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Brion McClanahan
MemberI would ask your friend the following:
1) Was the Articles of Confederation a binding contract, and if so, how then did the States alter the contract without following the proper legal procedures?
2) Did the colonies have a “legal claim” to leave the British Empire in 1776?
All contracts are by nature supposed to be “perpetual” and binding, but none are. Madison described the Constitution not as a social contract among individuals, as your esteemed friend probably believes it is, but as a contract among individual states. “We are not to consider the Federal Union as analogous to the social compact of individuals: for if it were so, a majority would have a right to bind the rest, and even to form a new constitution for the whole….” There you have it. The people of the States, in convention, had the final say, and could breach the contract if they so chose. Read more about this in my “Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution,” Chapter 5, p. 163 ff “The Union.”
MemberHaley,
This is a very good topic and I think one that needs to be addressed.
First, the Founders were not isolationists. Ron Paul as said this. They were anti-intervention, which is different from isolation, and that is the position Dr. Paul has adopted. They preferred to be peaceful trading partners with the world and opposed intervention in Europe and elsewhere. Washington did warn against alliances–and the U.S. for years attempted to get out of the one they singed with France during the American War for Independence–precisely because he, and other members of the founding generation, understood the potential danger for American sovereignty. They did not want to close down the borders and simply reject foreign intercourse. They did demand that other powers play by the same rules, and of course when the British and French became rather obnoxious, the United States took action, at first through diplomacy, non-importation and an embargo, then later through military action. Both John Adams and James Madison attempted to pull the reins on a headlong rush to war. Adams was more successful than Madison, obviously. And, the Monroe Doctrine did not advance an interventionist swing by the Monroe administration. That would be T. Roosevelt’s Corollary almost one hundred years later.
Second, as for the the founding generation as libertarians, they were not in the modern sense, but they had a firm grasp of the principles of liberty and fear of central authority. Even the “big government” bunch among them would be appalled by the current destruction of civil liberty in the United States. Remember, each State had a bill of rights, as did the federal government, all in an attempt to safeguard the liberty of the people. They were men of their time and yes many owned slaves, but so did the Greeks and Romans, the progenitors of classical republican principles. The founding generation were republicans, not democrats, and that is a key distinction to make.
The piece is also littered with mistakes:
There is a “founders'” view of the Constitution. It is the Constitution as ratified in 1787 and 1788. That is the Constitution the Jeffersonians continually tried to force the opposition to accept.
The Second Bank of the United States was chartered during Madison’s administration, but not the first, and the idea was rejected outright at the Philadelphia convention. The Bank was only made “constitutional” by John Marshall in 1819, but even Hamilton conceded that the power had to be implied and was not an enumerated power in Article 1, Section 8. Madison, in signing the Second Bank bill, recognized that nothing had changed, but precedent forced him to agree to another bank.
The American War for Independence was not a “democratic revolution” and nothing like the French variety.
Ok, enough for now. Hope that helped.
MemberGood question. While I think it is important to understand the cultural roots of the American States, and by default the sections, I think it would be too simplistic to suggest that the cultural differences between the Cavaliers and the Puritans are the driving forces in modern American politics. There are traces of it, to be sure, at least rhetorically, but neither culture remains in its 17th century form. And, you can find traces of Puritanism, i.e. Reagan’s “City On a Hill” reference, in the Republican Party along with Southerners who are affected, at least in spirit, by both Cavalier and Celtic culture. The two things would have been incompatible in the 17th C, as they are today, in fact. Most don’t realize it.
MemberTell her to read (and you should, to) this book:
I think it gives a nice comparison of the fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and yes the United States. Comparative history is “sexy” so this should be appealing.
Also, read anything by John T. Flynn. You can find his stuff online for free at Mises. I leaned heavily on him for my brief “Fascist Fraud” chapter on FDR in my forthcoming PIG to Real American Heroes.
MemberJohn:
Madison attempted to insert an incorporation amendment into the Bill of Rights and was rejected, unanimously. It was deemed unnecessary. Roger Sherman and others argued against a bill of rights on those grounds, i.e. the States already had them so another round was irrelevant.
MemberJohn,
This is a good question. Article 1, Section 10 does not apply in regard to secession because by the act of secession, the separating entity is no longer bound by the compact.
Secession does not need to be spelled out in the Constitution for it to be valid. Certainly, an explicit recognition of the right to secede would have been helpful, but though all contracts are designed to be perpetual, they can be canceled by one party or the other. And the Constitution is nothing more than a contract or compact “between the States so ratifying the same,” not the people of the United States, but the people of the States in convention.
Moreover, the Constitution did not alter the nature of the “Union” as under the Articles. It was designed to make it “more perfect,” but not subvert the standing of the States in the Union, at least that is how the conservative faction led by Dickinson, Rutledge, and Sherman viewed it and how it was sold to the States in the separate ratifying conventions. Jefferson declared that there were thirteen free and independent States in the Declaration. Nothing had changed by 1787 and the Constitution did not change that either.
Remember, powers are “granted” in Article 1 and “delegated” by the 10th Amendment (the first proposed amendment by virtually every State). Granted and delegated have meaning. A granted or delegated power can be rescinded by the granting party which had the power or authority to grant it in the first place, i.e. the States who created the compact.
Additionally, as the Preamble states, it is a “Constitution for the United States of America” not “the United States Constitution” or the “Constitution of the United States.” Again, for and of carry different meaning. For is a plural term holding weight only for the Union of the States; of implies possession in the singular, or the United States as a single State.
Hope that helps.
MemberJim,
This is a very good question. I think it is quite common for people to link the two movements but they are, in fact, quite different. Their common goals may have been similar, at least in regard to practical policy, but their origins and worldview were dissimilar.
For example, Tom Watson of Georgia–Dr. Woods references C. Vann Woodward’s biography–was linked to Alexander H. Stephens and Robert Toombs, and they, in turn, represented the old Jeffersonian critique of Hamiltonianism. At its core, Populism was no different. The Midwestern bunch readily dropped their disdain for central government, realizing they cut a raw deal with the New England Republicans in 1854 when the Party was formed. The state capitalists got the gold mine, they got the shaft, and since the powers of government had already been used against them, why not turn it on its head and use those same powers to “regulate” the “free market,” which of course was heavily subsidized, at least in regard to railroads.
In short, American populism is the Jeffersonian agrarian critique of economic reconstruction. Progressivism, which its disdain for organized religion, origins in European Marxist theory, and focus on social “reform” no way matched the intellectual underpinnings of American populism. William Jennings Bryan used a “cross of gold” as a reference that every God-fearing farmer would understand in his famous 1896 Democratic Convention speech. And remember Bryan was the “prosecuting attorney” in the Scopes “trial.” Clarence Darrow was the progressive “defense attorney.”
I touch on this topic in the chapter on the Lindberghs in my “Forgotten Conservatives in American History.”
MemberTom: That is a good point. I think slavery would have ended long before the 20th century in the South, as it did in every other Western country by the end of the 19th century. I don’t believe Southerners were lying when they suggested that slavery was a dying institution.
MemberStephens was a moderate on the issue of secession. He was, in fact, friends with Lincoln. He argued against secession in the Georgia convention elected to deal with the issue and was elected Vice President of the CSA for that reason. He was no “fire-eater” on the issue of separation. That was my point.
As to slavery, certainly the issue was important to the South, but to say that slavery would or would not have continued had the South won the war is pure conjecture. There were those, Robert E. Lee for example, who were more moderate on the issue. Perhaps the South would have gone the way of Brazil, which ended slavery in 1881. Perhaps not. Slavery was profitable in the cotton producing areas of the South, but less so in the upper South. This may have led to some reform on the issue. Of course, the Confederate Constitution strictly forbade the central government from interfering with slavery in the States. It would have required a constitutional amendment, just as in the U.S. Stephens, of course, backtracked on this issue after the War, which has led some to suggest that he was disingenuous in his history of secession.
As Kevin said, however, the issue of secession (self-determination) and the end of slavery are two separate issues. The South certainly had the right to secede, just as the American States seceded from the British empire in 1776. To suggest otherwise is to reject first American principles.
September 15, 2012 at 12:38 pm in reply to: Were Income taxes Illegal before the 16th amendement? #14866MemberIf you read the Constitution the way it was ratified, then yes, income taxes were unconstitutional. That is why the 16th was added to the Constitution. The Republicans introduced an income tax in the 1860s only to have it knocked down by the Supreme Court about 20 years later. Direct taxes were assumed to be taxes similar to a stamp act or something of that nature and even Alexander Hamilton said that a direct tax was too messy and complicated to use.
MemberTo my knowledge, there has never been a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution in regard to the Confederate Constitution. That would have been, and probably would still be, regarded as treasonous. But the improvements were noteworthy and beneficial to federalism. They should be used.
MemberYes, that is my point. As for Cleveland, I am sure he is mentioned, but I did not lecture for the second half, so I cannot say for sure. I wrote the chapter on him in my Forgotten Conservatives with Clyde Wilson.
MemberReal: Right. Seager’s assessment is off, but the info is not bad. Chitwood’s is better, but read the old stuff. It trumps all the rest.
MemberKevin: Tyler is #1 on mine as well, I just didn’t say that in the lecture. Keep ’em asking for more, right?
I have never been to Sherwood Plantation, though I understand that his grandson not only lives there, he gives tours at times, and even looks like him a bit. I wonder if the two sound alike? That is always one interesting and lost part of the history we enjoy, the sound of it. It would be great to hear what Washington, Jefferson, Madison, et. al. sounded like.
MemberJessica: Chitwood’s is not bad, neither is Seager’s.
This link is to an old and incomplete biography written in 1843. It contains some primary material which may be of interest: http://books.google.com/books?id=_2HmZhfbOGMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=john+tyler&source=bl&ots=KN2xUbRbPn&sig=J7kl-rIxJGsaRis9HCjV4xD4U7I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1bwaUMJCgpbaBY2IgPgN&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=john%20tyler&f=false
This link to to a three volume work on the Tyler family from the president of William and Mary College, a direct descendent. Again, it contains very good primary material. You can find the other two volumes on Google Books as well: http://books.google.com/books?id=Zl-6CVMx398C&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:5JuYlm-ykeUC&source=bl&ots=8KnheWuzTz&sig=6bvsu_W8KETWoORiIHRMi4XdEMs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5L0aUOC8LeLo2QX954GQBg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
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