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There really was (a lot) more to the Civil War than slavery. Joel Send a noteboard - 24/10/2011 07:08:39 AM
Our independence was founded on several notions, but all of them centered on the basic principles of the Glorious Revolution - freedoms of speech and the press, and a right to representation. The "taxation without representation is tyranny" statement was a very strong one. We were using the same language used in 1688 and upon which, as is rightly mentioned by the defenders of our independence, the British political system was founded.

By contrast, the secession of the Southern states was the exit from a nation of states represented in Congress, able to vote for President and with all the rights enshrined in the Constitution, on the grounds that the states wanted to preserve the right to determine whether or not they could buy, sell and own other human beings. Even Jefferson Davis realized that the moral grounds for the South's existence were shaky, and the irony of it all is that Davis was far more of an autocrat in the South than Lincoln was in the North, for reasons of expediency.

Just as Marbury v. Madison declared that the power to appoint does not automatically grant the power to revoke (along with establishing the Supreme Court's power of judicial review), so the Civil War established that, absent an affirmative right to leave the Union, states cannot dissociate themselves from it if they are properly represented, and the Tenth Amendment is a truism - the states have only those powers which the Federal government has not arrogated to itself.

QED.

While the Civil War denied de facto and the SCOTUS subsequently denied de jure (or ex post facto) the states' right to secede, it was firmly established during the Constitutions ratification process. Again, without explicit assurances to the several states that they DID retain the right to withdraw at will, that ratification would probably never have occurred. That coupled with the powerful arguments the Constitutions author made for secessions legitimacy make it hard to see how secession is on the same level as Marbury v. Madison. There is a great difference between a federal power spontaneously claimed as a given and a state right affirmed by the Constitutions author and vital to its ratification.

As to the Civil War specifically, again, though slavery was inextricably bound up with its larger and longer enduring issues, it was far from the whole or even primary reason. Many Northern leaders were far from champions of slaves just as many Southern ones were far from champions of slavery (though, if memory serves, Davis WAS an advocate of slavery, as such.) For one thing, the issue of secession itself loomed large for the reasons already discussed, and had done so for decades during which most Northerners were no more averse to slavery than most Southerners. Secession first reared its head in practical terms when NORTHERNERS came to resent and even fear Virginias status as "The Mother of Presidents," not because the good people of MA felt their "right" to own people was threatened.

Fundamentally, the Civil War was more about the balance of Northern vs. Southern and mercantile/industrial vs. agrarian power than slavery. Likewise, popular sovereignty was more about those issues than about slavery; it was the only viable alternative to the Wilmot Proviso or an equivalent permanently confining planters to the existing Southern states while Northern industrial and mercantile interests spread across the continent until they dominated the political system. That was the real crux of the Civil War: Whether America would be, and be ruled by, yeoman farmers self sufficiently living off land they owned and thus independent in fact as well as name (as Jefferson envisioned,) or a mercantile industrial nation. Needless to say, the latter view prevailed by force of arms rather than law, and all Americans, regardless of color, were "freed" to owe their soul to the company store. Former slaves in the South enjoyed a brief period of political power before their liberators celebrated the centennial of America freedom by betraying them with the Corrupt Bargain of 1876, looking the other way as the South inaugurated a century of Jim Crow in exchange for the presidency. All uncertainty about the Civil Wars root cause vanished then; the Civil War was, on many levels, the culmination of the conflict between Jefferson and Hamiltons vision of America, finally and bloodily decided in the latters favor, with slavery a largely incidental concern. A century and a half later many of the same rural vs. urban and agricultural vs. industrial conflicts remain bitterly divisive, because they were never really addressed.

The tragic irony is that not only should the Civil War not have been taken as a(n unconstitutional) revocation of states rights, but that ending slavery was itself eminently constitutional under the very Amendment the Civil War is invoked to dismiss.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

That statement contains a very clear order of precedence that should be obvious to anyone familiar with Constitutional law. Powers the Constitution does not grant the federal government or deny the states resides with them. Yet what of powers not granted to the federal government that ARE denied to the states? "Or to the people" covers those powers by exclusion. If there were any ambiguity, the Ninth Amendment ought to remove it:
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
That means that just because the Constitution does not explicitly state one person may not own another does not deny anyones freedom not to be owned. Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution states,
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof
while the 1st Clause of Section 2 further states,
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States,
and if even THAT is too vague, Wikipedia quotes the SCOTUS in Corfield v. Coryell (in 1823) stating that includes
protection by the Government; the enjoyment of life and liberty ... the right of a citizen of one State to pass through, or to reside in any other State, for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the State; to take, hold and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the State.
That does no invalidate the Fugitive Slave Clause, per se, but DOES make it effectively useless for pursuing fugitive slaves rather than other people
held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another....


More simply, slavery is not a valid application of states rights, but an invalid and unconstitutional infringement of the peoples rights under the Constitution. Acknowledging and correcting that injustice was not only possible but obligatory. Failing to clearly and firmly establish that principle was bad enough, but doing so in preference for unconstitutionally dismissing states rights (which continue to be selectively invoked and repudiated as convenient) was unconscionable. Not only did it attach the stigma of racism to the Constitutions vital defence of states rights against federal abuses, but the principle that no man has the "right" to abuse another continues to rely on the several states to establish it to whatever extent they wish (or not.) Ironically, the denial of THAT right in cases like gay marriage and abortion is one of the areas where many still value states rights. That, of course, only underscores the need to draw the distinction properly, however belatedly; no state has the right to order anyones personal life, not because state rights are invalid, but because personal rights must trump state authority as assuredly as states rights must trump federal authority. In both cases, the superior authority is predicated on and exists to serve the rights of its constituents.
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To all of my British friends here - Get Over It! - 24/10/2011 02:09:32 AM 640 Views
"Treason never prospers, what's the reason? If it prospers, none dare call it treason." - 24/10/2011 04:37:20 AM 447 Views
Your knowledge of the English Civil War/Revolution is execrable - 24/10/2011 05:04:53 AM 404 Views
Sorry, I get them mixed up because they kept going back and forth from James to Charles. - 24/10/2011 05:29:19 AM 413 Views
Please, just quit while you're behind. - 24/10/2011 05:42:07 AM 385 Views
I will add them to the list then. - 24/10/2011 07:15:03 AM 415 Views
It's a false analogy to compare the Civil War with the Declaration of Independence. - 24/10/2011 05:38:04 AM 418 Views
There really was (a lot) more to the Civil War than slavery. - 24/10/2011 07:08:39 AM 405 Views
Revolutions, by definition, change the definition of "legal". - 24/10/2011 08:50:23 AM 358 Views
I suppose that is the "glass half full" way of looking at it. - 24/10/2011 11:29:22 AM 374 Views
They have a point. - 24/10/2011 06:43:31 PM 366 Views

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