When Conservatives... were liberals!

[The Hallowed Mouse]

Garrett31212

The Hallowed Mouse

Garrett31212

First off, it isn't the choice of the federal government on who can secede and who cannot. It says nowhere in the constitution, "It is illegal for a state to secede".

My opinions on racism? It's over, and any attempt to bring controversy to it (a.k.a Affirmative Action) is a turn for the negative.

I actually agreeing a little with the secede-thing. Why? Well, as liberal as it may sound, not all states should have to stay part of a country, like if Puerto Rico decided to become a state, then they see they don't like our system, they should be able to leave. But I disagree with the reasoning for the southern states to leave, keeping slavery is very wrong, and to leave the states for that is just plain retarded

We didn't secede over slavery. We seceded because most Southern States in the Election of 1860 didn't ever list Lincoln's name on the ballot, because he was so unpopular. In the states that did list his name on the ballot, almost noone voted for him anyways. He received no Southern delegate votes, but won the election solely off of Northern votes. We seceded because the South had no power in the Union.

But if you don't have that much power, that means you don't have that much population, correct? So, like said in Gov't, the will of the majority will always win, but it cannot infringe on the rights of the minority!  

[Garrett31212]

True, but it also means that your people are going completely ignored on the Federal level.  

[The Hallowed Mouse]

Garrett31212

True, but it also means that your people are going completely ignored on the Federal level.

That my friend is the disadvantage of being minority!  

[Garrett31212]

Right, but if that is the case why not leave and set up your own government where you can have proper representation.  

[The Hallowed Mouse]

Garrett31212

Right, but if that is the case why not leave and set up your own government where you can have proper representation.

that would take away the point of america though! The point is to try to convince the majority you're right, and get them to listen, not to go off and form your own government!  

[Garrett31212]

That's a hypocritic way of thinking. If that were the truth, then you would also be against the American Revolution, in which we decided to break away and form our own government instead of putting up with failing to convince the British to back off.  

[Garrett31212]

Over two months later and still no response. lol  

[Lord Bitememan]

I'll take on the argument Garrett. Secession is prohibited by the language of the Constitution.

Section 3 of Article IV of the Constituion stipulates the following:

"New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union;"

Which stipulates that new states enter the Union by virtue of federal law, not the unilateral voluntary association of the state.

Furthermore, Article VI of the Constitution stipulates:

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

And therefore the Constitution directly states that state laws cannot overrule federal law. The legislative votes in the states of the Confederacy to secede were superceded by the acts of Congress which admitted the states into the Union. The only states with an out on this were the original states to ratify the Constitution since Congress did not exist to admit them into the Union. This means of the Confederate states, only Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia had valid legal claims to secession. Seven of the seceding states, the majority of the Confederacy, seceded by virtue of illegitimate public acts since, under the Constitution, they were entered into statehood by federal law but tried to dissolve their statehood through state law.

Now, as to your debate with Hallowed Mouse, the Confederate remedy to the election of Licoln is untenable in pluralistic democracy. Elections will always have winners and losers. If states constantly dissociate between winning and losing factions in elections you will soon be left with a state of total chaos and anarchy. Implicit in Anglo-western thought is the Hobbesian notion that we abandon the total liberty of anarchy for the greater benefits of a society. The Lockian principles upon which the US was founded indeed allowed for revolution, but to confuse the situation of the Confederacy with that of colonial America's revolt against Britain is a gross disservice to history. The Lockian principles stipulate that government must govern by its own laws and that those laws must derive from the consent of the population. It is when government refuses to govern by its laws, or when those laws become arbitrary mechanations of the state rather than tools implemented by society that Locke felt social contract was dissolved.

So, in which of the instances, the Revolution or the Civil War, was social contract actually dissolved? English law at the time of the Revolution contained many provisions and protections for the individual rights or people, groups, and polities. English actions leading up to the Revolution routinely violated these laws, and with the definitions of who exactly was the legitimate source of authority in the colonies considerably murky the colonists were left with no authority to turn to for redress of their grievances. Writs of Assistance made endruns around illegal search and seizure protections in English law. Various acts passed in the runup to the Revolution violated juridictional rights of the courts in the American colonies. The English were also tossing aside colonial governments and placing restrictions on free assembly. The English were clearly becoming destructive of the rule of law in order to impose rule in the colonies.

In contrast, the rule of law was never subverted in such scale in the runup to the Civil War in ways as injurious to the south. First and foremost, whereas English law was vague as to the legitimate powers and authorities in America, these questions were very settled in America. Southerners had disproportionate weight in Congress due to the apportionment of legislative representation to their non-voting black populaces. They further existed at near parity to free-states in the Senate by the time of the war. The south had a clear and defined Congressional avenue through which to shape and protest public policy. Moreover, the courts remained free and independant to ejudicate law in the land, and indeed ruled time and time again in favor of southern interests and institutions. Remember that just three years prior to the conflict the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that slaves were not citizens, could not sue, and the Congress could not regulate slavery in the territories. Congress, too, was furthering southern interests through the passage of legislation such as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which forced northern states to aid in the return of runaway slaves to the south regardless of state laws abolishing the practice, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 which repealed previous laws stipulating that no new slave states would be formed north of the 36th parallel. The minority rights of the south were far from being violated by 1860, and if anything the southern minority of the country was forging policy over the objections of the majority. The impetous for secession was not a response to any law, policy, or ruling on behalf of the government, but the re-assertion of majority will in electing a president not sanctioned by the south, and secession was fallen back upon before a legislative agenda was presented before the Congress.

There was clearly no Lockian threshold crossed to justify secession, whereas a clear Lockian threashold was met in the Revolution. The claim that the southern cause shares the same philisophical underpinnings as the American Revolution is academically bankrupt. The fact is the south was repeatedly imposing its will on the rest of the country and when it learned that it would be unable to continue to do so illegally and illegitimately broke away under a false cloak of heady principles that unlay the true reasons for its separation.

Now, as to the claim that the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery, I highly recommend one of the canonical texts of the war; Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. The word slavery is mentioned in the document no less than 18 times is some permutation or another, and is directly cited as the cause for secession. The document is virtually mirror to similar documents put out by the other slave states, only in Georgia is the economic argument raised as well. Slavery, being the cause of secession, and secession, being the cause of the war, slavery is the cause of the US Civil War, revisionism not withstanding.  

[Garrett31212]

Regardless of what the English were doing, it was still illegal for a colony to secede from the British Empire. We acheived independance by simply declaring ourselves independant from Britain. We maintained it by fighting the revolution. The same with the South. They declared themselves independant from the Union. It does not matter what the Constitution says about secession or whether secession was illegal or not. Once we declared ourselves independant from the North we were no longer subject to the U.S Constitution.

If you did not know, the North complied with the secession with the time-being. Immediatly following the formation of the Confederacy there was no war. The war was started when the North refused to remove their troops from Ft. Sumter, which was a fort on Southern soil. Diplomacy was attempted, but the Northern soldiers refused to leave. The fort was fired upon by Confederate cannons. This is how the war began.

I disagree that the South was attempting to impose it's will on the entire country. The South wanted only to impose it's will on itself, without being subject to the will of the North in a unified Congress.  

[Lord Bitememan]

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Regardless of what the English were doing, it was still illegal for a colony to secede from the British Empire.

The legality of any seperatist movement is always dubious, especially when it is contested by the state in ownership of the territory. Obviously, no state provides easy mechanisms by which territory can legally break away. The absence, therefore, of legally justifiable and easily attainable standards of separation, we are left then with moral justification under fundamental philisophical underpinnings. To wit, the accepted ones on which western society is based are the Lockian social contract principles. While at the time of the American Revolution there was no legally defined means by which a state could judiciously sever ties from England, many members of the English Parliament agreed with the philisophical thrust of the colonial argument. Most notably of these figures were Edmind Burke and William Pitt the Elder (though Pitt was not a proponant of independence per se, he agreed that social contract had been abbrogated in the colonies).

In contrast, the Confederacy's claim to moral causes for separation was not a social contract cause staking the argument that the federal government had become destructive of government by laws of just derivation, instead it was justified on a non-existant "right to separation" on the basis that the recent election demonstrated they could no longer force northern complicity in slavery. As stated above, time and time again government institutions protected the rights of southern states in this regard.

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They declared themselves independant from the Union. It does not matter what the Constitution says about secession or whether secession was illegal or not. Once we declared ourselves independant from the North we were no longer subject to the U.S Constitution.

This argument derives from no basis in legally recognized sovereignty. Under your model I and my neighbors could declare the independence of our street from the United States, and we would, under such a declaration, be a de jure and de facto sovereign state. Sovereignty requires much more than a simple declaration. It requires recognition, tacit or overt, on the part of a claimant nation that the territory and its people are beyond their control. It requires the recognition of the international community that this sovereignty is a legitimate and permanant situation.

To put it another way: in the American Revolution the Declaration of Independence wasn't formally recognized until 1778 in France, and not long after in Spain, and it wasn't until the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that Britain abandoned the claims on the US and recognized, formally, the nationhood of the US. Taiwan, in contrast, wields effective military control over the island of Formosa, which the Chinese military hasn't the technology level or manpower to contest. Yet, Taiwan has never been recognized as an independant state by the international community, and the PRC has not abandoned its claims to the island. Taiwan is not, today, generally regarded as an sovereign independant state. Kosovo, today, exists in a gray area. It has declared independence, and that independence has been recognized by the United states. However, Serbia has yet to abandon any claim to the territory, formally, and many states have refused to recognize Kosovo, such as China and Russia. This makes Kosovo's legal status of independence very much in question.

The CSA? The United States never formally abandoned claims to the territory, nor did the international community recognize it as an independant state. It wielded de facto control over the south until the Union armies came, and that was it. That does not a legitimate sovereign state make.

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If you did not know, the North complied with the secession with the time-being.

Comply is an interesting way of wording it. The north in no, way, shape, or form cooperated. Buchanan rejected the right of secession and sacked Confederate sympathizers from his cabinet. The federal government didn't turn over assets in the territories, they were seized by Confederate entities. Buchanan was a lame duck and didn't believe he had legal rights to deploy the military against the states (unlike prior presidents like Jackson, who did maintain such power). That doesn't mean he complied with secession, it means he was toothless. The problem is they staged the secssion in December of 1860, but Lincoln wasn't sworn in until March of 1861. Basically, the southern states took advantage of a three month period of an outgoing presidency to organize. Lincoln waited to go to war not out of recognition of secession or cooperation with it, but out of a desire to resolve the dispute peacefully. When that failed, he went to war.

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The war was started when the North refused to remove their troops from Ft. Sumter, which was a fort on Southern soil. Diplomacy was attempted, but the Northern soldiers refused to leave. The fort was fired upon by Confederate cannons. This is how the war began.

And that is exactly how you would expect a state that does not recognize a claim to independence to react. This means that the south did fire the first shots of the war and did, in fact, instigate the war.

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I disagree that the South was attempting to impose it's will on the entire country.

Forcing the north to comply with the slave system with the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 (and undermining state laws banning slavery), forcing the north to recognize a status of slavery within its own borders with the Dred Scott decision, I would say the south very much was trying to impose its will on the north. A south that wasn't trying to impose such will wouldn't force northern authorities to return people within its borders into slavery in the south, nor would it force them to recognize slave-ownership for those who move slaves into their territories. Yes, the south was very much trying to impose its will on the north, as well as demand the ability to expand the slave system into the US territories with impugnity.  

[Garrett31212]

An interesting arguement, but I disagree. What really decides whether a nation is independant or not is whether the previous state still has control of the area. Not what country has claims to it. If you can do this, your claim of independance is legitimate, and the ball is the court of the previous state. You and your street would not be able to legally control yourselves, because you would still be part of American society. The South had completely withdrawn from the North by the time it was independant. During the Civil War, attempts to control or manage the South such as the Emancipation Proclamation, etc, were in vain. The Confederate States of America was a legitimate state, because it held control of the South.

You make a point on the South attempting to force it's will on the North, but you're purposely forgetting that the North also attempted to force it's will on the South by making attempts to illegalize Slavery, which regardless of your moral beliefs on the issue was necessary for the current Southern Economy.

And yes, the South did fire the first shots of the war, but it was the North who insigated it. They would not remove their soldiers out of sovreign Confederate territory.  

[Lord Bitememan]

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What really decides whether a nation is independant or not is whether the previous state still has control of the area. Not what country has claims to it. If you can do this, your claim of independance is legitimate, and the ball is the court of the previous state.

The problem is this is just an argument of the accomplished fact. When you reject bilateral or multilateral recognition and default onto established control you set up the self defeat of your own argument. The south proclaimed itself independant, and established de facto control over southern territory. By your standards, legitimate. However, the north also came in over the course of the nect 4 years, proclaimed its sovereign authority over the territory, and established sovereign control. By the standards you set, since you reject both multilateral and bilateral recognition, this was also legitimate sovereignty. Since the south could no longer wield control over the territory, its sovereignty ceased to exist in any legitimate form. This standard is also known as might makes right, which on some levels works, but you have to abandon claims of moral authority since martial prowess is a different matter altogether.

Also, implicitly, you find yourself justifying the following positions:
That Nazi Germany, having established control over Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, and Norway was indeed a sovereign greater Germania, per their claims.

Japan, having established control over the Philipines, was the legitimate sovereign authority over the Philipines after MacArthur left.

Iraq, having established control over Kuwaite, was the legitimate sovereign authority over Kuwaite, and what's more the US was engaged in an unprovoked war of aggression in the name of dispossesing Iraq of its sovereign territory.

That the Mahdi Army, wielding control until the intervention of the Maliki government, was the legitimate sovereign authority over southern Iraq.

That Al Queada in Iraq, having at one point established control of the Sunni triangle, or at least cities therein, was the legitimate sovereign authority over Sunni Iraq.

The US, unable to prevent individuals from crossing, has no sovereignty over the southern US border.

This is where international and bilateral recognition come into play. All of the above are rejected positions because recognition of the legitimate sovereign authority of all the invaded states superceded the accomplished fact of invasion and establishing authority.

I'm going to skip ahead to your Sumpter argument because it reinforces the point I'm making on this. You insist that the Fort was on southern soil. By what authority is that claim valid? Were all southern claims to territory valid without negotiation or agreement simply because the south made the claims? Apparantly the Union didn't think the fort was in sovereign southern territory, and at the time the south fired on the fort it was under the control of Union forces. Inasmuch, by your model the Federal government still had a claim to sovereignty over the fort. This is why accomplished fact doesn't work as a model of legitimacy. Without agreements, recognition, and treaties formally establishing the south's recognized borders its claims on territory could only be justified through force of arms, and in turn northern claims could likewise be justified through similar means.

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You make a point on the South attempting to force it's will on the North, but you're purposely forgetting that the North also attempted to force it's will on the South by making attempts to illegalize Slavery

Not quite true. There was a northern abolition movement, however it never took root in the major parties until the Republicans came to prominance. The Democratic party was the dominant political force of the time and made no such effort. It was in disputes over the spread of slavery into the territories that government made any efforts to block slavery in any way (other than the ban on the importation of new slaves from Africa), and even that was curtailed by the Kansas-Nebraska Acts and Dred Scot decision. Even when the Republican Party captured the White House and Congress in 1860 Lincoln made overtures that he would not ban slavery if it meant he could preserve the Union. The attempts to end slavery only began in earnest when it became a war aim and served the cause of damaging southern war-making capacity.  

[The Hallowed Mouse]

Garrett31212

That's a hypocritic way of thinking. If that were the truth, then you would also be against the American Revolution, in which we decided to break away and form our own government instead of putting up with failing to convince the British to back off.

That is different, we had absolutely no representation. The Declaration of Independence declared that even the people in England had more power than we did, although the king set unruly places for them to meet, and they were under represented. We were still under the crown while England was under "Parliament," which didn't work. And to add on to my statement, we were trying to convince one person, not a congress, because the House of Lords(?) gave America under control of the King... therefor because the king already lacked power in England, he took as much power over in the states as possible!  

[Garrett31212]

Even so, I never saw convincing the majority as a point of America. In regards to the Civil War, I see two different nations of people with two different economies. I also see the smaller one wanting to break away peacefully, so that they will not be subject to the bigger nation who would destroy their economy. Tell me, if a one world government was suddenly formed, and every single person in the world was given representation, and every single person outside of America voted to ruin the American economy, would America not be justified in secession because they failed to convince every one else otherwise? Outlawing Slavery would have decimated the Southern economy.  

[Garrett31212]

Lord Bitememan

Quote:

What really decides whether a nation is independant or not is whether the previous state still has control of the area. Not what country has claims to it. If you can do this, your claim of independance is legitimate, and the ball is the court of the previous state.

The problem is this is just an argument of the accomplished fact. When you reject bilateral or multilateral recognition and default onto established control you set up the self defeat of your own argument. The south proclaimed itself independant, and established de facto control over southern territory. By your standards, legitimate. However, the north also came in over the course of the nect 4 years, proclaimed its sovereign authority over the territory, and established sovereign control. By the standards you set, since you reject both multilateral and bilateral recognition, this was also legitimate sovereignty. Since the south could no longer wield control over the territory, its sovereignty ceased to exist in any legitimate form. This standard is also known as might makes right, which on some levels works, but you have to abandon claims of moral authority since martial prowess is a different matter altogether.

Also, implicitly, you find yourself justifying the following positions:
That Nazi Germany, having established control over Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, and Norway was indeed a sovereign greater Germania, per their claims.

Japan, having established control over the Philipines, was the legitimate sovereign authority over the Philipines after MacArthur left.

Iraq, having established control over Kuwaite, was the legitimate sovereign authority over Kuwaite, and what's more the US was engaged in an unprovoked war of aggression in the name of dispossesing Iraq of its sovereign territory.

That the Mahdi Army, wielding control until the intervention of the Maliki government, was the legitimate sovereign authority over southern Iraq.

That Al Queada in Iraq, having at one point established control of the Sunni triangle, or at least cities therein, was the legitimate sovereign authority over Sunni Iraq.

The US, unable to prevent individuals from crossing, has no sovereignty over the southern US border.

This is where international and bilateral recognition come into play. All of the above are rejected positions because recognition of the legitimate sovereign authority of all the invaded states superceded the accomplished fact of invasion and establishing authority.

I'm going to skip ahead to your Sumpter argument because it reinforces the point I'm making on this. You insist that the Fort was on southern soil. By what authority is that claim valid? Were all southern claims to territory valid without negotiation or agreement simply because the south made the claims? Apparantly the Union didn't think the fort was in sovereign southern territory, and at the time the south fired on the fort it was under the control of Union forces. Inasmuch, by your model the Federal government still had a claim to sovereignty over the fort. This is why accomplished fact doesn't work as a model of legitimacy. Without agreements, recognition, and treaties formally establishing the south's recognized borders its claims on territory could only be justified through force of arms, and in turn northern claims could likewise be justified through similar means.

Quote:

You make a point on the South attempting to force it's will on the North, but you're purposely forgetting that the North also attempted to force it's will on the South by making attempts to illegalize Slavery

Not quite true. There was a northern abolition movement, however it never took root in the major parties until the Republicans came to prominance. The Democratic party was the dominant political force of the time and made no such effort. It was in disputes over the spread of slavery into the territories that government made any efforts to block slavery in any way (other than the ban on the importation of new slaves from Africa), and even that was curtailed by the Kansas-Nebraska Acts and Dred Scot decision. Even when the Republican Party captured the White House and Congress in 1860 Lincoln made overtures that he would not ban slavery if it meant he could preserve the Union. The attempts to end slavery only began in earnest when it became a war aim and served the cause of damaging southern war-making capacity.

By what authority are my claims valid? The South was a completely different nation than the North. Ft. Sumter was known as Southern territory regardless in your belief in the CSA or not. We had the military means to reenforce our claim to the area. Who were you waiting for? God to come swooping down to say who supernaturally runs what?

My arguement defeats itself? When white men first came to America the land was controlled by Indians. We conquered their territory. Now under your arguement, the only sovereign leaders are the ones to originally control the territory. Is the United States of America just a de facto government? Is it really sovereignly controlled by American Indians on their reservations? Yes, that's exactly what I'm arguing. Germany did hold sovreign control over Europe. Japan did hold sovereign control over the Phillipines. Sovereignity is just the matter of controlling an area. Does it mean that that territory was rightfully theirs? No. Can these areas be viewed as rightfully owned by another nation? Yes, but are there supernatural forces dictating that non-original governments are de facto? Or course not! Under your arguements we're also still sovreignly controlled by tribal blood lines, and that all of democracy established in the known world is just de facto. Foreign Recognition has absolutely nothing to with a nation's existance. Where do you get this crap?

Just look it up in the dictionary:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereign

And I know that's a load of crap about the North not supporting the end of Slavery. The South was under extremely heavy pressure by the North to end Slavery before the Civil War, and any Northern Senator would have jumped at the opportunity to end it.