From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL> To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Re: Interesting Inventions Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 14:32:39 -0500 Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Ron, Negative on this one, too. This is no right of secession anywhere in the US Constitution and any argument based on a supposed right of secession is invalid. The authors and amenders of the Constitution had plenty of opportunity to include an opt-out clause and choose not to. They included provisions for entering the Union but no provision for leaving. Congress acts as the membership committee of the Union when it approves a new state entering. California actually tried to organize as a state without Congressional approval in 1850, and they were turned down and made to wait in territorial status until Congress approved. This was done at the demand of the Southern members of Congress. Also see the cases of Vermont, Tennessee, Deseret, and Jefferson. This shows that there is no right of unilateral accession and by parallel reasoning no right of unilateral secession. We therefore see that there is no right of secession in the actual language, and none can be construed from the absence of language. In theory, a state can leave the Union if it secures the consent of Congress but none of the Confederate States attempted that. As shown by historical cases in another post to this list, the actual Confederate belief about secession was extremely self serving and inconsistent. The Confederate States aggressed against the United States by (1) creating an illegal and unconstitutional government within the borders of the United States; (2) seizing the property of the United States without compensation; (3) laying serious plans for annexing non-Confederate States by force; (4) creating an army of 75,000 mean when the total US Army was less than 16,000 men; (5) knowlingly firing on an unarmed food ship resupplying a Federal installation; and (6) knowlingly firing on a Federal installation (Fort Sumter) that was not offering harm to any "Confederate" citizens or territory. As President of the United States, Lincoln not only had the right but duty to suppress the rebellion and his subsequent actions flowed from that right and duty. The US Congress ratified Lincoln's actions in a timely manner and the US Supreme Court later said that the Constitution looks to an indestructable union of indestructable states. It is certainly true that Lincoln did not originally fight to free the slaves, but to preserve the Union that the Southern States had voluntarily agreed to. That is still a moral principle. When Lincoln adding the goal of freeing the slaves, that simply meant that we had two moral bases rather than one. Why did the South secede (or attempt to secede)? Tariffs and internal improvements were contributing factors, but the key reason was slavery. The Confederates said so at the time, and I think we can trust them on this issue. Bottom line: The US Civil War of 1861-65 was a moral war, fairly fought and fairly won by the United States. I give the final word here to Robert E. Lee who said that the Confederate States had submitted the issue to the judgement of God as expressed by the sword and God had decided against them. May God (as you understand God to be) bless all Americans. Lee -----Original Message----- From: ronkean at juno.com [mailto:ronkean at juno.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2002 4:36 PM To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net Subject: [WSFA] Re: Interesting Inventions On Tue, 2 Apr 2002 15:57:45 -0500 "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL> writes: > > -----Original Message----- > From: ronkean at juno.com > Some go so far as to call it The War of Northern Aggression. > > > A common term in the South, but factually incorrect. Technically, the South agressed first, when they fired shots at a federal fort. But in the larger picture, I think it may be fair to say that the North aggressed against the South more so than vice-versa, because the Southern war aim was merely to be allowed to secede, whereas the Northern aim was to conquer the South and re-incorporate it into the Union. The question really turns on whether the Northern aggression was justified. Before the Civil war, it was generally agreed (so I have read) that states have a right to secede. If it were not for the strong will of Lincoln to uphold the Union, I think it is likely that Southern secession could have been peacefully negotiated, and if someone else had been president, that might well have happened. Connecticut, I think, actually passed a secession bill in protest of the War of 1812, though they did not apparently follow through with it. It would be interesting to know whether Connecticut's act of secession was ever formally repealed. Given that secession was a right of states, the Northern war aim was unjustifed, on the face of it. Also, the South was being victimized by unfair import and export tax policies, which had the effect of taxing the South disproportionately more than the North, since the South was more dependent on exports than the North. Also, the import tax protected Northern industrial interests, enhancing their profit margins at the expense of domestic buyers of manufactured goods, including buyers in the South. But there was also the great evil of slavery at issue, so it yet may be argued that right was more on the side of the North. It is far from conclusive, though, that ending slavery was really a Northern war aim. Slavery ended because the South was politically powerless to prevent its abolition, after the war. Ron Kean