It seems this conversation is why no states ever repealed their Ordinance of Secession... I added the Booth event to show that they had crossed paths before...
November 9, 1863 President and Mrs. Lincoln go to Ford’s Theater with aides John G. Nicolay and John Hay, who writes: “J. Wilkes Booth was doing ‘the Marble Heart.’ Rather tame than otherwise.” P…
abrahamlincolnandthecivilwar.wordpress.com
November 9, 1863
President and Mrs. Lincoln go to Ford’s Theater with aides John G. Nicolay and John Hay, who writes: “J. Wilkes Booth was doing ‘the Marble Heart.’ Rather tame than otherwise.”
November 12, 1863 - In response to former Louisiana Congressman Benjamin Flanders, Lincoln states "...the act of secession is legally nothing and needs no repealing."
Here is the whole tale...
Regarding reconstruction in Louisiana, President Lincoln writes Benjamin F. Flanders, a New Orleans politician who had briefly served in Congress earlier in the year. Flanders had been appointed Special Agent of the United States Treasury Department in August. Lincoln wrote: “In a conversation with Gen. Butler he made a suggestion which impressed me a good deal at the time. It was that, as a preliminary step, a vote be taken, yea or nay, whether there shall be a State convention to repeal the Ordinance of secession, and remodel the State constitution. I send it merely as a suggestion for your consideration, not having considered it maturely myself. The point which impressed me was, not so much the questions to be voted on, as the effect of chrystallizing, so to speak, in taking such popular vote on any proper question. In fact, I have always thought the act of secession is legally nothing, and needs no repealing. Turn the thought over in your mind, and see if in your own judgment, you can make any thing of it.”
It means secession was always illegal from day one...
Lincoln's sole legal argument against secession, was as follows:
Having never been States, either in substance or in name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about the "sovereignty" of the States, but the word even is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions.
What is a "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it "a political community without a political superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States, except Texas, ever was a sovereignty; and even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by revolution.
--July 4, 1861: July 4th Message to Congress
However in reality, the American Revolution established the states as
thirteen sovereignties, each supremely ruled by its respective legislature; which wholly invalidates the US government's legal argument for national union over the states (vs. simply an
international union like the UN or the EU).
Some are confused by the fact that, under the Constitution, each state is supremely ruled by its respective people, rather than its respective
legislature as under the Confederation; and they are likewise confused by the fact that each state's respective people
ratified the Constitution
for their state,
and their state only,
as a separate sovereignty.
Therefore Lincoln was simply parroting Jackson's
1832 false claim, that the states formed "one nation" in 1776, and that therefore "secession is treason:"
In our colonial state, although dependent on another power, we very early considered ourselves as connected by common interest with each other. Leagues were formed for common defense, and before the Declaration of Independence, we were known in our aggregate character as the United Colonies of America. That decisive and important step was taken jointly. We declared ourselves a nation by a joint, not by several acts; and when the terms of our confederation were reduced to form, it was in that of a solemn league of several States, by which they agreed that they would, collectively, form one nation, for the purpose of conducting some certain domestic concerns, and all foreign relations. In the instrument forming that Union, is found an article which declares that "every State shall abide by the determinations of Congress on all questions which by that Confederation should be submitted to them."
Under the Confederation, then, no State could legally annul a decision of the Congress, or refuse to submit to its execution, but no provision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but they were not complied with. The Government could not operate on individuals.
This is because the states did
not form one nation, as Jackson claimed; but rather the Declaration of Independence declared that the states were
free and independent, as thirteen separate sovereignties
:
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.
And this was retained in the Articles of Confederation:
Each state retains
- its sovereignty, freedom, and independence,
- and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
Therefore the states simply formed an
international union of
thirteen separate sovereignties.
And this sovereignty ultimately achieved under the
1783 Treaty of Paris:
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.
Meanwhile under the Constitution, each state became supremely ruled by each state's
respective people (as supremely represented by the state
citizen-voters); who like their state legislature under the Articles of Confederation, simply delegated powers to state
as well as federal governments, and thus could
overrule either or both at will.
But no state's sovereignty was ever
changed, and the US government
never claimed this; rather, it just falsely claimed that the states were never 13 sovereignties in the
first place, as its sole legal basis for denying secession.
So when the people of South Carolina opted for their state to withdraw from the Constitutional union in 1860, and other states followed; then they just lawfully instructed their state officials to overrule the federal government of the international union, and formally withdraw their states from it.
Just like with the UK in Brexit.
