I think it is great that slavery was abolished. (Though that was long overdue). But it seems to me that the real date(s) to celebrate would be the passage and ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which were the real abolition.

Like my many-times great-grandparents. Gggggggreat grandpa was kidnapped or sold in Germany at age 9, shipped to the Colonies and indentured way back in the early 1700's. They were white.

So much for the Pony Express . . .

All true, until we became a corporation.
Now we are all slaves.

Black lives will only matter when the black people themselves truly embrace the concept and stop killing their own.
The highest level of infanticide is among people of color, just as Margret Sangler and the Eugenics movement intended.
Eugenics is alive and well across the rich and powerful world.

At one sad point in our history there were as many Irish indentured servants in this country as there were African slaves. Even after they earned their passage way, they found signs that read: "Irish need not apply"

Slavery was more economical than evil. As a practice it was and is abhorrent and reprehensible, but it was business and not all politicians were plantation owners, and not all plantation owners had slaves (or were white).

I’d contend todays child and sex slavery is far more insidiously evil than back then. If profiteering and labor were only the motives today.

There is no reasonable reading one can make to construe the Tenth Amendment in such a fashion as to reserve sovereign authority to a State given the explicit delegations already cited (Article 1 Section 10, etc.). Lacking such sovereign authority and lacking any "exit clause" in the Constitution meant that they lacked any kind of unilateral decision-making authority. Thus, the decision to secede was an act spawned of rebellion - not moral authority.

"The rest of what you contend is moot since once they are internally decided to secede the only reason that mattered was their own."

Tyrants always think their actions are justifiable. A truly just person, however, occupies the strong moral footing necessary by which they may justify to others that they are in the right.

Great Britain refused to support or recognize the Confederacy for the entirety of the war: they would neither bankroll them nor loan them money, they wouldn't accept Confederate bills as legal tender (insisting instead upon gold) nor would they sell them armaments like firearms or cannons. Neither did any other European nation. Seems that they didn't buy the South's claim to sovereignty either...

The Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments of the constitution. That said, the tenth amendment is the bill of rights and asserts the states authority in all matters not expressly assigned to the fedgov.

The rest of what you contend is moot since once they are internally decided to secede the only reason that mattered was their own. Sure, there were surrounding circumstances leading to the execution of secession but again those were only factors causing them to decide to opt out. The decision was theirs to make.

What percentage of incumbent congress-critters get voted out today?
What percentage of incumbents have been voted out in the past 60 years?
Who counted the votes? Who controlled the media and propaganda?
In some ways very little has changed in 160 years.

nope
took Amendments to the Constitution to do it

South Carolina's assembly voted 169-0 in favor of secession. Not one of those assemblymen got voted out in the next election...

"Once the states broke away what was “federal” in their territory was no longer “federal”."

Again, this rests entirely on the presumption that the States maintained sovereignty after adopting the Constitution. Article I Section 10 and the Supremacy Clause directly refute such a notion as does the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction over disputes between the States. And again - they had ceded the land. They had no more legal claim over that land than claiming to own Long Island, New York.

"The constitution and the Articles created association by mutual agreement with the States retaining their authority."

The States may have maintained sovereignty under the Articles of Confederation, but not under the Constitution. See the Federalist Papers. The States individually ceded sovereignty in exchange for mutual defense, common coinage, etc. I would also note that one of the primary features of adoption of the Constitution was that the Federal Government assumed the individual debts of the States incurred during the Revolutionary War - hardly something that would have happened if the States remained sovereign in and of themselves.


Regarding the article, it is well written, but it is little more than a rehash of South Carolina's Letter of Secession. As I have demonstrated, the sovereignty argument can not be legally supported and therefore the entire body falls as a result. It was also interesting that both the article and the Letter acknowledge that South Carolina had been threatening secession for 25 years - long before Lincoln ever set foot into politics. The continued claims that Lincoln fomented the war are quite contradicted by the actual evidence of history.


Also from the article:
According to the declaration, the first reason South Carolina chose to depart from the union was that northern states had engaged in acts of nullification that had thwarted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, producing “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery.”

Indeed, Michigan passed an act that prohibited its state jails to be used for the confinement of fugitive slaves. New York prevented the right to transport slaves from one place to another. Vermont even passed a habeas corpus act that would criminalize citizens of the state that assisted in the return of runaway slaves. Because South Carolina believed these states refused to fulfill a constitutional obligation, it claimed the state was “released from her obligation.”

Using South Carolina's own legal assertion of sovereignty, wouldn't Michigan have had that right? Or New York? Or Vermont? When Federalism favored South Carolina in enforcing laws supporting slavery they had no objection, but when the Legislative tides threatened to turn - which they did in 1856 - now suddenly it was all about sovereignty?

The piles of steaming, bovine fecal matter are high and pungent...


Why did the Southern States attempt to secede? It's a very simple numbers game: they no longer held the power in either the Senate or the House to prevent slavery from being outlawed. Since the Revolution, the South - especially Virginia - had dominated national politics. Immigration, however, spurred the development and settling of new territories and these new States incrementally diluted the political power of the South. The 1856 election demonstrated conclusively that they no longer retained the power to filibuster Federal laws they didn't like.

What's ironic is that they had only themselves to blame. They rebuffed immigrants who would have bolstered their numbers and provided greater representation in the House. They refused to build large harbors for shipping their own goods - harbors which also would have afforded them new immigrant labor. They couldn't be bothered to invest in looms of their own which would have afforded them higher-profit textile products instead of bales of raw cotton - along with more valuable jobs for their citizens. They didn't undertake railroad or road or canal projects to encourage commerce - again stifling their own people. They didn't even invest in education for their own people.

The South wasn't a victim of anything but their own support for a moral evil - an evil they were willing to destroy themselves and millions of others over.

"South Carolina and three other Southern States all seceded prior to Lincoln being elected"
No, secession was after the election, but for some states before Lincoln's inauguration.

Blaming the 'Southern States" for slavery is like blaming Trump supporters
for everything that happened during Trump's presidency.
The political power in the south was the slave holders.
The politicians in the south followed the money as all looting scum do
... as the politicians in the north did. There was blame on both sides.
Slavery is evil whatever form it takes.
Power corrupts and very few politicians resist.

Once the states broke away what was “federal” in their territory was no longer “federal”. Cuba and Guantanamo bay are entirely different because of a war treaty/agreement. The constitution and the Articles created association by mutual agreement with the States retaining their authority.

Once the south was them and not us they had the right to define their laws. This is why they had their own government, laws, treaties, trade, military and constitution before Lincoln raised the saber.

We can discuss this all day and never see things the same way. Thank you, I respect that.

Here is an article from the 10th amendment center on secession. Interesting read.

https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2021...

"It goes against the entire premise of the Constitution to force compliance."

The Constitution enacted a Federal government with teeth because of the abject failure of the Articles of Confederation. It was only via the personal interposition of George Washington that the veterans of the Revolutionary War didn't destroy Congress when they refused to pay them for their services!

A government which can not force compliance with its own laws is no government at all. The Constitution empowered a Federal Government with the right to enforce powers reserved to it. This was outlined in detail by Hamilton in several Federalist Papers arguments. (Note that the Supreme Court in Article III is given original jurisdiction in suits of one State suing another. If the States were sovereign, they would negotiate directly.) The individual States accepted those provisions as enumerated in the Constitution when they signed.

"The 10th amendment clears states that any power/authority not expressly given to the fedgov remains a power/authority of the State."

Let's examine a directly applicable privilege: the right to form treaties. That privilege was specifically reserved to the Federal government in Article I Section 10 and without it, a State can NOT declare itself sovereign. It was also delegated to the Federal Government the right to control immigration, coin money, to appoint ambassadors, and to provide a Navy, among others. The notion that the individual States are sovereign was a holdover from the Articles of Confederation.

"Sumter. ... was no longer part of the United States."

Again, no reading of any form of law justifies this interpretation. The fort was owned by the Federal Government of the United States of America - not the State of South Carolina. Guantanamo Bay is a military institution owned by the United States Federal Government, yet if Cuba fired on it, it would be declaring war on the United States - not "reclaiming" its territory. You are also assuming that South Carolina had the legal authority to declare itself sovereign, yet as demonstrated above, it did not.

"Justification? None was needed."

Honestly? The Declaration of Independence stated seventeen specific ways the British Government had abridged the rights of the colonists in the Americas. Reading from the Letters of Secession of the individual States and what do I see listed? Slavery, slavery, slavery...

And this wasn't a new complaint. The Southern States had threatened secession for 40+ years, most especially in 1840 - all over slavery. Defenders of the South want to ignore these inconvenient facts along with the Ohio Compromise, the Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave laws, and more. What about the 3/5ths Compromise in the Constitution? We can even go back to the Declaration of Independence itself, when Thomas Jefferson was forced to remove "property" as one of the cardinal rights (along with Life and Liberty) because he didn't want to give justification to the South's insistence that slaves were property - that despite he, himself being from Virginia and owning slaves. The entire history of the Southern States is replete with slavery - a moral evil.

In order to "justify" one's actions one must begin from a position of moral authority. It's not optional, it's obligatory. If you state that no justification is necessary, you grant those of weak or even immoral character license to commit any act imaginable. No, I must strenuously object to the misbegotten notion that an immoral position begets moral authority. That is the position from which tyrants and despots reign with impunity.

Before I moved to the Houston area in 2014. I had never heard of Juneteenth, and after living in the area for a number of years. I firmly and vocally believe that Juneteenth should be a LOCAL holiday celebrated in Galveston TX and NO WHERE ELSE!

Honestly June 19th 1865 did not free any slaves in Texas. As until April 9th 1865 Texas was part of a foreign country and Abraham Lincoln had no authority over the matter and then after Lee surrendered at Appomattox they were free. So if they want to celebrate when they became free they should celebrate April 9th. Granted they didn't know about it until June 19th 71 days later but that was a local matter and therefore reasonably a local holiday.

I'm reminded of Firesign Theater's (partial) explanation of things:
Trailerbikes, chiggerbites, and mosqueetoes collided aimlessly in the dense gas.

[Note: They spelled it "mosquitoes" but pronounced it as above.]

God save the Queen, man.

The popular phrase "six flags over Texas" refers to Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the US, and the Confederacy. As part of canceling anything having to do with the Confederacy we must change the phrase (and the name of the amusement park) to five flags over Texas.

It's gotta happen. They just renamed Fort Bragg, NC, to Fort Liberty, because General Bragg was a Confederate officer. Why can't these iddjits leave history alone? They're stepping on their own toes. According to Wiklipedia, "The losses suffered by Bragg's forces are cited as highly consequential to the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy." From the anti-Confederacy position, shouldn't Bragg be considered someone who helped maintain the Union?

Better "they" should abolish the memory of any Presidents or members of Congress or the Supreme Court who supported the KKK. Here's a couple of them:
- Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black (D)
- Exalted Cyclops Senator Robert C. Byrd (D)

"Save your Confederate money, boys. The Democrats will rise again."

Is it coincidence that IQ's fell every year after schools were integrated by federal law ?
When a large body of students have not had an equal level of education are forced into
a school facility with higher levels the results should have been predictable.
Instead of this having a temporary effect as students were challenged and became
better prepared for the future, standards were weakened. The students were rewarded
for mediocrity instead. Students were encouraged to 'do your own thing' and choose to
study topics with little to no employment future, and to waste hundreds of thousands
on such 'education.' Now the 'boomers' get blamed for the foolish choices made by
younger people who believed the propaganda that government and entertainment
media forced into their ill-prepared, over-praised brains.

I'm going to have to disagree.

It goes against the entire premise of the Constitution to force compliance.The 10th amendment clears states that any power/authority not expressly given to the fedgov remains a power/authority of the State. Plainly worded,there is nothing gray about it.

When the South seceded it was in its constitutional right to do so. Discussion? As a sovereign entity they we're required to speak or make concessions unless they wanted to.

Slavery. I am not for slavery, then or now (and there's plenty now), but it was still the south right to do as they though best for their nation. Recall agriculture, not industry, was the south's mainstay, they needed the labor.

Sumter. Regardless of its strategic location, whether construction was underway, or how much military training occurred the fort was clearly in southern territory that was no longer part of the United States. Ordering "foreigners" to vacate what isn't their homeland is not unreasonable. What was unreasonable was the North's refusal to vacate and then attempt to resupply. What did Lincoln think would happen when the ship arrived?

Justification? None was needed. They no longer wished to associate and exercised their right to opt out.

As for the illiterate sounding juneteenth, considering communications at that time I would find it hard, but not impossible, to see the failure to notify 1) the war was over and 2) emancipation as being malicious. Still if juneteenth is legit, have it it just don't riot, hurt people and burn shit down.

So true. Just like they want everyone to forget that they are Marxist Communists.

👍 Watch out for the ants, fleas, ticks, and chiggers, in your celebrations. ;^)
TANSTAAFL.

To me, this is a complete joke. We should be celebrating the day the 13th Amendment was passed and call it Emancipation Day. There's nothing in "Juneteenth" which even says what one is celebrating.