery whatsoever, but where he does talk about free trade being in the interest of the Confederacy. I also gave you direct quotes from Abraham Lincoln that say he had no problem with slavery and only did what he did about slavery to hurt the Confederacy during the war. To ignore this is simply dishonest on your part.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Point out in the Constitution where it says states can secede. You can't. And if you want to do it by inference, then you just affirmed Lincoln's wartime actions.

Can't have it both ways. WV was a part of Virginia. It did not become a slave state until the North accepted it as a state, which has nothing to with the discussion.

To remind you: slavery was the compelling reason for secession. Your counter arguments, respectfully, have been compellingly weak and ineffective.

The Constitution does not have to spell out the powers of the states for them to be legitimate powers of the states. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution says this. Since the Constitution does not prohibit the states from seceding, they have the right to secede.

It has much to do with the discussion. It proves that slavery couldn't have been the only issue on the table since the Union had slave states.

Slavery was a reason for secession. Lincoln's promise of higher tariffs was another reason.

Tariffs had been going down under the political pressure the southern States were able to wield in Congress.

Tariffs had damned little to do with causing the warbut the slavers insistence that they had to expand slavery into the territories most certainly did.

Vile motherfucking slavers.

They should all have been hanged

Yet Lincoln ran on a platform of higher tariffs which, as I've said before, is why he had no support in the south but high support in northern states like Pennsylvania.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Slavery was the real issue. Tell you what -- post something from Davis, Benjamin, Stephens, Lincoln, Douglas, or someone important contemporary to the time that said it wasn't slavery. Go for it.

Here is Jefferson Davis' Inaugural Address.

Jefferson Davis's Inaugural Address

In it he doesn't mention slavery even so much as one time.....

Yet you have the Vice President of the Confederacy stating slavery was the cornerstone of their new government:

"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other-though last, not least: the new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.

This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right.

...
...Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. [Applause.]
This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. "
​

Modern History Sourcebook: Alexander H. Stephens (1812-1883): Cornerstone Address, March 21, 1861

I don't deny slavery's role in the south's decision to secede, but to put such an idea squarely on the Confederate's is incorrect. Lincoln himself touted similar ideas to the one expressed by Stephens.

"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races... and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together in terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior. I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." - Abraham Lincoln