Taken from:
http://www.kusd.edu/schools/lance/plati ... sters.html
"Southern states undoubtedly had the legal right to secede from the Union. In the preamble of the Constitution, it is stated that the Constitution was written to establish justice and to promote the general welfare of its people. However, stifling someone's main source of economic wealth, as the North did to the South's use of slavery, which was legal at the time of the South's secession, is not just to the South and does not promote the South's general welfare. It is a violation of the South's liberty. Therefore, when the Constitution is no longer benefiting the people, "it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such a government . . . . and to alter or abolish it," as it is stated in the Declaration of Independence. It became even more apparent that the South's liberty was in jeopardy when Lincoln was elected president in 1860 without a single vote from the South. This proved that the South had no power or say in their own government.
In Article1, Section 10 of the Constitution, it states all of the rights denied to the states. Not here, nor anywhere else in the Constitution, does it forbid the states not to secede. In fact, Amendment 10 says that all rights not specifically denied to the states belong to the states. Therefore, according to the Constitution, it was perfectly legal for the Southern states, or any state for that matter, to secede. In Article 4, Section 3, it states that no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state. However, in 1862, the state of West Virginia was formed completely within the borders of Virginia. When President Lincoln allowed West Virginia to secede from Virginia, he was clearly admitting what the Constitution already implied: secession was legal. Lincoln recognized that West Virginia was an individual state, even after its illegal secession. Therefore, Lincoln should have recognized the Confederacy as an independent nation, for, unlike West Virginia's act, the Confederacy's act was indeed legal.
When the colonists of America declared Independence from England, less than one hundred years before South Carolina seceded from the Union, we did so because we felt our rights as 'Englishmen' were not being acknowledged, and our government was not treating us fairly. The North does not question the judgement of those people when they broke away from their mother government, because the colonists were protecting what they felt was their jeopardized liberty. When South Carolina broke away from the U.S., it was because they felt that their rights as Americans were not being acknowledged, and that their government was not treating them as fairly as those people who lived in the north. Most importantly, the South's right of liberty was jeopardized. The South seceded in order to form a "more perfect union" and in doing so broke no laws. So in fact, the South had every reason and every legal right to secede from the United States of America. "
And now for my words on this topic;
Slavery was not the cause of the Civil War. Slavery was a key issue used to secede from the Union. The Civil war started because Fort. Sumter's garrison refused to leave, and also they kept the port blocked. The Confederacy, like any other government, saw this as an act of aggression, and fired on the fort. There was only one casuality, and he died because of a faulty cannon.
The more northerly Confederate states were generally willing to stay in the Union and seceded only after Lincoln demanded all states supply troops to put down the "rebellion". This action and this wording clearly demonstrates that Lincoln had no respect for the Constitution and was attempting to fundamentally redefine the nature of the federal government. The state of Virginia had previously voted against secession, and many future Confederate officers had opposed secession, but Lincoln showed them that drastic action was required. Lee put it best when he said that a union that had to be maintained through force of arms held no charm.
Some people believe that Confederates who had sworn to protect and defend the Constitution upon joining the US Army were traitors to their nation. This ignores the nature of the pre-war federal government, which in fact was forever perverted from the original intent of the founding fathers. At the time, the American people were citizens of individual states which were members of the United States, so when a state seceded, the citizens of the state were no longer affiliated with the national government.
Bottomline: The Constitution does not prohibit secession. All the Founding Fathers agreed on this, and it is impossible to think that the states would have agreed to a Union if there was no way to leave it. So the Constitution did not create an all-powerful national democracy but rather a confederation of states in which the rights of the states and the people were protected. The existence of the electoral college, the Bill of Rights, and US Senate clearly shows this, and although it is frequently ignored, the 10th Amendment specifically states that the rights not given to the federal government are the rights of the states and of the people. But if states do not have the right to secede, they have no rights at all. The Civil War destroyed the government created by the founding fathers by the might makes right method, a method the Republicans of the time used to quash Confederates and loyal Democrats alike. Although the Civil War freed the slaves, it ultimately enslaved us all. Continued bitterness by many southern people and defenders of the Constitution becomes understandable when you see the Civil War as an unjust war of conquest, or to many - the Second War of Independence.
Interesting Facts:
Lincoln himself was a racist, having stated his belief that black people were inferior. He opposed inter-racial marriage and supported a constitutional amendment to ship black people to Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean. Many Northerners were also racist. Laws were passed prohibiting emigration of former slaves into several Northern states, and white Union troops regularly insulted their black comrades. The 1863 draft riot in New York City involved mobs of potential draftees murdering defenseless black people in order to demonstrate their unwillingness to fight for emancipation. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued well into the war with the main purpose of preventing foreign intervention. The Proclamation freed slaves only in certain parts of the Confederacy, where Lincoln had no legal and little real authority. Slaves in the North, where the federal government had legitimate authority, were freed only after the war.
During the "Reconstruction" period, military governors were sent to take over Southern territories? Martial Law was declared and the South was militarily occupied.
If you value the constitution of the United States, the ideals of it's Founding Fathers, then you should not insult the confederates and denigrate their cause.
this emoticon only begins to express my rage.
- By wat0n
- By litwin
- By FiveofSwords