States Rights to Succession.. will the South Rise Again?

[Lizard3]

"Furthermore, I've thought about this alot and have come to the conlusion that had Jackson not been mortally wounded at Chacellorsville and been present at Gettysburg, the US of A would be a very different country, a good bit smaller perhaps. The crucial point IMHO at Gettysburg was the first day. Had Jackson been in command on the left instead of Ewell he would've taken that hill (on the left) and the whole union line would've been untenable, hence the Union wouldn't have had the high ground, been forced to attack and lost. The door to Washington being open, I think Lee would've taken it."


From:
Greatest Commander Thread

[Seeker]

Originally posted by Toad
Nobodies diving over the rail. Skuzzy was asking what would it take; it'd take abridgement of signficant parts of the Constitution.

 At the same time they do away with the 6th and just toss you into jail with no due process, no trial.

 

Guantanamo! Patriot act!

[ASTAC]

Originally posted by Seeker
Guantanamo! Patriot act!

Has the patriot act caused any US citizens not found fighting for the other side to be jailed  at Guantanimo?

Is Guantanimo a place they put people who break the law in the US?

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Toad
You digress. No one is talking about the Articles of Confederation.

The principle of "States Rights" is present in the US Constitution, it's just been usurped and ignored.

In fact there are far more similiarities between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution than there are differences. The notable differences (and critical failings) of the Articles are that they did not give Congress the But the Articles denied Congress the power to collect taxes, regulate interstate commerce and enforce laws. These powers were added in the US Constitution.

The Confederate Constitution was very similar to the US Constitution: http://www.civilwarhome.com/csaconstitutionbackground.htm




Any attribution of the defeat of the South to its Constitution ignores the simple fact of the industrial might of the North. The Southerners could have adopted the US Constitution verbatim and they still would have lost. Money, industry and manpower won the war for the North. Period.

OK, there were similarities -- but you're leavignout the CRUCIAL difference. The powers of the central government were effectively neutered by the requirement of a supermajority (off the top of my head ?2/3?) for ANY binding action. The net effect was that nothing could be accomplished as a governmental unit.

In that sense, a loose confederation of states simply cannot work in modern life. Every unmet political need  that made the Articles of COnfederation impractical ist still present -- and in the modern world, those factors would combiine to make life infintiely worse in a Confederation now.

You think political battles are tough now -- can you imagine passing any law in congress if the vote requirement was teh same as it now takes to break a filibuster?

And look at the excellent example of the EU. Modern states, each with their own developed language and culture. Even with the competitive pressures a UNITED States applies, those guys cant get anything together -- adn tehy have a bureacracy that makes the US look like pikers for inefficiency, secrecy, nonaccountability, and waste.

[Xargos]

Battle of Antietam (Sept17, 1862) 26,134 Americans died in 12 hours of fighting.  Is there any other day in history where so many Americans died?



P.S. I looked back more into the battle.  It lasted from 05:00 to 19:00 hours.  The number of 26,134 were casualties, I can't seem to find if those numbers are the dead and wounded.  Most of my books are still packed after the move.

[Sandman]

AFAIK, the casualties numbered over 23,000. That's both wounded and killed. I believe the number that died was closer to 4,000.

[MrBill]

Has anyone here actually read the constitution? ... Excuse me if you say yes, and I say you need a refresher course.

Question: Did the south break/bend any of these provisions? ...  And bring up amendments that were passed after the fact is just plain ignorant.

Article. I.

Section. 10.

Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

Clause 2: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

Clause 3: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

edit link added
http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

[Toad]

I think the question is/was can a State withdraw from the Union. Is there anything in the Constitution that says "once a State joins the Union it cannot withdraw"?

If a State CAN withdraw do any of your quoted provisions apply after said withdrawal?

[StarOfAfrica2]

Thats all well and good, but what you spelled out is only in effect so long as the States recognize the power of the Constitution.  If you agree they have the right to withdraw from that resolution that binds the states together, then once they have done so the rules of the Constitution have no hold upon them anymore.  The question is, what in the Constitution prevents the act of secession.  The answer is nothing.  

Lincoln took a stretch, and tried to make a case that the founding fathers never intended to allow the withdrawl of states.  That to do so jeapordized national security and the foundations of our country.  Now what he did is precedent, because he won.  That makes him right yanno.  Lincoln was a great man, undoubtedly.  But had the North lost the war, he would have been seen in a far different light I'm thinking.

[MrBill]

Not that I am aware of.

But the constitution IS a giant catch 22 if you read it carefully.

To fulfill all the requirements to legally withdraw are nearly impossible ... there are just to many binding clauses (and this was recognized by many southern states) that create the breaking of the oath of allegiance and/or ratification of the several states.

One must not confuse articles/statements in the preamble with those in the constitution.

The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that lack of expressed denial does NOT endorse approval.

[Toad]

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.

I can't find any place that the power to militarily force a State to remain in the Union is delegated to the United States.  

[jEEZY]

 Originally posted by Toad
    More importantly and more to the point, there is no Constitutional delegation of power to the Federal Government to forcefully (militarily) keep a State from secession or leaving the Union.

    That's my point and so far no one has shown otherwise.

The Gaurantee Clause has been interpreted to authorize the Federal Govt to keep states in the Union. What are they teaching in civics classes these days?

[Toad]

Jefferson, who called Virginia his "country," planted the seeds of the secession doctrine with his Kentucky Resolution of 1798, written in protest to the Alien and Sedition laws:

"[T]he several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by compact, under the style and title of the Constitution of the United States, and of certain amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for general purposes, delegated to that government certain powers, reserving, each state to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void and of no effect."12
Hannis Taylor called Jefferson's compact doctrine the "Pandora's Box" out of which flew the "closely related doctrines of nullification and secession," which he notes, with less than perfect foresight, "were extinguished once and forever by the Civil War."13 Jefferson's biographer, Willard Sterne Randall agrees:

"[Jefferson] forthrightly held that where the national government exercised powers not specifically delegated to it, each state 'has an equal right to judge . . . the mode and measure of redress.' . . . He was, he assured Madison, 'confident in the good sense of the American people,' but if they did not rally round 'the true principles of our federal compact,' he was 'determined . . . to sever ourselves from that union we so much value rather than give up the rights of self-government . . . in which alone we see liberty, safety and happiness.'"14

[Simaril]

A few years ago, I started readinga new book about the roots of the Civil War that had a challenging conclusion -- that the documentary evidence of what seccessionists said BEFORE teh war clearly emphasized slavery as a cause (with states' rights as enabling secession but not motivating it), but AFTER the war they shifted their ground to emphasize the states' rights aspect. Unfortunately, my civil war fever has faded and I cannot track down teh title -- maybe someone herre is afmiliar with it?




IN any case, for those who feel slavery was not the cause -- can you really concieve of the war happening if all states had legalized slavery? Historically, I just cant see that happening. Slavery was THE hot button topic before 1865, so hot button that J.Q. Adams was censored and prevented from submitting petitions (a right CLEARLY and DIRECTLY permitted in the constitution) because he had the boldness to submit ones from constituents abhorring slavery. Seccesssion happened simply because Lincoln, who was perceived as a radical on slavery, was elected. He expressly was motivated by the drive for unity, not by slavery during his early presidency; and the emancipation proclamation didnt free a single slave in the US. It only affected slaves in rebelling states which did not rejoin by a given date; he used it as a form of economic and especially international political warfare.