Was it constitutional for Lincoln to invade the South?

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This is NOT a topic about racism, in any way shape or form.




I AM NOT RACIST NOR DO I SUPPORT WHAT THE CSA DID.



This is a PURELY speculative topic of discussion. I am curious of the viewpoints of the various visitors of this forum. I feel this would be a nice topic of discussion, and I love reading discussions on this forum. I do not support slavery or racism.

IN THIS THREAD, if you wish to discuss by the rules of the discussion, YOU ARE TO COMPLETELY IGNORE EVERYTHING ABOUT THE U.S. CIVIL WAR EXCEPT FOR ONE THING:



Was it constitutional for Lincoln to invade the South? Completely disregard the fact that they kept slaves. Pretend that one state, or several states, broke away from the union in modern times. Would it be constitutional for the President (regardless of which one they are) to declare war on the states that withdrew?

Last edited by Atomsk on 03 Apr 2009, 11:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You know, no one's going to accuse you of being a racist for asking if it's constitutional or not to invade states that have broke off from the union. And really I don't think it exactly matters whether or not if the constitution permits it considering the circumstance. Although it was unconstitutional for the south to leave the union in the first place, so how else are you going to correct that without force anyway? I'm not very knowledgeable on history and such as I bear little interest on it but that's my input.

There are a lot of stupid/assuming people, which is why I had all that bold type and "im not a racist" stuff going on.

I thought it was the confederates who invaded, by attacking first Fort Sumter and then Baltimore...

but to answer your question, the constitution gives the president the right to use the military for a set period of time without a formal declaration of war by congress(it used to be 30 days, but i think that's been increased), so any military action ordered by the president is legal and in accordance with the constitution...

I'm pretty sure states ARE allowed to leave the union, but the federal government doesn't obey most of the constitution anyway. So why would they choose to obey that?

Either way, I think the Civil War was probably unconstitutional, and I also think it was unnecessary. I mean, all the left-leaners on this board should think so too. If we had let them be their own country, then we wouldn't have all these southerners trying to push theocracy down our throats .

The Confederate States of America declared war. Not the Union.

I don't understand this reverence to a 250 year old paper.

You can shove the US contitution up your *censored* for all I care, what is important is what is now and what is important.

I reckon the President's job is to keep the unity of the country (states?) and if i remember well (possibility of mistakes here) i doubt the North enjoyed having to deal with a "potential enemy" to the south... (especially since there was much politcal conflicts between the two prior to secession).

Wrong, there is nothing in the Constitution that gives states the right to leave the union.

That which is legal and allowable ought to be clear and firmly established rather than made up on the whim of those in power. Constitutions should delineate the powers and responsibilities of government so as to prevent abuses. Since the United States was formed as a union of more or less distinct states (and hence the name; fancy that eh?), the relationship and powers of the member states should not have been subject to the whims of the Federal Government.

Frankly, you can take your pragmatic "I don't care about the rule of law as long as I get what I want" and shove it up your *censored* for all I care.

And your last statement is almost a tautology.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but it also doesn't deny them the right to leave the Union. And as we can see from the 10th Amendment, the right to choose their membership to the Union ought to be reserved to the States rather than the Federal government because such a power was not explicitly delegated to the Federal government.

The States which declared the Confederacy were in a state of rebellion and insurrection. The U.S. Constitution gives the central government the power to act and Congress the power to rescind the privilege of habeas corpus.

The U.S. made War constitutionally.

The U.S. Constitution has no procedure for secession. It does have provision for adding new States or subdividing old States into additional States.

ruveyn

But the constitution was made up on the whim of those in power, 250 years ago none the less. In fact, it could be said that every law was made up on the whim of those in power, so your point is moot.

Or why not just avoid giving governments so much power from the start á lá Parliamentarism? Answer me that.

1. I did know that about the US, do not insult my intelligence.
2. But the member states should follow the constitution instead? Why can't they just rip apart and become independant if they are so distinct?

As long as you shove up your "I care about an obsolete legal system because progressive people has found flaws in it and I don't want to engage them by fair means so I use this old document to dismiss them instead" up your *censored*.

The reverence is the cultural force that maintains the institutional norms in the Constitution so as to prevent extremely negative outcomes and maintain stability. If we did not have that, then these very negative outcomes would be more probable(people have bad ideas and can be pushed by undue emotions), and the future would be less predictable by actors(people and institutions) thus causing them to refrain from beneficial actions at times.

Well, what is important is the now, but it is also the future consequences based upon what is done now, including precedents set. Let's say a court arbitrarily suspended a contract, or arbitrarily allowed cops to do a search without a warrant, how will people react? Well, they'll be more suspicious of contracts and less willing to enter them, the cops will be more willing to invade privacy, and the courts will be more willing to allow for contracts to be breached, and cops to invade privacy. We figure out how things work by how they have worked. Because of this, it is important to have norms to provide guidelines for how these things act, and to maintain these norms even at short-term loss, because of the long-term gain of having them.

Whim? It was formed using a relatively orderly coalition of people in power, the same as every law. The issue is that there are regulating mechanisms for these actions, whereas you wish to abolish these regulating actions. For instance, let's say that a local community really dislikes gay people, a lot in fact, so members take to killing gay people at will. Well, if there is a reverence for laws, this can counterbalance the will to kill gay people to say "Hey, this isn't how this system was designed to operate", however, lacking this counterbalance, one has no security, as they are completely subject to arbitrary whims held by people around them. If you object to the constitution, you may as well object to laws and cultural norms as well.


Well, for one, the US has tried to avoid giving governments powers, as found in the Constitution. For another, the constitution is what created the form of government had in the first place, and it was the very first modern attempt to create a democratic system, so the founders had no idea of a parliament. Thirdly, there is no universally agreed upon idea for how the US should change, and because of that, rejecting the constitution would just lead to political uncertainty and instability, so it should be maintained simply due to a lack of credible alternative.


Because they recognized the benefits of being united with the rest of the states. If a state outright rejected the unity, then they would no longer be granted the benefits of it, such as trade with other states, and such as military protection. The Constitution thus sort of works like a contract with the people by making the relationship between the people and their government more stable.


Well, the Constitution *isn't* obsolete, as nobody could replace the norms in the constitution, or get a universal agreement on a new constitution out of nothing very easily. You can think of it like a car built in 2004, it isn't the highest technology, but it still runs and it isn't worth replacing. Setting up a new code of laws is hard work, and usually not a good idea to do by scratch, as once you do it, people don't trust the new system as there is no previous relationship with it so that this system can be understood. The constitution, by binding the US, is a fair means to argue what US policy should be, because rejecting something constitutional is a rather massive thing. Now, of course, you can argue that some people take this too far, but your own view of law is ahistorical, and completely destroys the stability that societies are built upon.

First, the start of the Civil War occurred nearly 150 years ago, so it is no longer relevant today.

Second, it's obvious that you are changing the conditions to gain the answer you want.

Third, I've seen this form of attack before ... why do you hate Mr. Obama?

The USA were not constituted by the Constitution of 1787, but by the Declaration of Independence of 1776. To understand what happened in 1776 you need to look into the declaration.

In very first sentence it starts with "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people ..." - so the declaration did not established 13 new sovereigns, but only one new sovereignty (by said people) . This is further highlighted when in the last paragaraph with the phrase "united States of America, in General Congress".

Further: The Article of Constitution of 1777 spoke clearly of a "perpetual Union" and forbid explicit in Art. VI the single states to have any diplomatic or other official contact like with foreign states.

So even before the Constitution of 1787 came into force the state were already striped of any theoretical right to leave the union. The constitution of 1787 did not re-established such a right, there no state is entitled to leave the Union.