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.
There is nothing in the Constitution that says you can't kill the President either, would that be OK if we follow this line of logic? If secession were evenly remotely mentioned in the Constitution as a legal right for a State to leave, there would have been no war. The sad fact of the matter is, there was a tremendous amount of doubt over the legality of such an act and the act of providing a self-destruct clause in the Constitution is the height of imagination to me to say the least.
And again, how is it that anyone defending secession can refer to the US Constitution as some means of argument when on one hand they can deny the US Constitution applies to them since they have seceded and on the other grouse about it's 'violations' as if it now had meaning to them?
As for the idea that state hood for West Virginia was legal by the US Constitution, from what I read and understand, no, it was not. If I agreed with any argument in the state's formation it would be that of Thaddeus Stevens as an act of war powers and that of Lincoln's idea that those in open rebellion have forfeited their rights on the subject.
The sin committed was the sin of omission by those residents of Virginia in unlawful rebellion against their country. If they had remained in the Union, they would not have had their state partitioned, lost their 'peculiar institution' nor suffered the loss of their sons and homes in bloody battle. They took their chances and lost. I would consider them far more 'guilty' of being stubborn reactionaries and pride, which I seem to remember 'goeth before a fall.'
As for the usurpation of the Constitution being considered the gravest of Presidential sins and can never be forgiven, lump ol' Jeff Davis in there too, if you follow that line of logic as there are examples he did the same.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go to my Lincoln/Sherman shrine and sacrifice to my favorite deities. There is not a night that goes by that I am not in mindless worship of the Great and All Powerful Lincoln, who was in truth, not a man, but a 'enlightened one' sent to show us the true path.
Tommy, a deity? A God, somehow? And Robert E. Lee is what in relationship to ordinary men? It may feel good to type such on your keyboard, but I assure you that many here and across this country do not give Lincoln a second thought, let alone consider him some sort of article of worship. Ooops! Forgot to ring the chime and light the incense and sacrifice my first born. Talk to you after the ceremony.
YMOS,
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
I hope that your sacrificial ritual involves burning a pile of split rails.
Actually, I am completely sympathetic to the aspirations of West Virginians for their own state. Yankee-loving hillbillies are as entitled to self-determination as anyone else.
I’m afraid that words like rebellion and treason and illegality are like water off a duck’s back to me. Self-determination is far too important to be constrained by something as relatively trifling as the law. (Philosophically, we are worlds apart on this issue. It may be a result of your having a written Constitution and our not having one, but I have been amazed by the amount of attention given to legal minutiae on these boards.)
If secession were evenly remotely mentioned in the Constitution as a legal right for a State to leave, there would have been no war. The sad fact of the matter is, there was a tremendous amount of doubt over the legality of such an act....
To fight such a long and bloody war because of the belief that secession was technically illegal would be to succumb to moral idiocy. How could such a loss of human life be justified by legal pedantry?
My point is that secession was not a technicality nor is it a proven idea nor even a theory as far as I am concerned. What happened was nothing but rebellion, an illegal attempt to destroy this nation in order to fulfill the selfish desires of a few at the expense of a legal majority, pure and simple. Trying to dress it up in invisible and supposed unlisted 'right' somewhere in the Constitution makes it no less illegal and criminal.
The fact of the matter is secession was debated LONG before the war and ruled upon by the Supreme Court time and again and found wanting by the nation, by the courts and even Southern Presidents. The idea that there could ever be peaceable secession was a pipe dream and all knew it to include those who led the South to ruin.
And you are right, to die for something as stupid as a technicality would be the height of idiocy. But to chance your people and your region on the ravings of John Calhoun strikes me as the supreme technical folly a people could ever undertake.
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
Dawna, I have always found it interesting (and somewhat amusing) is how those espousing the Confederate cause can it one breath claim the US Constitution no longer applies to the States that seceded from the Union, yet they become so offended when they claim Lincoln or the Union government breaks or betrays it!
I thought Lincoln claimed the secessions were unconstitutional, void and of no effect, and therefore, VA was still part of the Union.
Unless the US Constitution no longer applied to President Lincoln, then, yes, Lincoln was bound by it, and your amusement is puzzling.
Virginia gave its consent in taking its western section for the creation of West Virginia.
I'm afraid this is not the case. WV was created out of the State of VA in 1863, without the consent of VA's legislature.
It's interesting to note that at least 15 of the counties that were illegally taken from VA had voted in favor of secession.
If secession were evenly remotely mentioned in the Constitution as a legal right for a State to leave, there would have been no war.
Let me get this straight - a war against independence-seeking southern States, to prevent secession, was justified by the federal government because secession WASN'T mentioned one way or the other in the federal Constitution.
But the secession of western VA counties was perfectly acceptable to that same federal government, albeit against a strict and EXPLICIT prohibition in that same federal Constitution?
The only possible conclusion I can arrive at is that Lincoln's "constitution" rhetoric was wholly insincere.
To fight such a long and bloody war because of the belief that secession was technically illegal would be to succumb to moral idiocy. How could such a loss of human life be justified by legal pedantry?
It seems to me that there is no way to justify it without condoning simple barbarism.
McPherson: The events of 1861 brought to a head the longstanding western sentiment for separate statehood. Only five of the thirty-one delegates from northwest Virginia voted for the secession ordinance on April 17. Voters in this region rejected ratification by a three to one margin. Mass meetings of unionists all over the northwest coalesced into a convention at Wheeling on June 11.
If I didn't know better, I'd be tempted to think McPherson was intentionally witholding information in order to spin things the way he wants his readers to see it. In spite of his spin, the "sentiment" of many of the counties taken from VA were NOT in favor of separate statehood, but were in lock-step with the eastern secesh.
McPherson happily points out that only 5 of 31 delegates from the north western counties voted for secession on April 17. But what he witholds from his readers is that the secession ordinance of April 17 convention was subject to ratification by the people.
And when it was taken to the people of VA for ratification, a majority of the people residing in at least 17 of those counties that later became WV - actually voted in favor of secession. And in many of these counties, the vote wasn't even close. One of the counties voted 15-1 in favor of secession. Another voted 13-1. Others voted 10-1, 9-1, 8-1 and 5-1.
Here is a county by county tally of the ratifying vote, showing which counties later became WV.
__________________ "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
(Message edited by Unionblue on November 19, 2004)
__________________ "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
Actually, I am completely sympathetic to the aspirations of West Virginians for their own state. Yankee-loving hillbillies are as entitled to self-determination as anyone else.
Theoretically, yes.
But were they entitled to force their will on their neighbors that were loyal to Virginia?
Based on the results of the popular secession vote, it is another one of those myths that tell us the people of the counties that became WV were opposed to secession and were pro-union.
Pretty much the entire southern quadrant of "WV" voted in favor of secession, as did most of the eastern panhandle and a large portion of the center of the state. Only the north and western part of the "state" were decidedly pro-union.
It seems that those who successfully staged their unconsitutional coup, did so with little regard for the sentiments of the people within the parcel they carved out.
It seems that not only was it another unconstitutional act by the federal government, but it was also a coercive one by those Yankee-loving hillbillies.
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