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This is one of those subjects to just let go, and not get bogged down with. There will be those hardcore Texans who somehow identify with the confederacy and the old south, though they probably have a distorted "positive" spin on it somehow. Then there will be others who see the pro-slavery aspects and other negative aspects, and not identify with it.
There's no point trying to convince those living in the past of the errors of their ways and that system. Just ignore all the confederacy history posturing and glamourisation. There's no need to give it more value or substance by thinking/talking about it, and giving it publicity.
Do you think the Founding Fathers would have willingly and knowingly created a country where absolutely noone in the future could break free of tyranny exactly like the Founding Fathers did.It seems to me that the Founding Fathers would not have forbidden what they done and risked life and limb for.
What the founding fathers thought or didn't think really isn't germane from a legal perspective. However, if you must, T. Jefferson seems to have thought that recurrent revolutions were a good thing -- sort of like Leon Trotsky. On the other hand, the Federalist party would have abhorred the idea that the country could just break up at will. Do you think that's what Hamilton - or Washington for that matter - stood for?
TexasReb, since the supremacy clause of the US Constitution clearly makes state laws subordinate to federal law in the case of any conflict between the two, how is it that you reckon a state could withdraw unilaterally from the jurisdiction of the United States? Isn't secession just nullification - clearly unconstitutional, i.e. illegal - taken to its logical extreme?
C'mon Doc...first of all, the so-called "supremacy clause" you bring up was also, word for word, part of the Confederate constitution! To wit, in comparitive note:
This Constitution and the Laws of the [United] Confederate States [which shall be] made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the [United] Confederate States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
What is says -- USA and CSA -- is that the central govenment has supreme authority in those areas where the constitution of each clearly delegates specific powers to the said central government. All others, not specifically spelled out, belong (vis 9th and 10th ammendment) to the states, and people, respectively. The whole purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect the soveriengn states and people from the potential tyranny of a federal government which had only been created in the first place, out of the pragmatical recogntion none of the seperate states were, alone, strong enough to compete, economically nor militarily, with the powers of Europe.
I have to wonder what is the worth of the supremecy clause if it is also verbatim included in the consitituion of the Confederte States? If anything, both recognise the truism of that the central government is supreme in certain limited areas. But that that they are subordinate in others. To wit:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
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.
Doc, we can hit the details of it all later, far as Lincoln goes (and we will...I am looking forward to it)...but do you really believe that ANY state would joined a Union of which they knew aforehand they could never get out of later? Especially when they had just seceeded from England?
Do you truly defend Lincolns arguments that the United States itself predated and was responsible for the creation of the very STATES which met in convention?
Anyway, time to call it an evening! Enjoyed it and will rejoin tomorow. Y'all have a good evening!
This is all starting to get waaaaayyyyyy off topic, but...
That is fine...but that is not the way you initially presented it. You approached from the aspect of character flaws, which had nothing to do with the original question.
In this day and age, who wouldn't consider slavery much worse than affirmative action? But did you ever think that the existence of affirmative action is responsible for at least some racial disharmony today? It can also be argued that the welfare state which stemmed from the feds taking advantage of the civil rights movement has lead to a new form of slavery.
So far as "racism" goes, as a concept, it is almost a seperate issue. That is to say, it is no longer a matter of common sense (i.e. hatred of a person based solely on skin color), but one that had become an Alice-in-Wonderland type thing, ala Humpty Dumpty. That is to say, it is increasingly used as a roadblock to rational discussion and can mean anything the user wants it to mean.
This all makes a great sound byte...but is (with all due respect) a bit abbreviated. The 9th and 10th Ammendments of the Bill of Rights are considered the "States Rights" ammendments, and they speak of both state and individual rights. And the purpose was to protect bothfrom federal tyranny.
No, the point of the states having autonomy is that they were the basis of the federal government to begin with. They created the federal government, and the reason was the practical realization that, alone, none were strong enough to compete with the powers of Europe. So, they formed a Union (often called a Confederacy) which delegated only limited and specific powers to the said central government.
Any government, if out of control will by nature become tyrannical. The best way to solve and allieviate these issues is to be settled at the most local level possible. Sure, one might argue that those "problems" were NOT settled at the local level within a certain subjective time-frame. Ok, fair enough. But I challenge anybody to provide an instance where federal involvment in "solving" the problem did not involve hypocricy, a new power-hungry bureacrcy, and additional problems of its own.
How can one say that affirmative action has led to more racial disharmony? Who is to say that discrimination in the workplace wouldn't continue? You can't blame the welfare state on King; blame it on FDR and LBJ. On whose part is welfare slaver? The taxpayers or the recipients? People aren't forced to go on welfare and they certainly do not have to work. For those states that make welfare recipients get a job, those people aren't working for free; they are getting paid wages while being subsidized by the government. Millions of Caucasians receive government help by the way. My family was on welfare when I was a child, but I also used federal grants and loans to go to school. I am not a welfare recipient and I am not doomed to be a welfare recipient because I am free to move wherever I want and get a job.
It has also been found by the Supreme Court that state laws can be found unconstitutional. States have rights, but they do not have the right to violate the constitution. There is supposed to be a balance between the federal government and the states. There should be a checks and balances between the two. States have challenged federal laws and the federal government is responsible for enforcing federal law. The states were clearly violating people's constitutional rights, so I don't see how people can complain about states' rights when it comes to the Civil Rights Movement. The states do not have a right to violate individual rights. No one should have to wait. Rights violations need to be and should be remedied immediately. People shouldn't have to wait 100 years.
"Original intent" is impossible to infer when it becomes trying to mind-read the authors of the Constitution; and let's not forget that here we aren't just talking about the members of the Constitutional Convention itself, but also all of the members of state legislatures that ratified the document. The internal mental contents of all those people - no doubt very individual and unique form person to person - count for absolutely nothing when interpreting the meaning of words on paper as the supreme law of the nation.
Some Federalists wished to essentially abolish the states as meaningful political units, making them instead something along the lines of - and anticipating the role of - the Departments of the French Republic (nearest comparison I can draw, even though the Constitution predated the First French Republic by a few years).
The Union clearly predates the Constitution. The Union was operating by the time of the Second Continental Congress at least, and certainly under the Articles of Confederation that were developed by the 2nd Con.Congress.
Finally, let's ask ourselves: would we really prefer that our great, if flawed, country had broken apart in 1861 rather than be held together by the will of Abraham Lincoln, the Congress, and the Majority of the American people? The bloodshed was terrible and appalling, but I submit that only a strict pacifist could take the stance that it wasn't worth holding the United States of America together through a transient crisis fomented by rash men who were trying, in the final analysis, to pre-empt any threat to their "peculiar institution".
TexasReb, let me add that AFAIK none of the original states declared independence unilaterally, except for my own adopted state of Delaware that separated itself from the PA executive (it already had its own legislature but had been a part of Penn's colony in terms of the original land-grant and was still subject to the executive authority of PA) and from the British Crown not quite 3 weeks before the publication of the Declaration of Independence. Rather, the United States came into being collectively as an independent entity with the passage of the Declaration. It soon instituted a permanent union and form of government under the Articles of Confederation. The subsequent constitutional convention was convened to correct flaws in the system instituted under the Articles, as the Union wasn't sufficiently strong to be adequately workable. The aim and the result were the creation of a stronger federal Union, not the inauguration of a new and hitherto nonexistant republic.
Doctorjef, you beat me to it. The Founding Fathers were not monolithic in their ideologies. People were arguing in court about the intentions of the Constitution when the Founding Fathers were still alive.
The United States has forcefully taken land for economic and logistical reasons since its beginning. Some people will justify those actions until it comes to their own ancestors.
"Original intent" is impossible to infer when it becomes trying to mind-read the authors of the Constitution; and let's not forget that here we aren't just talking about the members of the Constitutional Convention itself, but also all of the members of state legislatures that ratified the document. The internal mental contents of all those people - no doubt very individual and unique form person to person - count for absolutely nothing when interpreting the meaning of words on paper as the supreme law of the nation.
But DocJ, mind-reading is not required. To say original intent cannot be inferred is -- IMHO of course -- just another way of dodging and, essentially saying, it is unimportant. Which is fine if one takes a "liberal" or "living" vision of the constitution (ala' Warren Court).
On the other hand, if one just reads the federalist papers and comments on the same as to "original intent" it can be fairly gleaned. For instance, of the General Welfare clause of the Preamble. Madison said:
"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
Here is something from the Federalist papers themselves which actually seems to support both our positions. That is to say, the obvious intent and desire that the Union be permanent, but that its existence was not the end and be all.
The Union clearly predates the Constitution. The Union was operating by the time of the Second Continental Congress at least, and certainly under the Articles of Confederation that were developed by the 2nd Con.Congress.
Well, yes it did in that sense of course. However, the point we were talking about was Lincoln's argument (which you said you agreed with), that the Union itself was responsible for the creation of the soveriengn states. Perhaps I misunderstood you on that one, but that is what I have gathered from Lincoln's arguments I have read, and to say they are spurious is to give them quite a bit of credit! LOL
In fact, don't you think it telling that the Treaty of Paris recognized the states as seperate and soveriegn entities? And that even national documents referred to the country as "these" United states as opposed to "the" United States?
Quote:
Finally, let's ask ourselves: would we really prefer that our great, if flawed, country had broken apart in 1861 rather than be held together by the will of Abraham Lincoln, the Congress, and the Majority of the American people? The bloodshed was terrible and appalling, but I submit that only a strict pacifist could take the stance that it wasn't worth holding the United States of America together through a transient crisis fomented by rash men who were trying, in the final analysis, to pre-empt any threat to their "peculiar institution".
Doc, with all due respect to both a friend and worthy opponent, I submit you are mostly merely arguing from result and taking advantage of the emotional attachment to the United States most of us -- South, North, East and West - have today.
Taking things one at a time, it is not really a valid argument to do so from result because that takes unfair advantage of that the results of history have an air of inevitability about them today that they did not have at the time the events actually occured. For example, what if the British had won what we now call the American Revolution?
Hell, we'd be mostly reading history books -- in the American Colonies of Great Britan -- that advanced the position of how jolly jim dandy it was that King George III had the conjones to put down a bunch of rebel (yep, rebel!) upstarts who dared dump perfectly good tea into the Boston harbor! And how could anyone prefer it any different than to have the American Colonial Rebellion put down?
After all, if the rebellious Americans had won, slavery might still be legal because of traitors ke Washington, Jefferson, etc. Would anyone really want to live in a nation like the so-called United States of America would have become? LOL
I am not trying to be a smart-a$$ here, but just to make the point that alternate history can be a two-edged blade. Because the winners write the history, usually their alternate view is just generally accepted as well. Such is the case today with the northern version of the "Civil War.' If England had won, anyone advancing the American cause would be considered an iconoclast at best, and a "traitor" at worse.
But alternate history is just that. Speculation and one is as good as the other if the basic facts are in place. We don't KNOW what would have happened if the South had won. It might have been for the better or worse. Same as with the American Revolution.
Connected with all that is the unspoken (although sometime outright spoken) that to think the South had the right constitutional arguments on its side during the War Between the States is to automatically translate into that one must advocate secession and/or is not perfectly happy to be part of the United States today.
The best way I know to address that is to bring attention to Robert E. Lees final address to his men at Appomotox. He told them, in effect:
Men, we have fought the good fight, but the odds against us were too great. To continue the struggle would just result in more useless bloodshed. The issue is settled and it is now our duty to return to our homes and commit to becoming good citizens of a reunited country.
And that is exactly what most Southerners did and still do. I dont think there is any doubt that Southerners make up -- and always have -- a disportionate number in the military and are the most traditionally patriotic region of the country (a trait which some today in parts of the country which were their enemies then, now consider "redneck" and "non-progressive"). Kinda ironic, perhaps...?
To sum up this speel? I am an unreconstructed Texan/Southern and make no bones about it, nor apologies for it. I might have opposed secession, but I would have fought with my state, region and people when it came down to it. I think the South had the best arguments on its side. I honor the fighting spirits of the Southern people and the cause they fought for. BUT...the war is over and that is that. I am not a secessionist (at least not yet! LOL) and am proud to be citizen of the United States of America.
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