The War according to the Constitution

[CWNut77]

So I have a day-to-day Civil War calendar on my desk at work. Here is today's excerpt that I thought I would post to inspire some intelligent debate:

"If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is nor rebellion...[Jefferson Davis's] capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one...We cannot convict him of treason."
-- U.S. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase

This brings up the inevitable question -- WAS the Civil War, in the end, totally unconstitutional?

I look forward to the debate that shall follow.

[Jabberwock]

Taking the opposite stance from my Grand Campaign manifesto:

<--- and posting it next to that picture

1. The Constitution was written with the intent of creating a "more perfect union" ... More perfect than the Articles of Confederation government. By June 26, 1788, eleven state conventions had ratified the Constitution. North Carolina and Rhode Island had not. At this point, the eleven states held a presidential election and started the new government. So by holding these conventions, the eleven states had seceded from the old government to start a new one.

2. Virginia and New York, in their resolutions of ratification, expressly asserted the right of the people of the states (their own people, and others by implication) to resume the powers they granted the national government under the Constitution, if those powers were ever used to their injury or oppression.

3. During the War of 1812, A convention of delegates from the New England states met at Hartford, CT ... to consider the question of seceding from the United States, as it was considered that national foreign policy was injuring those states. Their was no great public or official outcry about whether this group had a right to consider the question, or if they were traitors. Fortunately, the war ended before anything was decided.

4. After the United States was/were formed, as new citizens arrived (by birth or immigration), the natural tendency was to transfer the loyalty that had previously been given to individual states to the national government. This tendency was much stronger in areas with high immigration rates (the North and Northwest). With this transfer of loyalty went an expectation of the assumption of certain powers by the national government, and the setting of policies in the national interest. In those areas, it became fairly common during the 1850s to refer to "the United States" rather than "these United States".

5. Is Patrick Henry portrayed as a patriot or a traitor in American history books? He urged Virginians against ratifying the Constitution, foreseeing the possibility that it might be interpreted at the expense of "his people", and nobody of his generation fought harder for states rights.

[CWNut77]

Very good insights Jabber.

[Brochgale]

Informative thread - As I know nothing about war of 1812 and what possible historical consequences of it might have been.

[captainmatt]

Here are are few links on the Hartford Convention-

http://civilwar.bluegrass.net/secessioncrisis/hartfordconvention.html

http://www.usconstitution.net/hartford.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_Convention

- Capt. Matt

God Save the South AAR-
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?t=9204

[CWNut77]

Informative thread - As I know nothing about war of 1812 and what possible historical consequences of it might have been.

Well, there isn't much to know. There were some flashy events, but the war in the end decided nothing and for the greater part of it, the British had the upper hand. Some people call it the "Second War of Independence" but I don't find this quite that accurate. Also, if the British would have won the war I doubt they would have tried to "conquer" the Americas again. There would have been some penalties but nothing long-lasting IMO.

IMO the only thing it did was to prove that the young USA was able to sustain in a fight against a much more mature nation and their armed forces. Really though...in all honesty the Civil War was the first "real war" since the Revolution. The War of 1812 was no more than an episode and the Mexican War was never really taken seriously by the American people...and the Indian Wars weren't really "wars" per se.

[barkhorn45]

as i wrote in a previous post the governor of virginia was hesitant to sign the ratification but was told by the convention that it was nonbinding and his state could pull out of the union at anytime.
But Patrick Henry warned him"But some future president may invade your country{a "state"being a country at the time,how things have changed}and burn your homes".How prescient of the man,those were true men back then.

[boboneilltexas]

In the constitutional convention slavery was hotly debated and leaving it in was one of the areas of compromise. It can be argued that the republicans wanted to renage on this compromise. Should the South have been held to an agreement that some parties in the North did not wish to honor? Certainly we now recognize the right of succession - the clamor about the rights of the states of The Soviet Union to succeed.

[tagwyn]

Stand on Cemetery Hilll; Malvern Hill, the Sunken Road, Burnside's Bridge, the Corn Field, the Hornet's Nest etc. And, ask yourself that foolish question. THERE IS NO RIGHT OF SUCCESSION under the US Constitution. No State was forced to join the Union and no state once joined can succeed. That matter is closed on the ruins of my family's cotton plantation in Yalabusha County Mississippi. What can or can not be done in Russia is not relevant. apy:

[Rafiki]

(...) the clamor about the rights of the states of The Soviet Union to succeed.

No State was forced to join the Union and no state once joined can succeed.

Sorry guys, but surely you must be meaning to write "secede" here?

[Brochgale]

There is no equivalent between USA of 1861 AND the Soviet Union of more recent times - The Baltic States were once independent for a start and only swallowed post 45 officially. Also the Soviet Union was born mainly out of The decline of the Russian Imperial Empire. If history was a little differnet and the anti Bolshevik forces had succeeded in thier struggle then Russian Empire would have split completely into various parts - remember a newly formed Poland came out of the wreckage of the First World War.
There might be confusion here between States born out of colonies of Brit Empire and Nations that were part of the Russian Empire?
The USA was a union entered into by mutual agreement - the Soviet Union well there was nothing mutual about that?

[barkhorn45]

Stand on Cemetery Hilll; Malvern Hill, the Sunken Road, Burnside's Bridge, the Corn Field, the Hornet's Nest etc. And, ask yourself that foolish question. THERE IS NO RIGHT OF SUCCESSION under the US Constitution. No State was forced to join the Union and no state once joined can succeed. That matter is closed on the ruins of my family's cotton plantation in Yalabusha County Mississippi. What can or can not be done in Russia is not relevant. apy:

read my above post concerning seccesion and this:
U.S. Constitution "The Right To Secede" March 4, 1789

The first union of the original 13 colonies was effected by the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. The articles established a confederation of sovereign states in a permanent union. The "permanence" lasted only until 1788, when 11 states withdrew from the confederation and ratified the new Constitution, which became effective on March 4, 1789. The founding fathers recognized the defects in the Articles of Confederation, learned from these defects, and scrapped the articles in favor of the "more perfect union" found in the Constitution.

Nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of the union of the states being permanent. This was not an oversight by any means. Indeed, when New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia ratified the Constitution, they specifically stated that they reserved the right to resume the governmental powers granted to the United States. Their claim to the right of secession was understood and agreed to by the other ratifiers, including George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention and was also a delegate from Virginia. In his book Life of Webster Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge writes, "It is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton to Clinton and Mason, who did not regard the new system as an experiment from which each and every State had a right to peaceably withdraw." A textbook used at West Point before the Civil War, A View of the Constitution, written by Judge William Rawle, states, "The secession of a State depends on the will of the people of such a State."

Well into the 19th century, the United States was still viewed by many as an experimental confederation from which states could secede just as they had earlier acceded to it. It took a bloody war to prove them wrong.

Fascinating Fact: It is significant that no Confederate leader was ever brought to trial for treason. A trial would have brought a verdict on the constitutional legality of secession. Federal prosecutors were satisfied with the verdict that had been decided in battle.

[barkhorn45]

here's something else i just got done ready[this discusion got my interest.

Let's look at a few quotations. Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." Fifteen years later, after the New England Federalists attempted to secede, Jefferson said, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation ... to a continuance in the union .... I have no hesitation in saying, 'Let us separate.'"

At Virginia's ratification convention, the delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." In Federalist Paper 39, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, cleared up what "the people" meant, saying the proposed Constitution would be subject to ratification by the people, "not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong." In a word, states were sovereign; the federal government was a creation, an agent, a servant of the states.

[Franciscus]

Interesting discussion. A few thoughts:
- The unfortunate matter of slavery can not be separated from this. Not the only reason, of course, but it was mainly the "right" of the states to maintain, if they wished so, to keep slavery as an institution that was defended by the champions of the states rights. Of course, I have no doubts that sooner more than later, even if CSA had won the war, it would have ended. Also, most of the men that fought and died for the south had no slaves and most even had no personal interest in that "peculiar institution"
- The arguments about the states right to secede have logic. I even agree that legally they HAD that right. But as already said, that was debatable, led to a war and was settled by the victors (as permanently as we little humans tend to call permanent our lives, countries and institutions )

[barkhorn45]

since the title of this thread is "the war according to the constitution"let's look at a few thing's.
first lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeous corpus,one of the cornerstone of our freedom in this country.he arrested and did not charge many people,copperheads and newspaper editors and ordinary citizen for seditious viewpoints which is also a violation of the first amendment,the freedom of the press and speech.
as for the question of slavery he stated that if he could save the union by freeing one slave he would do so,if by freeing all the slaves he would do so,if by freeing no slaves he would do that also.so much for slavery being the main impetus for the war imo.
i know it is politically correct these day's to say the war was fought over slavery but i believe it really was a states right's issue.but it was the abuse of the constitution that bothers me.
take recent supreme court ruling's,that case in louisiana should not have been heard in the s.c.that was a state issue under that states law and therefor not subject to federal approval or dissaproval.
and don't get me started on the issue of giving foreign terrorist's the same rights as an american citizen that was insane.
i believe if you brought the founding father's to the present day the first thing they would do is start a rebellion against this increasingly socialist and i ntrusive government

[Korrigan]

[color="Blue"]This discussion has reached a point far beyond AACW and Civil War History and is now entering into the political debate sphere.

While AGEod does not express nor support any political opinion, we think there is plenty of forums elsewhere on the internet and that a forum dealing with PC games is not the appropriate place to discuss these subjects.

Thread closed.

Korrigan[/color]