Secession

[Bulldog]

What are your opinions on the right (or lack thereof) of a given people to seperate from a given nation?

Did the CSA/American South/ Confederacy have a right to secede during the American Civil War?

 

[Voegelin]

It was assumed they did. The constitutional law taught to the generals on both sides at West Point made that right clear. New England states, until it actually happened, believed in secession as well. In 1814, they themselves almost pulled out of the union (I wish the Federalists had. By not doing so, the party was virtually extinct within a decade).

But the issue is now settled. No, there is no right to secede.

 

[Blackguard_]

But the issue is now settled. No, there is no right to secede

How was it settled? "The might of Union bayonets makes right"?

 

[Voegelin]

Yup. It's over. The debate now is if "progressives" are going to be able abolish the electoral college and put the entire nation in the hands of a few states-- in the hands of a few dozen large cities in fact. "Progressives" also want Washington D.C. to be represented in Congress which would be a further weakening of state and local government.

 

[Eryk]

God tells us to submit and to obey. Which you can't do if you revolt or secede. It is written.

 

[Voegelin]

The most influential American theological justification for revolt is here.

This later justification for revolt begins with the verse you cite Eryk.

 

[The Lone Gunmen]

Ask Jeff Davis...

 

[Eryk]

And the theological justification for revolt is here.

"But how does this prove, that those who resist a lawless, unreasonable power, which is contrary to the will of God, do therein resist the will and ordinance of God?"

Scripture never makes that distinction to approve of overthrowing the government. These Scriptures refer to government, all government: "there is no power but of God." "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake" (KJV) "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men" (NIV).

Those who start with the Bible do not rebel. No one would get that idea from Scripture.

Scripture ONLY allows civil laws to be broken where that is necessary to exercize the faith: worship, teaching the flock, evangelism:

Acts 5:27-29 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,

Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.​

 

[Uphill Battle]

We're dealing with that in Canada. There is a huge Quebec seperatist movement. My feeling is hey, you signed on the dotted line.

 

[CaligulaNero]

Maybe if the South had put it to a vote of ALL Southern people I'd have more sympathy with their attempt to seceed.

 

[Voegelin]

The right to secede existed or it didn't. That blacks and women did not have the franchise is irrelevant.

 

[jayem]

The debate now is if "progressives" are going to be able abolish the electoral college and put the entire nation in the hands of a few states-- in the hands of a few dozen large cities in fact.

Why do people believe this? In fact, the opposite is true. The EC, as the system currently operates, only magnifies the importance of large states. But this should be another thread.

 

[CaligulaNero]

"The right to secede existed or it didn't. That blacks and women did not have the franchise is irrelevant"

Disagree. First off, there is no such right. Therefore, to the extent someone is attempting to do so I only have sympathy if they are doing it for a just cause. And don't give me "states rights"- the Southern states LOVED the power of the federal government to impose custom taxes and impose the evil fugitive slave act. The South seceded for one reason- to continue to enslave other humans.

 

[perplexed]

What if there were many more slave states and slaverly became federal law. Wouldn' t the non slave states have the right to secede so everyone in those states was allowed to learn how to read etc?

 

[The Lone Gunmen]

Actually, the slave states just wanted to keep the status quo.

 

[Bulldog]

"The right to secede existed or it didn't. That blacks and women did not have the franchise is irrelevant"

Disagree. First off, there is no such right. Therefore, to the extent someone is attempting to do so I only have sympathy if they are doing it for a just cause. And don't give me "states rights"- the Southern states LOVED the power of the federal government to impose custom taxes and impose the evil fugitive slave act. The South seceded for one reason- to continue to enslave other humans.

Could you expound a little on the point regarding the "custom taxes"? I agree with you that the Fugutive Slave Act was evil, these are irrelevant to whether or not the South had a right to secede.

Why do you deny the southern states the right to sucession? They did precede the Union, no?

 

[Nathan Poe]

It was assumed they did. The constitutional law taught to the generals on both sides at West Point made that right clear. New England states, until it actually happened, believed in secession as well. In 1814, they themselves almost pulled out of the union (I wish the Federalists had. By not doing so, the party was virtually extinct within a decade).

But the issue is now settled. No, there is no right to secede.

The emphasis being that it is now settled. At the time, IIRC, there was nothing specific in the Constitution which forbade it. The fourteenth Amendment forces the states to give up certain powers to the federal government -- including the right to secede.

 

[Voegelin]

"The right to secede existed or it didn't. That blacks and women did not have the franchise is irrelevant"

Disagree. First off, there is no such right. Therefore, to the extent someone is attempting to do so I only have sympathy if they are doing it for a just cause. And don't give me "states rights"- the Southern states LOVED the power of the federal government to impose custom taxes and impose the evil fugitive slave act. The South seceded for one reason- to continue to enslave other humans.

There is no right now because the Civil War settled the issue but there was most certainly a right before the War. The north was the first to consider secession at the Hartford Convention in 1814. For a while, it appeared a done deal. New England and New York were leaving the Union over "Madison's War" and the grievences inflicted upon the north by Thomas Jefferson.

While Justice Story did not fully address or come to a real conclusion on the right to secede, other constitutiional scholars of the era did and West Point, during the first half of the 19th century did teach that states had that right. Officers on both sides during the civil war had been taught that states did that have right.

Northern mill owners LOVED the power of the Federal government to impose customs taxes (not all however, a few huge mill owners wanted free trade in order to break their small competitors. The small guys did make alliances with some plantation owners in the south but that didn't last long). In general, the south resented customs duties. IT traded cotton and other agricultural products with Europe. It did not want to pay taxes on what it brought in Europe and have the taxes go to New England. No accident that the war began by the south firing on a fort which was there to see that duties were collected).

Far as fugitive slaves, Dred Scott was the first serious case of judicial activism, wasn't it? Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney was appointed by that great Democratic populist Andrew Jackson. There is a direct line of reasoning from Dred Scott to Roe v Wade. The Howard Zinn school of history glosses the alliances between northern and southern interests, the shifting positions of men such as Daniel Webster, who empowered the Federal government first to assume a role it did not have in favor of a cartoonish "them bad, we progressives good" revisionist history.

 

[USincognito]

As much as I hate to admit it, Voeglin nailed this thread in the second post. I'll add more details to my response later.

 

[SummerMadness]

I often find these threads funny because it turns into certain people trying to twist history... mostly trying to allude to the idea that the Democratic Party is racist based on the fact that the South was pro-slavery and Democratic. When you point out the South's complete conversion to the Republican Party and racism that still remains there is almost a gasp at such a suggestion.

The attachment to "Southern heritage" (i.e., the Confederate flag) sort of rings hollow when these are the same people howling at the mention of slavery and the subsequent era of segregation by African Americans and "teh liberals." I don't know, why complain about one group talking about history, but then attempt to use it yourself to smear a group.