|View single post by 19bama46|
|Posted: Fri Nov 27th, 2009 02:52 pm||
I intended to get back to you yesterday, but alas, life interveined!
You aksed earlier what if any rights of the south had been trampled by the north to the extent that disunion could and should be claimed... (paraphrasd and summarized...accurately, I hope)
I am not sure I can asnswer the question because looking at the question from the position of hindsight here in the 21st century the reasons seem to us to be trivial and silly. Certainly there was an economic factor, there was a loss or the fear of loss of influence and power aas non slave states would be admitted to the union upsetting the balance of power.... This, I suspect, was a major fear. And of course, there is the whole issue of slavery. to go into all the aspects of this issue would take volumes and they are well known to all who read these words.
I maintain however that it is not for us to enumerate these greviences, but rather it was sufficient that they knew, articulated or not, what they meant . The perception of a wrong can be just as powerful as the wrong itself...
In any event, they felt wronged, believed the bond was broken and pulled out. ..
Therre are many would say the DOI is/was a document written for that moment in time and its value to day is historical only. I am not among them. I look at the document and see a superbly crafted statement or series of statements that lay out the rights, duties, and responsibilities of a free people..here or elsewhere. I believe the document was just as valid in 1860 as it was in 1776 and its validity continues to this day and beyond.
Look if you will about what the DOI says about government, rights duties and responsibility.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
What could be clearer? Governments are formed to secure the rights of its citizens. Was the government of King George securing th rights of the colonists, how about the government of the US in 1860...or more important today?... Opinions will vary won't they...whose opinion counts and whose does not??
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Here the DOI tells us what our rights are relative to our governemnt when we no longer believe the current government becomes destructive to the purposed under which it was founded. Notice there are no conditions or miminum greviences laid out, but rather it is left to the people to decide for themselves when the threashold has been met and passed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Here we are told that when the threshold of tyrrany has been breached, it is our DUTY to throw off the governemnt and replace it. Once again the minimum number of greviences is not listed but is left to the people to come to that conclusion as best they can..
Were the secessionists right or wrong? I would argue that their minds, according to their value structures and looking at things from their selifish interests, they acted justly. Looking at things from the comfort of my living room in the 21st century, it is easy to see that they acted incorrectly...
What about the future? Will this nation ever again struggle over this issue? What criteria would we use? Who would be to say if the decisions arrived at were ritht or wrong?
To me, this document is eternal...crafted by man, but holding eternal truths
Last edited on Fri Nov 27th, 2009 02:53 pm by 19bama46