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 United States fomented and fostered Panama's secession from Nicaragua.
Seems to have something to do with a canal...
__________________ "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)
The United States fomented and fostered Panama's secession from Nicaragua.
Seems to have something to do with a canal...
Panama split from Columbia... not Nicaragua... after a rebellion not a secession. Panamaniam separatists had been trying to break away from Columbia on-and-off since 1821.
I am in general agreement. However, we are signatories to the UN Charter, which has ramifications for "secession" -- but then the UN Charter is stronger for preservation of territorial integrity than it is for "secession" and self-determination. But if it ever became a problem for us, I'd guess any such issue in the UN would be likely to go through the Security Council, where we have a veto power.
Tim
I think there is enough wiggle room in there where we can support the territorial integrity of Georgia and yet support the independence of Kosovo.
At the very least, you made me look at the UN Charter, something I had not done.
It would appear that we wouldn't be permitted to foment a secessionist insurgency or to take an active role in the secessionist campaign unless there were humanitarian concerns. But I think we could act as mediator, call for a cessation of hostilities, and I would suggest, recognize a secessionist state.
Panama split from Columbia..... after a rebellion not a secession...
Most authorities refer to it as a secession...
__________________ 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."
I think there is enough wiggle room in there where we can support the territorial integrity of Georgia and yet support the independence of Kosovo.
At the very least, you made me look at the UN Charter, something I had not done.
It would appear that we wouldn't be permitted to foment a secessionist insurgency or to take an active role in the secessionist campaign unless there were humanitarian concerns. But I think we could act as mediator, call for a cessation of hostilities, and I would suggest, recognize a secessionist state.
While we are at it, there is no "out clause" in the uN Charter. This was done deliberately to correct the weaker League of Nations agreement from after WWI (where Germany, Japan, Italy could simply withdraw when the League tried to sanction them in the 1930s).
The only case so far where a nation may have tried to withdraw was Indonesia back in the 1960s. They sent a letter in that may have meant that -- and the UN Secretary General acknowledged receiving a letter but acted as if they were not seceding, only refusing to cooperate fully. A few months later, there was a revolution in Indonesia and they wrote another letter, and were welcomed back into "full cooperation" by the UN. Current general opinion is that the UN Charter does not allow "secession" from the UN.
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.
I don't think we are responsible for the misuse of the term "secession" so common these days. In any case, there is no indication that the "secession" in Panama was accomplished peacefully or lawfully; this is not a case of a legal "right of secession" as Southerners were claiming to exist in 1860: the whole thing grew out of the civil war in Columbia called the "War of a Thousand Days" and the rejection by the Columbian Senate of the Hay-Herran Treaty of 1903.
Following that, the US stirred up a revolt in Panama, the US-controlled RR withdrew their trains to the north to stymie Columbian troops movements, the US fleet intervened, and something like 15,000 US forces (Army/Navy) arrived.
Here's what Teddy Roosevelt had to say about it to Rev. Dr. David D. Thompson, editor of The Northwestern Christian Advocate, December 22, 1903:
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"You of course remember that during the Civil War the
leaders of the Confederates in the South, and their allies both in England and in the North, insisted that the movement for the independence of the slave States against the Union was identical with the movement for the independence of the original thirteen States as against Great Britain, and that Jefferson Davis stood exactly as George Washington did. It is difficult to believe now that such arrant nonsense was ever seriously advanced. But it is not one whit more absurd than to say that the secession of Panama from Colombia has anything in common with the secession of the eleven slave-holding States from the Union in 1861."
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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.
Most authorities refer to it [Panama's dissunion from Columbia] as a secession...
An imprecise measure to be sure, but a Google search of "Panama + secession" gives about 170,000 hits. A similar search of "Panama + revolution" gives about 4,440,000 hits.
An imprecise measure to be sure, but a Google search of "Panama + secession" gives about 170,000 hits. A similar search of "Panama + revolution" gives about 4,440,000 hits.
I can play that game too:
"the secession of Panama" = 1,590 hits
"the revolution in Panama" = 883 hits
"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."
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