Lets Play "What If" with the Civil War

[NationalTitles18]

And that there is no provision in the Constitution that enables the federal government to invade a state and overthrow the elected state government and replace it with an appointed military government. If there had been such a provision in 1787-1790, no state would have ratified the Constitution. Not one.

You've probably forgotten more than I ever knew, but here is this little provision:

Article I

Section 8

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

I suppose we could argue what the meaning of certain words are but it seems pretty clear that insurrections were a concern that was addressed in the original wording of the Constitution. There is also Article IV, Section 4.

I just don't buy the claim that the federal government is powerless against violent armed rebellion. When SC troops fired the first shot that opened the door, Constitutionally speaking, even if secession itself didn't. Did it not?

 

[B1GTide]

And let's be honest - Lincoln himself admitted that he was not sure if the war and many of the things that he did in the war were strictly constitutional. But he knew that if the Union won the war it would not matter, so he did them anyway.

 

[Tidewater]

You've probably forgotten more than I ever knew, but here is this little provision:

Article I

Section 8

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

I suppose we could argue what the meaning of certain words are but it seems pretty clear that insurrections were a concern that was addressed in the original wording of the Constitution. There is also Article IV, Section 4.

I just don't buy the claim that the federal government is powerless against violent armed rebellion. When SC troops fired the first shot that opened the door, Constitutionally speaking, even if secession itself didn't. Did it not?

That is a great observation, but it begs the question as to whether states are still in the Union or not. That is the issue being contended.
If South Carolina was not in the Union on Aril 12, 1861, and the United States sent an armed expedition to the territory of South Carolina, and South Carolina suppressed by force the alien military forces inside her territory, then their act was a state repelling an invasion, not a state in the Union engaging in insurrection.
Article 4 states that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.
No state in 1861 made any such application for federal aid in suppressing an insurrection. Ours is a federal system and the states were intended to play a crucial part in suppressing insurrection against the state's authority. It is essential (at least as originally understood by the founders) that state's ask for federal help before federal aid can be rendered.
Indeed, the very act of the federal government, in demanding states provide military forces to invade the states, was itself engaging in an insurrection against the provisions of the Constitution.
You can make the argument that the Founders should have included some provision that the the federal government should have the power to compel a state to remain in the Union even if the people of that state wanted out of the Union because the provisions of the Constitution, as those people saw them, were not being complied with, but the Founders did not include such a provision. Having read the debates in every state as the state conventions discussed the proposed Constitution, if drafters of the Constitution had included such a provision, not one state would have ratified it. They would have considered such a provision as a gross and anti-democratic over-reach. One by one, each state would have examined the proposed constitution and said, "You may join such a Union, but we will not."

 

[NationalTitles18]

That is a great observation, but it begs the question as to whether states are still in the Union or not. That is the issue being contended.
If South Carolina was not in the Union on Aril 12, 1861, and the United States sent an armed expedition to the territory of South Carolina, and South Carolina suppressed by force the alien military forces inside her territory, then their act was a state repelling an invasion, not a state in the Union engaging in insurrection.
Article 4 states that "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.
No state in 1861 made any such application for federal aid in suppressing an insurrection. Ours is a federal system and the states were intended to play a crucial part in suppressing insurrection against the state's authority. It is essential (at least as originally understood by the founders) that state's ask for federal help before federal aid can be rendered.
Indeed, the very act of the federal government, in demanding states provide military forces to invade the states, was itself engaging in an insurrection against the provisions of the Constitution.
You can make the argument that the Founders should have included some provision that the the federal government should have the power to compel a state to remain in the Union even if the people of that state wanted out of the Union because the provisions of the Constitution, as those people saw them, were not being complied with, but the Founders did not include such a provision. Having read the debates in every state as the state conventions discussed the proposed Constitution, if drafters of the Constitution had included such a provision, not one state would have ratified it. They would have considered such a provision as a gross and anti-democratic over-reach. One by one, each state would have examined the proposed constitution and said, "You may join such a Union, but we will not."

Well, if SC is no longer part of the Union then by definition a foreign power fired upon the US army. This is an act of war, is it not?

If SC is part of the Union then they are in open rebellion against the rest government they established and are now firing on its army, which is also an act of war/rebellion/insurrection.

If SC never fires the first shot then maybe you have a point here - maybe. When that shot is fired war is essentially unavoidable.

 

[Tidewater]

Well, if SC is no longer part of the Union then by definition a foreign power fired upon the US army. This is an act of war, is it not?

The Confederacy did not declare war. President Lincoln could have requested a declaration war.
So, does the entire war boil down to an act of revenge for a bombardment in which nobody died? Would just war theory condemn such a war? President Davis said before any other fighting broke out, "All we ask is to be left alone." What wrong does southern independence inflict on those states that still wanted to be in the Union?

If SC is part of the Union then they are in open rebellion against the rest government they established and are now firing on its army, which is also an act of war/rebellion/insurrection.

How do you define rebellion? A rebellion would be to remain in the Union yet refuse to obey the agreement.
Senator Jefferson Davis said, on his withdrawal from the Senate,

"A State, finding herself in the condition in which Mississippi has judged she is – in which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union – surrenders all the benefits (and they are known to be many), deprives herself of the advantages (and they are known to be great), severs all the ties of affection (and they are close and enduring), which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit – taking upon herself every burden – she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.

A refusal to obey the Constitution while in the Union? The Republican governors of Iowa and Ohio had been doing exactly that in regard to the fugitives from justice clause of the Constitution (they did so because the perps were antislavery men wanted for murder).
The question revolves around the question, can a state (which the States Rights advocates argued were the principals in our system) commit treason again their agent, the federal government. Their answer was, no, once out of the Union, states owed no loyalty to the federal government or the Union.

If SC never fires the first shot then maybe you have a point here - maybe. When that shot is fired war is essentially unavoidable.

I agree with Toombs. The status quo was in the Confederacy's favor. I went and checked, and there were dozens of foreign ships came to and went from Charleston after Anderson moved his troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter. Sumter was largely irrelevant to the Confederacy's interests. It was an annoyance, but it was not a vital threat. I would have let the U.S. Navy resupply Sumter to their heart's content.

 

[NationalTitles18]

Your answers are very one sided. Did the South do anything wrong? Of course not!

 

[81usaf92]

Your answers are very one sided. Did the South do anything wrong? Of course not!

When you are trying to make it out to be a heroic defense against Northern aggression you kinda have to. Even though it ignores that Sumter was only the final event in many acts of SOUTHERN aggression against the Union.

 

[Tidewater]

Your answers are very one sided. Did the South do anything wrong? Of course not!

Of course. I just think that the appropriate response by the president of the United States was to receive commissioners (sent by South Carolina in December 1860 and by the Confederate states in March 1861), accept the decision of the people of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas to leave the Union, withdraw the federal forces from forts (on land which the states had ceded to the United States for the purpose of protecting ports which, in March 1861, were no longer in the United States), and negotiate the seceding states assuming their share of the federal debt (using the same ratio used in apportioning representatives in the House).
That would have the benefit of being democratic, respecting the Constitution, and would have been a great antislavery program, because, once an Alabama slave escaped to Tennessee, he would be free (since Alabama would have negated the "fugitives from labor" provision of the Constitution.

Two problems with this:
1. Northerners definitely did not want masses of free blacks settling in their states. It was illegal to be black in antebellum Illinois, for example.
2. It would have screwed northern business interests (due to the differential between tariff rates between the two countries).

One was a non-starters for northerners and the other for Republicans.

Plus, fighting a war to prevent black people from escaping north and to maintain a population one is exploiting economically is substantially less appealing morally.

 

[Tidewater]

When you are trying to make it out to be a heroic defense against Northern aggression you kinda have to. Even though it ignores that Sumter was only the final event in many acts of SOUTHERN aggression against the Union.

Such as?

 

[81usaf92]

Such as?

How about for starters seizing Fort Morgan, the federal arsenal in Little Rock, and arresting federal troops in Arkansas. I would say that the North was very lenient on the South for their behavior towards federal installations prior to Ft Sumter.

 

[B1GTide]

Of course. I just think that the appropriate response by the president of the United States was to receive commissioners (sent by South Carolina in December 1860 and by the Confederate states in March 1861), accept the decision of the people of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas to leave the Union, withdraw the federal forces from forts (ceded to protect ports no longer in the United States), and negotiate the seceding states assuming their share of the federal debt (using the same ratio used in apportioning representatives in the House).
That would have the benefit of being democratic, respecting the Constitution, and would have been a great antislavery program, because, once an Alabama slave escaped to Tennessee, he would be free (since Alabama would have negated the "fugitives from labor" provision of the Constitution.

In a fair world, this is what would have happened. The world isn't fair.

The Union states at the time thought that they needed the Southern states to survive. The North went to war with the South for the survival of their entire world, as they saw it. Whether this is true or not (whether or not the two could have survived independent of one another) is a question that can never be answered.

 

[Tidewater]

On June 5th, 1788, in the Virginia Convention, Edmund Pendleton said, “We, the people, possessing all power, form a government, such as we think will secure happiness: and suppose, in adopting this plan, we should be mistaken in the end; where is the cause of alarm on that quarter? In the same plan we point out an easy and quiet method of reforming what may be found amiss (i.e. the amendment process). No, but, say gentlemen, we have put the introduction of that method in the hands of our servants (i.e. federal office holders), who will interrupt it from motives of self-interest. What then? We will resist, did my friend say? conveying an idea of force. Who shall dare to resist the people? No, we will assemble in Convention; wholly recall our delegated powers, or reform them so as to prevent such abuse; and punish those servants who have perverted powers, designed for our happiness, to their own emolument.”

June 6th, 1788, James Madison said, “Were it, as the gentleman asserts, a consolidated government … , it would be now binding on the people of this state, without having had the privilege of deliberating upon it. But, sir, no state is bound by it, as it is, without its own consent.”

June 21st, 1788, Gov. Edmund Randolph: “If I did believe, with the honorable gentleman, that all power not expressly retained was given up by the people, I would detest this government. But I never thought so, nor do I now. If, in the ratification, we put words to this purpose, "and that all authority not given is retained by the people, and may be resumed when perverted to their oppression; and that no right can be cancelled, abridged, or restrained, by the Congress, or any officer of the United States,"—I say, if we do this, I conceive that, as this style of ratification would manifest the principles on which Virginia adopted it, we should be at liberty to consider as a violation of the Constitution every exercise of a power not expressly delegated therein.”

Virginia’s ratification instrument of June 25, 1788, stipulated: “the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the united States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power, not granted thereby, remains with them, and at their will.”

In 1861, the Virginia Convention stated, “The people of Virginia, … declared that the powers granted under the said constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the federal government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the southern slaveholding states. In conclusion, Virginia avowed, “we the people of Virginia do declare and ordain, that the ordinance … whereby the constitution of the United States was ratified, and all acts of the general assembly of this state ratifying or adopting amendments to said constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the state of Virginia and the other states under the constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved.”

The proximate cause (and the only cause Virginia mentioned in her secession declaration) was that, in the opinion of the people of Virginia, the federal government had perverted the delegated powers to their injury or oppression and the people of Virginia were withdrawing their consent. Period. Just to make doubly sure, Virginia held a referendum on May 23, 1861, and the results were 124,896 in favor of leaving the Union and 20,390 in favor of staying.

So, today, I honor the memory of those, white and black, who fought in favor of the limitations that the Constitution places on the power of the general government and for the right of self-determination.

 

[Tidewater]

How about for starters seizing Fort Morgan, the federal arsenal in Little Rock, and arresting federal troops in Arkansas. I would say that the North was very lenient on the South for their behavior towards federal installations prior to Ft Sumter.

In December 1860, South Carolina troops could easily have occupied an empty Fort Sumter, but they did not want to precipitate a shooting war, so they sent commissioners to talk about the peaceful transfer of the withdrawal of the then-unnecessary and unwanted federal troops and payment for non-moveable federal property.* In the meantime, they informed Major Anderson and President Buchanan that there would be no change in the status quo in Charleston.
Anderson, then in Fort Moultrie, moved under cover of night to Fort Sumter, violating the agreement. When Buchanan declined to order Anderson back to Moultrie, the South Carolina commissioners withdrew from Washington because federal authorities were not discussing matters in good faith.
People in other states were watching. The obvious lesson was, if refrain from acting in an effort to avoid armed conflict, the federal authorities will take advantage of self-restraint on the part of a seceding state so they had better act first. Possess places like Fort Morgan and then negotiate.
Not familiar with the arresting of federal troops in Arkansas. There was a sizeable contingent of federal troops in Texas when that state seceded and they surrendered to the Texas state authorities in exchange for safe passage out of the state. Texas gave a hand receipt for the federal property those federal troops had handed over to Texas authorities.

* Their commissions authorized them "to treat with the Government of the United States for the delivery of the forts, magazines, light houses and other real estate, with their appurtenances, within the limits of South Carolina, and also for an apportionment of the public debt and for a division of all other property held by the Government of the United States as agent of the confederated States, of which South Carolina was recently a member; and generally to negotiate as to all other measures and arrangements proper to be made and adopted in the existing relation of the parties, and for the continuance of peace and amity between this commonwealth and the Government at Washington."

 

[Tidewater]

How about for starters seizing Fort Morgan, the federal arsenal in Little Rock, and arresting federal troops in Arkansas.

From the Encyclopedia of Arkansas:

Captain James Totten was commander at the arsenal at the beginning of the Civil War. Governor Henry M. Rector was urged by citizens of Arkansas, even before the state formally seceded in May 1861, to seize the installation, but he sought to claim the buildings without violence. Totten wrote to authorities in Washington DC seeking direction, but in the end he was forced to follow his own wisdom. In February 1861, he surrendered the arsenal to the State of Arkansas, and Federal troops left by boat for St. Louis, Missouri. The women of Little Rock saluted his peaceful solution, presenting Totten with a ceremonial sword.

There may have been some federal troops at Fort Smith (on the border with the Indian Nations), but I doubt it since the "Civilized Nations" were pretty calm by the 1850s.

 

[Tidewater]

You've probably forgotten more than I ever knew, but here is this little provision:

Article I

Section 8

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

I suppose we could argue what the meaning of certain words are but it seems pretty clear that insurrections were a concern that was addressed in the original wording of the Constitution. There is also Article IV, Section 4.

I just don't buy the claim that the federal government is powerless against violent armed rebellion. When SC troops fired the first shot that opened the door, Constitutionally speaking, even if secession itself didn't. Did it not?

Surprisingly relevant topic.
Can the President Really Order the Military to Occupy U.S. Cities and States?
Abraham Lincoln says yes.
I think a governor's request for assistance is necessary.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Surprisingly relevant topic.
Can the President Really Order the Military to Occupy U.S. Cities and States?
Abraham Lincoln says yes.
I think a governor's request for assistance is necessary.

Other than the drug and other niche exceptions, the two main ones are if the local authorities are unable to control the situation or if the local authorities are unable to prevent violation of federal laws. (My very rough paraphrase.) So, there's a sliver therefore an unscrupulous president to use. And no one has ever accused Trump of scruples...