Interesting Take on the Civil War

[Guest032516]

Now COG, when the idiot who wrote this article said that secession was "legitimated by the consent of the people", he was referring only to consent of white people in the South, I assume?

I don't suppose the millions of black slaves were asked for their consent.

[CuteOldGuy]

It was only white people that consented to the Union in the first place. You're obviously out of rational arguments when you resort to racism. It is the last refuge of cowards.

BTW, it was your all knowing SCOTUS who made Dred Scott the law of the land at that time. Still want to argue how SCOTUS always gets it right?

How does that change the right to secede? Oh, yeah. It doesn't.

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

Actually the Supreme Court has said there is no right to secede.

And secession does not involve individual rights in any event.

So what. Just because SCOTUS ruled one way or the other doesn't prove anything. Not all Supreme Court rulings are correct. SCOTUS just upheld Obamacare with a 5-4 vote, and one of the votes apparently changed his mind at the last minute.

Whether secession is an individual right or not isn't relevant. The tenth amendment protects states rights, not individual rights.

[CuteOldGuy]

Some more from the first article in the series:

The United Nations Charter asserts the self-determination of peoples as a fundamental human right. From this, there has developed a lively debate among international jurists about whether the right of self-determination includes a right of legitimate secession. [1] But while the concept of legitimate secession is being explored in the world at large, it forms no part of contemporary American political discourse. There was a time, however, when talk about secession was a part of American politics. Indeed, the very concept of secession and self-determination of peoples, in the form being discussed today, is largely an American invention. It is no exaggeration to say that the unique contribution of the eighteenth-century American Enlightenment to political thought is not federalism but the principle that a people, under certain conditions, have a moral right to secede from an established political authority and to govern themselves. In what follows I would like to sketch out this all-but-forgotten American political tradition.

http://mises.org/daily/6344/Secessio...ican-Principle

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Some more from the first article in the series:

The United Nations Charter asserts the self-determination of peoples as a fundamental human right. From this, there has developed a lively debate among international jurists about whether the right of self-determination includes a right of legitimate secession. [1] But while the concept of legitimate secession is being explored in the world at large, it forms no part of contemporary American political discourse. There was a time, however, when talk about secession was a part of American politics. Indeed, the very concept of secession and self-determination of peoples, in the form being discussed today, is largely an American invention. It is no exaggeration to say that the unique contribution of the eighteenth-century American Enlightenment to political thought is not federalism but the principle that a people, under certain conditions, have a moral right to secede from an established political authority and to govern themselves. In what follows I would like to sketch out this all-but-forgotten American political tradition.

http://mises.org/daily/6344/Secessio...ican-Principle

The United States essentially seceded from Great Britain. When the southern states seceded, they were declaring their independence. If Thomas Jefferson had been alive he could have written their declaration too.

[i'va biggen]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

The Supreme Court is wrong, again. The right to secede is an essential right of a free people.

It is such a comfort to have a member of this board that knows so much more than the SCOUS .

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by i'va biggen

It is such a comfort to have a member of this board that knows so much more than the SCOUS .

Who is SCOUS?

[CuteOldGuy]

Then I suppose, Eva, that you support the Citizens United decision, Kelo, Dred Scott, and numerous other decisions that the can't-ever-be-wrong SCOTUS?

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Then I suppose, Eva, that you support the Citizens United decision, Kelo, Dred Scott, and numerous other decisions that the can't-ever-be-wrong SCOTUS?

Don't forget SCOTUS "selecting" George W.

[Laz]

Originally Posted by joe bloe

The United States essentially seceded from Great Britain. When the southern states seceded, they were declaring their independence. If Thomas Jefferson had been alive he could have written their declaration too.

I suspect Jefferson would have opposed succession.

[CuteOldGuy]

I think you are wrong.

RESOLVED: That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers:

That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1799

"If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation" over "union," "I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.'" - Thomas Jefferson

[Laz]

Yes and no. I agree that he believed the states had the right but I don't think he would have supported them exercising that right over the issue of slavery. While he owned slaves I do not think he would have opposed the elimination of the practice. He fought hard for the creation of the nation. It would have taken a lot for him to support its dissolution.

[CuteOldGuy]

That flies in the face of what Jefferson wrote after the nation was formed. And if you read the article, you'd know that slavery wasn't the only issue involved.

[CuteOldGuy]

Even Abraham Lincoln endorsed the right to secede, before he was elected President, of course.

In 1848, even Abraham Lincoln endorsed it: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world."

"Nor," said Lincoln, "is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the territory as they inhabit."

[Laz]

OK. I read the article and agree with most of what you stated. I am still not sure that Jefferson would have supported succession but he probably would have agreed that it was a legitimate action. Sadly the politicians back then in some ways were as stupid as the ones we have now with regards to economic policy. If they had been better the war could have been avoided.