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.
"...That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness; that every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the Government thereof, remains to the People of the several States, or to their respective State Governments to whom they may have granted the same; And that those Clauses in the said Constitution, which declare, that Congress shall not have or exercise certain Powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any Powers not given by the said Constitution; but such Clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified Powers, or as inserted merely for greater Caution. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/const/ratny.htm
Ah, the usual incompetent analysis. As always, Battalion tries to put two separate ideas together as if they were talking about the same thing--which they are not doing.
In what way does the New York ratification statement allow the concept of unilateral secession?
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
There is no "right of secession": there is a natural "right of revolution", is that correct? The 2 are not to be equated.
No, that's not exactly the meaning here.
Political philosophers asserted that there was a concept of "natural rights". One of these, according to some of them, was the "natural right of revolution". The assertion was that these "rights" were higher than any code of law originated by man (i.e., given by God or a "higher power" or simply deriving from nature, etc., whatever a person chose to believe) and so overrode the authority of kings and elected government. This is essentially what the rebelling colonists are appealing to and asserting in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence when they say "the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them". The point of the Declaration of Independence is that governments exist to protect the "inalienable rights" the people have been given by "their Creator" -- and that when their government "becomes destructive of these ends", the people have the right to alter or abolish it. This is an assertion of "natural rights" not to be found in the existing law the colonists lived under; King George and his government obviously disagreed; the colonists exerted their "natural right of revolution" in a war that lasted until 1783 and spread across the globe.
The "natural right of revolution" is essentially "trial by combat", not much different than in the days of knights and chivalry, when champions rode into the lists with seneschals declaring "May God defend the right!" If you win the war, if you make the revolution a success, then you establish that you had the "right" you were arguing about. If you lose, you never had it. Very simple and clear, but it is by no means a legal right, being outside of any legal system in the United States. Because the rebelling colonists succeeded, the United States was established; had they failed, they might easily have been convicted of treason and rebellion against their King, and executed for it.
The "right of secession" espoused by so many in the South from 1828-1860 was an entirely different thing. It was asserted that this was an entirely legal right. There was no appeal to "natural rights" or the "Creator". Secessionists simply asserted that they could, at any time, for any reason, decide to end an agreement they had solemnly sworn to uphold. In general, they asserted they were doing this for the protection of slavery and a way of life based upon slavery (anyone want to defend the issue of the "right to own slaves" being a "natural right"??); the only other issues even mentioned seem to be clear issues of day-to-day practical politics (such as how much support the US should give Texas in repressing Indians and bandits, or disputes over tax rates, or how to spend government funds) which are clearly not "natural rights".
Secessionists claimed that this was a "right" the individual states reserved in the formation of the country. Some people believed this; some did not. If, indeed, it was, the US Constitution provided a clear method for determinging it: the US Supreme Court could decide the dispute. ALL the parties (every single state) had agreed to this in accepting the Constitution. Every single state official had sworn a personal oath to abide by that when they took office. Yet, when faced with a disagreement, the Confederate states chose to avoid the legal means open to them and use armed force instead. This would be considered illegal even under their own existing state constitutions.
Even today, it is possible to see how a state might be able to leave the Union: through negotiation in Congress, by Constitutional Amendment, by legal action throught the Supreme Court. But the actions of the Southern secessionists in 1860-65 have established a de facto finding that the unilateral "secession" they attempted was not a legal "right" that existed (i.e., they lost the war), as well as some later de jure decisions that imply it never did, as well as sections of the later Constitutional Amendments that would strengthen the case against it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by clara_barton
Also, did New England contemplate secession several times before 1814 ... Massacusetts, one of those ... is that correct?
While there was some talk of secession in various places and times, there is really nothing that can be seriously considered an official contemplation of "secession" before the Hartford Convention in late 1814. Even at that gathering, not all the states present were represented by official delegations from their state legislatures. Essentially, every state outside New England considered the meeting an attempt at Treason -- and the Southerners were particularly adamant in asserting that.
As background to this, the War of 1812 was largely caused by the policies of the War Hawks in Congress, who were dominant in Southern and Western states, and New England was the area that felt it was suffering most of the consequences of the war and the Jeffersonian policies before it that had crippled the New England economy (especially Massachusetts).
Massachusetts was the leader of the movement for the Hartford Convention. Its' Governor was also in correspondence with the British that might be considered treasonable (particularly if it did "secede"). With the war against Napoleon over, British naval forces had been freed up to seal off the coast of New England particularly, and could threaten raids at any point, and new British forces were arriving in Canada to threaten invasion from the North and the Lake Champlain area. It was at this point (early January 1815, after the Hartford Convention) that Massachusetts sent a delegation to Washington to discuss with the government the mechanics of secession.
Note the major difference here. Massachusetts is effectively saying "We are so unhappy we want out. How do we go about that?" Massachusetts did not mobilize troops against the Federal government. Massachusetts seized no Federal property. All Massachusetts did was try to talk about how the process might work and what would be required. Implicit in their approach to the government is the belief that the issues involved will be worked out among all the states in advance of secession.
Fats forward to the South from 1828-1861. Secession is entirely a different concept. Here it is one-sided, a power the individual state has without regard to the interests and co-operation of any other states. What South Carolina and the others believed they had was the ability to declare they were going, and that there were no restraints upon them. Their approach is secede first, arm themselves, grab what they can and negotiate from a position of strength on anything they can't get away with. Intimidation is their selected method.
Quote:
Originally Posted by clara_barton
Cash seems to think no one state contemplated secession before the South did: it appears some states did, is that right?
I suppose it depends upon what you mean by "contemplated". There is little to support a realistic movement towards secession in any state outside the South before the Civil War except for Massachusetts (the Hartford Convention doesn't really call for secession, and is more about political unhappiness and controversy). In the South, you have several strong attempts to secede within one or more states.
Many people know about how Andrew Jackson threatened South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis. Few know how Zachary Taylor, during his short Presidential administration, threatened to take an army south and zealously hang traitors as Southern representatives threatened secession. It is quite a stretch to draw comparisons between Massachusetts/the Hartford Convention in 1814/15 and what the Southern secessionists did.
Regards,
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.
As you and I both know, that is based on a mischaracterization of New York's ratification document. They quite clearly said that the People OF THE UNITED STATES were free to resume their delegated powers, not the people of a single state.
Regards,
Cash
This is inaccurate...
but please explain this process..
...if you can.
__________________ 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 Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Wow.. "two thirds of the several states" not "two thirds of whatever states may be affected" Sounds pretty straitforward to me. What was the debate again??
__________________ "In mortal combat, a man may and will become so infuriated by the din and dangers of a bloody fight that his heart will turn to stone and his every de sire [be] for blood."
John Hadley, 7th Indiana after the battle at Port Republic
The "natural right of revolution" is essentially "trial by combat", not much different than in the days of knights and chivalry, when champions rode into the lists with seneschals declaring "May God defend the right!" If you win the war, if you make the revolution a success, then you establish that you had the "right" you were arguing about. If you lose, you never had it. Very simple and clear, but it is by no means a legal right, being outside of any legal system in the United States. Because the rebelling colonists succeeded, the United States was established; had they failed, they might easily have been convicted of treason and rebellion against their King, and executed for it.
I commonly refer to it as the natural right of revolution as well, but to be more precise the natural rights exist and if those rights are being usurped by the sovereign it justifies or legitimizes the revolution. The whole concept, in my mind, is essentially a philosophical end-run around the divine right of kings. The concept of the 'divine right' is that God ordained the king to rule so to revolt against the rule of the monarch also goes against God's will.
So, you can see how the language 'endowed by their Creator' becomes very important in the context of fighting 'divine right' kings (England's monarch is obviously more constrained than say, France's, but the concept of the English monarch as the 'defender of the faith remains').
Nevertheless, for the Confederacy's secession to fall into the category of a 'revolution' justified by the usupation of natural rights should beget the question of what natural rights the Federal Government was usurping on the eve of SC's secession.
While the Federal Government spent a great deal of energy usurping the rights of Native Americans and was acting in a way that was essentially complicit in usurping the rights of anybody non-male and non-white (most 'rights infringing' activities were performed by state governments who wielded virtually all of the police power); the Confederacy was not coming to the defense of these groups.
Essentially their gripe, if you read the various Resolutions of Secession, is that the Federal Government, and other sister states, were not vigorously enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act and that the Federal Government was acting in a way to prevent slavery from expanding westward.
While the South technically has a gripe with the failure to vigorously enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, because it is a law (bad one, but a law), the Northern states are ALSO aggrieved parties by ANY enforcement of this provision. Is owning slaves a natural right?
And with respect to blocking the spread of slavery westward, the Federal Government is guilty as charged. Kansas (slave admission) was supposed to come in with Minnesota (free state), to keep balance, and the Congress blocked admission finally admitting Kansas as a free state in 1861 (after the secession started of course). Are we usurping natural rights here?
Furthermore, when you consider this angle, also keep in mind that the mere election of Lincoln triggers SC's secession, BEFORE LINCOLN COMMITS ONE AFFIRMATIVE ACT AS PRESIDENT.
Overall the South takes the position that secession is a legal right, but you do hear references to such things as '2nd War for Independence' and attempts to be the true descendant of the first American Revolution, etc, etc, but overall that's a square peg going into a round hole, the facts just don't fit.
Would you please give your explanation of why you think the New York ratification document permits the idea of unilateral secession.
Why do you think this is so?
Unionblue
Dredd,
Thank you for providing Article V of the US Constitution. It helps for all to see exactly what is being said.
Sincerely,
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
Would you please give your explanation of why you think the New York ratification document permits the idea of unilateral secession.
Why do you think this is so?
Unionblue
Dredd,
Thank you for providing Article V of the US Constitution. It helps for all to see exactly what is being said.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
And did anyone at the time refer to Article V as the way to reassume powers?
Let's consider what Edmund Pendleton said in the Virginia Ratification Convention on 5 June 1788: "We, the people, possessing all power, form a government, such as we think will secure happiness: and suppose, in adopting this plan, we should be mistaken in the end; where is the cause of alarm on that quarter? In the same plan we point out an easy and quiet method of reforming what may be found amiss. No, but, say gentlemen, we have put the introduction of that method in the hands of our servants, who will interrupt it from motives of self-interest. What then? We will resist, did my friend say? conveying an idea of force. Who shall dare to resist the people? No, we will assemble in Convention; wholly recall our delegated powers, or reform them so as to prevent such abuse; and punish those servants who have perverted powers, designed for our happiness, to their own emolument. We ought to be extremely cautious not to be drawn into dispute with regular government, by faction and turbulence, its natural enemies. Here, then, sir, there is no cause of alarm on this side; but on the other side, rejecting of government, and dissolving of the Union, produce confusion and despotism."
Notice, "In the same plan we point out an easy and quiet method of reforming what may be found amiss."
What plan? The Constitution.
And what procedure does the plan give?
"we will assemble in Convention; wholly recall our delegated powers, or reform them so as to prevent such abuse; and punish those servants who have perverted powers, designed for our happiness, to their own emolument."
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