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| Joined: | Sat Jan 27th, 2007 |
| Location: | Texas USA |
| Posts: | 843 |
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Against my better judgement, I'll make one more answer to you here. I have not twisted any facts regarding the 1869 USSC decision Texas v. White. As I said previously, the 1869 ruling did not effect what remedies were available to the states in 1861, BEFORE the ruling took place. There was no Texas v. White in 1861. The ruling was made in 1869 and took effect in 1869. Until then, secession had not been declared unconstitutional by any court.
As to your question about if the case came up in 1861 would the ruling have been different- that is an impossible question because the 1869 case judged the constitutionality of an action that Texas had already taken eight years earlier, before the war began. Now if you are asking would the prewar Taney Court in 1861 have ruled that secession was constitutional if a case involving that issue had reached them, I say that they might well have taken a different view from that of the 1869 Court on the question. (Not that such a ruling would have stopped Mr. Lincoln by any means). The 1869 Court included no less than FIVE Lincoln appointees, and was quite different from the Taney Court in the beginning of 1861. (That Court included seven of the nine justices that had decided the Dred Scott case in 1857). The 1869 Court could hardly have ruled that secession was legal without invalidating the main reason that the war was fought from the northern perspective. There was no way that that was ever going to happen. The deck was certainly stacked in 1869. After a military victory in a four year war and with a Court having a majority of justices appointed by Mr. Lincoln, a decision saying: "Lincoln was right" was finally made by the victors eight years after the fact.
As for the firing on Ft. Sumter, I have previously said that it was the worst thing that the Confederates could have done. But I believe that there would have been a war regardless of what took place there. I strongly disagree with your apparent contention that there could ever have been peaceful secession in 1861 or any time soon after that. (Regardless of what a court might have decided.). As I have said before, there is only a war if both sides decide to fight one. Mr. Lincoln had already decided that there would be one unless the southern states abandoned secession. He meant to reassert Federal authority. Considering the hardened positions of both sides, I could maintain that it was the election of Mr. Lincoln that was the cause of the war. (To use your method in a previous posting: "Lincoln elected = secession= war," etc.)
You can say that unilateral secession was: "Stupid," if you wish. I have not given an opinion that it was or wasn't. I have said only that the states had the RIGHT to do it. I have not argued that secession was a : "Wise" choice. I have said only that the states had the RIGHT to make it. Once again, you seem to be attributing a position to me that I have not taken.
Last edited on Wed Jan 2nd, 2013 11:25 am by Texas Defender