DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post

**Svatudjw** · 08-16-2008, 02:00 AM

Had "Old Rough and Ready" survived his term and shown up with gunboats off the coast of Maine to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 -- and the north decided to secede -- would you have a different view of secession? Would this have been the president behaving in an authoritarian mode and undermining Jefferson's founding principles?

Yes I would have, because like the basis for the Confederacy, I consider the Fugitive Slave Act immoral, an affront to a guiding principle of the republic - inalienable rights of all men.

Lincoln states explicitly in his first inaugural address that he will use force to collect taxes and property. Recall that Fort Sumpter at the time was a federal construction project which began following the War of 1812. Lincoln was inaugurated in March, a month after SC and 6 other states seceded, federal property having already been seized throughout the new Confederacy. A large part of the US Army was surrendered when Texas seceded. Both Lincoln and his predecessor, James Buchanan, considered secession illegal, but on the subject of slavery, Lincoln expressed his position in his 1858 run for the Senate: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South. What I object to about this hypothesis of "Lincoln's War" is the implication that Lincoln engineered it with ulterior motives at the expense of innocent secessionists. The southern states believed that if not Lincoln, at some point in the future slavery would be abolished. The fight in the early republic was not the federal government vs, states' rights; it was a battle by both sides to control the federal government. Given the length of the terms, the Supreme Court that rendered Dred Scott was their only certainty for the foreseeable future

The Confederacy pushed the issue. Before the attack on Fort Sumter, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina rejected secession. After Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for volunteers from the states, and those 4 states refused, joining the Confederacy. West Virgina seceded from Virginia, and became a state. Then there's the violation of Kentucky neutrality.

One note on marshall law in Maryland: Look at a map. Virginia secedes. If Maryland follows, what happens to Washington DC?

08-16-2008, 02:00 AM	#42
Svatudjw Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 536 Senior Member	Had "Old Rough and Ready" survived his term and shown up with gunboats off the coast of Maine to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 -- and the north decided to secede -- would you have a different view of secession? Would this have been the president behaving in an authoritarian mode and undermining Jefferson's founding principles? Yes I would have, because like the basis for the Confederacy, I consider the Fugitive Slave Act immoral, an affront to a guiding principle of the republic - inalienable rights of all men. Lincoln states explicitly in his first inaugural address that he will use force to collect taxes and property. Recall that Fort Sumpter at the time was a federal construction project which began following the War of 1812. Lincoln was inaugurated in March, a month after SC and 6 other states seceded, federal property having already been seized throughout the new Confederacy. A large part of the US Army was surrendered when Texas seceded. Both Lincoln and his predecessor, James Buchanan, considered secession illegal, but on the subject of slavery, Lincoln expressed his position in his 1858 run for the Senate: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South. What I object to about this hypothesis of "Lincoln's War" is the implication that Lincoln engineered it with ulterior motives at the expense of innocent secessionists. The southern states believed that if not Lincoln, at some point in the future slavery would be abolished. The fight in the early republic was not the federal government vs, states' rights; it was a battle by both sides to control the federal government. Given the length of the terms, the Supreme Court that rendered Dred Scott was their only certainty for the foreseeable future The Confederacy pushed the issue. Before the attack on Fort Sumter, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina rejected secession. After Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for volunteers from the states, and those 4 states refused, joining the Confederacy. West Virgina seceded from Virginia, and became a state. Then there's the violation of Kentucky neutrality. One note on marshall law in Maryland: Look at a map. Virginia secedes. If Maryland follows, what happens to Washington DC?
	Quote