"What If?" The South had not fired on Ft. Sumter?"

Iam sure you know how to use the search function but to help you:
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/did-the-south-have-legal-right-to-leave-the-union.104981/
That topic is full of explanations why what SC did was not legal.
(But Article VI, Clause 2 is a place to start.)

Given the gravity of the situation, you would think the Lincoln government would have given the crisis some priority.
And than can be turned around. Given the gravity of the situation, you would think the south would have given finding a peaceful solution thru Congress some priority.

But no, they declared independence and started taking over federal facilities by force month before Lincoln even took office. Had they stayed in the Union they could have forces Lincoln to sit down and talk about it. If needed using Congress. But the moment they said they where no longer part of the Union there was no way for Lincoln to talk with them, without giving support to their claim.
 
Iam sure you know how to use the search function but to help you:
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/did-the-south-have-legal-right-to-leave-the-union.104981/
That topic is full of explanations why what SC did was not legal.
(But Article VI, Clause 2 is a place to start.)


And than can be turned around. Given the gravity of the situation, you would think the south would have given finding a peaceful solution thru Congress some priority.

But no, they declared independence and started taking over federal facilities by force month before Lincoln even took office. Had they stayed in the Union they could have forces Lincoln to sit down and talk about it. If needed using Congress. But the moment they said they where no longer part of the Union there was no way for Lincoln to talk with them, without giving support to their claim.


Article VI, Clause 2 is about as clear mud on the right of secession, stating that this clause expressly forbade secession is an example of the growing federal legislation from the bench and the kind of ambiguity the South was up against. The Confederate Founding Fathers could have just as easily turned to the 10th amendment if they thought justification and permission from a hostile regime was necessary before going their own way.
 
Article VI, Clause 2 is about as clear mud on the right of secession, stating that this clause expressly forbade secession is an example of the growing federal legislation from the bench and the kind of ambiguity the South was up against.
Yet you just agreed with me that there is no ambiquity. There really wasnt. The South knew what it was up against.

I find Article VI, Clause 2 to be as clear as pure mountain spring water.
I also see no reason to claim it has anything to do with "growing federal legislation from the bench".

The Confederate Founding Fathers could have just as easily turned to the 10th amendment if they thought justification and permission from a hostile regime was necessary before going their own way.
The 10th Amendment doesnt provide the justification they needed.
They turned to the only justification available to them -- rebellion.
 
Isn't this a bit 'head of a pin' stuff now? The rebel colonists of British North America began the non-military struggle with an appeal to 'natural law' that superseded human law but provided justification for their decision to discard human law in very human terms. Asserting that there is a compact between the ruler and ruled, they alleged violations of the compact as adequate grounds for withdrawing from it. Such withdrawal had to be proven by successful revolution - not by a decision in the parliament of England. Likewise, the English claim of sovereignty over the colonies - not previously challenged in any serious context - had to be proven by successful suppression of the revolution. Having won, the ex-colonists were "right". Had they lost they would have been "wrong" and "traitors".

Whether or not the US Constitution provided legal grounds for dissolving itself, had the seceding states won victory in the field that would have proved that it did. At least, in their history books it would. In northern books, not so much.

The OP is about what might have happened if SC had not opened fire on Sumter. To speak of SC and other 6 submitting the question of secession to the US Congress or the US Supreme Court is rather ridiculous. They had already seceded on the grounds that the Federal authority was going to do X and were not going to unsecede if that same authority said "Well that's not right!" (which would have been the case).

Anyway, that's what I think and that's worth about what the job of VP of the USA is worth.
 
Yet you just agreed with me that there is no ambiquity. There really wasnt. The South knew what it was up against.

I find Article VI, Clause 2 to be as clear as pure mountain spring water.
I also see no reason to claim it has anything to do with "growing federal legislation from the bench".


The 10th Amendment doesnt provide the justification they needed.
They turned to the only justification available to them -- rebellion.
I agreed with you where?
 
Where in the US Constitution? Do you think a bunch of unilateral secessionists were big enough hypocrites to put something in the 1787 constitution prohibiting unilateral secession? If the prospect was such an onus, you would think their descendants would have at least made the attempt to add a constitutional amendment to clear up any ambiguity.
And since it was such a unclear issue, you would think that peace loving people would have tried going thru the USSC or Congress or calling a Constitutional convention
 
Given the gravity of the situation, you would think the Lincoln government would have given the crisis some priority.
Yupp right in the middle of a brand new adminastration, with half the appointees not even picked yet...But, in the end its clear from the Confederates own mouths that they had wanted to seize Sumter even before Lincoln took office, so to portray them as having nothing but peaceful thoughts until they were turned away is bogus...
 
One thing we need to know about the framers: all wanted a Union and none wanted to introduce something that would cause others to walk out. So there is little mention of eliminating slavery. It was a compromise to end the trade some years later.

There is no mention of "you can leave when you want to." Nor is there more than an implication that you cannot just pack up and leave.

The U.S. Constitution was a first. Such a thing had never been done before; no one knew how to do it right, and if anyone insisted on this or that, there wouldn't have been 13 States. The rest of them came into the Union with the permission of existing states. It stands to reason that no state leaves without the permission of the others.
 
About 6 posts previous to this when you replied to me with "I agree".


You replied to the wrong post, you had me wasting my time looking for a supposed agreement with you about Article VI, Clause. I actually typed a reply to post 183 but caught myself before posting since I determined that I would be responding to something altogether different.

I did save my initial post, just in case, and here it is:

I wrote in post 178:
Do you think a bunch of unilateral secessionists were big enough hypocrites to put something in the 1787 constitution prohibiting unilateral secession?


You wrote: In post 180 “Nothing hypocritical about it.”

I agreed (post 183) that the 1787 crowd weren’t hypocrites. If I need to be clearer, I agreed because those unilateral secessionists included nothing in the constitution that expressly forbade unilateral secession.
 
Yupp right in the middle of a brand new adminastration, with half the appointees not even picked yet...But, in the end its clear from the Confederates own mouths that they had wanted to seize Sumter even before Lincoln took office, so to portray them as having nothing but peaceful thoughts until they were turned away is bogus...


So in Lincoln's in mind, the Sumter crisis was so low a priority on his agenda that couldn’t spare a few hours to talk with Confederate diplomats that might prevent a war?
 
In Lincolns mind talking to two rebels would be a sign of support for their claim of sovereignty. So naturally he could not talk with them.*
Had SC been in the union and had they represented the State, then he could have talked with em.
Had the south wanted peace, they should have stayed in the union and tried one of the differnet peaceful and diplomatic options they had.


*When ever The Dali Lama meet politicians around the world... China complain, for exactly that reason.
 
In Lincolns mind talking to two rebels would be a sign of support for their claim of sovereignty. So naturally he could not talk with them.
Had SC been in the union and had they represented the State, then he could have talked with em.


When ever The Dali Lama meet politicians around the world... China complain, for exactly that reason.
Guess it took "thousands of incendiary cannonballs" to force Lincoln to listen, and to deliver a message that the secessionists were serious.
 
He felt he needed to appease those cabinet members and others in theRepublican constituency who were wanting war. Lincoln chose not to pursue a peaceful solution.

The only peaceful solution on Lincoln’s mind was, miracles of miracles, the seceded states would, on their own volition, return to his union without a war to force them back.
 
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Isn't this a bit 'head of a pin' stuff now?

Pretty much.

As we all know Fort Sumter is a symbol. Insofar as the OP states that the Confederate government has already taken steps to isolate it and through Anderson the Federal government has already taken steps to keep it, the "firing" has already started. In the end, there is simply no middle ground between the Confederate States of America is an independent, sovereign nation and a rebellion against the lawful authority of the United States of America has occurred in seven of its constituent states. Both sides have locked themselves into the game with seventy-four years of unresolved issues behind them.
Zero-sum.
War.


I'm gonna... sit down now. :D
 
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The only peaceful solution on Lincoln’s mind was, miracles of miracles, the seceded states would, on their own volition, would return to his union without a war to force them back.
The goal for Lincoln should have been to keep the 8 remaining slaveholding states that had not seceded from leaving. The seven that did secede had a harder chance for independence.
 
You replied to the wrong post, you had me wasting my time looking for a supposed agreement with you about Article VI, Clause.
I did not reply to the wrong post. If your time is wasted, it is your own fault.

If I need to be clearer, I agreed because those unilateral secessionists included nothing in the constitution that expressly forbade unilateral secession.

Which is not agreeing with me. If I need to be clearer, I was saying that there is nothing hypocritical about them putting a clause in the Constitution that expressly forbade secession.
 
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