Honoring a great president.

[mrmitchell]

First of all, there was no CSA at the time - it was South Carolina. Secondly, as MtG can, at length, discuss, the US attacked a fort in Florida prior to Sumter.

Link please

[David Floyd]

CurtSibling,

I thought it was fair enough.

So, please indulge my question first.

Could you have handled the Civil war, with all it's attached racial strife, and still kept both Union and Constitution intact?

If Lincoln was such a flop, how would YOU have done things different?

I'm not going to address the question because it's irrelevant. Asking that question assumes that one can only legitimately criticize if one can do the job better. While I feel that I could have handled the situation better than Lincoln (better as defined by me, anyway) I don't feel that this is necessary for me to point out what Lincoln did wrong. Again, you asking me that question is functionally the same as me asking you that question about Hitler if you say that the Holocaust was bad.

mrmitchell,

Actually I was wrong on the CSA bit. The CSA did exist and can be considered responsible for the order to fire on Sumter. However, Lincoln ordered the fort to be resupplied, and this resupply would necessarily have passed through CSA territory. Also known as invasion.

Either way, though, this is a side issue. MrFun knows damn well that Lincoln would have called for an army to fight the CSA regardless of the presence of absence of federal forts, and in fact, Lincoln at first wished that Buchanan had simply abandoned Sumter in order to dodge the problem.

[mrmitchell]

I was talking about the Floridan fort

[David Floyd]

MtG knows far more than I do on the subject. Again, though, side issue.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by David Floyd

Either way, though, this is a side issue. MrFun knows damn well that Lincoln would have called for an army to fight the CSA regardless of the presence of absence of federal forts, and in fact, Lincoln at first wished that Buchanan had simply abandoned Sumter in order to dodge the problem.

There were two reasons that showed that secession was not justified:

minority rule imposing its positions onto the majority is unconstitutional

federal government property is not the property of the individual states


So even if, hypothetically, the second case did not exist on which Lincoln could have acted, he certainly could have acted the way he did, based on the first case (majority rule).

By majority rule, I mean that the minority were the planter politicians and their proslavery supporters who sought to expand slavery into western territories.

[MrFun]

Not to mention that the secession movement was not even democratic -- only Texas submitted the decision on secession to popular vote.

[David Floyd]

minority rule imposing its positions onto the majority is unconstitutional

1)Not necessarily true, which is why the majority is limited as to what it can do to the minority.

2)Irrelevant. By seceding, the minority was NOT imposing its positions on the majority. They were simply leaving.

federal government property is not the property of the individual states

That's clear enough. You'll run into more problems, though, when you try to define federal property.

So even if, hypothetically, the second case did not exist on which Lincoln could have acted, he certainly could have acted the way he did, based on the first case (majority rule).

I disagree. Secession is valid under the 9th and 10th Amendments. Therefore the CSA was a legitimate nation. That being the case, Lincoln would have required a declaration of war from Congress in order to go to war. On that basis alone, his actions fail.

Secondly, majority rule has nothing to do with secession. The seceding states didn't like what the PLURALITY said - Lincoln was elected by 39.9% of the electorate in 1860, remember - so they simply left.

By majority rule, I mean that the minority were the planter politicians and their proslavery supporters who sought to expand slavery into western territories.

But that isn't the question. The question is whether or not secession is Constitutionally permissible, and whether or not Lincoln had any power to prevent it. In a broader framework, this thread is about Lincoln himself, and my point is that he acted tyrannically.

[David Floyd]

Not to mention that the secession movement was not even democratic -- only Texas submitted the decision on secession to popular vote.

Then by that argument, Lincoln wasn't democratically elected, because he wasn't elected by the popular vote, but by a minority of the popular vote and through the Electoral College. You can't have it both ways.

Not to mention this is an irrelevant point - it is up to the States to decide the method for secession, not the federal government.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MrFun
minority rule imposing its positions onto the majority is unconstitutional

Then stop pushing for gay marriage.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Then by that argument, Lincoln wasn't democratically elected, because he wasn't elected by the popular vote, but by a minority of the popular vote and through the Electoral College. You can't have it both ways.

Not to mention this is an irrelevant point - it is up to the States to decide the method for secession, not the federal government.

HELLO -- Lincoln WAS elected through a process that included the popular vote, but it turned out in his first election that he won by the majority of the electoral vote, rather than by the popular vote.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Then stop pushing for gay marriage.

Minority groups are to be protected through constitutional law.

Since Lincoln explicitly stated that he was not for abolishing slavery before the Civil War, there was no threat to the Southern states.

The planter politicians exaggerated the influence of the abolitionist minority in the North, to the extent that they believed that Lincoln's election meant abolishment of slavery. But I don't think that would have been the case.


So unlike gays, planter politicians were not about to have their "rights" -- this case, to property (slaves) -- taken away.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm sure, could be argued, but by suspending habeas corpus, among other things, he certainly didn't act like it.

The Constitution allows for the suspension of habeus corpus in "Cases of Rebellion" in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2. The clause does not state how is must come about and does not say Congress must initiate it. Before you say that Article 1 is only about Congress, I direct you to look at Art 1, Sec 10, Clause 1 which is all about what the States cannot do. (And of course in Art 2 and 3, which are 'supposed' to be about the President and the Courts have powers delegated to Congress, so why can't Art 1 have power delegated to the President?)

[MrFun]

I love you Imran.

[Imran Siddiqui]

As long as it is just platonic and you don't want to go to San Francisco and get rings made up.... I'm ok with it .

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
As long as it is just platonic and you don't want to go to San Francisco and get rings made up.... I'm ok with it .

oh, it's just platonic