TLHLIM
- Thread starter sturg33
- Start date
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Read my post. I didn't say a state objected. Proponents of states rights did. Surely the Confederacy had an opportunity there to show due respect and deference to states rights. Instead they rammed it through without even asking the states.
As for the states themselves, crickets. They were only too happy to see the Confederacy trample upon the sacred principle over which they were supposedly fighting the war.
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Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
Actually that is a mere detail. The main point is that suddenly the states themselves were silent. They could have asserted their rights but when it suited their purposes they silently allowed the Confederacy to trample upon the sacred principle of states rights.
There were a few men of principle who objected. Notably the governors of Georgia and North Carolina. But they couldn't persuade their legislatures and more importantly the wider body of public opinion. Thus died an untimely death the noble principle of states rights.
All those state legislatures who had so eagerly voted to secede suddenly went silent.
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nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
The state legislatures were mute. Some governors and private citizens spoke out. It seemed more than clear to them that the principle of states rights was being trampled upon. But this principle found no defenders in the legislatures. For them the ends justified the means.
As I understand your argument, states rights are only under attack if the state legislatures raise an objection. It is an interesting perspective. That only state legislatures are capable of defining states rights.
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Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
It's weird that you find what was standard procedure at the time to be surprising. The legislatures approved leaving the United States, joining the Confederate States, and would have disapproved of the draft. The executive branch of government didn't have the near king powers that it has today, at either the state of federal level. That happened after the War of Northern Aggression.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
The state legislatures could have defended the principle of states rights against the Confederacy. But they acquiesced. For them the ends justified the means. It was certainly clear to a number of people at the time that this was a trampling of the principle of states rights. Principles only mean something if they are defended even when inconvenient.
To close the circle: MIT was wrong in withdrawing it's invitation to that guest speaker. Important principles deserve defense even when defending them is inconvenient or onerous. If they are not defended at such times they die a slow death.
Oh and **** BYU for it's passive aggressive attack on the counterculture and other dissenters from the prevailing orthodoxy of the day by banning beards.
I would have thought it would be an easy call for you to accept that the state legislatures were a bunch of hypocrites in acquiescing to the Confederate draft.
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nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
It seems to me that if the state legislatures attached so much importance to states rights, they would have nullified the overreach on the part of the Confederacy. If further they thought a draft was necessary they could have enacted one or explicitly delegated the authority to enact one to the Confederacy. But I guess they were too busy or something. Or maybe they were a bunch of hypocrites for whom states rights wasn't such a big deal after all. I vote for the latter. But to raise that possibility opens up some cans of worms for anyone attached to the view that the War of Northern Aggression was really about states rights.
Jaw
It's OVER 5,000!
They continue their efforts to redefine word definitions by repeatedly using the word incorrectly.
