On May 7, 4:10 pm, archm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Nate Edel) wrote:
> AlfredMontestruc<montest...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > On May 6, 12:23 am, archm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Nate Edel) wrote:
> > > AlfredMontestruc<montest...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > > > This from a nation that had as an ideal the idea of consent of the
> > > > governed. If that is indeed a requirement for just government,
then
> > > > that consent can be withdrawn.
>
> > > And sometimes that withdrawal requires the force of arms: witness
the
> > > American Revolution.
>
> > > On the other hand, it will almost inevitably opposed by force of
arms
>
> > No, a significant number of cases of secession exist with out
> > bloodshed,
>
> Sorry, poor wording. To be clearer: "if in the course of attempting
that
> withdrawal, you resort to force of arms, it will almost inevitably
opposed
> by force of arms in return"
>
> Although that should have been clear from context from what I next said:
>
> > > as well. Sensible folks exhaust their options under the rule of law
> > > first;
> > That (when legal options are exhausted) is a matter of opinion, many
> > people in what became the USA felt that patriots like Washington,
> > Jefferson and Adams were traitors to the King and Parliament and had
> > not at all exhausted options under rule of law. They were commonly
> > called Tories at the time, many of them joined the king's forces and
> > fought against patriots. Some of the worst atrocities of the American
> > Revolution were massacres of civilians of the other side by militia of
> > both sides.
>
> Yes. Others, like some of the conservatives in the Continental
Congress,
> felt that legal options were not exhausted, but sided with the colonies
once
> the revolution was in progress and once Independence was declared.
>
> Moreover, the British resorted to the use of force first, and before
> Independence was even (at least formally) on the table.
>
> > > the Southern states didn't come remotely close to that.
>
> > Matter of opinion. In fact I think that for them to have had a good
> > chance they should have seceded long before that, say right after the
> > annexation of Texas which stirred up a firestorm of North-South
> > hatred. The tide of demographics and economics was against them and
> > for them to win, they needed to do so when they had larger military
> > forces and capability in proportion to those of the north.
>
> They never gave a peaceable and legal secession a chance; whether they
> "should" have seceded at some prior justification is irrelevant to the
> question of how secession was conducted in late 1860 and early 1861.
The
> Southern states abandoned any pretense of conducting the secession via
legal
> means (act of congress, treaty, or the supreme court - any of which
could
> potentially have been viable) and instead proceeded unilaterally to
sieze
> federal property before Lincoln was even inaugurated.
You are missing a huge part of the argument. Namely that states and
their people voted to enter the union by state elections and state
legal processes, and they had just as much right to vote their way
right back out again without the federal government getting to say boo
about it. The constitution does not say that a state entering the
union is a one way event, and gives no explicit power to the federal
government to stop them, by that and the 9th and 10th amendment to the
constitution of the USA, the states and the people of them have the
power to seceed from the union.
As to the property, so what, all property of the Federal government is
in the end owned by the people of the USA, and people leaving a
partnership have the right to a proportional share of that property.
They sent delegations to the federal government to negotiate a final
settlement of property and the Feds, (Lincoln) refused to negotiate at
all. If your wife is leaving you and you refuse to negotiate about
property, it is not her problem if she grabs her clothes and a frying
pan to hit you with if you try and stop her.
>
> > > If the founding fathers had been so rash, the Revolution would have
> > > started in 1765 and been swiftly squashed.
>
> > I will agree that timing is critical, but not that waiting longer is
> > always wise, and exhausting legal recourse is a matter of opinion,
> > until you are dead. If you expect people to keep using legal recourse
> > till they are dead, that is expecting a lot.
>
> Funny that, when the Southerners fired the first shots at Fort Sumter.
Funny thing about how Lincoln was ignoring the results of numerous
landslide elections, and popular acts of state legislatures and
secession conventions in southern states to secede, and holding onto
federal property on the land of a seceded state and with the explicit
intent of enforcement of federal taxes on the citizens of that seceded
state.
Taxation w/o representation ring a bell?
Consent of the governed??
You must presume that the citizens of South Carolina had no right to
seceded exactly as they seceded from the UK some 90 odd years before,
if you are going to hold that Lincoln had the right to tax the people
of South Carolina, and maintain a fort for explicit purpose of
collection of such taxes, after they had passed ordinances of
secession and withdrawn their congressional delegation from
Washington.
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