A LITTLE GUN HISTORY

[Catt]

The Tenth Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Tenth Amendment complements the Ninth in providing a persuasive textual argument that the right of secession is reserved to the states. The right to prevent secession is not delegated to the United States. In fact, the Constitutional Convention considered and rejected a provision that would have authorized the use of Union force against a recalcitrant state. On 31 May 1787, the Constitutional Convention considered adding to the powers of Congress the right to call forth the force of the union against any member of the union, failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof.

The clause was rejected after James Madison spoke against it:

A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.

Neither is the right to secede expressly prohibited to the states. Thus, under the plain meaning of the Tenth Amendment, the states retain the right to secede. This position is buttressed by the historical fact that the states had the right to secede in 1776 and did not expressly give up that right in ratifying the Constitution. To the contrary, New York and several other states, in their acts of ratification, noted which the powers of government may be reassumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness. The Tenth Amendment also makes clear that a right or power need not be expressly granted to the states by the Constitution. Rather, the states are irrebuttably presumed to have such a power, unless that power is expressly taken from them by the Constitution.

Since the acts of secession were approved by state legislatures, then ratified by conventions whose delegates were elected by the people of those states, there is no conflict between the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in authorizing Confederate secessions.

[Guest muddy]

I There are no provisions in the Constitution for secession, and non against. The Civil War was inevitible. The slavery issue aside, this idea of the North being the "GOOD GUY" is ridiculous. The North East had a strangle hold on the House ( 1 rep/35,000) so by population densitity alone they controlled a lot of policy and votes. The North were treating the South as England had treated the colonies.The waves of immigration were making those numbers even more out of wack

States rights were in the forefront of the struggles facing the shaky US. If the South could not compete in Congress for their basic needs and RIGHTS, why couldn't they decide on what was best for the, Things were niot as universal, for lack of a better word, then as they are now. What was good for a State like Georgia, was in noway what was good for a state like Mass. yet all the wealth and voting strength was allowing the North to impose its will on the southern states.

Then the rail roads, being mapped out from East to West were being planned with all the Hubs in the North, and all new territories were being forced to align themselves with Northern Policy to enter the Union, this included a lot of Back Door deals to get those traks running through various states.

While the North was gobbeling up Agricultural and Natural products from the South they were not reinvesting or building many factories there. Leaving poor whites and freed slave in a constant state of starvation or locked into no win sharecropping deals. To make things even more impossible the Northern dominated Congress were playing with Tarrifs so much as to make it impossible for the South to sell their products on a free open market. This international competition would have helped many southern farmes ,miners and loggers get a fairer price on what the North was all but stealing A LITTLE BIT OF TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE WAS STILL FRESH IN MANY MINDS.

Lincoln's election was the final straw and it is no wonder the war started so soon after his election.The historic slant that the South buried themselves by holding onto to slavery and by doing so they kept agriculture in the dark ages and depressed the salries of free whites, has some truth in it. Why did the North not invest and help their southern brothers is what i will never understand. Why was the will and the needs of the North so much more important than ther needs and wants of the South? If my family was starving I would not have been hesitant to pick up arms and fight. The Noirth was trying to Colonize the South just as England had done to the original colonies.

I remeber as a kid, the group the BAND put out a song THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN, aboput a farmer named Virgil Caine , and what the devestation of the Civil War had done to the common man, the farmer in the South. My band immeditely covered that song, and we were branded in a local paper as playing a racist song. Mind you our back drop contained a series of our heros and most prominent in the center was a picture of Martin Luther King, a personal hero to our whole band. It didnt become cool to play it in NYC until Joan Baez recorded it and ha d a hit GO FIGURE!! PS I still play that song at least once a month, it still chokes me up!

[skillet]

 Being from the Southern side of the Mason-Dixon line, have never heard or read a discourse like this without one side bringing up the word "racist". Thanks to all.

Muddy,

 If you get choked up over "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" you can imagine what  it does to folks down here :'(...

                                                      Fergit, Hell

                                                           skillet

[Catt]

Despite popular belief the Civil War was not about slavery it was about taxes  

There were two factors about the election of 1860 (Abraham Lincoln) which disturbed the Southerners so badly that Southern states subsequently seceded.  First was the Republican-party platform for 1860.  Basically, the Northern capitalists wanted the U.S. government to tax (only) the South deeply, to finance the industrialization of the North, and the necessary transportation-net to support that.  In those days, there was no income tax.  The federal government received most of its revenue from tariffs (taxes) on imported goods.  The Southern states imported from England most of the manufactured goods they used, thus paid most of the taxes to support the federal government.  (The Northerners imported very little.)  In 1860, for example, just four Southern-states paid in 50% of the total tariffs.

   In 1860, the averaged tariff-rate was 18.84%; the Republicans spread the word that they were shooting for 40% -- which could bankrupt many Southerners and would make life much harder for most of them.  The Republican platform included a transcontinental railroad (following a Northern route); extensive internal-improvements to extend the transportation net for the Northern manufacturers; a homestead act which would eliminate the only other important source of federal funding, etc.

   Second, if the Republicans somehow managed to gain control of Congress AND the White House, they would then be able to use the federal government to enact and enforce their party platform -- and thus convert the prosperous Southern-states into the dirt-poor agricultural colonies of the Northern capitalists.  And given the trends in demographics, the Southern states would never be able to reverse that process.  The intent of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution would then have been subverted completely: the Southern states would no longer be governed with the consent of the governed -- but instead bullied mercilessly by the Northern majority.  Why, then, remain in the Union?

[FishingBuds]

The Soviet Union, Turkey, Germany, China, Guatemala, Uganda, Cambodia...come on, I'm all for the 2nd amendment but to attribute deaths in those countries in those time periods to the fact that those countries had gun control is naive. There was much more going on in each of those countries that would have caused deaths like that regardless of gun laws.

Wow!-scary I wonder what the 6 million dead jews would say about that one :-?

O.K. civil war buffs-how many know of the issue that Lincoln had financial plans to ship the Black Americans Back when the North won :-?

I visited Gettysburg two times last winter and it was awsome-they have stars on buildings that were back in the battle-some still have canno balls lodged in them. and signs all over marking were soldiers were shot down-very moving. But, I was very sadden to see its population issue right now around that histoical town.

I carry because of criminals-they make a mockery of our legal system >

[Catt]

Lincoln had no intentions of freeing the slaves  

"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races [applause]: that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." -- Reply by Abraham Lincoln to Stephen A. Douglas in the first joint debate, Ottowa, IL; 21 Aug 1858

[Guest muddy]

Being from the Southern side of the Mason-Dixon line, have never heard or read a discourse like this without one side bringing up the word "racist". Thanks to all.

Muddy,

If you get choked up over "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" you can imagine what it does to folks down here :'(...

                                                      Fergit, Hell

                                                           skillet

I look at it this way we are all in the same country. 8-)

[Maxximus Redneckus]

I There are no provisions in the Constitution for secession, and non against. The Civil War was inevitible. The slavery issue aside, this idea of the North being the "GOOD GUY" is ridiculous. The North East had a strangle hold on the House ( 1 rep/35,000) so by population densitity alone they controlled a lot of policy and votes. The North were treating the South as England had treated the colonies.The waves of immigration were making those numbers even more out of wack

States rights were in the forefront of the struggles facing the shaky US. If the South could not compete in Congress for their basic needs and RIGHTS, why couldn't they decide on what was best for the, Things were niot as universal, for lack of a better word, then as they are now. What was good for a State like Georgia, was in noway what was good for a state like Mass. yet all the wealth and voting strength was allowing the North to impose its will on the southern states.

Then the rail roads, being mapped out from East to West were being planned with all the Hubs in the North, and all new territories were being forced to align themselves with Northern Policy to enter the Union, this included a lot of Back Door deals to get those traks running through various states.

While the North was gobbeling up Agricultural and Natural products from the South they were not reinvesting or building many factories there. Leaving poor whites and freed slave in a constant state of starvation or locked into no win sharecropping deals. To make things even more impossible the Northern dominated Congress were playing with Tarrifs so much as to make it impossible for the South to sell their products on a free open market. This international competition would have helped many southern farmes ,miners and loggers get a fairer price on what the North was all but stealing A LITTLE BIT OF TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION AND THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE WAS STILL FRESH IN MANY MINDS.

Lincoln's election was the final straw and it is no wonder the war started so soon after his election.The historic slant that the South buried themselves by holding onto to slavery and by doing so they kept agriculture in the dark ages and depressed the salries of free whites, has some truth in it. Why did the North not invest and help their southern brothers is what i will never understand. Why was the will and the needs of the North so much more important than ther needs and wants of the South? If my family was starving I would not have been hesitant to pick up arms and fight. The Noirth was trying to Colonize the South just as England had done to the original colonies.

I remeber as a kid, the group the BAND put out a song THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN, aboput a farmer named Virgil Caine , and what the devestation of the Civil War had done to the common man, the farmer in the South. My band immeditely covered that song, and we were branded in a local paper as playing a racist song. Mind you our back drop contained a series of our heros and most prominent in the center was a picture of Martin Luther King, a personal hero to our whole band. It didnt become cool to play it in NYC until Joan Baez recorded it and ha d a hit GO FIGURE!! PS I still play that song at least once a month, it still chokes me up!

Im impressed muddy good job

8-)

[Guest muddy]

Quotes from a couple of more   Presidents, just to show how they only tell the truth

I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT WOMAN

I NEVER SAID THAT TO HALDERMAN, WE HARDLY SPOKE ABOUT COVERT OPS

[FishingBuds]

if barack Obama gets luckky and becomes pres it will be extreme because of him being black  

Obama is Black :-?

[Glenn]

And now that it's become political.  We're done.