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.
The North should have made it clear in writing that ONLY NEW ENGLAND has the right to even discuss SECESSION from the glorious UNION...
Since they are the only ones who get to play that game.
Tory
Discussing is one thing. Anyone can discuss anything.
It is when one acts, then one is past discussing and must deal with the consequences of ones actions.
History has recorded the discussion of the idea that secession was discussed and debated many times before the act itself, in the South generally. It was not assumed then that unilateral secession was an automatic right, hidden somewhere in the Constitution within the confines of the 10th amendment.
Hence the event called the American Civil War.
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
If Chief Justice Chase had made such a comment that the Constitution did not forbid secession, how do you explain Texas v. White and his ruling on the illegality of secession under the US Constitution?
Going from memory, Chase made a comment --- just not such a comment. Aside from the inadvisability of perpetuating ill will, he was concerned with the difficulty of proving that secession was treason (note: not illegal). There was a clear prohibition of treason -- not for secession. If Davis had been tried for treason, his cabinet, congress, and officers would have had to have been as well. Although there were some who would have leapt at the chance, cooler heads decided that it had to end, and that now was a good time.
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 North should have made it clear in writing that ONLY NEW ENGLAND has the right to even discuss SECESSION from the glorious UNION...
Actually, we have detailed history of Southerners discussing secession for at least two decades before the Civil War. No one prohibited their discussions.
There is also one major point that differentiates what happened in New England in 1814-15 from what happened in the South in 1860-61. In New England, the end result of the Hartford Convention and all that was that a single state (MA) sent representatives down to Washington to open discussions with the government. The state did not "secede". No Federal government property was taken by force. The purpose of the discussions was to ask how the process of separation would proceed: nice, peaceful preliminary discussions with the government. (Of course, by the time they got to Washington, the War of 1812 was ending and Andy Jackson had just whacked the British at New Orleans; the MA representatives, seeing the situation changed, went back home.)
Look at 1860 and the Southern "secession". You won't find anything resembling that mission from MA.
Tim
__________________ "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."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
The North should have made it clear in writing that ONLY NEW ENGLAND has the right to even discuss SECESSION from the glorious UNION...
Since they are the only ones who get to play that game.
Tory
"Notwithstanding the vast amount of calumny and reproach that has been bestowed upon the Hartford Convention by the ignorant and the worthless, it will not be a hazardous assumption to say, that henceforward no man who justly estimates the value of his character for truth and honesty, and who, of course, means to sustain such a character, will risk his reputation by the repetition of such falsehoods respecting that body, as have heretofore been uttered with impunity. No man, with the facts before him, can do this, without sacrificing all claim to veracity, and, of course, to integrity and honour. Nor will the subterfuge that the journal and report of the Convention do not contain the whole of their proceedings, save him from the disgrace of wilfully disregarding the truth. Nearly nineteen years have elapsed since the Convention adjourned, and no proof has been adduced, and nothing nearer proof, than the unsupported assertions of the corrupt journals of political partizans, of any measure having been adopted or recommended by the Convention, besides those contained in the journal and the report. If there was any treason, proposed or meditated, against the United States, at the Convention, it must have been hidden in as deep and impenetrable obscurity, as the fabulous secrets of free masonry are said to be buried, otherwise some traces of it would have been discovered and disclosed to the public before this late period."
Theodore Dwight, History of the Hartford Convention: With a Review of the Policy of the United States Government, Which Led to the War of 1812.
Dwight was secretary to the convention, kept and published the journal.
Has the United States government ever recognized a seceding faction from a parent government where the act of secession violated the law of the parent government?
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Has the United States government ever recognized a seceding faction from a parent government where the act of secession violated the law of the parent government?
Secession implies a legal act as opposed to rebellion, revolution. Texas, Cuba, the Phillipines, and Panama were all revolutions not secessions.
Secession implies a legal act as opposed to rebellion, revolution. Texas, Cuba, the Phillipines, and Panama were all revolutions not secessions.
The question is not limited.
It covers secession by any faction (the US does not have to be directly involved) and then recognized by the United States government.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
The only recent one I know of was when Norway and Sweden decided to separate about 100 years ago.
As Scribe mentioned, secession implies legality. The US could have no objections (nor dogs in the fight) if any country were to divide itself by mutual agreement. For example, if Quebec were to secede from Canada, we'd likely be sorry, but there would be no question that Quebec would be recognized. Or if England agreed to let Scotland go.
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
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