Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
You should reconsider that Madison supported the idea that secession was right, was somewhere in the Consitution, etc. It simply does not add up to what the man stated.
And even Webster said peaceable secession was not possible.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
Unionblue
Madison, often called the father of the Constition went to great lengths to expalin what it ment, if you have come to another intpretation then
blameing him for creating and expanning what it ment only means the problem lies with your intpretation of it and his explanation.
So what excatly does he say that you find to be a problem?.
Webster posistion was that only rebelion and revolution are allowed and no peacfull secesion was (unless voted for by a the 3/4 of states of the Union) because he dis not acept that any state was sov, all sov was vested in and aquired by being in the Union, which pre dated the existence of the states and gave to them their sov, was his posistion, ie all sov was vested in all the people of all the states and no state or people of a state had sov status. He did not acept the Constition as a contract but the result of a contract, ie the Union being higher than the Constition provisions of the Constition.
Hamilton also acepted the right of peacable secesion, if the conditional circamstances existed.
In 1840, Abel P. Upshur, a lawyer from Virginia who served as Secretary of the Navy in the Tyler Adminstration, published a response to Story entitled The True Nature and Character of Our Federal Government. Responding to the claim advanced by Story that prior to the severance of political ties with Great Britain, the people of the thirteen colonies "were in a strict sense fellow-subjects, and in a variety of respects, one people," Upshur wrote: [indent]In order to constitute "one people," in a political sense, of the inhabitants of different countries, something more is necessary than that they should owe a common allegiance to a common sovereign.... By the term "people," as here used, we do not mean merely a number of persons. We mean by it a political corporation, the members of which owe a common allegiance to a common sovereignty, and do not owe any allegiance which is not common; who are bound by no laws except such as that sovereignty may prescribe; who owe to one another reciprocal obligations; who possess common political interests; who are liable to common political duties; and who can exert no sovereign power except in the name of the whole. Anything short of this, would be an imperfect definition of that political corporation which we call "a people."
Tested by this definition, the people of the American colonies were, in no conceivable sense, "one people." They owed, indeed, allegiance to the British King, as the head of each colonial government, and as forming a part thereof; but this allegiance was exclusive, in each colony, to its own government, and, consequently, to the King as the head thereof and was not a common allegiance of the people of all the colonies, to a common head. These colonial governments were clothed with the sovereign power of making laws, and of enforcing obedience to them, from their own people. The people of one colony owed no allegiance to the government of any other colony, and were not bound by its laws. The colonies had no common legislature, no common treasury, no common military power, no common judicatory. The people of one colony were not liable to pay taxes to any other colony, nor to bear arms in its defence; they had no right to vote in its elections; no influence nor control in its municipal government; no interest in its municipal institutions. There was no prescribed form by which the colonies could act together, for any purpose whatever; they were not known as "one people" in any one function of government. Although they were all, alike, dependencies of the British Crown, yet, even in the action of the parent country, in regard to them, they were recognized as separate and distinct. They were established at different times, and each under an authority from the Crown, which applied to itself alone. They were not even alike in their organization. Some were provincial, some proprietary, and some charter governments. Each derived its form of government from the particular instrument establishing it, or from assumptions of power acquiesced in by the Crown, without any connection with, or relation to, any other. They stood upon the same footing, in every respect, with other British colonies, with nothing to distinguish their relation either to the parent country or to one another .
The Congress of 1775, by which independence was declared, was appointed... by the colonies in their separate and distinct capacity, each acting for itself, and not conjointly with any other. They were the representatives each of his own colony, and not of any other; each had authority to act in the name of his own colony, and not in that of any other; each colony gave its own vote by its own representatives, and not by those of any other colony. Of course, it was as separate and distinct colonies that they deliberated on the Declaration of Independence. When, therefore, they declare, in the adoption of that measure, that they act as "the representatives of the United States of America," and "in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies," they must of course be understood as speaking in the character of which they had all along acted; that is, as the representatives of separate and distinct colonies, and not as the joint representatives of any one people.... It is impossible to suppose, therefore, in common justice to the sagacity of Congress, that they meant anything more by the Declaration of Independence, than simply to sever the tie which had theretofore bound them to England, and to assert the rights of the separate and distinct colonies, as separate and independent States; particularly as the language which they use is fairly susceptible of this construction. The instrument itself is entitled, "The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America;" of States, separate and distinct bodies politic, and not of "one people" or nation, composed of all of them together; "united," as independent States may be, by compact or agreement, and not amalgamated, as they would be, if they formed one nation or body politic.
On the very next day this preamble was unanimously adopted; and the reader will at once perceive, that it carefully preserves the distinct sovereignty of the States, and discountenances all idea of consolidation. The draft of the Constitution thus submitted was discussed, and various alterations and amendments adopted (but without any change in the preamble), until the 8th of September, 1787, when the following resolution was passed: "It was moved and seconded to appoint a committee of five, to revise the style of, and arrange the articles agreed to by, the House; which passed in the affirmative." It is manifest that this committee had no power to change the meaning of anything which had been adopted, but were authorized merely to "revise the style," and arrange the matter in proper order. On the 12th of the same month they made their report. The preamble, as they reported it, is in the following words: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union...." It does not appear that any attempt was made to change this phraseology in any material point, or to reinstate the original. The presumption is, therefore, that the two were considered as substantially the same, particularly as the committee had no authority to make any change except in the style....
There is, however, another and a perfectly conclusive reason for the change of phraseology, from the States by name, to the more general expression "the United States;" and this, too, without supposing that it was intended thereby to convey a different idea as to the parties of the Constitution. The revised draft contained a proviso, that the Constitution should go into operation when adopted and ratified by nine States. It was, of course, uncertain whether more than nine would adopt it or not, and if they should not, it would be altogether improper to name them as parties to that instrument.
Rawle and Upshur were both educated at William and Mary which used Blackstone as US fundametal law of the US, that along with Elliots debates, which contained refernces to that Blackstone, was the most used legal reference work by the FF during the creation of the USA ment that storys acount was vastly out of line with what VA used as organic law, and required books stateing that to be the case, principly because VA ( and many other states) SC was rulling on that basis in many cases.
Daniel Webster ingeniously denied the right of a State to determine for itself when its constitutional powers were infringed, and also that the Constitution was a compact between sovereign States, and contended that the power to determine the constitutionality of the laws of Congress was lodged only in the Federal Government, in the 1830s, in a speech delivered at Capon Springs, Virginia, in 1851, used this language:
If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in so doing from year to year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound by the rest of it; and if the North were deliberately, habitually and of fixed purpose to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations?... How absurd is it to suppose that when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes, either can disregard any one provision and expect nevertheless the other to observe the rest?... A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other.
Now why was that?, the answer is Webster was defeated by Hayne in Congress in his debate with him, by defeat i mean Congress voted on his and later agian in another debate with Calhoun on similar proposals and voted for Calhouns over Websters, and then Webster become a convert to the inherent right of secesion, through argument with Calhoun/Hayne and then correspondence with Madison after those debates, he then adopted and used the right of secesion.
So its not a good idea to draw my attention to Webster as he is not fit for purpose in any debate on the right of secesion except to show that his version of how the Constion and Union was created was show to be wrong, and that he acepted this and turned to being a user of the right of secesion himself.
I feel much the same way about Rawle and Upshur as you do about Webster.
And again, I repeat that Madison in no way, as he was considered Father of the Constitution, supported the idea of secession, so I do not consider him in any way a source that could be quoted as such to support it. Misquoted perhaps, but not truly used as support for the concept.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
The use of Rawles as a textbook and his opinions on secession are basically irrelevant. It's doubtful that any students examined on the book were influenced in any way whatever. If Das Kapital were emphasized in a required freshman course at any college you can name, would every student become an adherent? Would any? I would trust no student who obediently took as his own any theory shovelled at him. Learn the lessons, pass the test; certainly. Become a believer? Not likely.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I feel much the same way about Rawle and Upshur as you do about Webster.
And again, I repeat that Madison in no way, as he was considered Father of the Constitution, supported the idea of secession, so I do not consider him in any way a source that could be quoted as such to support it. Misquoted perhaps, but not truly used as support for the concept.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
I can and will do as you require of Madison, so first of provide anything of Madison that supports your view and i will reply. I dont want you to repeat your view, i got it the first time, what i want are specifics from you on Madison.
Really you feel that way about Rawle?, can you find where Rawle changes his mind and disavows secesion as a right?.
The use of Rawles as a textbook and his opinions on secession are basically irrelevant. It's doubtful that any students examined on the book were influenced in any way whatever. If Das Kapital were emphasized in a required freshman course at any college you can name, would every student become an adherent? Would any? I would trust no student who obediently took as his own any theory shovelled at him. Learn the lessons, pass the test; certainly. Become a believer? Not likely.
Ole
Really?, to practice law requires you pass the bar, you may think the law an ***, but you have to practice it as taught or lose case after case.
Rawles and others books were an explanation on how in practice lawyers, SC and USSC applied US fundamental law, not books on alternative theory.
Bank of Augusta against Earle, 13 Peters, 590-592, it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States the same year in which Rawles book was published "They are sovereign States.... We think it well settled (says the Court) that by the law of comity among nations a corporation created by one sovereign is permitted to make contracts in another, and to sue in its courts, and that the same law of comity prevails among the several sovereignties of this Union."
Really?, to practice law requires you pass the bar, you may think the law an ***, but you have to practice it as taught or lose case after case.
Cadets at WP were not there to study law, per se, but to acquire an understanding of law as it applied to the military. The real test, I suppose, would be to canvas the students who were examined on the book to determine how many came out believing secession was legal, as opposed to how many went in believing secession was legal.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Cadets at WP were not there to study law, per se, but to acquire an understanding of law as it applied to the military. The real test, I suppose, would be to canvas the students who were examined on the book to determine how many came out believing secession was legal, as opposed to how many went in believing secession was legal.
Ole
Yes thats right, cadets swore a different oath than did the faculty, and constitional law was not exactly what they were there to learn, only there for those who had not had it in a prep school would be my guess, to give them at least a basic understanding. D S Freeman makes the point in his bio of lee how little lee grasped constional law.
Do you perchance have the ability to communicate with dead? otherwise a pop quiz of the class of 1829 is going to be abit tricky!!
Whats also pertinante is that the cadets and faculty who went South from W-Point brought about changes in the oaths to make such action in the future, treason, but at the time they did so, and Congress wanted to arrest and try them, it was found they had not committed a crime, and rectified that by changing the oaths to make it so in the future.
On a side note, what they thought of the law does not make it the law, in law every one of them was a citizen of a state in the Union and that gave them rights in other states, they were, in law the subjects of the state who had them service bound to the states actions and intrests. They had no lattitude in law to deny what their state said was status of the state in the Union. Of course many chose to act on their conscience rather than the letter of the law, as they should do of course.
Cadets at WP were not there to study law, per se, but to acquire an understanding of law as it applied to the military. The real test, I suppose, would be to canvas the students who were examined on the book to determine how many came out believing secession was legal, as opposed to how many went in believing secession was legal.
Ole
Yes thats right, cadets swore a different oath than did the faculty, and constitional law was not exactly what they were there to learn, only there for those who had not had it in a prep school would be my guess, to give them at least a basic understanding. D S Freeman makes the point in his bio of lee how little lee grasped constional law.
Do you perchance have the ability to communicate with dead? otherwise a pop quiz of the class of 1829 is going to be abit tricky!!
Whats also pertinante is that the cadets and faculty who went South from W-Point brought about changes in those lyalty oaths, because Congress wanted to try them for treason and found they could not, changed those lyalty oths so they could do so in the future.
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otherwise a pop quiz of the class of 1829 is going to be abit tricky!!
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