|
Posts:
9,306
From:
Shenandoah Valley
Registered:
1/6/04
|
|
(16 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 5:12 AM
|
Doggone, Historicus! You sound like me!! 
--
Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
William Tecumseh Sherman
|
|
|
Posts:
3,543
From:
Monticello
Registered:
1/15/07
|
|
(17 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 8:38 AM
|
> sfcdan...
>
> care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in
> 1860?
He'll just hide behind victory- which is like claiming that Nazi soap-dishes and lamp-shades prove that Hitler was right.
--
"Sovereign states may unite themselves together by a perpetual federal republic: this will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. Meanwhile a state that has passed under the dominion of another, can no longer avail itself directly of the law of nations; such were the nations and kingdoms which the Romans rendered subject to their empire."
--Vattel
|
|
|
Posts:
965
From:
Virginia/Maryland
Registered:
12/10/07
|
|
(18 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 9:14 AM
|
Jefferson Davis was charged with treason for being the President of the CSA.
Raphael Semmes was charged with treason for ravaging US shipping.
The best lawyers the US had could not make these charges stick.
In the Yankee witch hunt after the war, no one was ever found guilty of secession.
--
1st Regiment of Virginia Volunteer Infantry
Fighting terrorism since 1861
|
|
|
Posts:
3,543
From:
Monticello
Registered:
1/15/07
|
|
(19 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 9:37 AM
|
> Jefferson Davis was charged with treason for being
> the President of the CSA.
>
> Raphael Semmes was charged with treason for ravaging
> US shipping.
>
> The best lawyers the US had could not make these
> charges stick.
>
> In the Yankee witch hunt after the war, no one was
> ever found guilty of secession.
You mean treason. However this just proves that the governement didn't want justice, it just wanted POWER.
--
"Sovereign states may unite themselves together by a perpetual federal republic: this will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. Meanwhile a state that has passed under the dominion of another, can no longer avail itself directly of the law of nations; such were the nations and kingdoms which the Romans rendered subject to their empire."
--Vattel
|
|
|
Posts:
31,887
Registered:
2/13/04
|
|
(20 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 9:41 AM
|
> Jefferson Davis was charged with treason for being
> the President of the CSA.
>
> Raphael Semmes was charged with treason for ravaging
> US shipping.
>
> The best lawyers the US had could not make these
> charges stick.
>
> In the Yankee witch hunt after the war, no one was
> ever found guilty of secession.
Most countries would not have even bothered with anything even remotely resembling a real trial. Regardless of whatever laws were or were not on the books, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and company, would have been summarily executed.
Some "witch hunt".
|
|
|
Guest
|
|
(21 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 5:14 PM
|
warrior....
>Jefferson Davis was charged with treason for being
> the President of the CSA.
Lets talk about why Davis was never put on trial...
or convicted.
care to?
--
Certainty is not proof
Insistence is not fact
Opinion is not evidence
Arrogance is not credibility
|
|
|
Posts:
3,543
From:
Monticello
Registered:
1/15/07
|
|
(22 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 5:17 PM
|
Historicus, you're missing the point once again.
NOTHING is illegal for a sovereign state. NOTHING.
--
"Sovereign states may unite themselves together by a perpetual federal republic: this will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may, in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. Meanwhile a state that has passed under the dominion of another, can no longer avail itself directly of the law of nations; such were the nations and kingdoms which the Romans rendered subject to their empire."
--Vattel
|
|
|
Guest
|
|
(23 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 5:39 PM
|
Tom...
You can have your views....
I have mine....
They dont necessarily conflict.
You can take the sovereignty route...
I will talke the route of ratifications reserving the right to reume powers delegated, without objection,.... that the USC does not mention coersion to keep a state in, nor does it mention the inability of a state to depart. The Tenth amendment.....Federalist 45 .....Attny General Black feeling it could be legal in 1860...And no one seems to mention its illegality in 1860 or until shots are fired...etc, etc
nor is secession even discussed in TX v White...the alleged landmark that declared secession illegal, but didnt discuss it.
--
Certainty is not proof
Insistence is not fact
Opinion is not evidence
Arrogance is not credibility
|
|
|
Posts:
31,887
Registered:
2/13/04
|
|
(24 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 5:54 PM
|
> warrior....
>
> >Jefferson Davis was charged with treason for being
> > the President of the CSA.
>
>
> Lets talk about why Davis was never put on trial...
> or convicted.
>
> care to?
The above statement you've quoted regarding Jefferson Davis is not mine.
This one is, however...
"Most countries would not have even bothered with anything even remotely resembling a real trial. Regardless of whatever laws were or were not on the books, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and company, would have been summarily executed."
I'm glad he wasn't executed, Historicus, for various reasons.
Davis, and Robert E.Lee, and Longstreet, and company.
There were multiple reasons why.
If you would like to discuss it, fine. However, the above statement I made stands. Not only would Jefferson Davis and company have been charged, tried, sentenced and executed, regardless of what ANYBODY said or did, after a leading a civil war in most countries, but the majority of their followers would have suffered similar fates. In some cases, their FAMILIES would have suffered those fates, as well.
And the laws on the books in those countries would have had little or nothing to do with it.
You believe that?
Because I sure do.
|
|
|
Posts:
3,543
From:
Monticello
Registered:
1/15/07
|
|
(25 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 22, 2008 7:05 PM
|
> Tom...
>
> You can have your views....
> I have mine....
>
> They dont necessarily conflict.
>
> You can take the sovereignty route...
>
> I will talke the route of ratifications reserving the
> right to reume powers delegated, without
> objection,.... that the USC does not mention coersion
> to keep a state in, nor does it mention the inability
> of a state to depart. The Tenth
> amendment.....Federalist 45 .....Attny General Black
> feeling it could be legal in 1860...And no one seems
> to mention its illegality in 1860 or until shots are
> fired...etc, etc
>
> nor is secession even discussed in TX v White...the
> alleged landmark that declared secession illegal, but
> didnt discuss it.
Historicus:
The problem with your "route," is that you're making a purely substantive legal argument; however sovereignty is final authority, regardless of such arguments.
So sovereignty is the only route that matters; the substantive meanings of ratification clauses, the 10th Amendment etc. are 100% irrelevant, and miss the point completely: soveriegnty marks the paramount authority of any government-- and whichever side had sovereignty, was legally right.
PERIOD!
|
|
|
Posts:
2,843
From:
somewhere near A2 MI.
Registered:
5/3/01
|
|
(26 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 23, 2008 2:37 AM
|
<rdfx wrote:
"Jefferson Davis was charged with treason for being the President of the CSA. ">
Davis's treason indictment was for levying war against the United States.
<"Raphael Semmes was charged with treason for ravaging US shipping.">
Admiral Semmes was indicted for Piracy, not treason.
<"The best lawyers the US had could not make these charges stick.
In the Yankee witch hunt after the war, no one was ever found guilty of secession.">
The fact that Davis's treason charge never ran its course was not based on any inability by Federal prosecutors to successfully convict but based in part that a neutral venue would not be available for a trial and the concern that Davis had already been punished with disenfranchisement under the then recently passed 14th Amendment and a trial would constitute double jeopardy. These concerns were echoed by the United States prosecutor Richard Dana, in an August 24, 1868 letter to Attorney General William Evarts and it is for these reasons that an order of nolle prosequi was entered with the Court on February 15, 1869.
|
|
|
Posts:
3,290
Registered:
1/19/07
|
|
(27 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 23, 2008 2:44 AM
|
care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860?
I don't have to it has already been done, in 1860.
The thing you fail to understand is that a true view of history can not be had by applying new perceptions to events after the fact but only viewing these event s as the actual participants saw them. To borrow a phrase from noted WWII historian Richard J. Overy
"It is about the war as it was understood , however imperfectly or unethically, at the time."
The application of thought processes that did not exist at the time invalidates them. To say it was not rebellion when it was deemed as such, even by prominent Southerners of the era, is frivolous revisionism at its worst for it corrupts history.
Dan
|
|
|
Posts:
9,306
From:
Shenandoah Valley
Registered:
1/6/04
|
|
(28 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 23, 2008 3:24 AM
|
> care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in
> 1860?
> I don't have to it has already been done, in 1860.
> The thing you fail to understand is that a true view
> of history can not be had by applying new perceptions
> to events after the fact but only viewing these event
> s as the actual participants saw them. To borrow a
> phrase from noted WWII historian Richard J. Overy
>
> "It is about the war as it was understood ,
> however imperfectly or unethically, at the
> time."
>
> The application of thought processes that did not
> exist at the time invalidates them. To say it was not
> rebellion when it was deemed as such, even by
> prominent Southerners of the era, is frivolous
> revisionism at its worst for it corrupts history.
> Dan
Come on, Dan. You know better than that. The states paper that was voted on by the people whether to secede or not is called the 'Declaration of Secession.' You are historically wrong. That says those that did the voting and those taking it to the people used the word 'Secession'.
--
Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.
William Tecumseh Sherman
|
|
|
Posts:
38
From:
Alpine, TX
Registered:
4/22/07
|
|
(29 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 23, 2008 4:05 AM
|
Not only do many anti-Southern revisionists of history claim that the Southern states had no right to secede from the Union but the U.S. government has offered no apologies to the thirteen states for challenging their right of secession.
Some of the most crucial arguments regarding the right of secession can be found in Jefferson Davis' two volume, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government and Raphael Semmes' Memoirs of Service Afloat. I cite both these texts because unlike many modern studies on the subject, facts replace opinion rather than the reverse.
In studying the dozens of documents and events that prove the legality of secession from the birth of that right in the latter part of the 18th century America less than one hundred years since that time, Admiral Semmes brings a perfect case. It is a case so obvious and favoring of the states that practiced it, the U.S. government has neither then or now allowed it to be brought to court. In denying the rights of Southern citizens to stand before a jury in court to defend their right of secession, the issue was never fairly decided.
First off, Semmes made a wonderful point regarding where in fact the source of the rights of secession can be found. Many anti-Southerns and revisionists declare that nothing can be found in the constitution that guarantees the right of secession to the states even though the X amendment does read that the power is reserved to the states and to the people. But what of the parts of the constitution that limit state powers such as not allowing single states to levy treaties or make war?
This just truly misses the whole point.
The constitution was created as the law of the union, the law of the United States of America. It was not created above the states, however. The constitution was basically a list of rules a state had to accept before becoming a part of that Union. Though as a part of that union, the states surrendered some of its rights, it had not surrendered its right to withdraw.
For example, when you go to your job, there are certain rights you surrender. You surrender your right to do and say as you please while working for example. You abide to a list of rules. However, because you joined freely, you can just as freely leave.
Further examination will show that NOTHING in the constitution or what was recorded in the minutes of the state conventions that decided to join the union hint that the states did not have just as much right to make an exit.
The states that joined the union did so purely for self-benefit. They were resigned to accept the constitution's terms because, at the time, being in a union seemed favorable to their future.
Secession in 1860 was not illegal. Though the states had surrendered certain rights they had before the drafting of the constitution, they still remained, the ultimate power. The states and their people not only had total say over their own courses but they had and did use the power to change the very constitution when they thought fit.
The constitution was formed as a tool so that the states and the people would have near as many rights as they had before joining the union.
In 1861, it was clear to the Southern states that these same rights were being stripped and that the power in the North and in Washington DC was becoming just as bold as the kind the English practiced against the colonies.
There was a period in history when both the South and North did not question secession. Interestingly enough, it was during this same time that the North saw secession as a favorable solution to their issues.
During those several periods during the early part of the 19th century, when some Northern states mentioned secession it should be noted that the Southern states did not quake in rage but rather allowed their neighbors to discuss a right they all shared.
Semmes wrote,
"As long as they [The North] were in a minority, and hopeless of the control of the government, they stood strictly on their State rights, in resisting such measures as were unpalatable to them, even to the extremity of threatening secession; and it was only when they saw that the tables were turned, and that it was possible for them to seize the reins of the Government, that they abandoned their State Rights doctrines."
Admiral Raphael Semmes wrote, "It thus appears, that from 1803-4 to 1815, New England was constantly in the habit of speaking of the dissolution of the Union-her leading men deducing this right from the nature of the compact of states. President and Congressman John Q. Adams of Massachusetts spoke, "If the day should ever come when the affections of the people of these states shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bands of political association will not long hold together parties, no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies; [band for better will it be for the people of the dis-united States in part to part in friendship with each other, than to be held together by constraint."
Another congressman years earlier spoke to his people,
"If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation, and as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some definitely to prepare for separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must."
No, this congressman did not represent any district south of the Mason Dixon Line fuming over tariffs or states rights. Rather he was a rep. from Massachusetts by the name of Josiah Adams. The cause of this Northern appeal for secession? The Louisiana Purchase.
Lastly, in January of 1848, Abraham Lincoln himself shared,
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right."
It is clear that the Northern government chose to first resupply a body of their troops in the waters of South Carolina and then call for nearly 100,000 volunteers to invade the Southern states not because the South lacked the right to secede. Rather, the North both refused to acknowledge the South's independence and made war against it because they, regardless of anybody's rights, wanted to keep the South in their Union.
When it was good for the North, the right of secession was as safe and understood as it was from our country's birth. When this right seemed to benefit others not them and cause economic challenges for their own, secession was treason.
"If we were wrong in our contest, then the Declaration of Independence of 1776 was a grave mistake and the revolution to which it led was a crime. If Washington was a patriot; Lee cannot have been a rebel."
-Major General Wade Hampton
|
|
|
Posts:
3,290
Registered:
1/19/07
|
|
(30 of 170)
Re: Anybody care to demonstrate that secession was illegal in 1860
Sep 23, 2008 5:57 AM
|
vareb
There is a process to alter the Constitution that was agreed upon by all the adopting states. Leaving half the country out of your vote therefore invalidates the result because it did not include all the states.
Voting on Secession was an act of rebellion made worse by the firing on the only legitimate national authority. Rebellion it was.
Dan
|
|
|
|
|
