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.
I am going to bring this argument over Jefferson and secession into a new thread, as it doesn't belong in the thread on just war. So, here we go.
I could go on and on about Jefferson and secession, but one also has to look at the other Founders as well; the other men who put their necks on the line for the formation of this country.
George Washington, a man the southerners revered, even deified, spoke of an "indissoluble Union of the states under one Federal head," and that "whatever measures have a tendency to dissolve the Union, or to contribute to violate or lessen the Sovereign Authority, ought to be considered as hostile to liberty and independency of America, and the authors of these treated accordingly." Did you catch that word in there? Indissoluble, meaning not to be dissolved, and that anyone who tried to usurp that authority placed over them would be treated as a traitor and an enemy to the independence of the United States.
How about James Madison. This man wrote the Constitution (not Thomas Jefferson) and ought to be the one to say if secession is permitted by it or not. After all, who better to understand the document than the man that had a large part in writing it and defending it? Madison, who died after the first real major secession crisis in United States history (the Nullification Crisis of 1831-32. Madison, as we know, was also a very states rights oriented man. His view of secession seems to be that it is a matter to be voted on by the states as a whole. If a state wants to secede, it is to be brought up before the body as a whole and if they vote to let that state go, then so be it. However, the states do not have the right to unilaterally secede and withdraw themselves from the Constitution and the Union. In his final days, Madison wrote a short letter, entitled Advice to My Country. Within this short, two paragraph letter, Madison says the following: the "advice nearest to my heart is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it [the Union] be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened; and the disguised one, as the serpent creeping with is deadly wiles into Paradise." Strong words to describe the proponents of dissolution, comparing them to the Devil himself.
Other founders spoke out against dissolution of the Union as well, but they could fill a book. But if one looks at the words of the Founders, you will see that they had a strong desire for perpetual union of the states. If one looks at the founding documents, it is there, clear as day. In the Articles of Confederation, at the end, it says this: "And that the Articles [of Conferation] thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent, and the Union shall be perpetual." So the document that they meant to adjust, but changing a great deal, called for perpetual Union, which seems to show that there was an understanding among the men who founded the United States that perpetual Union was a necessity. When they wrote the Constitution, they started it with "We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union..." Now tell me, where is the logic of going from a perpetual, indissoluble Union, and turning it into one that can be broken by any member of it on a whim? There isn't any logic there. The men who fought for the creation of this country never meant to see it torn apart on a sundry whim. The meant for it to be permanent.
__________________ "The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
And again, you miss the point. IN THE UNION. The South had left the Union, which thing Jefferson APPROVED.
Now, you don't think that Jefferson is going to pull a Lincoln and start provoking the NORTH all along their fishing coasts and factories, do you? By baiting them into an attack?
By making them defend themselves.
Jefferson was going to let the North leave over a dollar bill!
And, in fact, over the WESTERN TERRITORIES in the Louisiana Purchase, which the yankees saw as now going to belong to him who had bought them... the Conservative South of Jefferson
The South was leaving for safety and economic protections (over slavery and taxes and other things), and self-determination.
Beowulf
What was to ensure that by leaving the Union, their economic freedom would be ensured? George Washington, when he gave his Farewell Address in 1796 talked about the importance of the Union to the economic prosperity of the country. He starts off his discussion on Union as imperative with this:
"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize...it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts."
Washington then goes on with this:
"The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious."
Each part of the whole helps the other to survive. Think about it; the South was agrarian, the North industrial. The vast majority of the industrial complex was in the northeast, while a great deal of the cash crops were being grown in the South. Each helped the other when they were united; separated, they failed and destroyed themselves. The South didn't have the vast mineral resources that could be found in the North, such as iron and coal in Pennsylvania. Without these, they would have to import everything from other countries. If each section split off, the country failed, in Washington's eyes. Splitting for economic reasons would not be a good enough reason, nor any reason at all, for that matter, to split the Union in Washington's eyes.
__________________ "The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
...
Other founders spoke out against dissolution of the Union as well, but they could fill a book. But if one looks at the words of the Founders, you will see that they had a strong desire for perpetual union of the states. If one looks at the founding documents, it is there, clear as day. In the Articles of Confederation, at the end, it says this: "And that the Articles [of Conferation] thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent, and the Union shall be perpetual." So the document that they meant to adjust, but changing a great deal, called for perpetual Union, which seems to show that there was an understanding among the men who founded the United States that perpetual Union was a necessity. When they wrote the Constitution, they started it with "We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union..." Now tell me, where is the logic of going from a perpetual, indissoluble Union, and turning it into one that can be broken by any member of it on a whim? There isn't any logic there. The men who fought for the creation of this country never meant to see it torn apart on a sundry whim. The meant for it to be permanent.
From the 1869 Texas v. White case opinion of the Supreme Court, delivered by the Chief Justice:
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It is needless to discuss, at length, the question whether the right of a State to withdraw from the Union for any cause, regarded by herself as sufficient, is consistent with the Constitution of the United States. The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form, and character, and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these the Union was solemnly declared to 'be perpetual.' And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?
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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.
Can't exactly say enough J Man, about your opening post. Washington's words would be mine if I were fractionally so eloquent. The founders did not spend those years and work so hard to create a coalition that could easily be dissolved.
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
Can't exactly say enough J Man, about your opening post. Washington's words would be mine if I were fractionally so eloquent. The founders did not spend those years and work so hard to create a coalition that could easily be dissolved.
ole
Washington first act on becomming pres was to convince NC not to seccede.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Washington first act on becomming pres was to convince NC not to seccede.
And therefor implying the man thought it wrong? Folly? Illegal? Irresponsible? Illtimed?
The very fact that he opposed secession and NCs attempt says what?
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
Just a thought: For those who have posts on the other thread more germaine to this one, feel free to copy them over. Better still, cut and paste.
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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