David Ireland
Corporal
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2017
1. Can anyone point out where in the official secession documents, associated legislative proceedings, or otherwise associated contexts that the southerners proclaimed that trade policies (tariffs) were the reason for their secession? I can find very little.
2. Can anyone find other examples of federal overreaches/unconstitutional actions taken by the federal government that the southerners expressly said were their reasons for disunion? Obviously, federal power did in fact expand pretty drastically in the antebellum period, but I want to know if specifics were given as justification for secession. In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he asked them to do so. Did they?
3. What was the southern rebuttal to Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech where he justified the prohibition of slavery in the territories based on precedents set by the founders?
4. Was there a refusal to admit new slave states into the union, or just a prohibition on slavery in the territories?
5. Where can proof of the right to unilateral secession be found in the founding era? Ie, where can it be proven that states can just leave on their own discretion, without the consent of the rest of the union? Is there a southern rebuttal to this,
"My opinion is that a reservation of a right to withdraw... is a conditional ratification... Compacts must be reciprocal... The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever. It has been so adopted by the other States.”
— James Madison, letter to Alexander Hamilton (July 20, 1788), emphasis added.[8][9]
Hamilton and John Jay agreed with Madison's view, reserving "a right to withdraw [was] inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification."[10] At the outset of the Poughkeepsie convention, anti-Federalists held a strong majority. The tide turned when word arrived that New Hampshire and Virginia had said yes to the Constitution, at which point anti-Federalists proposed a compromise: they would vote to ratify, but if the new federal government failed to embrace various reforms that they favored, "there should be reserved to the state of New York a right to withdraw herself from the union after a certain number of years.”] Federalists emphatically opposed the compromise. In doing so, they made clear to everyone -- in New York and in the 12 other states where people were following the New York contest with interest -- that the Constitution did not permit unilateral state secession. Alexander Hamilton read aloud a letter at the Poughkeepsie convention that he had received from James Madison stating that "the Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever." Hamilton and John Jay then added their own words, which the New York press promptly reprinted: "a reservation of a right to withdraw" was "inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification. The New York convention ultimately ratified the Constitution without including the "right to withdraw" language proposed by the anti-federalists.
6. Where can proof be found that there was an agreement that a breach of the compact gave rise to a right of rescission?
7. Is there a northern equivalent to Albert Bledsoe's "Was Davis a Traitor?"
I'd love for heavy citation and facts!
2. Can anyone find other examples of federal overreaches/unconstitutional actions taken by the federal government that the southerners expressly said were their reasons for disunion? Obviously, federal power did in fact expand pretty drastically in the antebellum period, but I want to know if specifics were given as justification for secession. In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he asked them to do so. Did they?
3. What was the southern rebuttal to Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech where he justified the prohibition of slavery in the territories based on precedents set by the founders?
4. Was there a refusal to admit new slave states into the union, or just a prohibition on slavery in the territories?
5. Where can proof of the right to unilateral secession be found in the founding era? Ie, where can it be proven that states can just leave on their own discretion, without the consent of the rest of the union? Is there a southern rebuttal to this,
"My opinion is that a reservation of a right to withdraw... is a conditional ratification... Compacts must be reciprocal... The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever. It has been so adopted by the other States.”
— James Madison, letter to Alexander Hamilton (July 20, 1788), emphasis added.[8][9]
Hamilton and John Jay agreed with Madison's view, reserving "a right to withdraw [was] inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification."[10] At the outset of the Poughkeepsie convention, anti-Federalists held a strong majority. The tide turned when word arrived that New Hampshire and Virginia had said yes to the Constitution, at which point anti-Federalists proposed a compromise: they would vote to ratify, but if the new federal government failed to embrace various reforms that they favored, "there should be reserved to the state of New York a right to withdraw herself from the union after a certain number of years.”] Federalists emphatically opposed the compromise. In doing so, they made clear to everyone -- in New York and in the 12 other states where people were following the New York contest with interest -- that the Constitution did not permit unilateral state secession. Alexander Hamilton read aloud a letter at the Poughkeepsie convention that he had received from James Madison stating that "the Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever." Hamilton and John Jay then added their own words, which the New York press promptly reprinted: "a reservation of a right to withdraw" was "inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification. The New York convention ultimately ratified the Constitution without including the "right to withdraw" language proposed by the anti-federalists.
6. Where can proof be found that there was an agreement that a breach of the compact gave rise to a right of rescission?
7. Is there a northern equivalent to Albert Bledsoe's "Was Davis a Traitor?"
I'd love for heavy citation and facts!