Confederate War Aims

[Sovereign States]

Echo's don't prove repeats either.

If you cannot provide source documents or historical references that Ft. Sumter was always considered the property of South Carolina, then you have only your personal belief and no evidence.

Constant echo doesn't help your cause. It you cannot provide source documents or statutes which explicitly outlaw secession, then you have only your personal belief and no evidence. And I do mean no evidence whatsoever.

 

[Sovereign States]

You're in the same national lifeboat I am.

Sink or swim.

Sink or swim.

 

[Sovereign States]

Your answer if there is anything in the Constitution that prohibits secession stares you in the face everyday of your waking existence.

Again, I ask you, if secession was constitutional, if the constitution does not prevent secession, where is the Confederate States of America today?

Your answer that there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits secession stares you in the face, eyeball to eyeball, every waking day of your existence. Every waking day. Again, I ask you, where is the prohibition against secession in the Constitution? If it was there, you'd show it in less than a heartbeat. And we both know it.

 

[PapaReb]

The biggest difference is that the revolutionaries were invoking a Natural right of revolution. Pretty much everyone agreed that this Natural right exists. Including Lincoln, Madison, whoever, etc.

But the secessionists claimed, and their defenders still continue to claim today, a non-existent Legal right to secession.

My opinion as to why anyone would invoke this Legal right, whether in 1861 or now, is because the cause of the attempted separation was too immoral to justify a claim to the Natural right to revolt.

Thank you for sharing your opinion. That is all it is, your opinion. I know that you fervently believe what you post but others hold different opinions. You are adament that you are right and others are adament that they are right. The act of rebellion against an authority is just that, rebellion, regardless of what form it takes. The South chose a means that they consudered legal. The Federals considered it illegal, difference of viewpoint but the winners get to make the call and write the history.

 

[DanSBHawk]

The was a poster earlier this year, named SarahTheGoodWitch, who used to echo peoples statements back to them constantly.

 

[Sovereign States]

Good for her.

 

[unionblue]

Your answer that there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits secession stares you in the face, eyeball to eyeball, every waking day of your existence. Every waking day. Again, I ask you, where is the prohibition against secession in the Constitution? If it was there, you'd show it in less than a heartbeat. And we both know it.

I have, @Sovereign States , although you won't admit it.

If secession was clearly not prohibited in the Constitution, if all accepted the idea that the Union was a mere Compact of States instead of a Federal Union, if uni-lateral secession was so clear a legal and constitutional option, then where is the Confederacy?

Your proof is in reality, not a stubborn belief that the invisible means the right exists. It didn't then, it doesn't now and that is why the Confederacy never existed past it frantic, bloody four years. It wasn't accepted as a constitutional right by even the majority of the citizens of the nation it tried to steal from.

Point wherever you like, insist on whatever you believe.

The hard fact is, the right to secession wasn't decided on in the Constitution, but the battlefield.

The results are in.

Unionblue

 

[unionblue]

Thank you for sharing your opinion. That is all it is, your opinion. I know that you fervently believe what you post but others hold different opinions. You are adament that you are right and others are adament that they are right. The act of rebellion against an authority is just that, rebellion, regardless of what form it takes. The South chose a means that they consudered legal. The Federals considered it illegal, difference of viewpoint but the winners get to make the call and write the history.

@PapaReb ,

If your above sentiment were actually true, this forum, and others like it, and countless books supporting the Confederacy's right to secession, would simply not exist.

We both know that is not the case.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

 

[PapaReb]

@PapaReb ,

If your above sentiment were actually true, this forum, and others like it, and countless books supporting the Confederacy's right to secession, would simply not exist.

We both know that is not the case.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

As has been stated, the Constitution is silent upon the subject. It is true that the SCOTUS has decreed that secession is not legal, however I do not agree that this was a proper ruling. The SCOTUS is tasked with the interpretation of what the Constitution says. Making such a ruling where the Constitution is silent on the subject is not interpretation it is legislating from the bench. The only way to make the illegality of secession a certainty would be to have legislation passed thru Congress.
If such legislation has been passed I am unaware of it.

 

[unionblue]

As has been stated, the Constitution is silent upon the subject. It is true that the SCOTUS has decreed that secession is not legal, however I do not agree that this was a proper ruling. The SCOTUS is tasked with the interpretation of what the Constitution says. Making such a ruling where the Constitution is silent on the subject is not interpretation it is legislating from the bench. The only way to make the illegality of secession a certainty would be to have legislation passed thru Congress.
If such legislation has been passed I am unaware of it.

To reach this conclusion, to somehow expect a national self-destruct is not mentioned, but simply believed is possible by it's mere NON presence in the Supreme Law of the Land, takes a mighty effort to disregard ALL of the previous US Supreme Court rulings on the topic of the supremacy of the Constitution over States Rights.

And, rest assured, that is the only thing that will assure the smooth sailing of uni-lateral secession, a disregard of actual historical fact.

 

[PapaReb]

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

 

[Sovereign States]

I have, @Sovereign States , although you won't admit it.

If secession was clearly not prohibited in the Constitution, if all accepted the idea that the Union was a mere Compact of States instead of a Federal Union, if uni-lateral secession was so clear a legal and constitutional option, then where is the Confederacy?

Your proof is in reality, not a stubborn belief that the invisible means the right exists. It didn't then, it doesn't now and that is why the Confederacy never existed past it frantic, bloody four years. It wasn't accepted as a constitutional right by even the majority of the citizens of the nation it tried to steal from.

Point wherever you like, insist on whatever you believe.

The hard fact is, the right to secession wasn't decided on in the Constitution, but the battlefield.

The results are in.

Unionblue

You haven't union blue, and you simply won't admit it. If all accepted that secession is unconstitutional, then where is the conviction against Jefferson Davis for treason? And Robert E. Lee? And Alexander Stephens? Davis was arrested and held for two years, and never even brought to trial. If it's so obviously treasonous, why no conviction?

Your proof is little more than pointing to a rotten and corrupt court decision which never even tried the constitutionality of secession anyway. And even at that, the corrupt judge had to use language from the dead Articles of Confederation to find a law of perpetuity. We both know that if such language was in the Constitution, he would have used it. But there isn't so he didn't.

But please, point wherever you like and close your eyes and insist upon whatever you wish to insist upon.

The hard fact is that battlefields can't decide matters of law. Only barbarians and uncivilized brutes decide legalities with guns, bombs, and knives.

And indeed, the results are in. No question about that.

Sovereign States.

 

[NedBaldwin]

You haven't union blue, and you simply won't admit it. If all accepted that secession is unconstitutional, then where is the conviction against Jefferson Davis for treason? And Robert E. Lee? And Alexander Stephens? Davis was arrested and held for two years, and never even brought to trial. If it's so obviously treasonous, why no conviction?

President Jonson issued a general pardon for all those traitors

 

[Sovereign States]

President Jonson issued a general pardon for all those traitors

Traitors? Why are you dragging George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams into this? And the pardon was not until 1868. Nice try though...

In truth, the government didn't dare bring President Davis to trial. They would have been humiliated.

 

[NedBaldwin]

Traitors? Why are you dragging George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams into this? And the pardon was not until 1868. Nice try though...

In truth, the government didn't dare bring President Davis to trial. They would have been humiliated.

I didnt drag them in. Johnson's pardon was specific to traitors of 1860-1865. It was in 1868 which was when the trial for Davis was planned. The only one who would have ben humiliated is Davis, as he hung from a noose like he deserved

 

[wausaubob]

All sections of the US were wildly expansionist up to and beyond the US Civil War. The excitement for expansion cooled gradually in the northern states as they realized they needed peace with Britain more than the needed territory that would eventually become parts of Canada.
The southern areas thought mainly, but not exclusively, of expanding southward by well tried methods of invasion and subversion.
But even after the war, the US purchased Alaska, subverted the Kingdom of Hawaii, and purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark.
Expansionism cooled quickly after the US/Spanish war when the country decided it did want to retain either Cuba or the Philippines on a permanent basis.

 

[DanSBHawk]

In truth, the government didn't dare bring President Davis to trial. They would have been humiliated.

If the president at the time meant what he said about making treason odious, Davis could have easily been tried, convicted, and executed.

 

[wausaubob]

If the president at the time meant what he said about making treason odious, Davis could have easily been tried, convicted, and executed.

Davis' punishment was worse. He was allowed to live and see the south become an economic backwater. And as the secessionists feared, the southern Democrats became a weak adjunct to the northern Democratic party which did not have to do much for the south for 60 years.

 

[Desert Kid]

Long and short. Independence.

Along with having Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland in with them too. But by 1864 they just wanted the core 11 states, the Indian Territory and Kentucky.

 

[CSA Today]

Good grief!

Really? The lengths one must go to approve of a rebellion, a right to unilateral, unconstitutional secession for the United States, has more twists and turns in such fairy tales as to remind one of a snake with a broken back.

"Penance for the impropriety of their ancestors" indeed.

Next will be the excuse of time travelers from the future or aliens from other planets spreading the cause of secession.

I suppose on your little world the fact Yankees were among the ring leaders during the first war for independence but not the second one makes the first rebellion justifiable but not the second one. In any case, the Confederate Founding Fathers didn't buy the line that they needed Yankee approval to seek their own self-determination.

"The flag which he [my grandfather, Francis Scott Key] had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal despotism as modern times have witnessed."

Francis Key Howard, a prisoner of Lincoln at Fort McHenry, 1861