War.... (Historical: 9/11 discussion thread)

[Baron Munchausen]

Geoschmo,

Where is this 'process' for arranging secession that you described given in the Constitution? I'm fairly familiar with it, and I don't recall any such process. I think you are quoting something written AFTER the war by a Northern law scholar. I.O.W., Victor's Justification.

Amendment X

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.

Therefore, since the power to GRANT a state the right to secede is not explicitly delegated to the Federal government NOR explicitly forbidden to the states in the Constitution, it is retained by the states themselves. If not for the problem of slavery, the North would have had no justification for its aggression against the South. Actually, since the South seceded before any legislation against slavery could be passed, the North had no legal justification for the war. You must appeal to 'extra legal' moral principles to justify it.

Some people claim, as has been discussed here, that this was merely an excuse and the North just didn't want to lose territory and so political/economic power. But if you examine the history, yes, the war really was about slavery. The Dredd Scott decision threw the Northern states into a panic because it meant slavery could spread everywhere. The Republican party as formed and the Whig Party torn apart. The Republicans got a President into office on their first try after the Dredd Scott decision, Abraham Lincoln, and his platform included the abolition of slavery. As you have noted already, this is the one issue that would have defused the whole situation if it was removed. Most Northerners were determined to end it, and the most Southerners were determined not to let it be ended.

In the long interim between election day and the old inauguration day (March 4th) the various states of the Confederacy decided to secede rather than face the difficult fight in Congress and the courts that they might well lose. They fully realized that they would have had questionable legitimacy if they attempted secession AFTER losing the legal battle over slavery. It's too bad Lincoln chose "political expediency" and didn't outlaw slavery by fiat until he absolutely had to, but he was deeply committed to "due process of law" and wanted to abolish slavery by proper legal proceedings. Have you ever read the Emancipation Proclamation? It does NOT free all slaves! It only freed slaves in the states that were rebelling. This was to prevent Great Britain from intervening in the war. Kentuckians kept their slaves until the 13th Amendment was passed. This is in keeping with Lincoln's principles. Since they did not rebel but respected the law, he wanted to treat them properly under the law. The really firebrand abolitionists felt betrayed, of course, and the controversy has never really ended to this day. Many people still claim the war was "not about slavery" largely because of this distinction that Lincoln made -- and ignore the huge historical record of the election debates of the time.

Your Last line is the most important. Yes, the point is moot now. A latin saying discussed a long time ago in this forum comes to mind. Inter arma leges silent. In the face of arms the law is silent.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 15 September 2001).]

[geoschmo]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Geoschmo,

Where is this 'process' for arranging secession that you described given in the Constitution? I'm fairly familiar with it, and I don't recall any such process. I think you are quoting something written AFTER the war by a Northern law scholar. I.O.W., Victor's Justification.

---

Baron, there is no "process for arrnging seccesion" given in the constitution. What I was describing in my post was the process for amendment that would have to have been gone through legally to annul the Constitution as laid out in Article V.

Any part of the Constitution, or all of it for that matter, that was originally written can be removed, or rewritten if the process set forth in Article V is followed.

quote:

---

Amendment X

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.

Therefore, since the power to GRANT a state the right to secede is not explicitly delegated to the Federal government NOR explicitly forbidden to the states in the Constitution, it is retained by the states themselves.

---

Wrong. By seceding from the Union, the southern states were actually in violation of Article X, because they were trying to take away all the powers specifically delegated to the United tates by the Constitution, as set forth in all the other Articles before it.

Article X was not an "out clause". It didn't and doesn't give any state the right to leave the Union. It doesn't even mention "rights", because States don't have rights. People have rights. States have powers.

Now, if your argument is that the people of the south have a inalienable human right to stand up and say "You no longer represent me. I am forming a new country." I can't disagree with you. That's outside of the bounds of the Constitution. But if they do that, they don't have the right under the Constitution to take the State with them.
That is part of the United States, unless removed from it by an act of Amendment to the Constitution.

Geoschmo

[CNCRaymond]

My mother found this site, take a moment and look at it. Look at the picture with the circle in it.

God Bless The USA

[tesco samoa]

And if you go here http://artbell.com/letters21.html
you can see the devil ( as we all know has 2 horns a tail and what looks like a broken wrench)

Now I know I am going to draw rath here. But come on. Stuff like this really gets under my skin. It's horrible to look at these pictures. But even worse for people to take these pictures of pain and suffering and change them like they would change any other pictures.

Sorry just really upsets me.

No offence.

------------------
L? GdX $ Fr C++ SdT T+ Sf* Tcp+ A M++ MpTM ROTS Pw+ Fq+ Nd Rp++ G+

[CNCRaymond]

I thought it looked like fire to me, but nevertheless, people are entitled to their opinions. I thought it was a nice site, and passed it along. I am not making any judgments about the person who "saw" something, for that would be in bad taste, and despite what has happened, if seeing something that is or is not there helps him to heal, then so be it.

[This message has been edited by CNCRaymond (edited 15 September 2001).]

[Cyrien]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Geoschmo,

Abraham Lincoln, and his platform included the abolition of slavery. As you have noted already, this is the one issue that would have defused the whole situation if it was removed. Most Northerners were determined to end it, and the most Southerners were determined not to let it be ended.

---

I was going to post something earlier but the darn thing crashed and I lost everything I had typed after being close to completion but I feel a need to correct you here.

Lincoln did NOT run on an Abolition platform. He and many others felt that Abolition, the belief that all slavery everywhere should be abolited by law in all states and territories in the US, was unconstitutional... as it was due to the fact that it was protected in the Constitution in several locations. This meant that nothing short of an amendment could end slavery and of course the Southern states while lower in population in the house still had equal numbers in the Senate.

This brings us to Lincolns party platform. His was the Free Soil Platform. Under this slavery would be Banned from the Territories and not the States. In this way they hoped to lead slavery to a "natural death" as eventually the territories became free states and eventually would go to the Senate and gain a majority capable of passing an amendment. In point of fact the idea that such a law as Free Soil would be passed was rather slim and remote based on the fact that the South DID have a strong holding in the Senate. The Civil War was largely due to paranoia.

And just to be complete here the spark that set it all off was the Mexican American War and the new territories it brought into the US, which rendered all the old half measures and bargains on how to divide the US between slave and free mute and obsolete as they didn't deal with that area.



[This message has been edited by Cyrien (edited 15 September 2001).]

[Baron Munchausen]

Geoschmo,

Well, here we have the same disagreement more than a century after the war is over. Amendment X is in plain English, I don't see how you can misinterpret it. I suppose this issue will come up again, as the Federal government grows more and more tyrranical some states are likely to secede again one day, though not in the immediate future with this crisis. I expect some of the Western states to try before this century is over, though.

Here's an interesting test: If the issue had NOT been slavery, if there were no slaves in the South, do you think the North would have fought the Civil War to keep those states in the Union? I don't think so.

Cyrien,

I was not aware that slavery was "protected" anywhere in the Constitution. The only mention that I was aware of was the "three-fifths compromise" that made slaves count as three people for every five slaves in the calculation of population for representation. I would hardly call that "protection". Where else is slavery mentioned?

Ok, I didn't have an actual copy of Lincoln's platform so I didn't know the legal niceties of it. But anyway, he was definitely out to end slavery if by a more gradual means than directly outlawing it. Some have held otherwise because of his legal maneuvers around Emancipation.

Finally, though, I'd hardly call the Mexican War the 'spark'. More than a decade passed before the war broke out. The new territories increased the pressure, but it was the Dred Scott decision that shattered the political landscape. John Brown's raid didn't help, either, of course.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 15 September 2001).]