is the pledge unconstitutional?

Quote:

By the way,while preserving the union was the main goal, ending slavery became a motive to many of the union forces fighting.

You just pulled that out of a dark and private place didn't you?
Union soldiers couldn't of cared less about rescuing the darkies, preserving the union was the concern.
Try reading a few diaries.

Mr. Hamilton,
Point of Information, if I may:

Do u allege
that there is something in the Constitution
that it is like the "Roach Motel" (TM) . . . i.e.,
that the States can check in but thay can 't check out ??

If so, will u identify it ?





David

In view of the many race riots in northern cities immediately after the war, when freed slaves came looking for work, i found that a bit much to swallow myself. During the draft riots in New York in 1863, uncounted numbers of black men were lynched by the mobs in the streets (the most conservative number of civilian dead of which i have heard is 120, and most of those who were not killed by troops firing on the mob were black men lynched by the mob).

i find it odd that you are not familiar with Lincoln's comments to the effect that he was fighting to preserve the union.

An editorial in the Charleston Mercury 2 days before the November 1860 election stated: "The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism." And on 21 January 1861, five days before Louisiana seceded, the New Orleans Daily Crescent editorialized: "They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests....These are the reasons why these people [the North] do not wish the South to secede from the Union."

When South Carolina seceded in December 1860, followed by the other Confederate states, all the powerful moneyed interests in the North were in favor of appeasing the South over slavery in order to preserve the Union. If the South were to be a sovereign nation with low tariffs, it could undermine Northern business and trade. The South believed that it did not need the North, since it could buy the goods it needed from Europe, but the North needed the South as a market for Northern goods.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/pearlston1.html

Mr. Hamilton,
Point of Information, if I may:

Do u allege
that there is something in the Constitution
that it is like the "Roach Motel" (TM) . . . i.e.,
that the States can check in but thay can 't check out ??

If so, will u identify it ?





David

Lincoln was correct on that subject as well, that if the framers had considered it, they would have provided for it...

No one denies that the underlying cause of the war was slavery. However, that does not authorize your idiotic claim that Lincoln fought the war to redress a contradiction in the constitution. If you have read books about Lincoln "by the yard," i find it odd that you are not familiar with Lincoln's comments to the effect that he was fighting to preserve the union.

Quote:

i find it odd that you are not familiar with Lincoln's comments to the effect that he was fighting to preserve the union.

Or like fighting to preserve the north's economic advantage over the south.

Quote:

An editorial in the Charleston Mercury 2 days before the November 1860 election stated: "The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism." And on 21 January 1861, five days before Louisiana seceded, the New Orleans Daily Crescent editorialized: "They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests....These are the reasons why these people [the North] do not wish the South to secede from the Union."

When South Carolina seceded in December 1860, followed by the other Confederate states, all the powerful moneyed interests in the North were in favor of appeasing the South over slavery in order to preserve the Union. If the South were to be a sovereign nation with low tariffs, it could undermine Northern business and trade. The South believed that it did not need the North, since it could buy the goods it needed from Europe, but the North needed the South as a market for Northern goods.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/pearlston1.html

Perhaps the south would have been better off holding a few Tea Parties, appealing to the north to show a little more respect for the ideals of the Revolution, the "when tyranny blah blah blah".

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Mr. Hamilton,
Point of Information, if I may:

Do u allege
that there is something in the Constitution
that it is like the "Roach Motel" (TM) . . . i.e.,
that the States can check in but thay can 't check out ??

If so, will u identify it ?





David

Fido wrote:

Lincoln was correct on that subject as well, that if the framers had considered it, they would have provided for it...

It is obvious that u do not understand what u r talking about;
i.e., u don t know the operative historical facts. (Lincoln had an ideological ax to grind: his own vu.)

The Founders woud never have intentionally locked their own States
into an inextricable situation. If thay 'd tried to do so,
the States woud have rejected their efforts.

For instance, the will of the Founding States
is expressed in the New York Instrument of Ratification:

" 00/04/17 NY Instrument of Ratification of the Constitution
Record Group 11, The National Archives, Washington, DC

". . . That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people
whensoever it shall become necessary to their happinesss ....

That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms;
that a well regulated Militia, including the body of the People
capable of bearing Arms,
is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State;
That the Militia should not be subject to Martial Law, except in time of
War, Rebellion or Insurrection.

THEN: Be it known that We the People of the State of New York, Incorporated in
statehood under the Authority of The Constitution of the United States of America
by the New York Instrument of Ratification, thus are graced by the
full benefits and liberties predicated under that document; or we are made
and held captive under Unlawful Powers to which Under God we cannot,
must not, and do not submit.” [All emfasis has been added by David.]

Do u think Mr. Lincoln read THAT, Fido ?
I 've heard that several of the other States' Instruments of Ratification
included similar reservations of rights clauses, escape claused, tho I have not checked the others.





David

Puhleeze don't be a Jackass, the plight of the poor in the south had little, if anything to do with the motive of the average union soldier.
They were fighting to protect the Union, which the south attacked.
They were no more fighting to end slavery, than the average American soldier in Iraq is fighting to obtain oil.

If you understood any of what you've read, then you would know,
Union soldiers marched off to war thinking this would be over with in a short time, after the first year went by, all they cared about was getting back to their homes alive. Ending slavery did not become their motive.

Property rights are more essential to the constitution of this country than are civil or individual rights...

Fido wrote:

Property rights are more essential to the constitution of this country than are civil or individual rights...

Property rights ARE Individual rights.





David

Preserve the economic advantage over the South??? The South was a millstone on the neck of the American Economy.

Earlier, in December 1860, before any secession, the Chicago Daily Times foretold the disaster that Southern free ports would bring to Northern commerce: "In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow."

Oh come on, the election of Lincoln precipitated the seccession.
The attack on Fort Sumter precipitated the war.

Similarly, the economic editor of the NY Times, who had maintained for months that secession would not injure Northern commerce or prosperity, changed his mind on 22 March 1861: "At once shut down every Southern port, destroy its commerce and bring utter ruin on the Confederate States." On 18 March, the Boston Transcript noted that while the Southern states had claimed to secede over the slavery issue, now "the mask has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports....by a revenue system verging on free trade...."

In late March 1861, over a hundred leading commercial importers in New York, and a similar group in Boston, informed the collector of customs that they would not pay duties on imported goods unless these same duties were collected at Southern ports. This was followed by a threat from New York to withdraw from the Union and establish a free-trade zone. Prior to these events, Lincoln's plan was to evacuate Fort Sumter and not precipitate a war, but he now determined to reinforce it rather than suffer prolonged economic disaster in a losing trade war. That reinforcement effort was met with force by the South, and the dreadful conflict was upon us.

The Union had abolished slavery, blocked the expansion of slavery into the western territories. From the Union perspective, the issue of slavery was settled.
The cotton states simply cared less about the preservation of our developing United States than they did about the preservation of their status quo.

You seem to have a serious problem understanding what a Republic stands for, we are a nation of law. The law may have been set against slavery, but that don't make the motive for the war.

Consider, for example, a quote by author Charles Dickens in a London periodical in December 1861, "Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils....The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel". As Adams notes, the South paid an undue proportion of federal revenues derived from tariffs, and these were expended by the federal government more in the North than the South: in 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports. The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North.

Don't you know why they called it the rebel army?

Fido wrote:

Property rights are more essential to the constitution of this country than are civil or individual rights...

Property rights ARE Individual rights.





David

Non sense... First of all, they are unequal since not all own property,

It seems that the opposite is true. The north was concerned about "the preservation of their status quo". The north was the one that put on heavy tariffs that aided them and put the same burden on southerners that had precipitated the fight against Britain.

If it was a nation of law, why would the union have forced the southern states into a relationship they didn't want. That is a complete opposite of what the whole idea was at the beginning; a set of sovereign states coming together to form a union, but keeping to them the right to leave such a union if it was not in their interests to stay.