Archduke Russell John wrote:Well see Randy, I accept the historical premise that this is a nation of laws and that the Court is the body of the government that interprets the Constitution. Therefore, when said Court explains how to interpret a particular portion of the Constitution, I accept that as binding. Futher that interpretation is then valid for most arguments using that same portion of the Constitution as a defense. Therefore, the test established in McCullough for interpreting what is defined as a reserved right in regards to taxing powers is just as valid in the arguments in regards to secession. You many not like it but that is the way the law and Constitutional interpretation work.

You want Randy to bow before the wisdom of the Court?

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857), was a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent brought into the United States and held as slaves (or their descendants, whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens. The court also held that the U.S. Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories and that, because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Furthermore, the Court ruled that slaves, as chattels or private property, could not be taken away from their owners without due process.

RUFFHAUS 8 wrote:. . . why not spare Chad the bandwidth and shut the @#$! up? . . . Apparently my call for previous pleas for mutual respect among friends continues to elude your comprehension . . . So I'll have my say as much as I want to, and you can go @#$! yourself.

I'll ask again, is this hypocrisy, or irony?

Whatever it is, I expect that this is part of the reason Ruffhaus is a dipper to be feared.

::::banging head against he wall:::;;

GMTom wrote:I did post one of your own sources who stated other issues contributed to the war, you dismissed those.

That is because you were using Bruce Catton for a different purpose then I was. I was saying Bruce Catton called people who say Slavery had no impact on the causes of the war Lost Causers.

However, I will stipulate that Catton said there were other issues. The problem is that Catton didn't actually dig into those other issues to see if he could determine the underlying causes, i.e. why was there such a discrepancy in industrial activity between the sections. You know how I know this. I actually read his books. Something you have not done.

This is what later historians such as McPherson, Davis and Stamp, et. al. have done. They have looked at those "other causes" of the war to see if they could determine the underlying reason for those difference. These authors have come to the conclusion that in just about every instance the underlying reason for the differences that led to the "other causes" could be attributed to slavery.

And you have to understand, these historians didn't just make this shit up. They looked at numbers, contemporary sources such as correspondence, speeches, legislations, etc. to come up with those findings.

So yes, you can claim there were "other causes" but I am challenging you to go a step further and find out the reasons for those other causes.

And you can make the comparions to bin Laden all you want. However, if Tom has never actually read the Koran, how does Tom know bin Laden's interpretations are wrong?

Neal Andreth wrote:You want Randy to bow before the wisdom of the Court?

Well as repugnant as the decision might have been, Constitutionally, it was correct. Slaves andformer slaves were not citizen and therefore not protected by the Constitution. Luckily, however, Dred Scott has been overturn by the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments. Therefore, it is no longer a viable interpretation of the Constituition.

However, McCullough v. Maryland has never been overturned nor overruled by a subsequent court case or constitutional amendment. Therefore, it is still the valid test to use when interpreting the meaning of reserved rights in the 10th Amendment.


Also Randy, your history is incorrect when you argue that Slavery wasn't abolished until 1865. There were many attempts to do so nationally and in territories prior to that. Some example John Qunicy Adams introduced a bill in 1839, the Wilmont Provisio (prohibiting slavery in the territories captured from Mexico) and an 1863 bill abolishing slavery nationally. The problem was that just about every attempt to do so was killed in the Senate by the slave state Senators. The exception to this was the 1863 bill which turned into the 13th Amendment.

OK I agree the overwhelming reasons for the war were due to slavery. I frankly can't believe anyone would think any such war was due to one and only one issue, but yes, slavery was absolutely the main reason.
So let me ask those who insist it was the SOLE reason to put that aside for a moment.
My question is to Randy, I just can't get over his claims that slavery had nothing to do with the war, How can he explain away every single secession document stating slavery as the primary reason for such secession? That much seems to me to be FACT, no interpretation, where does this idea come from?