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 mean the "We"? No, although I would suppose anyone reading your posts sees where you stand.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
That I defend what I believe shouldn't seem any more odd than your own behavior towards the Confederates.
You can defend what you believe while still admitting the secessionists acted badly.
I am perfectly willing to admit that Northerners acted improperly. Secretary of State Seward, for example, acted like an arrogant fool and everyone should blame him for much of the misunderstanding and foolishness in early 1861.
Lots of other people qualify for blame. But when you come down to brass tacks, in virtually all cases it was the secessionists who took violent and aggressive action first, that seized property, that raised troops, that beseiged forts, threatened the use of force, used force, and finally assaulted the Federals. While Abolitionists and others were certainly extremists in much the same way the Fire-Eaters were, the people of the South allowed their set of extremists to take control of the situation and lead them into disaster. The Northern extremists never attained that level of power and control before the war.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
Tim, why do you think Pryor and Wigfall weren't prosecuted? Why did the Feds simply boot Wigfall out of Congress rather than throw him into prison?
Rose, essentially no one was prosecuted after the war. Lee wasn't, Davis wasn't, hundreds of thousands of people who had served the Confederacy were not. The Union's reaction to the rebellion after the war was amazingly mild by world historical experience. (Yes, that includes Reconstruction -- harsh as Americans think it was, it is mild when viewed from a larger perspective.)
The same for Wigfall, of course -- none of the other Senators and Representatives booted out were prosecuted, either; heck, one of them was from a Northern state and he wasn't prosecuted. But if you want a practical reason, Wigfall was in Richmond, serving in the Confederate Provisional Congress and acting as an aide to his good friend Jefferson Davis in July of 1861 when the US Senate expelled him. It might have seemed silly to bring charges against him until they could lay hands on him, and he had been behind enemy lines from the attack on Ft. Sumter in April until the Senate reconvened in Washington on July 4.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
Do you think that early into the Revolution the Britts should have sought out and prosecuted Washington, Harry Lee, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, and all the rest of the Revolutionary leaders and heroes? No doubt, they would have if they could, but do you think it would have been just? Were those men traitors or is it only traitorous when the action is against your government?
The Founding Fathers? All were traitors/rebels by the law. Their fate was subject to the whim of King George III and his government. As noted elsewhere, just check the fate of the Highlanders in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 and what the Duke of Cumberland did to earn the nickname "The Butcher". Washington and the rest knew the same could happen to them 30 years later under His Majesty's reign.
As to "just", if subject to British justice they would certainly be found guilty. If they lost, that was all they could expect The British might, for a variety of reasons, chose not to hang them. Expedience is the most likely reason they might expect mercy. But if they lost, they would be definitely be looking for mercy, not justice.
That is why they had to win. The "natural right of revolution" is only trial by combat, like ancient knights going into the lists as the marshal cries "May God defend the right!" Americans generally believed in it -- Lincoln certainly acknowledged it -- but secessionists denied that is what they were doing.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
The above is largely the "natural right of revolution", not some legal/constitutional "right of secession".
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
No, I don't consider them to be traitors. They were men following the dictates of their consciences as they were taught was not only their right, but their duty, by their fore fathers.
Then you do not understand the definition of Treason in the United States. It is not about what you "consider". It is about what they did.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
Perhaps from your pov there is a hard line.
Not my point of view. These are men who specifically and exactly violated the definition of Treason found in the Constitution of the United States while citizens of the United States.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
But you are right, I don't wish to acknowledge it since I'm not in the habit of acknowledging what I do not believe in. These individuals had already chosen the Confederate States of America as their country. Ruffin had joined the Confederate army and Pryor had also made a choice. Had Virginia not seceded, he likely would have remained in the Confederate States.
It is pretty simply to send in a letter of resignation from Congress. You can also renounce your citizenship. Neither did so before participating in the attack. Nor did Senator Wigfall, although his state had supposedly seceded in February, and he continued in the Senate while it was in session, casting a vote on March 23rd, just before they adjourned.
I would not recommend voluntarily renouncing citizenship in one country without first finding another one to accept you as a citizen. This drops you into the gap in international law known as a "stateless person", which is a truly bad place to be. Yet if you no longer wish to be a citizen of the nation you are about to assault, it is the proper thing to do.
You are certainly free to believe whatever you wish. However, facts remain the same no matter what you wish to acknowledge. It seems to me most secessionists argue in the manner you describe: they refuse to acknowledge what they do not wish to see. This makes the arguments they present hollow at the core, IMHO.
I remain speechless and totally floored with your eloquence and logic. You are, of course, deluded and mostly wrong, but I must acknowledge and do admire your presentations. Hot dang! I'm so glad to see you back on board!
Ole
Please, Ole! You have me rolling on the floor. I think you really mean my lack of eloquence and logic, but you are a gentleman.
Regards,
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
I think you really mean my lack of eloquence and logic, but you are a gentleman.
No, Rose. I meant every word of it. Your logic is impeccable, 'though flawed. And your eloquence is exactly the reason I so enjoy your posts. Only my mother, may she rest in peace, would agree that I am a gentleman. Far from it. I am bigoted, biased and thoroughly nasty. My precious, dear one, would echo that sentiment.
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
The seceding states claimed that a legal "right of secession" existed. This can only be a legal right inside the Union governed by the Constitution.
Why? The colonies were sovereign after they won independence. If they seceded England, why is it different for them to secede the Union?
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Originally Posted by trice
We fought a Civil War over the issue, the South having put the decision on the existence of the right to a trial by combat. They lost.
I'm afraid I disagree, again. There was no question to the existance of the right to secede from the South's reasoning. It was the North that made it a question and decided that might makes right.
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Originally Posted by trice
The Founding Fathers themselves did not believe such a legal right existed. They understood they were in rebellion against their sovereign, and that only the success of their rebellion would allow them to prosper. They were not kidding when they pledged their lives to it. All they had to do to see what happened to rebels who lost was to cast their eyes toward Scotland in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Had they lost, their fate might easily have been what the Highlanders met at the hands of the Duke of Cumberland, called "The Butcher" by the survivors.
If the founders didn't believe in the right to secession why didn't they say so in the Constitution? They certainly understood that the issue could arise at some point in time. But going along in that vein, the South pledged their lives to freedom, also. I don't see that they were any more wrong for doing it than all Americans were when they revolted against England.
Also, I've found a number of indications that our founders did understand that secession was a possibility and they made no provision in the Constitution for denying that power to the states. I've quoted some of them on this thread.
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Originally Posted by trice
The American Revolution is an example of what was considered the "natural right of revolution". It is not the unilateral legal "right of secession" claimed by the Confederacy in 1860-61. Jefferson Davis and other major Confederate leaders adamantly denied they were engaging in a revolution.
No matter what it's called the end result is either freedom or oppression depending on the outcome, however, it's true that the Confederates did not seek to overthrow the Federal Government. Still, you can't deny that America seceded from England.
So you believe the Declaration of Independence no longer carried any weight with the Union? If the Confederates called their War for Southern Independence a "Revolution", would that make them something other than traitors in your opinion?
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Originally Posted by trice
But the Constitution, through the Tenth Amendment, does treat powers exactly in this fashion, as "objects that could be put into a basket and either handed to the central government or kept for future use."
Not at all. "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."
The Constitution doesn't mention any particular power. So secession can't be discounted merely because it isn't expressly mentioned. The Constitution recognizes that ALL powers not delegated to the Union or prohibited by the Constitution, belong to the state. It is the Union, not the state, that may not reach beyond what is expressly delegated to it by the Constitution.
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Originally Posted by trice
Independent, sovereign nations have no "power of secession", just as they have no power to command that the Moon be made of cheese or the Earth be flat instead of round. It is not an aspect of being independent, nor is it an aspect of sovereignity. It is merely the legal ability to get out of an agreement, an escape clause, and so only meaningful within the agreement itself. As a result, "secession" is not a power that could be delegated by the states, nor retained by them.
Me thinks you play word games. Independent, sovereign nations have no need for a power of secession. Yet if at an earlier time they won that right via Revolution, it belonged to them whether they needed it or not and in this case the states carried it with them into the Union. They all believed it and were convinced of the viability of it. Only three states were skeptical enough to reiterate it in their ratification docs, the rest simply understood it to be so obvious that it needed no special declaration.
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Originally Posted by trice
It might exist within the Constitution or it might not. But the only body empowered to tell you if it does or not is the Supreme Court -- and the secessionists made no attempt to find out what the Court might say. No state legislature, no President, no Congress, no individual citizen has the jurisdiction to answer this; we can only have opinions on the matter. The Supreme Court gets to make a decision on it.
Not if the Confederates had won. ;^)
Regards,
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
Ole, I live with a bigoted, biased, nasty man and he's also decent, good hearted and generous. So, ya can't scare me. ;^)
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
Tim, I understand what you are saying and I've admitted that by the definition of the law those three men in question could be considered traitors by the United States.
You said, "It is not about what you "consider". It is about what they did."
And you are right. It doesn't matter one whit what I believe. But, I will say that "traitor" is a pretty harsh word and I'm not quick to use it toward anyone. The compact, according to the Southern states, had been broken. They felt released from their obligations of allegiance to the Union.
Regards,
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
"They felt released from their obligations of allegiance to the Union."
And when you consider the above, dear lady, that is only what they believed.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
PS And thank you for your kind acknowledgement of my posts concerning 'freedom through slavery.' It was much appreciated
__________________ "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
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Originally Posted by trice The seceding states claimed that a legal "right of secession" existed. This can only be a legal right inside the Union governed by the Constitution.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
Why? The colonies were sovereign after they won independence. If they seceded England, why is it different for them to secede the Union?
As I have already said, the colonies did not secede from England. They rebelled against their allegiance. This is revolution, not the legal "right of secession". The colonists understood the difference; men like Robert E. Lee understood it. Secessionists denied it, and it appears you either do not understand it or wish to deny it for some other reason.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
I'm afraid I disagree, again. There was no question to the existance of the right to secede from the South's reasoning. It was the North that made it a question and decided that might makes right.
You are absolutely wrong on this. Some Americans believed in a "right of secession" and some people did not. Robert E. Lee, for example, would agree with me and disagree with you. So would many others in 1861.
Lee considered "secession" nothing but revolution and anarchy. He said so repeatedly between December of 1860 and April of 1861, in private letters, in conversation with friends and others, in rejecting high command with the US. He believed no such "right" existed, nor had ever been intended to exist by the Founding Fathers. He considered secession to be treason.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
If the founders didn't believe in the right to secession why didn't they say so in the Constitution?
If they believed in it, why not put it in? Perhaps they believed it did not exist and so never mentioned it.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
They certainly understood that the issue could arise at some point in time. But going along in that vein, the South pledged their lives to freedom, also. I don't see that they were any more wrong for doing it than all Americans were when they revolted against England.
Again, the colonies did not secede. They revolted. Men like Jefferson Davis denied they were in rebellion, and claimed the rest of the country was the revolutionaries. They claimed that they were acting legally, which the colonists did not.
If you wish to argue the side of secession, you must accept what the secessionists of 1860 said and did. If you continue to act in this fashion, refusing to acknowledge what you do not wish to believe (as you have said), you will continue to make your own position more and more unbelievable.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
Also, I've found a number of indications that our founders did understand that secession was a possibility and they made no provision in the Constitution for denying that power to the states. I've quoted some of them on this thread.
People discuss many things, and certainly the idea of states wanting to leave the Union was discussed. The states were clearly told that any form of conditional acceptance was not allowed; that acceptance was to be as is and forever.
But discussion of such an idea does not mean it is correct, nor that any such legal "right of secession" exists. For example, here, at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, is Delegate Rufus King:
"The states were not “sovereigns” in the sense contended for by some. They did not possess the peculiar features of sovereignty,—they could not make war, nor peace, nor alliances, nor treaties. Considering them as political beings, they were dumb, for they could not speak to any foreign sovereign whatever. They were deaf, for they could not hear any propositions from such sovereign. They had not even the organs or faculties of defence or offence, for they could not of themselves raise troops, or equip vessels, for war.... If the states, therefore, retained some portion of their sovereignty ... they had certainly divested themselves of essential portions of it."
Or how about James Wilson, a true 'Founding Father", signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a George Washington appointee to the Supreme Court: "Mr. WILSON could not admit the doctrine that, when the colonies becameindependent of Great Britain, theybecameindependentalso of eachother. He read the Declaration of Independence, observing thereon, that the United Colonies were declared to be free and independent states, and inferring, that they were independent, not individually but unitedly, and that they were confederated, as they were independent states." (From The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution [Elliot's Debates, Volume 5])
Or General Charles Cotsworth Pickney, also a delegate at the Philadelphia Convention, at the South Carolina Convention on the adoption of the Constitution, rising to refute the idea that the states were independently sovereign and independent, basing his concept on the Declaration of Independence: "In that Declaration the several states are not even enumerated; but after reciting, in nervous language, and with convincing arguments, our right to independence, and the tyranny which compelled us to assert it, the declaration is made in the following words: "We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of fight ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES." The separate independence and individual sovereignty of the several states were never thought of by the enlightened band of patriots who framed this Declaration; the several states are not even mentioned by name in any part of it, as if it was intended to impress this maxim on America, that our freedom and independence arose from our union, and that without it we could neither be free nor independent. Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses." (From The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution [Elliot's Debates, Volume 4])
The key is to understand that people had differing opinions about these issues. Some believed, some didn't, some weren't sure. Yet secessionists insist and demand that no one else's views counted, that only their pet theory was somehow law. They arrogantly insisted that what they would like must be true, no matter what anyone else said.
A very large part of the country, including many Southerners, did not believe in the existence of a "right of secession" Many of these same people believed that, while there was no "right of secession", it was also wrong to use force to compel a state that truly wanted to leave to stay. Robert E. Lee was one of those, as were many Northerners. All this is widely known and easily documentable.
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Originally Posted by trice The American Revolution is an example of what was considered the "natural right of revolution". It is not the unilateral legal "right of secession" claimed by the Confederacy in 1860-61. Jefferson Davis and other major Confederate leaders adamantly denied they were engaging in a revolution.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
No matter what it's called the end result is either freedom or oppression depending on the outcome, however, it's true that the Confederates did not seek to overthrow the Federal Government. Still, you can't deny that America seceded from England.
Rose, the Secessionists are the ones who insisted that secession was not revolution. The colonists never believed they had any such legal right. If you cannot admit to yourself the difference, well ... then we are back to you telling us you not in the habit of acknowledging what you do not believe. It still leaves you wrong on the facts.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
So you believe the Declaration of Independence no longer carried any weight with the Union? If the Confederates called their War for Southern Independence a "Revolution", would that make them something other than traitors in your opinion?
I have no idea where you are going here. Revolutionists are obviously traitors to their country; success allows them to get away with it. However, if the secessionists had dropped the pretense that they had a legal right to their violent and aggressive acts, they would at least have been cleared of duplicity on this matter.
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Originally Posted by trice But the Constitution, through the Tenth Amendment, does treat powers exactly in this fashion, as "objects that could be put into a basket and either handed to the central government or kept for future use."
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
Not at all. "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."
In short, this is the Tenth Amendment I specifically cited and what I said was true. The Constitution does split up powers like objects and put them into baskets, one for the Federal government, another for the states: exactly what you deny.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
The Constitution doesn't mention any particular power.
Actually, this Amendment makes reference to specific powers already mentioned. What is left undefined is any other powers that may, or may not, exist.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
So secession can't be discounted merely because it isn't expressly mentioned.
It doesn't matter in what I am saying. Mentioning it might strengthen the case for secession, or weaken it, depending upon what was said. I agree with the Tenth Amendment. I simply do not believe that any "power" or "right" of secession as the Southern states attempted in 1860-61 existed at any time. As a result, it could not be retained by the individual states nor delegated to the United States.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
The Constitution recognizes that ALL powers not delegated to the Union or prohibited by the Constitution, belong to the state.
So? What "powers" are those? A power does not exist just because you imagine it does.
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Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
It is the Union, not the state, that may not reach beyond what is expressly delegated to it by the Constitution.
I am not sure what you mean here. It is completely contrary to the theory of secession, which holds that it was the states delegating powers to the Federal government through the Constitution, and so they could withdraw those powers at any time unilaterally. What you are saying is the reverse of the Tenth Amendment and would limit the power of the states very greatly.
But, assuming you want to "reach beyond" as a state, who is it that determines if you are right or wrong? The Constitution sets up a body to make that decision: the Supreme Court has jurisdiction and all the states have agreed to it. Why then did the secessionists not bring their case to the Court?
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