Shooting In South Carolina

[smh_23]

Revisionism always loses, but it does so at great and tedious cost to the victor.

Ask a revisionist what caused secession. He’ll tell you something vague or plainly incorrect – anything but the truth. Argue about it for an hour and he will have literally no choice but to admit that lo! slavery was the explicit cause of secession. Every other avenue he tried will have been snuffed out by his own inability to produce evidence.

Next he will claim that the North was no worse on the issue of slavery than the South. This will go on for a while until it is with great and frustrated reluctance accepted that “the North was nowhere remotely near as bad as the South” (which should be obvious given that the latter seceded explicitly because of anti-slavery sentiment emanating from and headquartered in the former [anti-slavery sentiment that, by the way, was translated by Northern lawmakers into actual laws in the period leading up to the war]) =/= “the North was perfect and totally harbored no racists and fought the war because #blacklivesmatter[/i].”

And on and on it will go. Now we have arrived at the “winners write the books” line. What does this mean? Nothing. It would mean something if it were attended by some evidence that the Union victors fabricated the historical facts under discussion, but nobody here believes that, e.g., the secession declarations were propagandist hoaxes perpetrated by some Orwellian committee of falsifiers. From there it is downright mechanical: nobody, save for a moral relativist, believes that the existential cause of the CSA is anything but morally reprehensible. Again, “winners write the books” doesn’t mean anything here. We’re not working with suspect evidence.

This has, in other words, been largely the same old song for me (well, almost the same old song: I hadn’t heard the screeching lunacy that you get when you play it backwards). However, TB and DD made good points, and I think I’ll adjust my position to maintain that CSA leaders should not be celebrated (with public money/property) in their capacities as CSA leaders. Thus the moral filth that is and always has been (remember: we aren’t moral relativists) the CSA cause, meaning, legacy gets what it deserves, but we can still honor the few complicated men who redeemed themselves while refusing to do something so stupid as to celebrate them qua Confederates.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]JR249 wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

Sorry, with all due respect, I’ve dealt with this subject so many times on PWI, it’s not worth repeating myself. But, quickly, the Tenth Amendment doesn’t solve the problem - the Tenth Amendment reads as a truism. Saying the Tenth Amendment resolves the issue is begging the question.

There is nothing in the text or the spirit of the Constitution giving rise to a right to unilaterally leave - and thereforr destroy - the Union. To allow such a scenario under the Constitution while at the same time painstakingly providing for the procedures and makeup of Congress is simply absurd. Why would the Framers create a complicated system of checks and balances that is supposed to (generally) provide for majority rule - with attendant needs to pass two houses, one populist in nature, one federalist, and to be signed by the elected chief executive - all of that trouble and thought to make federal laws, only for one state to have the (unwritten) power to undermine the whole process by claiming they have a power to walk away whenever they choose? Then why have states’ direct representation (via the Senate) if the state gets a secession veto?

Again, it leads to absurd results. You couldn’t secede under the Articles, and there is no reason to think that under the Constitution - designed to make the federal government stronger, not weaker - a state could secede.

And the Constitution isn’t silent on suppressing insurrection and rebellion - which is what secession is.

Feel free to run a search. It’s out there, multiple times.
[/quote]

I never said it resolves the issue, simply that I disagree with your interpretation that it’s a settled matter as you assert. Even that Supreme Court decision leaves open two paths, so even considering that, there is a potential process (i.e., revolution or consent of the states). A better argument would be that, in the case of the Confederacy, their path to secession was unconstitutional given the seizure of federal property and so forth, hence Lincoln’s hand was forced, and that was surmised in that Supreme Court case. I won’t detract from that thread by opening up a new argument, so agree to disagree then.[/quote]

No, that isn’t a better argument, because it presumes an answer to the question being considered - I.e., there is a right of secession, it’s just there is a threshold issue in order to bless its constitutionality - some issue must be big enough to justify secession, and if it’s small, it doesn’t meet the threshold. Again, that presumes the right exists in the first place - and there isn’t a compelling argument that it does.

Also, secession is not revolution, and there is no such thing as a constitutional right to revolt. That right exists independent of the Constitution.

EDIT: and to be clear, I fully understand that some people disagree with my assessment (which is far from my own). But I’ve been at this debate a good long while, and I can say without arrogance or exaggeration, I’ve never seen a modern argument that is at all compelling to support an idea that there is a constitutional right to secession.

[JR249]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

No, that isn’t a better argument, because it presumes an answer to the question being considered - I.e., there is a right of secession, it’s just there is a threshold issue in order to bless its constitutionality - some issue must be big enough to justify secession, and if it’s small, it doesn’t meet the threshold. Again, that presumes the right exists in the first place - and there isn’t a compelling argument that it does.

Also, secession is not revolution, and there is no such thing as a constitutional right to revolt. That right exists independent of the Constitution.
[/quote]

If this were true, what is the basis of the Supreme Court’s interpretation then (c.f. Texas v. White)?

The majority obviously found some merit in “revolution or consent of the states,” i.e., that the wording of the Constitution does indeed leave open a legal path for secession, even if we are to accept the argument that revolution =/= a secessionist revolt.

If everyone can agree that the Constitution is silent on the matter, and I don’t dispute that at all, then I find gaping holes in the notion that it prevents secession more than it allows it, simply because of the 10th, but most fittingly because there is a path created in that Supreme Court case if anyone pays attention to Salmon P. Chase’s majority decision. If anything else, since they interpret the Constitution, you can’t deny that is asserts a legal pathway, but that, in the same decision, it found that the CSA’s (specifically Texas’ path) wasn’t a legitimate one in the mid-19th century. You’re entitled to your interpretation, but it’s on weaker ground IMHO.

[JR249]

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

This has, in other words, been largely the same old song for me (well, almost the same old song: I hadn’t heard the screeching lunacy that you get when you play it backwards). However, TB and DD made good points, and I think I’ll adjust my position to maintain that CSA leaders should not be celebrated (with public money/property) in their capacities as CSA leaders. Thus the moral filth that is and always has been (remember: we aren’t moral relativists) the CSA cause, meaning, legacy gets what it deserves, but we can still honor the few complicated men who redeemed themselves while refusing to do something so stupid as to celebrate them qua Confederates.

[/quote]

I think this brings up a valid (rhetorical) question - if the majority embrace this concept, how far should taxpayer dollars go in reversing what already exists? Do we scrub all monuments on public land? Do we rename all public schools, facilities or institutions that, by name, pay homage to some of these treasonous individuals? Should all publicly funded institutions reconsider logos, slogans and/or mascots that are directly or indirectly paying homage to the cause? At some point there will be real taxpayer born costs to running this theme to fruition, if taken literally and gone to the other extreme.

I don’t really have an answer to that question, and since I live in IL, it won’t directly affect me as a taxpaying resident of a former confederate state where this issue needs to be confronted. However, I think there is room for legitimate debate in how far it may or may not go in resolving the larger issues of racial tension, discrimination, etc.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]JR249 wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

No, that isn’t a better argument, because it presumes an answer to the question being considered - I.e., there is a right of secession, it’s just there is a threshold issue in order to bless its constitutionality - some issue must be big enough to justify secession, and if it’s small, it doesn’t meet the threshold. Again, that presumes the right exists in the first place - and there isn’t a compelling argument that it does.

Also, secession is not revolution, and there is no such thing as a constitutional right to revolt. That right exists independent of the Constitution.
[/quote]

If this were true, what is the basis of the Supreme Court’s interpretation then (c.f. Texas v. White)?

The majority obviously found some merit in “revolution or consent of the states,” i.e., that the wording of the Constitution does indeed leave open a legal path for secession, even if we are to accept the argument that revolution =/= a secessionist revolt.

If everyone can agree that the Constitution is silent on the matter, and I don’t dispute that at all, then I find gaping holes in the notion that it prevents secession more than it allows it, simply because of the 10th, but most fittingly because there is a path created in that Supreme Court case if anyone pays attention to Salmon P. Chase’s majority decision. If anything else, since they interpret the Constitution, you can’t deny that is asserts a legal pathway, but that, in the same decision, it found that the CSA’s (specifically Texas’ path) wasn’t a legitimate one in the mid-19th century. You’re entitled to your interpretation, but it’s on weaker ground IMHO.
[/quote]

Texas v. White says states can leave via revolution or by consent - of course, it can, through consent. The states can come together in a constitutional convention and redo the arrangement, and that is provided for in the Constitution. That isn’t a right to secede - it’s a right to get everyone at the table and reach new consent. Consent means, well, consent - agreement.

Which is exactly what I have been saying all along. And Texas v. White, as a result, offers no “potential” avenue to secession.

[JR249]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

Which is exactly what I have been saying all along. And Texas v. White, as a result, offers no “potential” avenue to secession.
[/quote]

It only says “consent.” We have no specific explanation of what “consent” means from that decision, but it doesn’t specifically say that it has to be a constitutional convention per se either. If secession means to withdraw, it said only that it (TX) couldn’t do so unilaterally, but a constitutional convention generally implies a formal process to amend the document in whole or part.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]JR249 wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

Which is exactly what I have been saying all along. And Texas v. White, as a result, offers no “potential” avenue to secession.
[/quote]

It only says “consent.” We have no specific explanation of what “consent” means from that decision, but it doesn’t specifically say that it has to be a constitutional convention per se either. If secession means to withdraw, it said only that it (TX) couldn’t do so unilaterally, but a constitutional convention generally implies a formal process to amend the document in whole or part.
[/quote]

I suppose an argument can be made that Congress could vote on a state leaving, but I think that would be subject to debate. But regardless, that isn’t secession or an argument that the Constitution acknowledges and permits states to secede.

And there is nothing in Texas v. White that holds out a hope that maybe a right to secession could be legally blessed. Not if you read it.

[JR249]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

I suppose an argument can be made that Congress could vote on a state leaving, but I think that would be subject to debate. But regardless, that isn’t secession or an argument that the Constitution acknowledges and permits states to secede.

And there is nothing in Texas v. White that holds out a hope that maybe a right to secession could be legally blessed. Not if you read it.
[/quote]

I realize that the Constitution is silent on the issue, so it wasn’t my argument that it permits secession by explicit verbiage. There really isn’t any specific protocol laid out, and I don’t think anyone is arguing that.

I’d argue that there is a de facto right vis-a-vis the 10th, but that’s an interpretation, and it has never been substantiated by the Supreme Court under that premise. No, Texas v. White didn’t explore that issue, hence it didn’t find that there was a constitutional right to secede, BUT I’m confused on what you would consider secession to be. If secession is to withdraw, leave or otherwise no longer be a part of something, and in that case the language “there was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States,” then if we are to accept that “revolution” may be at odds with what’s acceptable per Article I, this whole “except through consent of the states” reads to me to be the possibility of a legal process, if the states consent - whatever that means, for states to withdraw. I see no other possible interpretation of its meaning. However, when all the dust has settled, since the Constitution is silent on the matter, you also can’t argue that there is any explicit legal precedent that a state cannot secede.

I didn’t mean to detract from the original discussion, the only thing I can add is that I interpret the secession legality differently than you do, but the whole “states cannot secede” argument doesn’t have any more validity than its counter, at least not in the sense that no language (amendment) has been added to the COTUS specifying one way or another, and I know of nothing post-White, from the SCOTUS, that has affirmed anything further on the matter.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]JR249 wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

I suppose an argument can be made that Congress could vote on a state leaving, but I think that would be subject to debate. But regardless, that isn’t secession or an argument that the Constitution acknowledges and permits states to secede.

And there is nothing in Texas v. White that holds out a hope that maybe a right to secession could be legally blessed. Not if you read it.
[/quote]

I realize that the Constitution is silent on the issue, so it wasn’t my argument that it permits secession by explicit verbiage. There really isn’t any specific protocol laid out, and I don’t think anyone is arguing that.

I’d argue that there is a de facto right vis-a-vis the 10th, but that’s an interpretation, and it has never been substantiated by the Supreme Court under that premise. No, Texas v. White didn’t explore that issue, hence it didn’t find that there was a constitutional right to secede, BUT I’m confused on what you would consider secession to be. If secession is to withdraw, leave or otherwise no longer be a part of something, and in that case the language “there was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States,” then if we are to accept that “revolution” may be at odds with what’s acceptable per Article I, this whole “except through consent of the states” reads to me to be the possibility of a legal process, if the states consent - whatever that means, for states to withdraw. I see no other possible interpretation of its meaning. However, when all the dust has settled, since the Constitution is silent on the matter, you also can’t argue that there is any explicit legal precedent that a state cannot secede.

I didn’t mean to detract from the original discussion, the only thing I can add is that I interpret the secession legality differently than you do, but the whole “states cannot secede” argument doesn’t have any more validity than its counter, at least not in the sense that no language (amendment) has been added to the COTUS specifying one way or another, and I know of nothing post-White, from the SCOTUS, that has affirmed anything further on the matter.[/quote]

Huh? Did I read you right - that you think Texas v. White left open the possibility that secession may be permissible under the Tenth Amendment? That makes no sense.

The Court held there was no right to secession under the Constitution, period, which of course covers the Tenth Amendment, being part of said Constitution. As a result, there absolutely is precedent that secession isn’t lawful.

[thunderbolt23]

To clear up any confusion:

Secession: I can formally leave without anyone’s permission.

Consent: I can leave, but I have to reach agreement with other interested parties.

Revolution: I can throw off a government that has over and over again denied me my natural rights, and I don’t need anyone’s permission or constitutional authority.

[JR249]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

Huh? Did I read you right - that you think Texas v. White left open the possibility that secession may be permissible under the Tenth Amendment? That makes no sense.

The Court held there was no right to secession under the Constitution, period, which of course covers the Tenth Amendment, being part of said Constitution. As a result, there absolutely is precedent that secession isn’t lawful.
[/quote]

No, I made that argument earlier - that the absence of specific verbiage prohibiting secession in the COTUS leads open that possibility, via the 10th Amendment and earlier state agreements, that secession is permissible that route alone, but that has never been validated by the courts. That was separate from Texas v. White, which I included in my argument as a separate opinion that left the door open, at least through “consent of the states.”

I realize Texas v. White, as a decision, didn’t address the constitutional question directly, i.e., that the ruling dealt with Texas and the confederate bond issue. However, it didn’t say that secession wasn’t a distinct possibility, only that UNILATERAL secession wasn’t permissible - there’s a difference here. By incorporating the wording “there was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States,” that whatever “consent of the states” means does in fact leave oven a non-unilateral, consensual door for a state of withdraw from the Union. We have no idea what that process would entail, but the verbiage is there in that decision. If that process, whatever it is, is permissible, then I fail to see how it would be unlawful unless the Supreme Court deems otherwise.

[JR249]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
To clear up any confusion:

Secession: I can formally leave without anyone’s permission.

Consent: I can leave, but I have to reach agreement with other interested parties.

Revolution: I can throw off a government that has over and over again denied me my natural rights, and I don’t need anyone’s permission or constitutional authority.

[/quote]

Ohhhhh, well there’s where we’re misunderstanding each other - semantics. I’ve seen nothing in the definition of secession that implies that it has to be unilateral. Even the dictionary definition states “the action of withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or body, especially a political state.” There is nothing there that implies leaving without anyone’s permission. Sure, I agree there must be consent, as ascertained in Texas v. White, so I guess I’m really misconstruing your definition. I’m arguing that there is a pathway to consensual secession, per the White case, assuming that secession means to simply withdraw, and doesn’t have to mean that it is done unilaterally.

[thunderbolt23]

[quote]JR249 wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
To clear up any confusion:

Secession: I can formally leave without anyone’s permission.

Consent: I can leave, but I have to reach agreement with other interested parties.

Revolution: I can throw off a government that has over and over again denied me my natural rights, and I don’t need anyone’s permission or constitutional authority.

[/quote]

Ohhhhh, well there’s where we’re misunderstanding each other - semantics. I’ve seen nothing in the definition of secession that implies that it has to be unilateral. Even the dictionary definition states “the action of withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or body, especially a political state.” There is nothing there that implies leaving without anyone’s permission. Sure, I agree there must be consent, as ascertained in Texas v. White, so I guess I’m really misconstruing your definition. I’m arguing that there is a pathway to consensual secession, per the White case, assuming that secession means to simply withdraw, and doesn’t have to mean that it is done unilaterally.
[/quote]

Now I think I understand you. I’ve been using “secession” specifically in the context of how slave states that unilaterally seceded prior to the Civil War (no consent) used and defended that term. As distinguished from a form of lawful withdrawal, via a constitutional convention for the moat authoritative and cleanest way.

But the Tenth Amendment wouldn’t impact that power. Lawful withdrawal - whatever its form - would be a purely federal matter.

[Varqanir]

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
To clear up any confusion:

Secession: I can formally leave without anyone’s permission.

Consent: I can leave, but I have to reach agreement with other interested parties.

Revolution: I can throw off a government that has over and over again denied me my natural rights, and I don’t need anyone’s permission or constitutional authority.

[/quote]

So if, for example, one people were to attempt to unilaterally “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume their separate and equal station”, this is by your definition absolutely “throwing off a government” and absolutely not “leaving without anyone’s permission or authority”?

Don’t know what kind of razor you are using to split these hairs, but it certainly isn’t Occam’s.

[2busy]

[quote]pushharder wrote:
This Saskatchewan Man Is Filing a Human Rights Complaint Because He Likes the Confederate Flag

http://www.vice.com/read/a-saskatchewan-man-is-filing-a-human-rights-complaint-because-he-likes-the-confederate-flag[/quote]

Figures.

Better beer and now this…

[smh_23]

[quote]Chushin wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
As for the interpretation of the CSA cause, I don’t see how perspective can alter a single thing (other than if we were to take the perspective of a Cliven Bundy). In the words of the Confederate heroes from Texas: “[Northerners] demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.” What does perspective alter about the preceding sentence?[/quote]

Well, if the US had gone the way of true federalism, that might very well have been looked back on as the respected words of a states’ rights hero who stood up to the feds.[/quote]

We can certainly conceive of many different lenses through which defense of slavery against a perceivedly meddling government might be celebrated. But I am talking about what is altered vis-a-vis the moral truth of the “heroes’” words. (I see now that “interpretation” was a bad word choice on my part.) It is repeatedly being claimed that nobody here is a moral relativist, and, at the same time, it’s being suggested that the sentence I excerpted above (and the larger cause at which it gets) would (somehow) acquire some different objective moral dimension by virtue of a Southern victory. It is contradictory and nonsensical, unless moral relativism is assumed. Like every feeble, roundabout way of refusing to call a Confederate spade a Confederate spade, “victors write history” communicates nothing intelligible while serving the general purpose of being a sentence made of words (which makes it seem like maybe it’ll do as a response to something). Of the straightforward, evidentially bulletproof factual and moral descriptions of the CSA that I’ve put forward in this thread, which would not apply in a counterfactual Southern-victory scenario? And by what mechanism? If the (absolute, objective) moral facts about a contest change with one victor or another, to which moral facts about Hitler’s related projects of ethnic-racial purity and nationalist expansionism does this logic apply?

As for memorialization, I think it’s better suited to a monument for the dead or for an event in which many died (e.g. the Peace Museum). In the case of an individual leader of something, the element of celebration cannot be rubbed off.

Edited.