4th and Inches said:
FLBear5630 said:
Redbrickbear said:
FLBear5630 said:
Redbrickbear said:
FLBear5630 said:
Redbrickbear said:
historian said:
Treason is illegal. It's even clearly defined in the constitution and there is no doubt that the Confederates were guilty: they made war on the U.S., a war they started.
But it was not treason and secession is not illegal.
You really should read the U.S. Constitution some time...secession is no where forbidden in the document.
"To deny this right [of secession] would be inconsistent with the principle on which all of our political systems are founded."
- William Rawle
"The Constitution was to form a gov't for such States as should be willing to unite; it had no application beyond those who should voluntarily adopt it. Among the delegated powers there is none which interferes with the exercise of the right of secession by a State."
"Congress cannot declare war against a state or any number of states, by virtue of the constitution." Nor has the President any power to...declare a war of any sort. He is only authorized by law "to suppress insurrection against the government of a state."-Dunning
"Lincoln had long believed that Southern talk of secession was nothing but bluff. In 1856 he had stated in a speech in Galena, Illinois: "All this talk about the dissolution of the Union is humbug." He grossly underestimated secessionist sentiment and overestimated pro-Union strength in the upper South and border regions." Gutenberg's A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, by John G. Nicolay
You keep using quotes from people that were found to be wrong. Texas vs White settled this at the highest level, unilateral secession is illegal, period. You can quote every "Lost Cause" apologist you like, it does not change the ruling.
You realize that most of those quotes are from Northern historians and Founding fathers right?
People can have opinions and are not "found to be wrong" by virtue of the fact that you don't like them.
Again lets quote a Northern Chief Justice of the Supreme Court....not a "lost causer" that you are scared of.
[The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court delivered opinion said. "If you bring these leaders to trial it will condemn the north, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion." Lincoln appointee Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, July 1867 (The Civil War, Vol. 3, p. 765)
And White was a case from years after the war....in 1861 there was not Constitutional amendment that prevented Secession, no Congressional law that prevented Secession, and no Supreme Court case that prevented Secession.
Has White vs Texas been revisited? No. It is the law of the land and been so for over 100 years..
A Supreme Court ruling that did not exist in 1861
In 1861 there as not Constitutional amendment that forbid secession, no Congressional law that forbid secession, and not Supreme Court case that forbid secession.
The States had every right to feel they could take back the rights to sovereignty they had granted to the Federal government and declare independence
No they didn't. Under the Supremacy Clause the States have no sovereignty. They must follow the Fed law even if they disagree. Sorry, your argument is Lost Cause BS ...
quote the fed law in place in 1860 or tenth amendment applies
Lincoln said it best...
The idea of a national government agreeing to its own termination was absurd. No constitution of any country in the world would offer provisions supporting its dissolution.
The Union is not a "voluntary association". In ratifying the Constitution, the agreement was that the states were subsidiary to the Federal government. The Constitution is not a contract with the states, but rather with the people; and even if it were, the principles of contractual law would bar unilateral secession. Consent from all parties to a contract is required to rescind it. If one party pulls out, then they would be in breach of the terms.
Third, Lincoln further pointed out that the country existed before the Constitution. The signatories of the Declaration of Independence were British colonists, and as such, they declared their independence as a Union the United States. They signed as representatives of the people of their colony to declare the nation independent, not 13 separate countries. Hence, the states were never "sovereign" to begin with.
Further, the Union was declared to be perpetual by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (note the title) and subsequently expressed to be made "more perfect" by the Preamble to the Constitution. The Constitution's purpose was to strengthen the horrendously weak central government of the Articles of the Confederation, under which the Union was already perpetual. It certainly doesn't follow that strengthening the central government would somehow make the Union non-perpetual. It's very hard to see how a perpetual union, being made to be more perfect, could be so if it could be destroyed by any state at will. "… in order to form a more perfect union" can mean a lot of things, but it can't mean that we aren't perpetual; or else it isn't more perfect.