Why dont Americans mark their Civil War like the British do WW2?

[Limitool]

No wonder any aliens visiting here wouldn't know if us humans are the higher intelligence or an ant hill in Africa. Us humans fight each other like "animals" with some nasty weapons. The ants go for hand to hand combat. Why would any alien not be confused on who to contact.

I don't begrudge rich people at all... in fact I look up to most of them. Anybody can be rich if your smart enough in this country. To much envy by those who don't "have" what others do.

 

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[BosnMate]

Others have already posted about memorial day starting out as Decoration Day. My mother was born on Decoration Day in 1911, and she remembered her early birthdays because they were always spent at the cemetery, listening to fat old men give speeches, and she had to sit still and listen or suffer the consequences. This was in San Luis Obispo, California, and she remember the old veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic forming up at the court house, and slow marching to muffled drums to the cemetery, which was a big deal, because that was a long walk. Then after WWI Decoration Day became Memorial Day to honor the war dead, and that evolved into putting flags on veterans graves, and flowers for everyone else. Now it's a three day weekend, and locally we will have a memorial service at the National Cemetery put on by veteran organizations, and the civilian cemetery will have a service by the Boy Scouts I think, I know they do something there. I go to the National Cemetery and then to the picnic at the park with the other veterans that put that on. The Civil War graves will get the same flags as all other veterans, and know one will single them out for any honors above the rest. As the saying goes, "All gave some, some gave all." If the weather is nice, we will often have a fly over of f-16's at 11AM, which I love to see.

 

[Number9]

Many events are local and not well known outside an area.

This was today in Chattanooga, TN...

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I see some still try to say Civil War was about slavery, it was about state rights.

Lincoln offered a deal to the South to push a Constitutional amendment through congress and be passed recognizing slavery and for ever ensuring slavery in the South if Southern states would return to the Union, it was refused by the South......If it had been about slavery they would have excepted Lincoln's deal. South fought for states rights, the right of the states to govern their selves...... Basically the same thing the 10th amendment of our constitution states....

 

[kayakpat]

The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries."

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Abraham Lincoln Endorses
Permanent Slavery Amendment

WASHINGTON (CHF) -

In his first Inaugural Speech, on March
4, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln approved a Constitutional
Amendment that would guarantee permanent slavery in the
United States.

Lincoln stated in his Speech,

"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution has
passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government
shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States,
including that of persons held to service. Holding such a
provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no
objection to its being made express and irrevocable."
See Lincoln Inaugural Speech

This Permanent Slavery Amendment that Lincoln endorsed was
passed on March 2, 1861 by a vote of over 66% of both
Houses of the U. S. Congress, after most Southern States had
withdrawn from the United States and had formed their own
nation, the Confederate States of America.

If ratified by 3/4 of the States, this Northern sponsored
Constitutional Amendment would prevent the federal
government from ever abolishing or interfering with slavery in
any State in the United States.

If the Southern States wanted slavery protected forever, then all
they would have to do is return to the Union and ratify this
Constitutional Amendment.

But, because the Southern States left the Union to avoid
Lincoln's newly passed 40% import tax (see below) and not to
protect slavery, few experts expect the South to return.

The Northern Permanent Slavery Amendment reads,

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will
authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere,
within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including
that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said
State."
See Northern Permanent Slavery Amendment

This overwhelming 66% vote by the Northern controlled U. S.
Congress proves that the North officially and openly supported
slavery and has exposed, as a farce, the North's pretensions of
being opposed to slavery.

Had the North been opposed to slavery, they would not have
passed such an Amendment supporting slavery.

Moreover, on the very same day, Congress also passed the
Morrill Tariff Act, the highest import tax in U.S. history, which
raised import taxes on Southerners from 20% to 40%.

Analysts see the Permanent Slavery Amendment passed by
the U.S. Congress and endorsed by Lincoln as a political
maneuver by the North to bring the Southern States back into
the Union to pay this new higher 40% tax to finance the U.S.
Government and subsidize Northern business monopolies.

If, as Lincoln claims, the issue for withdrawing from the Union
was slavery, then the Southern States would immediately return
to the Union and ratify this Constitutional Amendment and, of
course, pay Lincoln's oppressive 40% tax.

But, because the issue to Southerners is self-government and
unfair taxes and not slavery, it is unlikely they will return.

Further justifying the South's right to independence is the fact
that Lincoln was elected President of the United States in a four
way race by only 39% of the popular vote (he did not receive
even one vote in the deep South).

During the Presidential Campaign, Abraham Lincoln had
promised the public and especially his financial supporters,
mostly large monopolies in the Northeast, that he would double
the sales tax on imported goods to the South from 20% to 40%,
if elected, which would make these rich monopolies richer.

The Southern States have evidently remembered how South
Carolina was subjected to the Force Bills to collect the Tariff of
Abominations passed by the U. S. Congress in 1832, because
this time most Southern States left the Union before the new tax
law passed, to avoid being subject to such force bills.

And the South certainly knew the passage of the new tax law
was imminent, since they were now greatly outvoted in
Congress by the Northern States, as a result of the recent
national election, in which a large number of high tax Senators
and Representatives were elected.

Since Southerners exported and imported 80% of the nation’s
goods, they have paid 80% of the nation’s import taxes for
many years now, although they represented only 33% of the
United States population.

The South contended that this unequal taxation violated the
United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8(1) and was both
unfair and burdensome to Southerners.

And even worse for the South, 80% of this tax revenue was then
spent up North on Northern canals and railroads, instead of in
the Southern States.

This high import tax (sales tax on imported goods) forced the
price of products from England and France to be increased
20% higher, just to pay the tax.

This 20% increase in the price of imported goods, because of
the tax, then allowed Northern manufacturers to raise their
prices 20%, which in turn established very rich monopolies in
the North.

This Northern price gouging and very unfair situation that has
existed with the 20% tax rate will be made totally unbearable by
Lincoln’s new 40% sales tax on imported goods, which will
financially ruin many Southerners.

Also in his Inaugural Speech, Lincoln made it clear that there
would be no invasion of the Confederate States, except to
collect taxes and possess tax collection forts.

In his Speech, Lincoln refused to mention slavery, at all, as a
reason to invade the South; and instead, Lincoln endorsed the
Permanent Slavery Amendment recently passed by Congress.

Lincoln stated in his Speech,

"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and
possess the property and places belonging to the government,
and to collect the duties and imposts (import taxes); but beyond
what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no
invasion, no using of force against or among the people
anywhere."
See Lincoln Inaugural Speech

The only property belonging to the federal government that
Lincoln said he is willing to invade the Confederate States to
possess are two tax collection forts: Fort Sumter at the
entrance to Charleston Harbor in South Carolina and Fort
Pickens at the entrance to Pensacola Bay in Florida.

Therefore, if there is to be a war, observers are predicting that
Lincoln will start the war by invading Charleston Harbor with
warships to hold Fort Sumter, a tax collection fort.

Furthermore, the above official, legal support for permanent
slavery by Abraham Lincoln and the U.S. Congress is
irrefutable proof that the war will be fought totally over unfair,
oppressive taxes and will not be fought over slavery at all.

Many fear that Lincoln's War Against Southern Independence
will result in the destruction of State sovereignty and local self-government and the establishment of an all powerful centralist federal government with higher taxes and fewer liberties.

http://confederateheritage.org/Lincoln-Endorses-Permanent-Slavery-Amendment.html

 

[kayakpat]

The Civil War started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. When Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a platform pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the deep South seceded and formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The incoming Lincoln administration and most of the Northern people refused to recognize the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would discredit democracy and create a fatal precedent that would eventually fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries."

 

[kayakpat]

It is actually spelled out in the declaration of sucession in the statement of South Carolina. " Read it your self"



Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union



The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.


And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."


They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."


In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments - Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."


Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms:


"ARTICLE 1 - His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."


Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.


The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.


If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were - separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.
By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that 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. On the 23d May, 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.


Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.


We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.


In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.


The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows:


"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.


The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.


The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.


We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.


For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.


This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.


On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.


The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.


Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.


We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.


Adopted December 24, 1860

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Why Did the South Secede?

Nearly all textbooks give the impression that the South withdrew from the Union merely to protect the institution of slavery. This is a misleading, overly simplistic characterization. Slavery was not the only factor that led the South to secede. In fact, some of the wealthiest slaveholders opposed secession. They believed, for good reason, that slavery would actually be safer in the Union than out of it. Historian William Klingaman notes that even Lincoln argued that the South would have a harder time protecting slavery outside the Union:

But secession, Lincoln argued, would actually make it harder for the South to preserve slavery. If the Southern states tried to leave the Union, they would lose all their constitutional guarantees. . . . (Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Press, 2001, p. 32)

Most people aren’t aware that, even as president, Lincoln supported a proposed constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed slavery’s continuation forever. Lincoln mentioned his support for this amendment in his first inaugural address. In the years leading up to the Civil War, Lincoln acknowledged that slavery was protected by the Constitution. He also supported the Fugitive Slave Law. Therefore, some Southern statesmen didn’t believe Lincoln was going to threaten slavery’s existence. Yet, they supported secession anyway.

Most Southern leaders who advocated secession in order to protect slavery did so because they believed that Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress would try to abolish slavery by unconstitutional means and that Southern slaveholders would not receive compensation for their slaves. Southern spokesmen felt this would be unfair, since Northern slaveholders had been able to receive compensation for their slaves when most Northern states had abolished slavery several decades earlier. They knew that emancipation without compensation would do great damage to the Southern economy. Critics note that many Southern statesmen voiced the view that slavery was a “positive good.” Yet, even the “positive good” advocates acknowledged that slavery had its evils and abuses. In any case, there were plenty of Southerners who opposed slavery and who were willing to see it abolished in a fair, gradual manner, as had been done in most Northern states. After all, 69-75 percent of Southern families did not own slaves. However, few Southerners believed the Republicans were interested in a fair, gradual emancipation program. The more extreme Republicans, who were known as “Radical Republicans,” certainly weren’t interested in such a program.

Few people today understand why the South distrusted the Republican Party. Not only was the Republican Party a new party, it was also the first purely regional (or sectional) party in the country’s history. Moreover, Republican leaders frequently gave inflammatory anti-Southern speeches, some of which included egregious falsehoods and even threats (Susan-Mary Grant, North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era, University of Kansas Press, 2000). Historian William C. Cooper points out that the Republicans “had no interest in cultivating support in the South, which they branded as basically un-American,” and that “No major party had ever before so completely repudiated the South” (Jefferson Davis, American, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 294, 295). British historian Susan-Mary Grant notes that the Republican Party that came into being in 1854 was “a sectional party with a sectional ideology . . . that was predicated on opposition to the South, to the economic, social, and political reality of that section” (North Over South, p. 17). Southerners were alarmed when dozens of Republican congressmen endorsed an advertisement for Hinton Helper’s book The Impending Crisis of the South, which spoke approvingly of a potential slave revolt that would kill untold numbers of Southern citizens in a “barbarous massacre.” The Republican Party even distributed an abridged edition of the book as a campaign document, and Republican editors added captions like “The Stupid Masses of the South” and “Revolution . . . Violently If We Must.” Southerners also noticed that the Republicans broke the long-established tradition of having a sectionally balanced presidential ticket. For decades, all major political parties had nominated tickets that consisted of one candidate from the North and one from the South. Each of the three other parties in the 1860 election followed this tradition, but not the Republican Party. Another reason that Southerners were worried about the Republicans was that the party’s leaders made it clear they would push for several policies that the South believed were harmful and unconstitutional. Many Southerners feared that Republican leaders were determined to subjugate and exploit the South by any means. With these facts in mind, perhaps it’s not hard to understand why the election of Lincoln triggered the secession of seven Southern states.

As mentioned, slavery was not the only factor that led to secession. If one reads the Declarations of Causes of Secession and the Ordinances of Secession that were issued by the first seven states of the Confederacy, one finds that there were several reasons these states wanted to be independent and that some of the reasons had nothing to do with slavery. For example, the Georgia and Texas Declarations of Causes of Secession included economic complaints, in addition to concerns relating to slavery. The Texas declaration complained that unfair federal legislation was enriching the North at the expense of the Southern states:

They [the Northern states] have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

The Georgia declaration complained about federal protectionism and subsidies for Northern business interests:

The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 [about $8.5 million in today’s dollars] is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually [about $34 million today] for the support of these objects. These interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually [about $119 million today], throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors.

The South’s long-standing opposition to the federal tariff was another factor that led to secession. The South’s concern over the tariff was nothing new. South Carolina and the federal government nearly went to war over the tariff in 1832-1833. In the session of Congress before Lincoln’s inauguration, the House of Representatives passed a huge increase in the tariff, over the loud objections of Southern congressmen. Naturally, this alarmed Southern statesmen at all levels, since the South was always hit hardest by the tariff. One only has to read the many speeches that Southern senators and representatives gave against the 1860-1861 tariff increase to see how seriously they took this issue. Moreover, in the congressional debates from the previous four decades, one can find dozens of Southern speeches against the tariff. Opposition to the tariff led some Southern leaders to talk of secession over thirty years before the Civil War occurred (Walter Brian Cisco, Taking A Stand: Portraits from the Southern Secession Movement, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Books, 2000, pp. 1-44). Scholars who argue that Southern statesmen didn’t really care about the tariff and that this was merely a “smoke screen” are ignoring a massive body of historical evidence.

The South had valid complaints about the tariff. Charles Adams, an authority on the history of taxation, observes that the Southern states paid a disproportionately high share of the tariff:

The high tariff in the North compelled the Southern states to pay tribute to the North, either in taxes to fatten Republican coffers or in the inflated prices that had to be paid for Northern goods. Besides being unfair, this violated the uniformity command of the Constitution by having the South pay an undue proportion of the national revenue, which was expended more in the North than in the South: When some of the compromise tariffs of the 1830s and 1840s are analyzed, the total revenue was around $107.5 million, with the South paying about $90 million and the North $17.5 million. These are round numbers but they also coincide with export numbers. In 1860, total exports from the South totaled $214 million, and from the North around $47 million. In both instances the percentage for the South (taxes and exports) was approximately 87 percent, and 17 percent for the North. To add further salt to the wounds of the South on matters of revenue, fishing bounties for New Englanders were approximately $13 million, paid from the national Treasury, hence 83 percent from the South. And with a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports, the South paid Northern shipping--$36 million. So the numbers show that the South’s claim to be, in effect, paying tribute to the North has a factual basis. (When In the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000, pp. 26-27)

Economist Frank Taussig, one of the foremost authorities on the tariff, acknowledged that the tariff fell with “particular weight” on the South:

The Southern members, who were almost to a man supporters of Jackson, were opposed unconditionally not only to an increase of duties, but to the high range which the tariff had already reached. They were convinced, and in the main justly convinced, that the taxes levied by the tariff fell with particular weight on the slave States. . . . (The Tariff History of the United States, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1910, p. 54, emphasis added)

Jeffrey R. Hummel, a professor of economics and history, notes the negative impact of the tariff on the Southern states and concedes that Southern complaints about the tariff were justified:

Despite a steady decline in import duties, tariffs fell disproportionately on Southerners, reducing their income from cotton production by at least 10 percent just before the Civil War. . . .

At least with respect to the tariff’s adverse impact, Southerners were not only absolutely correct but displayed a sophisticated understanding of economics. . . . The tariff was inefficient; it not only redistributed wealth from farmers and planters to manufacturers and laborers but overall made the country poorer. (Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, Chicago: Open Court, 1996, pp. 39-40, 73)

Civil War scholars William and Bruce Catton summarized the economic case that Southern leaders put forth in favor of secession:

On the economic front, long-standing Southern grievances against Northern financial and commercial exploitation, Northern high-tariff policies, Northern monopoly of the coastwise trade, and similar items, were contrasted to the bright future that awaited an independent South, secure and prosperous on a foundation of cotton, free trade, and an inexhaustible European market with no Northern middlemen to siphon off the profits. (Two Roads to Sumter: Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and the March to Civil War, Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 2004, reprint of original edition, p. 251)

A major point of contention between the North and the South was the issue of the size and power of the federal government as defined by the Constitution. Most Northern politicians supported a loose reading of the Constitution and wanted to expand the size and scope of the federal government, even if that meant giving the government powers that were not authorized by the Constitution. Most Southern statesmen supported a strict reading of the Constitution and believed the federal government should perform only those functions that were expressly delegated to it by the Constitution. From the earliest days of the republic, Southern and Northern leaders battled over this issue. Our textbooks rarely do justice to this important fact.

Four of the eleven Southern states did not join in the first wave of secession and did not secede over slavery. Those four states—Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia—only seceded months later when Lincoln made it clear he was going to launch an invasion in order to “save” the Union. In fact, those states initially voted against secession by fairly sizable majorities. However, they believed the Union should not be maintained by force. Therefore, when Lincoln announced he was calling up 75,000 troops to form an invasion force, they held new votes, and in each case the vote was strongly in favor of secession. Thus, four of the eleven states that comprised the Confederacy seceded because of their objection to federal coercion and not because of slavery.

Virtually no history textbooks mention the fact that each Confederate state retained the right to abolish slavery within its borders, and that the Confederate Constitution permitted the admission of free states into the Confederacy. In his analysis of the Confederate Constitution, historian Forrest McDonald says the following:

All states reserved the right to abolish slavery in their domains, and new states could be admitted without slavery if two-thirds of the existing states agreed—the idea being that the tier of free states bordering the Ohio River might in time wish to join the Confederacy. (States’ Rights and the Union, University of Kansas Press, 2000, p. 204)

Did the South Have the Right to Secede?

I believe the evidence is clear that the South had the right to secede. None other than Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding general of the Union army for much of the Civil War and later a president of the United States, admitted he believed that if any of the original thirteen states had wanted to secede in the early days of the Union, it was unlikely the other states would have challenged that state’s right to do so. Grant also conceded he believed the founding fathers would have sanctioned the right of secession rather than see a war “between brothers.” Said Grant,

If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted. . . .

If they [the founding fathers] had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers. (The Personal Memoirs Of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint of original edition, pp. 130-131)

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts wrote the following in 1899 in his biography of the great Daniel Webster:

When the Constitution was adopted by the votes of States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of States in popular conventions, it is safe to say there was no man in this country, from Washington and Hamilton on the one side to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who regarded our system of Government, when first adopted, as anything but an experiment entered upon by the States, and from which each and every State had the right to peaceably withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised. (Henry Cabot Lodge, Daniel Webster, Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1899, p. 176)

There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits a state from peacefully and democratically separating from the Union. Indeed, the right of secession is implied in the Tenth Amendment, which reads,

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.

The Constitution does not give the federal government the power to force a state to remain in the Union against its will. President James Buchanan acknowledged this fact in a message to Congress shortly before Lincoln assumed office. Nor does the Constitution prohibit the citizens of a state from voting to repeal their state’s ratification of the Constitution. Therefore, by a plain reading of the Tenth Amendment, a state has the legal right to peacefully withdraw from the Union.

Critics of the Confederacy cite certain clauses in the Constitution about the supremacy of federal law or about states not being allowed to enter into treaties with foreign powers, etc., etc. However, it goes without saying that such clauses only apply to states that are in the Union. There’s simply nothing in the Constitution that says a state can’t peacefully and democratically revoke its ratification. If a state’s citizens were to vote in a legitimate democratic process to revoke the state’s ratification of the Constitution, either by direct vote or by convention, then that state would no longer be bound by the Constitution. The citizens of each state are the ultimate sovereign, not the federal government. The federal government is supposed to be servant of the people, not their master. Even Lloyd Paul Stryker, who opposed secession, admitted the Southern states had an “arguable claim that no specific section of the Constitution stood in their way,” i.e., no section of the Constitution prohibited peaceful, democratic separation (Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930, p. 447).

Critics also quote a few statements made by founding father James Madison that seem to argue against secession, but they ignore other statements that indicate Madison believed there were cases when a state could leave the Union. When Madison discussed the conditions under which a state could secede from the Articles of Confederation, without the consent of the other states, he appealed to the natural right of self-preservation and to the principle that the safety and happiness of society were the objects to which all political institutions "must be sacrificed." Said Madison,

The first question [how a state could secede without approval from the other states] is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed. (Federalist Number 43)

This is important because the Articles of Confederation expressly stated that the union they were creating was “perpetual” and that that union could only be altered by the approval of all the states. Now, if the natural right of self-preservation allowed a state to peacefully leave the "perpetual" union of the Articles of Confederation without the consent of the other states, then logic demands that this natural right would also permit a state to peacefully leave the federal Union, which was not described as perpetual. (Some authors argue that the phrase “to form a more perfect union” in the Constitution’s preamble means the Union was intended to be permanent and that therefore secession was illegal. But this phrase clearly refers to the Union’s effectiveness, not to its duration. Something can be perfect but not necessarily perpetual. Many Americans believed the union of the Articles of Confederation had proven to be somewhat inefficient in certain respects. Therefore, they thought a “more perfect union” was needed. It is significant that even though the framers borrowed heavily from the Articles of Confederation when they wrote the Constitution, not once did they use the word “perpetual” in that document to describe the new union, even though the word “perpetual” appears five times in the Articles.)

It’s true that Madison told Alexander Hamilton that if New York joined the Union, it had to do so "in toto and forever.” Yet, New York entered the Union on the basis of a ratification ordinance that specifically said its citizens had the right to resume the powers of government if they felt the need to do so. It’s also true that Madison told Nicholas Trist that no state could "at pleasure" leave the Union. But Madison also told Trist there were conditions in which a state could release itself from the Union. In his letter to Trist, Madison said,

Applying a like view of the subject to the case of the U. S. it results, that the compact being among individuals as embodied into States, no State can at pleasure release itself therefrom, and set up for itself. The compact can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect." (Letter from James Madison to Nicholas P. Trist, February 15, 1830, emphasis added)

Notice that Madison was talking about a state that wanted to "release itself" from the Union, and that he said this could be done by the consent of the other states or by usurpations or abuses that were so serious that they had the same effect. Thus, according to Madison, if a state was being subjected to abuses or usurpations, this gave the state the same right to leave the compact as if the other states had agreed to the separation. Notice, too, that Madison didn’t say, “No state can release itself from the compact.” He said no state could “at pleasure” release itself from the compact, which in and of itself implied there were conditions under which a state could separate. And, as noted, Madison gave those conditions—the consent of the other states or egregious abuses or usurpations.

Madison's statements to Trist are consistent with what Madison said about states rights and the nature of the federal government. After all, it was Madison who said that the states had the right to decide when the federal government was abusing its powers and that in such cases the states could interpose their authority in order to protect their citizens. In his report on the Virginia Resolution, Madison said,

The constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority, of the constitution, that it rests upon this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal above their authority to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated and consequently that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition. (The Madison Report in the Virginia Report of 1799-1800)

The great early American constitutional scholar William Rawle said a state had the right to secede. Rawle was a contemporary of founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and was appointed by George Washington as the first U.S. Attorney for Pennsylvania. Rawle’s book A View of the Constitution of the United States was used as a legal textbook at a number of universities, including West Point, Dartmouth, and Harvard. To this day, scholars who debate legal issues relating to the First and Second Amendments refer to Rawle’s work. On the issue of secession, Rawle said,

It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.

This right must be considered as an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, which, though not expressed, was mutually understood. . . . (A View of the Constitution of the United States, 2nd Edition, 1829, Vol. 4, p. 571)

Another early American legal giant, George Tucker, also said a state had the right to secede. Like Rawle, Tucker was a contemporary of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and corresponded with the former. Tucker came to be known as the “American Blackstone.” Tucker was a professor of law at the University of William and Mary. He served as the chief justice of the Virginia supreme court and was appointed as a federal district court judge by James Madison. Tucker’s 1803 edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries, which he annotated to American law, was widely used for the teaching of law in the United States for years. On the issue of secession, Tucker wrote that the states’ participation in the Union was voluntary and that each state had the right to resume to “the most unlimited extent” the functions that it had delegated to the federal government:

The federal government, then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations and with each other. Their submission to its operation is voluntary: its councils, its engagements, its authority are theirs, modified, and united. Its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the situation require, to resume the exercise of its functions as such in the most unlimited extent. (Tucker, editor, Blackstone’s Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States, Volume 1, Philadelphia: William Birch and Abraham Small, 1803, Appendix: Note D, Section 3:IV)

The Union was never meant to be held together by force. The Southern states joined the Union voluntarily, and they should have been able to leave it voluntarily. A key principle of Americanism is the sacred right of self-government, that government should only govern “with the consent of the governed.” This noble idea is expressed in the Declaration of Independence. America came into existence by secession from England. There was only a war because England wouldn’t allow the American colonies to leave in peace. George Washington’s secretary of state, Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, rightly said that America was founded on the principle of secession. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States, said in a letter to William Crawford in 1816 that if a state wanted to leave the Union, he would not hesitate to say “Let us separate,” even if he didn’t agree with the reasons the state wanted to leave.

The principle of peaceful separation was as American as apple pie. But Lincoln, relying on an utterly erroneous understanding of the founding of the Union, declared that secession was “treason,” “insurrection,” and “rebellion.” If Lincoln had been alive during the Revolutionary War and had used the same kind of reasoning that he used against Southern secession, he would have sided with the British.

Lincoln defenders argue that secession was a hostile act because it constituted resistance to federal authority and that therefore secession was in fact “treason, rebellion, and insurrection.” This is specious, totalitarian reasoning. By this logic, all independence movements could be viewed as illegal by definition. Furthermore, if the Southern states had the right to secede, then federal authority ceased to exist in those states when they withdrew from the Union. Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon put it this way in a speech to the Senate on March 2, 1861, just days before the Confederacy was formed:

My residence is in the North, but I have never seen the day, and I never shall, when I will refuse justice as readily to the South as to the North. . . .

Sir, if there is, as I contend, the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that right, this Government has no laws in that State to execute, nor has it any property in any such state that can be protected by the power of this Government. In attempting, however, to substitute the smooth phrases “executing the laws” and “protecting public property” for coercion, for civil war, we have an important concession: that is, that this Government dare not go before the people with a plain avowal of its real purposes and of their consequences. No, sir; the policy is to inveigle the people of the North into civil war, by masking the designs in smooth and ambiguous terms. (Congressional Globe, Second Session, Thirty-Sixth Congress, p. 1347, in Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, New York: De Capo Press, 1990, reprint of original edition, pp. 216-217)

In addition, the South had no desire to overthrow the federal government. The South seceded in a peaceful, democratic manner, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Southern citizens. The Southern states used the same process to secede that the original thirteen states used to ratify the U.S. Constitution, i.e., by voting in special conventions comprised of delegates who were elected by the people. The one exception was Tennessee, which, instead of holding a convention, passed a secession resolution in the state legislature and then held a referendum in which secession won by a margin of more than two to one. Two of the states that held conventions, Texas and Virginia, submitted their conventions’ decisions to a popular vote, even though the delegates to the conventions had been elected by the people; in both cases, secession won by overwhelming majorities—by a margin of three to one in Texas and nearly four to one in Virginia. Furthermore, most Southerners believed secession would be peaceful. In fact, it’s revealing that the early correspondence of the first Confederate secretary of war, Leroy Walker, "clearly indicates he did not expect war" (Rembert Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, Louisiana State University Press, 1944, p. 106).

On the basis of the natural right to self-government alone, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the South had the right to leave the Union in peace. The declaration says that governments derive their just powers “from the consent of the governed,” that people can “dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another” and can then assume “the separate and equal status” to which “the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them,” and that people have a natural right to “alter or abolish” their form of government.

Lincoln defenders contend that the Declaration of Independence merely refers to the natural right to revolt against tyranny. They argue there is no natural right of peaceful separation, only a natural right of violent revolution to escape oppression. This strikes me as a rather undemocratic viewpoint. For one thing, a revolution does not necessarily have to be violent. The Glorious Revolution in England, for example, was peaceful. Furthermore, is independence only to be achieved by violence? Is independence only for those who can fight their way to it? Do only the strong get to enjoy self-government? This is not what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, and it’s not what the other founding fathers had in mind when they embraced the document (McDonald, States’ Rights and the Union, pp. 7-11). Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, who later became the Confederate president, commented on this issue in a speech he gave in the Senate two months before the Confederacy was established:

Now, sir, we are confusing language very much. Men speak of revolution; and when they say revolution they mean blood. Our fathers meant nothing of the sort. When they spoke of revolution they meant an unalienable right. When they declared as an unalienable right the power of the people to abrogate and modify their form of government whenever it did not answer the ends for which it was established, they did not mean that they were to sustain that by brute force. They meant that it was a right; and force could only be invoked when that right was wrongfully denied. Great Britain denied the right in the case of the colonies, and therefore our revolution for independence was bloody. If Great Britain had admitted the great American doctrine, there would have been no blood shed. . . .

If the Declaration of Independence be true (and who here gainsays it?), every community may dissolve its connection with any other community previously made, and have no other obligation than that which results from the breach of an alliance between States. Is it to be supposed; could any man . . . come to the conclusion that the men who fought the battles of the Revolution . . . in order that they might possess those unalienable rights which they had declared—terminated their great efforts by transmitting posterity to a condition in which they could only gain those rights by force? If so, the blood of the Revolution was shed in vain. . . . (Speech in the U.S. Senate, January 10, 1861, in The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, pp. 531-532)

John O’Sullivan, the editor of the influential United States Magazine and the man who coined the famous phrase “Manifest Destiny” because he believed God wanted America to expand, said that the South had the right to leave in peace and that to deny that right violated the Declaration of Independence. O’Sullivan argued that the North’s attempt to force the South back into the Union served “to stultify our revolution; to blaspheme our very Declaration of Independence; to repudiate all our history” (Grant, North Over South, p. 165; cf. Robert Divine, Robert Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, editors, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1999, p. 360).

What Caused the War?

The war was fought because Lincoln refused to allow the South to go in peace. Other Republican leaders and certain Northern business interests played key roles in the decision to use force, but ultimately Lincoln was the one who had to make the decision, and he chose to launch an invasion. The fighting and dying started when federal armies invaded the South. That’s why most of the battles were fought in the Southern states. If Lincoln had not launched an invasion, there would have been no war.

The Confederacy did not want war. One of the first things Jefferson Davis did after assuming office as president of the Confederacy was to send a peace delegation to Washington, D.C., in an effort to establish friendly ties with the federal government (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 360-362; Kenneth Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996, pp. 156-157). The Confederacy offered to pay the South’s share of the national debt and to pay compensation for all federal installations in the Southern states (Charles Roland, The Confederacy, University of Chicago Press, 1960, p. 28; Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, p. 77; William C. Davis, Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America, New York: The Free Press, 2002, p. 87). The Confederacy also announced that Northern ships would continue to enjoy free navigation of the Mississippi River (Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men, p. 138; Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, pp. 210-213). Yet, Lincoln rejected all Confederate peace offers and insisted that federal armies would invade if the Southern states didn’t renounce their independence and recognize federal authority.

“Why,” one may ask, “did Confederates sometimes refer to themselves as ‘rebels’?” Actually, many Confederates resented that term (see, for example, Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, pp. 282-284). Those Confederates who described themselves as “rebels” did so only in the sense that they were “rebelling” against being invaded and subjugated. Lincoln, on the other hand, labeled Confederates as “rebels” in order to reinforce his fraudulent claim that the South was trying to overthrow the federal government.

It should be pointed out that many Northern citizens opposed the war and believed the South should be allowed to leave in peace. Dozens of Northern newspapers expressed the view that the Southern states had the right to peacefully leave the Union and that it would be wrong to use force to compel them to stay. Even President James Buchanan told Congress in an official message shortly before Lincoln assumed office that the federal government had no right to use force against the seceded states.

http://www.southernheritage411.com/truehistory.php?th=031

 

[kayakpat]

It is right there in B & W after explaining the background of the country, it says the north is not honoring and enforcing the law to return fugitive slaves to the south, and that because the north is trying to override states rights to have and continue slavery. In his ignaugeration Lincoln promised he would not abolish slavery in states that already have it. But the south did not believe him. Thus the Declaration of succession and attack on Ft Sumner right after his election

 

[pepperj]

Red you sure have a lot of time on your hands... I do not have enough time to even read all that...

For the fast read just look at the yrs that there wasn't any involvement.

 

[kayakpat]

You got to read the whole thing, it is in very clear as it explains that IS why they are susceeding

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

You need to read more than one states reason. They were adamantly opposed to the new tariff tax, they felt it was unfair, and burdensome to the south, that the vast majority of taxes collected from South would have been spent on projects in the north. They felt it violated the Constitution Article 1 Section 8.

The South based their Constitution on our original Constitution that they felt the Union was violating.

If it was just slavery the South would have accepted the deal to return to the union in exchange for the constitutional amendment guaranteeing slavery......

 

[Number9]

You want to know what I think the real reason was... well, if you don't.. I'll tell ya anyway!

I believe the South viewed the North as a "dictatorship".. telling them what to do and how to do it, what they could have or couldn't have.
And it's still true even today!

 

[kayakpat]

It says the north violated the Constitution by not enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, The original Constitution was Articles of Confederation which was a huge failure and was why they came up with our present day Constitution. I did not make this up and it is not opinion of why, it spells it out very clearly., all else is spin. sorry

 

[kayakpat]

I am sure there are other things that contributed but the succession and attack on Ft Sumner caused the Civil war to erupt although years in the making , and it was over slavery , the south was agrarian and needed cheap farm labor, the industrial north had a huge influx of immigrants to fill their cheap labor needs

 

[Keppy]

I don't begrudge rich people at all... in fact I look up to most of them. Anybody can be rich if your smart enough in this country. To much envy by those who don't "have" what others do.

Limitool ... I do not look up to any one... rich , poor , entertainer , or Sports star ..... I don't begrudge any one either ...BUT i do not look up to any one never did and never will ...

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Believe what you want kayakpat, we know what it was. South believed Fed Gov was violating Constitution, they believed rightfully that out Constitution guarantees rights to the states and they were violating those rights.

Section 8 - The Text
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States;


--------->but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;<---------------

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; —And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.



Section 8 - The Meaning
Article I, Section 8, specifies the powers of Congress in great detail. These powers are limited to those listed and those that are "necessary and proper" to carry them out. All other lawmaking powers are left to the states. The First Congress, concerned that the limited nature of the federal government was not clear enough in the original Constitution, later adopted Amendment X, which reserves to the states or to the people all the powers not specifically granted to the federal government.

The most important of the specific powers that the Constitution enumerates is the power to set taxes, tariffs and other means of raising federal revenue, and to authorize the expenditure of all federal funds. In addition to the tax powers in Article I, Amendment XVI authorized Congress to establish a national income tax. The power to appropriate federal funds is known as the "power of the purse." It gives Congress great authority over the executive branch, which must appeal to Congress for all of its funding. The federal government borrows money by issuing bonds. This creates a national debt, which the United States is obligated to repay.

Since the turn of the 20th century, federal legislation has dealt with many matters that had previously been managed by the states. In passing these laws, Congress often relies on power granted by the commerce clause, which allows Congress to regulate business activities "among the states."

The commerce clause gives Congress broad power to regulate many aspects of our economy and to pass environmental or consumer protections because so much of business today, either in manufacturing or distribution, crosses state lines. But the commerce clause powers are not unlimited.

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has expressed greater concern for states’ rights. It has issued a series of rulings that limit the power of Congress to pass legislation under the commerce clause or other powers contained in Article I, Section 8. For example, these rulings have found unconstitutional federal laws aimed at protecting battered women or protecting schools from gun violence on the grounds that these types of police matters are properly managed by the states.

In addition, Congress has the power to coin money, create the postal service, army, navy and lower federal courts, and to declare war. Congress also has the responsibility of determining naturalization, how immigrants become citizens. Such laws must apply uniformly and cannot be modified by the states.


http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/page/article-i-section-8


Federal government was also violating the Bill of Rights, especially Amendment 10.

Amendment X
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.

 

[etex]

Who invaded whom? The South wanted to go in peace. Lincoln agreed not to resupply Ft Sumpter and then went back on his word.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

How do you "invade" a fort you already occupy?

You think the Confederates were going to take them egg salad sandwiches and peach cobbler if the Union stopped provisioning troops?