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 don't actually expect him to read it, let alone comprehend it?
But thanks for bringing it up the the front. It is a dynamite thread.
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
And I agree, this was one of the best, well researched, and informative threads ever done at this forum.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
PS And no, I don't expect him to read it.
__________________ "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
was a "right" to get a lot of folks killed, get property destroyed, lose all the legal slaves held at the time, and from 1862 it was slow, but all downhill after that.
In all the debate over the idea of secession, I found an interesting tidbit of history.
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney, believed that secession was "constitutionally impermissible."
From the book, Lincoln & The Court, by Brian McGinty, chapter 1, A Solemn Oath, pg. 16:
"Taney's own views on secession were expressed in an unpublished memorandum probably written in February 1861, about a month before he was to administer the presidential oath to Lincoln. In that memorandum, he said that the Confederate states were wrong to claim a constitutional right to secede."
[See "Fragment of a Manuscript Relating to Slavery in the United States," Roger B. Taney Papers, Library of Congress. Fehrenbacher, Dred Scott Case, 553-554, describes this memorandum in detail.]
Hmmm.....
The then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States can't find the right of secession in the US Constitution either.
Interesting.
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
In all the debate over the idea of secession, I found an interesting tidbit of history.
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney, believed that secession was "constitutionally impermissible."
From the book, Lincoln & The Court, by Brian McGinty, chapter 1, A Solemn Oath, pg. 16:
"Taney's own views on secession were expressed in an unpublished memorandum probably written in February 1861, about a month before he was to administer the presidential oath to Lincoln. In that memorandum, he said that the Confederate states were wrong to claim a constitutional right to secede."
[See "Fragment of a Manuscript Relating to Slavery in the United States," Roger B. Taney Papers, Library of Congress. Fehrenbacher, Dred Scott Case, 553-554, describes this memorandum in detail.]
Hmmm.....
The then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States can't find the right of secession in the US Constitution either.
Here is a good article on secession. Professor Dorf relates early secession movements with those of today.
"But the legality of secession nonetheless warrants serious consideration. Understanding why it is not a realistic option will help us understand the sense in which the United States is--for all its divisions--a Union."
An interesting article, Freddy. I have bookmarked it to read at my leisure.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
Wasn't the Declaration of Independence our first Secession? How can a people who seceded to form a country tell a section of that country you can't do the same thing.
Sound hypocritical to me.
The "Revolution" was an unlawful (however otherwise justified) rebellion against the rightful and legitimate (however tyrannical) authority of King George III of the House of Hanover, overlord of the colonies as part of the British empire.
Seccession, meanwhile, is an attempt to claim the rights of a sovereign (nation)state to withdraw from a league/confederation/alliance/whatever, which is not how the United States is or was set up.
In other words, its different and in the aspects it is similiar, both are illegal. Not all illegal things are Wrong, but illegal and "a right" don't mix.
__________________ Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less. - Robert E. Lee
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. - Abraham Lincoln
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