A quick compliment to the editor. SOOOO many college lectures on KZread fail to show the slides and only show the speaker. Thank you for doing both.

@dennisholst4322

11 ай бұрын

Also his shadow

At every history lecture, there's always at least one person in the audience who takes six minutes to give a mini-lecture instead of asking a question.

@jona.scholt4362

2 жыл бұрын

It is required by law it seems! There is also the "ask a simple question using needlessly fancy language to look smart" guy and "asks a painfully obvious question if you paid attention to the lecture" guy and many many more. But the guy who "asks" the 10 minute question is definitely the worst since they take forever while also being cringey.

@markrutledge5855

Жыл бұрын

At least in this case the questioner asked a rather astute question that I think gets to heart of whether Lee was a traitor. So I am a bit more forgiving this time.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

@@jona.scholt4362 In this case, the lecturer makes a fool of himself by ignoring the fact that the States are the sovereign entities in our Union, and this sovereignty and the power of the States are derived from the sovereign People. When the majority of the People of a State elect to withdraw from a Union, they are exercising an unalienable right of man that is clearly and plainly stated in the Declaration of Independence.

@gordonsheaffer1228

Жыл бұрын

@@jona.scholt4362 Guelzo gives a masterclass here in how to own a heckler without being rude.....lay down facts with a pleasant smile.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

@Dennis Sullivan Texas v. White was a politically motivated opinion issued for the sole purpose of justifying an illegal war of invasion and conquest against a free, independent, and sovereign State. The States have always been sovereign and independent entities. All 13 of the original colonies were recognized as free, independent, and sovereign States by England via the Treaty of Paris dtd 3rd September 1783. The Articles of Confederation, which is the only document to mention a perpetual union, also expressly defines the States as sovereign. There was no rebellion. The States which seceded from the Union simply exercised the unalienable right of the people to reform their own government in their pursuit of happiness. Given: the Constitution of the United States forms a NEW union. Given: all 13 of the member nations of the original United States did implicitly secede. Given: a sovereign power has the right to withdraw any cessions made by treaty or compact (and the Constitution is nothing else). If the 13 original member nations of the United States did not have the power to secede, then the Articles of Confederation are still in effect and the federal government is virtually powerless. Otherwise, the States which seceded in 1860 and 1861 had the lawful right to exercise the will of their people to withdraw from the union and to resume their full sovereign powers. You treasonous Lincolnites have never been known for your ability to reason.

Lee's resignation from the US Army was to his mind immediate. That the bureaucratic red tape took 5 days is a technicality.At that point in time there was a certain level of honor, dignity, and decency among men. This technicality would have been ignored by any reasonable jury or judge.

@charlesneely

Жыл бұрын

The only thing Robert Ely did was become a traitor to his country he was given an order by the president of the United States is CNC commander-in-chief of all the so you're great Patriot with a goddamn traitor and that statement stands on his own . This is only a movie but it probably exactly the meeting went exactly like kzread.info/dash/bejne/k5l7pNKNdr3OmJc.html

@warlord8954

Жыл бұрын

@@charlesneely 1. Lincoln never issued any order to Union Colonel Robert E. Lee. 2. Lee was OFFERED full command of all Union forces after the surrender of Ft. Sumter by Preston Blair at Lincoln's direction. Lee said to Blair at the Blair House across the street from the White House, " "Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves at the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?" 3. Every officer in all branches of the Armed Forces of the United States receive a commission from the President, as approved by Congress. 4. All officers can resign their commission and exit service. This is what Lee did and it is completely legal per the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 5. Lee was not a traitor. Lee was against secession and said so. However, once Virginia seceded Lee defended his home, and country, Virginia. 6. Even before 1776, and after 1787 all Americans considered themselves Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, Etc. They considered their state as their country first, and the United States as their nation, second. That's why each and every unit, North, and South was designated with a number, and the state from which they came. The 54th Massachusetts, The 20th Maine, 2nd Virginia Infantry, et. al. 5. Grant, in following Lincoln's desire to "Bind up the Nation's Wounds" was magnanimous with the terms of surrender and parole at Appomattox Courthouse when Lee surrendered. 6. After Lee had left a Union Army Band began to play in celebration. Grant sent out the order, “The war is over; the rebels are our countrymen again; and the best sign of rejoicing after the victory will be to abstain from all demonstrations in the field.” Meaning there would be no songs or tunes sung or played in celebration of the defeat of the rebels. These men had honor, dignity, and respect for one another even though they were adversaries. Something you could never understand.

@warlord8954

Жыл бұрын

​@dennissullivan1651 You left out some things as well. Grant and Longstreet met during the Mexican-American War. Grant then dated Longstreet's fourth cousin Julia Dent who he married. Longstreet attended the wedding. Also, after the war Longstreet joined the Republican Party during Reconstruction in the South, and supported Grant for President. Longstreet attended Grant's inauguration and six days later was made the Surveyor of Customs for New Orleans. Because of these choices Longstreet drew the contempt and disdain of a great many Southerners. Lee had no such connection to Grant, and only wanted to live out the remainder of his life in peace and not be involved in politics of any kind. However, Judge John C. Underwood, the US District judge for Norfolk handed down indictments against Lee and others. Lee wrote to Grant and Grant went to Johnson. Grant told Johnson that Lee and the others couldn't be tried as long as they observed the terms of their parole. Johnson asked when could they be tried and Grant said "Never.". Johnson wasn't about to go against the Hero of the Union, and he was in the beginnings of an investigation that would lead to impeachment proceedings in the House. The charges were dropped and Lee never knew that Grant had interceded on his behalf.

@andystitt3887

Жыл бұрын

Treason requires knowing and willfully making war against the United States. If he intended resign immediately then he cannot be guilty for something out of his control.

@aaronfleming9426

11 ай бұрын

@@warlord8954 In general your points are well taken and accurate, but under # 5 and 6 I beg to make a few corrections. 5. Lee, by the letter mentioned in the video (which was to his son Rooney, I believe, not his wife) Lee recognized that 'secession' was actually 'revolution', and was illegal. He noted that Virginia opposed the short-lived New England secessionists in the early 1800's and Virginia's position in 1861 was hypocritical and legally wrong, though he was willing to stand by her come what may. Honest people can disagree about whether or not that was honorable on his part, but it's nearly impossible to argue that he didn't know what he was doing. You can find the letter in the Lee Family Online Archives if you wish to read it in full. 6. "all Americans" did not consider their home state to be their primary citizenship. Obviously such Virginians as George Thomas and Winfield Scott disagreed; and some northerners, notably Pennsylvanian John Pemberton, also disagreed and fought for the rebels. By your definition, Pemberton and his ilk *would* have been a traitor and liable to hanging. It is likewise incorrect that to say that "each and every unit" had a state designation. That was of course the majority, but from the very beginning of the war, the U.S. Army had both infantry and artillery designated as national units, and of course the U.S. Navy was a national force as well. It is worth adding that men could and frequently did cross state lines to enlist in states in which they did not have residency, to say nothing of their state of nativity. How could this be under your concept? Thank you for your kind consideration of my comment.

This was very interesting. A great presentation with a legal level-headed approach. Thank you

“With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in he Army, and save in defense of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword. I know you will blame me; but you must think as kindly of me as you can, and believe that I have endeavored to do what I thought right.” - Robert E. Lee in a letter to his sister, April 20, 1861

@TheStapleGunKid

4 жыл бұрын

_"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for perpetual union, so expressed in the preamble, & for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution. In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jefferson's Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?"_ --Robert E. Lee, Jan 29, 1861.

@Pandaemoni

4 жыл бұрын

Certainly that is an eloquent statement...and if he hadn't been directly responsible for the deaths of large numbers of U.S. troops, I might have thought him wrong, but nonetheless supported him and his right to be wrong. However eloquently one justifies one's position, however "right" one believes it is, you cannot go off and shoot dead U.S. troops on U.S. soil and expect to get away with it scot-free. Certainly that seems obvious in the modern age, and I am not sure I believe the outcome really "deserves" to have been different then. The real difference is pure realpolitik, there were so many ex-confederates who shared moral culpability for the treason and the deaths that it was more pragmatic in healing the nation to let it go than to seek to punish anyone, even among those whose blame was the most egregious. The will of the the hundreds of thousands of ex-confederate soldiers to fight was, at that moment in history, broken and seeking justice would have: (a) felt to them like retribution and (b) possibly reignited the will to fight in too many of them (regionally, at least, being more likely than "all across the South"). Otherwise, as so often happens, the price of justice for the dead was just too high to pay. Plus, to be fair, those fired up due to the assassination of Lincoln probably were just looking for retribution for that death and not true justice.

@drew7155

4 жыл бұрын

@@Pandaemoni I think you forgot who the invaders were.

@drew7155

4 жыл бұрын

@@TheStapleGunKid do people have a right to "vote with their feet?" Leave an oppressive place and take with them their private property and assets?

@TheStapleGunKid

4 жыл бұрын

@@drew7155 Of course they do. But they don't have the right to try and carve out a portion of a nation to create their own slave empire. Anyone who felt America in 1860 was oppressive (it wasn't) was free to leave at any time. The problem wasn't that the Southerners wanted to leave, it's that they wanted to declare a portion of the nation their own for the sole purpose of preserving and expanding slavery.

What an enjoyable and illuminating lecture from Dr Guelzo.

@alwilson3204

2 ай бұрын

And very thought provoking as well.

In light of today's political calisthenics it's interesting that nothing seems to have changed in the course of human events. Interesting lecture and Q and A.

Robert Lee had a cousin, Samuel Phillips Lee, who stayed loyal to the Union and served in the navy as an Admiral. When asked why he stayed in the Union, Samuel Lee said _"When I find the word Virginia in my commission I will join the Confederacy."_

@mwduck

3 жыл бұрын

For a thorough biography of Admiral S. P. Lee, see "Lincoln's Lee: The Life of Samuel Phillips Lee, United States Navy, 1812-1897" by my friend Dudley Taylor Cornish and Virginia Laas.

@drewdurbin4968

3 жыл бұрын

Which isn't relevant since lee was no longer part of the army.

@TheStapleGunKid

3 жыл бұрын

@@drewdurbin4968 Only because he resigned to go fight for the slave empire.

@Wadzillia

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheStapleGunKid Considering only 20% of Southerners owned slaves. That's including black and Indian slave owners. To say it was a Slave empire is a stretch.

@TheStapleGunKid

2 жыл бұрын

@@Wadzillia You are missing the point. The issue isn't percentage of slave owners, it's the reason why the CSA was formed, which was to preserve and expand slavery: _"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."_ --CSA Vice President Alexander Stephens. That's what makes the CSA a slave empire.

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… it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ~Thomas Jefferson

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

About New York joining union. To Alexander Hamilton from James Madison, [20 July 1788] From James Madison1 N. York Sunday Evening [July 20, 1788]2My dear Sir Yours of yesterday is this instant come to hand & I have but a few minutes to answer it. I am sorry that your situation obliges you to listen to propositions of the nature you describe. My opinion is that a reservation of a right to withdraw if amendments be not decided on under the form of the Constitution within a certain time, is a conditional ratification, that it does not make N. York a member of the New Union, and consequently that3 she could not be received on that plan. Compacts must be reciprocal, this principle would not in such a case be preserved. The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever. It has been so adopted by the other States. An adoption for a limited time would be as defective as an adoption of some of the articles only. In short any condition whatever must viciate the ratification. What the new Congress by virtue of the power to admit new States, may be able & disposed to do in such a case, I do not enquire as I suppose that is not the material point at present. I have not a moment to add more. Know my fervent wishes for your success & happiness. Js: Madison This idea of reserving right to withdraw was started at Richmd. & considered as a conditional ratification which was itself considered as worse than a rejection:

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

At that time there were only 18 states. Mexico, Spain and France all owned parts of what would become The United States. Even Jefferson would have changed him mind about all of the fights he always seemed to support.

@cliffpage7677

2 жыл бұрын

Thomas Jefferson did not attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was a supporter of the original Confederation and was afraid that the States would be sold out to a nationalistic government. He co-authored the Kentucky resolution to allow for its session from Virginia and encourage the same for what became Ohio and Illinois. Jefferson believed that a governable people was 30,000 and felt that when a polity exceeded that number it was the natural state of matter in the human sphere to divide and form new polities. Jefferson believed in small government where democratic principles work best and where republican values and accountability function. These were the principles of the Confederacy and today are best described in the Republican Party, the Libertarians and in the Tea Party, and by Constituionalist.

@nora22000

2 жыл бұрын

@@cliffpage7677 Jefferson became a worthless slaveowner. He created financial instruments at banks and insurance companies to leverage slaves, and promoted breeding slaves to make more money. He refused Lafayette's estate to buy out his slaves, too. He does not rest in peace.

@TheStapleGunKid

2 жыл бұрын

_"I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten an abandonment of "Secession". But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy"_ --James Madison, letter to Daniel Webster

Thank you for posting this very entertaining and informative lecture.

Excellent presentation.

If they actually considered Lee a member of the US army since his resignation wasn't accepted until later, then they surely would have charged and pursued him for abandoning his post long before the end of the war. If the colonies had to choose to opt in to the United States, then they certainly had the choice to not be a part of it. Does the constitution say that it is an everlasting contract? Also, West Virgina was allowed to "secede" from Virginia even though creating new states by taking from an existing state, without the consent of all parties involved, is illegal. Is West Virginia therefore illegitimate?

@alwilson3204

2 ай бұрын

That 'option ' to not join in the United States as you term it, was not entertained or allowed in the times of the American Revolution. Don't kid yourself there.

I would argue that until secession was declared by the courts as null and void, that secession legally wasn't treason. Holding Lee legally responsible for violating a legal transgression that has not been defined would be akin to an ex post facto law.

@SovereignStatesman

7 ай бұрын

No. Secession wasn't treason, due to the fact that each state is a separate sovereign nation, and there was never a national union; and courts have NO POWER over sovereign nations. This professor is wholly ignorant of the law, so he just WAFFLES over it.

@raymondswenson1268

Ай бұрын

Every state that joined the United States of America under the Constitution of 1787 agreed to Article VI, in which they agreed to subordinate themselves to the Federal government including the Congress, the President, and the Federal courts. To reject the authority of the government under the Constitution is not legal under Article VI. The provisions of the Constitution are self executing and legally effective, and do not require an adjudication by Federal courts before they take effect. Robert Lee violated his oath to support and defend the United States and the Constitution as a US Army officer.

@stewartmillen7708

Ай бұрын

Dr. Allen Guelzo gave a talk on "Did Robert E. Lee commit treason?" at Gettyburg College. The talk is on KZread and I recommend you watch it. In short, Lee was not charged with treason because 1) Grant (and Sherman) would likely have resigned in protest and made a fuss over Lee or any other Confederate who had surrendered under their terms being charged with treason, as this would be a betrayal of the terms of surrender and they considered this a betrayal of a promise made by them personally and the US government; 2) Legally, while Lee was indeed a soldier of the US Army, he was also a citizen of Virginia, and there was no legal interpretation where a citizen's duty lay after secession (which also was a legally untested concept). Lee had been against secession, but once Virginia seceded Lee's (if one assumes the legality of secession) first loyalty would be to the state of Virginia, and that's the way he saw it. Ergo, he resigned from the US army to fulfill his loyalty to his native state. Ergo, punishing Lee and any other Confederate soldier for treason would be akin to applying an ex post facto legal construction, as these things had not been interpreted by any court at that time. Even with Jefferson Davis and the non-military members of the Confederate government was not done as the Chase and others did not want the case of the legality of secession going to the Supreme Court (moreover, the trial would have been held in Richmond, in front of a likely sympathetic jury, and any acquittal would have been seen as a vindication of the legality of secession). Moreover, Davis's imprisonment drew him the sympathy of many prominent Northerners, including staunch pro-Union abolitionists , so any prosecution of Davis would likely have been politically unpopular. SCOTUS did not make any ruling on secession until 1869, by which time Davis had been released.

@Guitcad1

Ай бұрын

Lee would not have been charged with treason for seceding, because the argument from the other side was that secession *_could not take place._* And acts called "secession" were the acts of state governments, not individuals. The charge against Lee would not have been for secession, but for *_making war_* on the United States.

@geraldhunter356

14 күн бұрын

@@raymondswenson1268 Stewart, you're very wrong. The constitution specifically forbade succession. Period. Lee was a traitor to his country. Period.

i procrastinated so much on watching this video because i was afraid of a boring lengthy speech but i heard his introduction and i was like: i am ready to be educated by this man

@JRobbySh

2 жыл бұрын

Outstanding talker.

@SovereignStatesman

7 ай бұрын

You weren't educated, because he's WRONG. The American Revolution won the war as thirteen separate sovereign nations; meanwhile the USA claimed that this never happened, but that 1) they were non-sovereign states, and that therefore 2) the Constitution united them as a single nation. This was a LIE, and this professor is ignorant of it.

This man's vocal and narrative style is impeccable! His diction and expression are as good as, if not better than, the great Alexander Scourby.

@SovereignStatesman

7 ай бұрын

Too bad his FACTS are wrong. The American Revolution won the war as thirteen separate sovereign nations; meanwhile the USA claimed that this never happened, but that 1) they were non-sovereign states, and that therefore 2) the Constitution united them as a single nation. This was a LIE, and this professor is ignorant of it.

@firstminnesota

4 ай бұрын

Actually, I found it an odd and mildly distracting oral delivery. It was certainly well written.

This is very interesting. I've never explored the details of this subject before.

It comes down to a single, simple issue: If people agree to participate in a democracy, do they then have the right to back out when it doesn't go their way? Do they have the right to say "We'll participate in this government. We'll abide by the Rule of Law as determined by our elected representatives. But _only if WE always win!_ If we don't get our way then we'll take our ball and go home! We'll tolerate you 'others' voting for your people, but at the end of the day, we're only going to abide if we get our way!" No! That ain't how a democracy works! The correct, _constitutional_ response of the southern states to Lincoln's election should have been, in so many words "He won. We lost. We don't like it, but that's how it is. We'll try again in 1864."

@Seenya59

5 жыл бұрын

You have no understanding of the founders and the foundation of this country.

@Greenfield-li3bg

5 жыл бұрын

@@Seenya59 James Madison said an unilateral secession isn't permitted by the US constitution without an explicit consent from other members. By the way, the founders were victors and the Confederates were losers. I believe that's the major difference.

@alecfoster6653

5 жыл бұрын

Defensor Rationis - Wow! Oversimplify much? It was a hell of a lot more than just Lincoln winning the election. From the viewpoint of the Confederacy, succession was justified. Lincoln's reaction to succession was that of a tyrant. A megalomaniacal, depressive, closeted gay tyrant who suspended habeas corpus and threw journalists in jail. A USA and CSA would have lived side by side in peace; much like the USA and Canada do today. Not worth the cost in lives and those maimed to "preserve the Union". Gag.

@karlburkhalter1502

5 жыл бұрын

it comes down to a single issue MONEY. Every European country in 19th Century experienced conflict when Industry created more wealth than agriculture. 13 independent states became 3 interdependent regions with textiles industry producing the most wealth for the nation. How that economic development was regulated changed drastically, thus it is called "Industrial Revolution," the governmental responsibilities in ways not anticipated by the Founders. North was correct in needing greater central authority, but overbearing arrogance of wealthy industrialists of Samuel Barlow, Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Edmond Dwight, Kirk Boot, in appropriating inappropriate amount of the Federal Budget for Canals for water powering Textile Mills and RRs to transport cotton to their Mills, was an abuse called Crony Capitalism. But the utter hypocrisy of justifying Lincoln's threat of War, in first inaugural, as some righteous crusade is inexcusable.

@cliffpage7677

5 жыл бұрын

@@Greenfield-li3bg Virginia was the richest and most important State in 1987 in the Constitutional Convention that created the United States out of the original Confederacy. Virginia agreed to accepted this ratification under a proviso that was in writing. (1) that 12 issues would be amended to the Constitution (2) that the Constitution would include a long list of terms which were adopted into the Constitution (3) that Virginia had a right to secede (that term was not used, but expressed) and the grounds for such secession. The Constitution was written by a Virginian James Madison and the Virginia Delegation was led by George Mason who was the leader in the Amendments stand, particularly the first clause of the First Amendment - the separation of church and state. Virginia was not the only state to write into its acceptance of a constitution its right to secede. The Constitution does not say that States have a right to secede, but it dos provide equall protection and rights to all states and if one state is treated one way, all the others must be treated equally. Because Virginia had a right to secede in its terms of ratification, all other States also must be accorded those same rights. South Carolina was another state that had a written agreement. In 1828 South Carolina threatened to secede over the Tariff of Abomination and that almost created a war then, except for the Compromise of Henry Clay. Those same onerous tariffs were reimposed in 1860 under Buchanan and Lincoln and that to the cotton states was an onerous and tyrannical act of abuse, which gave them the right to secede. This tariff was supporting 85% of of the Federal Treasurer, and they saw their wealth going to pay for Northern and Western railroad expansion and industrialization. This was not fair or equitable and the South resented it. Cotton was the driving force behind the British Industrial Revolution and Northern financiers greed and the profits were being siphoned off for the benefit of the North, unfairly. Seven states did secede, and Lincoln tried to invade and blockade Charleston to collect the tariff, and refused to meet with President Davis's delegation who brought an offer of compensation for Federal lands, fortifications and property. Lincoln invaded Virginia, which was not part of the Confederacy at the time, after burning the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth and part of the City. Virginia Militia defended themselves against Federal invasion at Manassas, twice and the rest of the Southern states joined the Confederacy. This is the true history of what transpired and not the boilerplate Federalist historical revisionism that has bee poured down the throats of American school children for 150 years. Secession was legal. The South accepted within its rights and responded with honor to its invasion and abuse.

Dr. Barton Myers is a friend and excellent historian, Your lucky to have him on your staff! this gentlemen that teachers at W&L politics seems very smart too!

A great speaker in terms of knowledge and delivery.

@SovereignStatesman

7 ай бұрын

Except knowledge of the facts and relevant law, since he doesn't know the first thing about national sovereignty; he just argues the Constitution like it's a matter of opinion. REALITY: Each state ratified the Constitution as a separate sovereign nation, which VOIDS any claim of national union.

Outstanding presentation. The only disagreement I have is in the questioning whether or not the Founding Fathers had a revolution. Professor Guelzo stated it was a revolution because of discontinuity, and that we were abolishing the monarchy. I disagree here because our intent was never to overthrow the monarchy, but instead, to break away (or secede) from the Crown. I acknowledge our system of government was revolutionary, and I agree with Dr. Guelzo on this, but I contend that our so-called Revolutionary War was in fact a War of Independence, not a revolution. We had no intent to overthrow the monarchy in London, hang King George III and the Parliament, and rule by decree. And yes, had we lost, George Washington and the Founding Fathers would have all lined up for the High Jump (the gibbet) for treason. I think Lee was correct in that assertion to Lord Acton. We can't simply say the Founding Fathers were right in their actions simply because they prevailed. They were all British subjects at the time.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

Professor Guelzo is grossly in error. There was no discontinuity of the governments of the colonies which were recognized by England as free, independent, and sovereign States. These States did form multiple limited unions but they retained all of their sovereign powers during the first three versions (i.e., First Continental Congress, Second Continental Congress, and Articles of Confederation). The States ceded only limited powers to the federal government under the fourth version of the United States via the modern Constitution. So, where is the discontinuity? I find none. Just FYI - a strong argument could be made that the current United States is the fifth version bearing this name, for it is a tyrannical empire in which the Constitution and the rule of law has not been honored since Lincoln illegally invaded Charleston Harbor while in negotiations with representatives of South Carolina's Peace Commission.

@johnl5316

9 ай бұрын

exactly......@@gaiustacitus4242

@johnl5316

9 ай бұрын

a war of secession in both cases.....Lincoln was treasonous, if anyone was

We need to educate the modern historians on what actually happened during the Civil War.

@JRobbySh

2 жыл бұрын

Blacks who deprecate Lincoln’s views of emancipation seem ignorant of his letter to the Illinois State Convention. in 1864. The tribute he paid to Black Troopers anticipates his remarks in Dc in April, 1865, about black suffrage.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

@@JRobbySh Lincoln was pandering to the blacks in 1864. His true sentiments about them and his position on their enslavement is well documented.

@Tasmanaut

4 ай бұрын

@@JRobbySh Lincoln was a tyrant, with no interest in freeing any slaves. The emancipation proclamation only applied to slaves in confederate states, NOT norther states. Funny that, and it only came later in the war. Blacks weren't given rights for a hundred years after. It was all a political stunt to justify the continuing war, to turn it into a moral crusade. Lincoln as ONLY interested in crushing the rebellion and restoring the union. Like an abusive partner that won't let a spouse leave. That is the reality. Slavery had very little to do with it.

@bsb1975

Ай бұрын

​@@TasmanautThe CSA was founded to protect and encourage slavery. Lincoln would have let the existing Southern states keep their slaves, but the newly formed states and territories in The West were to be off limits to slavery. This was unacceptable to the South. They were afraid that, sooner or later, the free states would outnumber the slave states, and the slave states would lose their influence over the federal government. While it's true that the average CSA soldier was fighting for many reasons other than the preservation of slavery, the CSA itself was for the protection of slavery. All of the CSA state constitutions mention slavery. The war wasn't about states' rights. The war was fought to defeat the CSA and bring those states in rebellion back into the US. The CSA was all about slavery. Therefore, the American Civil War was fought over slavery. I hope this helps you. Watch other historians' take on this. Most say the same thing.

@Tasmanaut

Ай бұрын

@@bsb1975 I've read your argument, and I've heard it before. I understand it is the mainstream view. I do not agree, however. As you said, ' The war was fought to defeat the CSA and bring those states in rebellion back into the US' - that is exactly my point. Technically the war was to crush the rebellion, not to end slavery. You can argue that it was by extension, I'm saying, technically, I disagree.

This is a very interesting talk, which provides considerable insight into the issue of "Was Robert E. Lee a traitor". Professor Guelzon takes the theoretical position of Abraham Lincoln and lays the groundwork for positions taken by various parties including Gen U. S. Grant, President Andrew Johnson, Chief Justice Samuel Chase, and other lesser but very important figures surrounding this issue. He explains well the important distinction of rebellion vs. secession. I very much agree with his logic in this distinction. In one specific, I take objection. I will presume that he is trying to speak for Lincoln historically, but he gives no reason to believe that it is not his position also. I believe that Lincoln was quite wrong in his logic and arguments that the Southern states were in rebellion. Professor Guelzo is certainly aware of the dangerous waters that Lincoln was treading in making such assertions, but fails to fully explain to his audience why this was so. That needs to be understood by all the Sons of Dixie. The Constitution of the United States would not have been ratified in 1787 without the agreement and support of Virginia. Virginia ratified the Constitution with provisos and recommendations for both a Bill of Rights and for Amendments which is laid out at length. Particularly it stated in its ratifying agreement that "in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression..." This statement was an assertion that spoke to the right of Virginia to secede from the union. The Virginia Article of Secession was a peaceful exit from the Union. Furthermore, the Article also absolved its ratification of the Constitution. The break with the Union was clear and incisive and inclusive. At the time the standing army of the United States was very small and insufficient to carry out any war against anyone. The states all had militias who came under the authority and command of their Governors. The other States also had ratifying statements of rights of secession like Virginia. Texas had been an independent republic, which gained its freedom from Mexico, not Great Britain, and voluntarily joined the Union with a written agreement of secession also. (In the case of Texas v. White, this issue is not addressed and the fact that various states had ratified the Constitution with written provisos of their rights to secession is hardly mentioned by many historians today.) The Constitution requires that all States coming into the Union must do so as republican forms of government. It also guarantees a republican form of national government. Furthermore, all States are guaranteed equal rights, therefore, the rights of secession as expressed in the ratification agreements of the various States are equally guaranteed and protected for all the other States. This is an unwritten guarantee of secession that is not directly addressed in the body of the Constitution itself. Virginia had a right to secede and therefore every other State had an equal right. Virginia twice voted in the referendum regarding secession. First, it voted not to secede and then it changed its mind after the Gosport Naval Shipyard was burned, Federal troops abandoned it and part of Portsmouth was burned in the conflagration. Then-President Lincoln demanded of the Governor's, troops (he wanted to raise a 75,000 man force to march on Charleston) to cross their borders, which Virginia refused. United States troops marched into Virginia and invaded the State without the Governor's permission and were defeated twice at Manassas. Virginia was protecting its own State sovereignty from invasion. The US Constitution prohibited bringing Federal troops into a state without the express permission of the State Legislature or the Governor if the Legislature was not in session. Virginia joined the Confederacy for its own defense. Maryland had been invaded and half of her Legislators arrested by Mr. Lincoln, habeas corpus suspended unconstitutionally by him, and newspapers shut down and editors and publishers arrested. The Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia was first flown at the Second Battle of Manassas by Gen Thomas Jackson. It would later become universally recognized as the standard of the Confederacy and this Battle Flag and was adopted as the Confederate Naval ensign, in its elongated form. The Southern States were not in rebellion, nor were they military rebels. The Southern States that removed themselves from the Union did so peacefully. These states formed a new collective confederation of equal standing to their old alliance the United States. The first victim of Mr. Lincoln's War was a Florida Militiaman shot and killed by Federal troops in Pensacola. President Lincoln attempted to land Marines in Charleston after South Carolina seceded, but their Commander refused to land and carry out his orders, knowing that to do so was a violation of the Constitution and that this would have been an act of war against a sovereign state. This action took place while Virginia and other middle-Southern States were in Peace Conference with Congress in Washington, Lincoln and Sen. Corwin were proposing to the South the acceptance of slavery in exchange for no secession. Then Lincoln sent an armed flotilla to South Carolina and the Star of the West exhibited that she was armed (after giving its word that it was only reprovisioning Fort Sumpter with food) by mistakingly firing on a USN vessel. These actions by Lincoln were aggressive acts of war, which precipitated the firing on Fort Sumpter which Lincoln intended to use as a provocation to impose the Morell Tariff upon South Carolina, even after she had seceded. South Carolina seceded as she had threatened to do in 1824 over the Tariff of Abomination. That secession was only avoided by the Great Compromiser Henry Clay. At the same time that South Carolina seceded the Mayor of New York and his Council voted to secede, but reversed themselves when the NY Governor threatened to use the State Militia to invade the City if they did from the State and the Union. Town Line above Buffalo, NY did secede at the same time and was the last community to officially return to the Union during the Truman Administration in 1946. They flew the flag of the Confederacy and its Firemen wore a patch of that flag on their uniforms until that time. They seceded, like Virginia when Lincoln tried to call up his 75,000-man army to invade Dixie. Before the War, most states and citizens understood and believed in the rights of their sovereign states to secede. That right was not specifically noted in the Constitution, but in the ratifying words of various States and in the words of equal protection that indeed were in the Constitution as a guarantee! One additional last caveat. President Buchanan and his Attorney General concluded and stated that the Federal Executive could do nothing to prohibit a state from seceding and to reflect that belief he entered into a military armistice with the Confederate States before Lincoln took office. Lincoln broke this armistice by ordering a blockade and sending a naval force to Charleston and Pensacola to seize the military forts there. Likewise following the capitulation of the Confederacy the advice from the US Attorney General regarding a trial for President Jefferson Davis for treason was strongly opposed and such a trial would undermine the US revolution and the trumped-up reasons for the United States invading and causing war against the Southern States. Davis never asked for pardon or to have his citizenship restored. Instead, he insisted that the United States try him for treason to throw him in the briar patch. Davis has resigned from his position of Senator representing Mississippi when his State withdrew from the Union. The only Senator who did not take such action was Senator Johnson of Tennesee who was a firm Unionist. He was later impeached by the Radical Republican Congress, but acquitted by a single vote.

@ramp7t

5 жыл бұрын

Thank you for history lesson, and I thought that I was sort of on top of this topic.

@GorinRedspear

5 жыл бұрын

I do not really understand why this is still an issue. Was there a trial, was there a conviction? No, therefore he is innocent!

@nora22000

5 жыл бұрын

@@GorinRedspear His citizenship was revoked. Lee died a man without a country. He should have been hanged but Grant saved him.

@historicus146

5 жыл бұрын

"....were defeated twice at Manassas. In both instances, these battles took place before Virginia had joined the Confederacy." Not even close to being true. Check your facts.

@historicus146

5 жыл бұрын

@@nora22000Lee spent his post war life promoting Union and reconciliation. You really should do some reading.

I had several ancestors in the Rockbridge County Artillery

@suckitfromtheback

4 жыл бұрын

Cool story, bro.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." Abraham Lincoln, First inaugural Address, March 4th, 1861

@warlord8954

5 жыл бұрын

Try looking up the "Black Codes" that existed in the North prior to, during, and after the Civil War. Indiana had a complete prohibition on any blacks, free of slave from even entering the state. The Illinois Constitution of 1948 prohibited blacks, free or slave from entering. If a slave was brought into the state, the owner had 6 months to sell the slave to a slave owner in a slave state. And of course there was almost a complete prohibition on free blacks from voting in almost all northern states. So, tell me again about how noble the north was.

@nora22000

5 жыл бұрын

Robert DuBois The North was not "noble" in anyone's opinion here. The North was in control and decided that slavery was no longer desirable in the United States. Period. The precarious dependence of the South on slavery was actually a very good reason to abolish it, actually. The North was ingenious at finding ways to use taxes and tariffs to siphon off the excess profits from the free labor of slavery. Southerners were hubristic largely because of their superiority complex in owning slaves, considering themselves somehow more important than slaves, then better than Yankees, and so on. Neither Jefferson Davis nor any of his ministers or generals thought it necessary to placate the North or even to negotiate with them during the war; to them, their desires should just be acceded to, not questioned because they were the mighty slaveowners, rich because they didn't pay for labor and life-and-death powerful over enslaved humans. The North didn't like the laziness and immaturity of people who lived in slaveowner society, the threat to free men in the territories or the international humiliation of being behind the curve on abolishing slavery. I don't think that they were morally repulsed or wanted to help the slaves. The terrible lives of the freed blacks after the war proves that.

@warlord8954

5 жыл бұрын

The South repeatedly attempted to negotiate a peace with the North. Lincoln was having none of it. And historically there were more Southerners in Ivy League schools in the US and abroad. Southerners weren't hubristic from owning slaves. They were because they were making the most money in the US. The Bank of New Orleans had almost as much money as all of NY City banks. There were more millionaires in the South than there were in the North.

@warlord8954

5 жыл бұрын

Also, see my replies to Aaron Fleming right here on other historical facts. I've been studying the Civil War for a good part of my life.

@warlord8954

5 жыл бұрын

Look up the Corwin Amendment. If you do that, and are intellectually honest, we can talk and have an actual discussion. If you want a discussion.

Unapologetically American.

When Prof. Guelzo talks, I hear Kelsey Grammer.

@michaelsmith1094

5 жыл бұрын

I hear a pompous ass.

@therealtoni

5 жыл бұрын

That's all you got?

@NewarkBay357

4 жыл бұрын

He does a facial resemblance.

@marymoriarity2555

4 жыл бұрын

Listen to his command of English. Phenomenally clear and precise.

@marymoriarity2555

4 жыл бұрын

Michael Smith you must be talking about yourself when you speak then. How many doctorates do you have sir

wonderful presentation very very important history lesson for me.

It's not that complicated. Yes.

That’s a vagueness in citizenship that George Thomas didn’t seem to be confused by

@TheStapleGunKid

2 жыл бұрын

Nor Winfield Scott, nor William Terrill, nor Robert's own cousin Sam Lee. Some of the Union's best officers were Southerners, including a considerable number of Virginians.

@firstminnesota

4 ай бұрын

I think Guelzo was telling us -- and the now published biography spells it out -- that Lee was reaching for a plausible justification for a decision that he had already made on other grounds. The decision has plausibility in the contemporary context. And that was all people could demand of him. Guelzo wasn't giving him a pass, I don't think. I repeat, the biography is very good in spelling out the motivating factors. They are not entirely in Lee's favor.@@TheStapleGunKid

Lovely

I think Lees defense strategy was actually brilliant, arguing that a a citizen of the State of Virginia, he had no choice and had a divided loyalty.

@SovereignStatesman

7 ай бұрын

Lee was an IDIOT who lost the war, by claiming in January 1861 that "secession is nothing but revolution," and so he fought it as a revolution rather than a national defense. In reality, Virginia was a SOVEREIGN NATION, and the USA never was; so he GAVE Lincoln the victory by agreeing with his FALSE legal argument. Lee was the Jubilation T. Cornpone of the war: Lincoln couldn't have win without him.

@Tasmanaut

4 ай бұрын

@@SovereignStatesman that isn't a fair characterisation. He became a folk hero to both side, and by all accounts was a gentlemen. He fought bravely and was gracious in defeat.

Brilliant lecture. Fascinating.

I love how this "professor" of history glosses over a key exchange between Grant and Johnson. Johnson asked Grant, "If we cannot try them now, when can we?" To which Grant replied, "Never". Making a case for treason and leaving out key details means this man has an agenda and an axe to grind.

@dsadlier

Жыл бұрын

I love how YOU cut off Grant's response to Johnson after the first word. Grant's reply was "Never, unless they violate their paroles." Grant never said that Gen. Lee did not commit Treason. Grant clearly believed that Lee did commit treason, as did Lincoln. But they wanted the killing to end. So they made a bargain with Lee. Grant believed that bargain should not be reneged on.

@warlord8954

Жыл бұрын

@@dsadlier Neither Grant nor Lincoln ever expressed in words, written, or spoken that I've ever found that Lee committed treason. If either did and you have an original source I would be most interested in seeing it.

@dsadlier

Жыл бұрын

@@warlord8954 They never expressed in words that Lee DID NOT commit treason. By your logic that would prove my point. But your logic is silly. We have no statements from either of them either way so we are left with our impressions of what they believed. I stated my opinion that Grant and Lincoln clearly believed that Lee did commit treason based on the fact that they granted him a parole to protect him from charges of treason, the fact that they did not recognize the CSA as a nation which negates the "not a citizen" defense, the fact that Grant supported their trial if they violated the parole, and the fact that they never stated that Lee or any of the Americans who were waging war on America had not committed treason. On what do you base your opinion that they did not believe Lee committed treason?

@warlord8954

Жыл бұрын

@@dsadlier "Parole" with regard to warring parties dates back to the late 15th, and early 17th centuries. Stemming from "parole d'honneur". Meaning, "word of honor". A prisoner of war could be granted parole upon taking an oath of honor that they wouldn't take up arms in said conflict. The parole given to Lee, and the Army of Northern Virginia wasn't the same as parolling someone convicted of a crime and imprisoned. Although that form of parole has its origins in the wartime practice. Even so, you're making an assumption about what Lincoln and Grant MIGHT have thought without any foundational proof such as in the written word or public statement. You're engaging in rank speculation. Or, possibly projection.

@dsadlier

Жыл бұрын

@@warlord8954 I know what parole with regard to prisoners of war means. The agreement that Grant made with Lee went beyond parole for enemy combatants that require a pledge to not take up arms in the present conflict. "each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes, not to be disturbed by United States authority so long as they observe their paroles AND the laws in force where they may reside." Grant revealed what that last part meant when he told Johnson that if they violated that part they would no longer be immune from charges for treason. And yes, I am making an assumption. And I am providing the reasoning for my assumption. Something you have failed to do to support your opposing assumption that Grant and Lincoln believed that Lee did not commit treason. I was merely making the point that the previous post that trashed the presenter for not mentioning Grant's response to Johnson mischaracterized Grant's response in a way to make it appear Grant believed Lee did not commit treason. It just seems logical to me to conclude that Grant believed Lee committed treason. If he did, I couldn't say whether he was correct. I do not believe the clause he added about being protected as long as they broke no laws had any legal force as it went beyond parole for a prisoner of war. I ask again, on what foundational proof such as in the written word or public statement do you base your own rank speculation to the contrary? I'll give you the final word as it is really not all that important to me if someone holds a differing opinion to my own.

A little confused by the very end of this video. Can somebody please explain because it seems to run in contrast with the rest of what he is saying?

lol, Dr Guelzo always reminds me a little bit of Frasier Crane.

And yet they executed John Brown for treason.

@RightToSelfDefense

4 жыл бұрын

Misiulo, Yes they executed John Brown, because he was found guilty in a court of law of TREASON. I tried to start a war by trying to instigate Slave Uprisings. The slave uprising in Haiti was fresh on the minds of the Southerners. The black Haitians did not leave a white person alive. And they killed all the French soldiers sent in to quell the uprising.

@TheStapleGunKid

4 жыл бұрын

And yet the state of Virginia later did the same thing they executed John Brown for doing: Taking over the arsenal at Harper's Ferry to wage war against the government. Funny how Virginia no longer considered it treason when they did it, just like it's funny how they wouldn't let West Virginia secede without a fight. "Secession for me, but not thee"

@TheSSUltimateGoku

4 жыл бұрын

TheStapleGunKid West Virginia seceded from Virginia after they succeeded from the union because they were loyal to the United States of America!

@sablythe23505

3 жыл бұрын

@@RightToSelfDefense John Brown was a hero.

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

But it was alright for the slave owners to beat, whip, and murder slaves? At least freeing slaves served a good purpose. Nothing the south did served a good purpose.

According to a History channel video on West Point Classmates and Civil War enemies cadets at West Point took an oath of loyalty to their home state. Apparently that changed to an oath of loyalty to the Union after secession. Since Lee graduated well before the Mexican-American War his loyalty should have been to the state of Virginia. Unlike the Articles of Confederation the Constitution had no provision precluding secession. The Southern states were well within their rights to secede. For example, Massachusetts had previously threatened to secede, and Jefferson told them to go ahead. Even today some Californians threaten secession. As Lincoln invaded the South he was clearly the aggressor prosecuting an illegal war. While Abolitionists saw the war as their opportunity to end slavery Lincoln would come to use slavery as a "moral" excuse for his immoral war. When Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter the Union was reinforcing the fort with munitions and men. Since this was technically Confederate soil they were within their rights to seize Fort Sumter. I have not watched this video. Maybe I will.

@mobilechief

4 жыл бұрын

I took a Oath as a police officer 1st to my state 2nd to The United States and sister states

@frankmiller95

2 жыл бұрын

The "History" Channel is for idiots.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

It should be noted that all 13 of the original States implicitly seceded from the third version of the United States (which existed under the Articles of Confederation) in order "to form a NEW union". One could argue that Rhode Island (which earned itself the nickname "Rogue Island" for refusing to join the new union) did not secede, for the "perpetual union" could no longer exist with only one member nation remaining. Why do historians ignore the fact that all member nations (or States) of the previous "perpetual union" seceded by act of ratifying the new Constitution and achieving the required nine member States? Note: A legal argument can be conclusively proven that the required nine States of the original 13 never lawfully ratified the Constitution and the new Union of the United States does not legally exist.

Very good presentation. Unfortunately it shows why so many people have little respect for our legal system which consists of lawyers parsing language with their unique theories decided by other lawyers and force the rest of us to have to live with their theories.

It would be interesting to hear what Professor Guelzo has to say about the Hartford Convention 1814. Northern secession against the assertion of the slave power is seldom discussed by historians, but it was obviously a right that many Federalists seemed to endorse or consider....

@aaronfleming9426

11 ай бұрын

It's also interesting to hear what Robert E. Lee said about the Hartford Convention...he called it treason. You can read the full letter he wrote to his son Rooney in the Lee Family Online Archive, but here's the salient passage: "Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for pepetual [sic] union, so expressed in the preamble, & for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution. In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jeffersons Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?"

You can hear the animosity. As he started his mission is to bring Lincoln to Washington and Lee U.

@IAMACollectivist

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah Lee sucked

@SimpleManGuitars1973

2 жыл бұрын

@@IAMACollectivist Yeah he "sucked" so badly that Lincoln wanted him to lead the union army and Lee said no because he didn't want Washington telling states what to do. He was right then. He is right now.

@IAMACollectivist

2 жыл бұрын

@@SimpleManGuitars1973 yeah he was overrated. That wasn't so clear until after the war. Apparently you're bad at hindsight. Amazing

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

Lee, in his letter to General Windfield Scott, last sentence, said, "Save in the defense of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword.” It was his greater love for his state, than his country.

@IAMACollectivist

2 жыл бұрын

@@tlee51ftw With his loyalties divided the disgusting nature of slavery should have tilted his allegiance to the Union over his state, but instead he chose to take life in the defense of the indefensible. He wasn't a good man.

No, he didn't. They decided not to try him bc the question of "Was succession illegal?" was feared that it would be found that it was not. Many law historians have had lectures on this.

@aaronfleming9426

11 ай бұрын

You apparently didn't watch the video.

this guy can really do a lecture.

@cliffpage7677

10 ай бұрын

He is a pompous theatrical prig who is up to his gills in hubris and dances on his tiptoes!

An argument that still rings today and the speaker did an excellent job in presenting

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

The speaker ignored the unalienable right of man to form, amend, or reform (i.e., to dissolve and form anew) his own government. Instead, he dismissed this right without presenting any legal theory by which tyrants can impose their will upon a free people. Therefore, no one can honestly claim that he did an excellent job.

@SovereignStatesman

7 ай бұрын

No, because Virginia was a sovereign nation: the USA never was. He was just a FOOL, who was ignorant of this fact; and so he lost the war, by agreeing with Lincoln's false claim of national union. So he is praised by both sides, since the Union couldn't have won the war without his ignorant fumble.

@SovereignStatesman

7 ай бұрын

@@gaiustacitus4242 No, he ignored the fact that Virginia was a sovereign nation: the USA never was. Lee was just a FOOL, who was ignorant of this fact; and so he lost the war, by agreeing with Lincoln's claim of national union. So he is praised by both sides, since the Union couldn't have won the war without his ignorant fumble.

For me, what muddies the waters is the use, at that time, of the term 'my country'. It could have many meanings.

The Preamble states 'We the people...' It does not say 'We the States...' A phrasing some of the founders considered but never pushed. Hence when a State agreed to this contract it surrendered the right to act as a separate sovereignty.

@juliandennis9709

5 жыл бұрын

@@louismilum8663 Yes states do have sovereignty. However while criminal law is mostly in the hands of the states while jurisdictional is over seen by the federal. Further if one examines the motives and intent of Gouverneur Morris he knew exactly what he was implying and although some begrudgingly all signed it and then all thirteen colonies adopted it.

@STho205

5 жыл бұрын

It is a federalized union, unlike the UK. The 50 states would maintain most civil and criminal laws on their own, and only give over sovereignty *specifically handed over* in the short articles of a very short constitution. The preamble is just a mission statement, not a specific enumeration. The raw Constitution is primarily just an outline of how a federal government will be elected or appointed BY THE STATES and how these officials shall perform their duties. Most citizens misunderstand their own Constitution. An essay only nine pages long in modern plain English. Secession is not clear, Buchanan and Lincoln did not allow it to be reviewed by the courts, especially the Supreme Court as they were as likely to say it was not prohibited. However the various activities of the leaving states prior to (and before) their reviewed departure and recognition as independent states did violate several enumerated rules in Article I: 1) making a regional confederation. Virginia and several states attended the confederate conference BEFORE they declared separation. 2) raising independent navies and armies. 3) minting and printing currency in opposition to the federal treasury 4) properties ceded to or purchased by the central government shall not be returned to the states without the approval of the central government. 5) making war upon the Union The Confederacy knew exactly what they were doing. President Davis and his government were mostly constitutional attorneys and had held federal offices. The Union was not really making any true plans for war until Lincoln took office. The Confederacy needed to draw the Union into a war of insurrection to obtain foreign recognition and fight the war quickly as they knew they had two years of strong stands to be able to negotiate the independence from a point of strength. Therefore the new government particularly chose to besiege federal installations. They took dozens without a conflict between Dec 1860 and April 1861. Firing on The Star of the West and then Sumpter was to get a declared war that could be sold overseas as self preservation, not attack on the US. Placing the US in the hypocritical position of enforcing government against the will of the states and their people involved. They knew this because they were the descendants of the 1776 Revolutionaries. That war was won by breaking the UK Tory Parliament and obtaining a Whig peace. Davis expected a midterm election slaughter of the Union Republicans in Nov 1962. That, however did not happen.

@STho205

5 жыл бұрын

Louis Milum. The Confederacy of Montgomery had arranged to fund their new nation on selling Cotton Bonds abroad and expecting a war which would horribly inflate the cost of cotton, and bankrupt the US whose primary wealth in 1860 was southern agricultural export. Davis had been Sec of War under Franklin Pierce until 1857, a senator thereafter, and his treasurer was an international banking genius. Thus they needed the war. They needed to hold back cotton in Natchez, Vicksburg, Mobile and the New Orleans for 18-24 months and sell it by 1863 to continue the cash flow that would have been exhausted by the Spring of 63. By losing New Orleans in the spring of 1862, that whole plan dissolved. Thus the urgency in 1862 and 1863 to invade Maryland and Pennsylvania to besiege Washington City and get a negotiated peace or so embarrass and frighten the people of the North that they would vote in Copperheads in the next elections. Admiral Farragut actually won the war for the Union. The Union was able to sell the banked cotton they captured at the inflated prices. The CSA could not get theirs out. It was a two year, then two year overall plan. They knew the government they were fighting. They knew her weaknesses. However the Union government also knew the CSAs weaknesses, as they had constructed her defenses and economy in those four score and several years.

@STho205

5 жыл бұрын

Louis Milum. Also firing on USN The Star of the West was clearly an act of war as much as if Cuba fired on a ship supporting GitMo. Lincoln did not ask for a war declaration, as Washington City was completely undefended. No state militia or major regular army units were in the city. He requested assistance from the governors of Virginia and Maryland (still in the Union) and had been ignored. Yet he could watch the Virginia militias drilling in Alexandra. Not until the Old Greybacks from SNY marched in did Lincoln feel confident enough to declare an insurrection and ask Congress for war. Fort Sumpter became the next opportunity. If not that it would have been Fort Pickens, the Arsenal at Harpers Ferry or Norfolk Navy Yards. Jeff Davis knew exactly how unprepared for war the US and her loyal states were, as he had been the War Secretary until 1857 and had served on the War Committee of the Senate until Mississippi left the Union. Lincoln was CLUELESS to those facts after his election. He got such bad news when he snuck into DC on the secret train that March. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry had mobilized the pro slave state militias prior to 1861. They were ready. That's why Lincoln threw the government of Maryland in prison as one of his first acts. The US Regular Army was tiny and in disarray in early 1861, with all the resignations. The bulk of enlisted men were from the South (just as today) and a third of the commissioned officers were too.

@STho205

5 жыл бұрын

Louis Milum. Lincoln was no mastermind. He has been recreated as Pericles, mounted in marble on Pericles throne chair and even plagiarized Pericles for his Gettysburg Address. Lincoln has become the reimagining of The United States as a strong central government Federation (thus his digest of Pericles Funeral Oration). He was no slouch for a self made man, but he was no genius either. He did, however hold the line and stick the course. He did put his ego aside and assemble a cabinet of more than just his friends and cronies. The Republican party was almost brand new. They had only run one person for president prior to Lincoln, John C Freemont.

This man, as a Lincoln admirer, gives a surprisingly balanced and fair summation of Lee's actions and the circumstances of the era. For this, he deserves credit. I find one logical flaw with his argument, asserting that by definition, Lee committed treason. Though the speaker understands the fact that state vs. national citizenship obligations were far from settled at the beginning of the Civil War. Despite this, he accuses Lee, by definition of treason. How can such a verdict be reached when the term's definition was unsettled? Perhaps he felt compelled to give a definite yes or no answer, so he had to come down somewhere. But which definition of treason is he using? The unsettled, debated, and ill-defined definition of 1861? Or the settled-by-military-force understanding of 1865? But, once again to his credit, he finishes the speech by saying no historian is qualified to settle the issue. To the speaker, well done, sir.

By international law the original 13 states were Recognized as independent states or nations by the world in the treaty of Paris 1783. This was reinforced in the articles of confederation where it stated “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated." Later the states would ratify the current constitution with the premise that the states maintain their sovereignty remained in place. The idea of succession is seen throughout early history.

@TheStapleGunKid

Жыл бұрын

The treaty of Paris provides no aid to modern Neo-Confederates. It calls for peace between "two countries", not 14. It's opening line lists all the countries involved, the last one being "The United States of America", not the individual states. Of particular note was the American representatives who signed the treaty. Who were they? Were they representatives from each state? No, only three Americans signed the treaty: Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams. Why? Because they selected as representatives by the continental congress, not the states. As for the articles of the Confederation, they state the Union shall be perpetual, and this status could only be changed with the consent of congress and the legislatures of every state. Of course the idea of secession was seen throughout history, but not seen as legal. It was, as James Madison said, even under the most justified circumstances, _"Another name only for revolution."_

@aaronfleming9426

11 ай бұрын

@@TheStapleGunKid Dang, nice work with the treaty of Paris. I did not know that. I'll be keeping that in mind for use in these forums :)

@chattiermike140

4 ай бұрын

International law is not law

If an officer of the United States Army can resign and the men take up arms against the country to whom he had pledged allegiance cannot be found guilty of treason than who can?

@raymondjelich185

2 жыл бұрын

@Bob Simpletown A country (the United States) cannot invade a state (such as Virginia) because the word "invade" presupposes that it is a sovereign and independent power that is violently moving its armed forces into another sovereign and independent power. The United States is a sovereign and independent power. The individual states are not and have never been so. Thus, the Union never invaded any state.

@raymondjelich185

2 жыл бұрын

@Bob Simpletown Please cite in the U. S. Constitution where it says that each individual state is its own sovereign and independent nation.

@raymondjelich185

2 жыл бұрын

@Bob Simpletown 1. Re: "There were sovereign states, not nations." - That is a contradiction in terms because sovereign states are by definition nations and vice versa 2. Re: "Where in the US Constitution does it say that the states can not secede from the Union?" - The question that needs to be asked is, Where in the US Constitution does it say that the states can secede from the Union? Surely if the Founding Fathers and the agreeing states thought that if there should be a constitutional way for the states to exit from the Union then they would have specifically stated so in it. Additionally they would have included in the US Constitution a specifically laid out, detailed procedure for doing so. The US Constitution is, in its essence, a contract. For years I owned a construction industry business and signed many contracts. If the parties involved thought that there should be some legal way to withdraw from the agreement then in that contract and before they signed it they outlined a specific, detailed, step by step process by which that could be accomplished. Finally, in Texas v. White (1869) the U. S. Supreme Court ruled flatly that secession was unconstitutional. see www.britannica.com/event/Texas-v-White. 3. Re: "When the Constitution is silent on anything, the issue is left to be decided by the states. That would be the 10th amendment." - The 10th Amendment says verbatim, "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." - see www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992. On the basis of the 10th Amendment itself the votes to secede were unconstitutional because they only represented the southern white, male, landed gentry. In other words, they did not include black people, women, and most poor white folks. The vote of only a segment of a state's population cannot be constitutionally representative of that entire state and, thus, cannot express that state's will. In short, the 10th Amendment itself invalidates the secessionist vote.

@artwerksDallas

2 жыл бұрын

@Bob Simpletown false. That state is part of the country. So the country can go where it pleases

@artwerksDallas

2 жыл бұрын

@@raymondjelich185 you really can't understand the declaration you just wrote because you can't understand basic facts that you didn't list

I can't wait for Guelzo's next book!!!

@cliffpage7677

2 жыл бұрын

I urge you to read Philip Leigh, David Livingston, or Brian McClanahan if you want to learn real history and not fill your brain with propaganda.

Treason is basically defined as “The betrayal of allegiance toward one's own country, especially by committing hostile acts against it or aiding its enemies in committing such acts.” The Civil War itself was in the mind of Lincoln anyway , initially about secession based on him saying ,” if keeping slavery held the union together he’d do that and if abolishing slavery would keep it together he’d do that . Therefore Lincoln’s goal was to keep the US together Secession although not specifically mentioned in the US Constitution either prohibiting or permitting it unless of course you consider the 10th Amendment, was dealt with by Thomas Jefferson , an actual Founding Father who wrote concerning secession of new western territories in a letter to John C Breckinridge. “That should the inhabitants of the new territory wish to secede from the Union at some point in the future, he was perfectly fine with that…” I don’t agree with the underlying cause for this secession which was cattle slavery but secession is something we as individuals do in our daily lives. Such as going to a party and not liking it so you leave or in other words secede, to simply walk away from . Robert E Lee, Jefferson Davis or any other Confederate did not commit treason by following the decision of their respective States Legislatures deciding to secede and form a new Country. Furthermore We didn’t consider ourselves Americans at this point in our history but rather identified by our respective States. What happened after Robert E.Lee resigned his commission as did Jefferson Davis from his Mississippi Senate Seat and returned to their respective States, they basically gave up their US Citizenship ( The Union)and become citizens of a new Country . Simply leaving the party is not treason ! That Country we know as the Confederacy then went to war with the United States and lost . However how does fighting for their new country, now the Confederacy , make Robert E. Lee and Davis a traitor / guilty of treason against a country they initially and peacefully left ? Jefferson Davis was actually charged with treason and there’s a variety of circumstances surrounding litigation. However the biggest problem in trying Davis would be the chance the SC ruling secession is Constitutional, a chance the prosecution wasn't willing to take . Smart move actuality, they let it rest and 157 years later, maybe we should ?

@TheStapleGunKid

Жыл бұрын

The idea that "we didn't consider ourselves Americans at this point" is ridiculous. Of course we did. George Washington's Presidential farewell address was all about how we should consider ourselves Americans first and not let state loyalty divide us. Sure some people put state loyalty above country, but certainly not all. Ove 100,000 Southerners fought for the Union during the war. _"I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten an abandonment of "Secession". But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy."_ --James Madison, letter to Daniel Webster. _"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for perpetual union, so expressed in the preamble, & for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution. In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jefferson's Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?"_ --Robert E. Lee, Jan 29, 1861. Also secession was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1869. The rebels lost the legal war for their cause just as badly as they lost the military one. If Davis had gone on trial, there's every reason to believe he would have been convicted.

@thomaspainerules3114

Жыл бұрын

Simply because George Washington addressed the people of the US as Americans doesn’t change the loyalty of our ancestors had to their respective States over the that of national interests . Furthermore neither Davis or Robert E. Lee were secessionists. In fact they were opposed to it . However both chose their loyalties of their home states legislatures over that of the national government. A view widely reflected by the population in that era . After all it was the individual States Legislatures who decided their respective States decision of secession and not Davis or Lee. The case of United States v. Jefferson Davis never went to trial, and yes that decision was finalized in 1869 as United States Supreme Court, as the US Government chose to prosecute a less sensational case , two months after dropping the charges against Davis. In doing so the trial of Texas v. White, in April 1869, gave the US Government exactly what they wanted , a ruling that stated succinctly that the Confederacy’s secession had been “absolutely null.” So the US Government got what it wanted in what turned out to be weaker case supporting secession, as opposed to what they knew would be a stronger defense of trying Davis ! Again the federal government reached its decision in part because it feared that Davis would either prove to a jury that secession was legally permitted under the U.S. Constitution or he would be transformed into a martyr if convicted and executed. That’s why federal prosecutors entered a “nolle prosequi,” or statement of decision not to prosecute. Davis was imprisoned in Virginia’s Fort Monroe for two years after his capture during which time he was indicted for treason. In May 1867, he was released on $100,000 bail, most of which was posted by a surprising group of Northerners including Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, business magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith, who was among the “Secret Six” who funded John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. The Northerners advocated for a speedy trial or release of Davis in order to heal the country.

If your property, possessions, friends and family live in one area, what would you pick? Let's not get too sentimental here.

@TheStapleGunKid

Жыл бұрын

There were 8 US Army colonels from Virginia at the start of the war. Out of all them, Lee was literally the only one to join the rebellion. In fact, out of the 15 pre-war US Army Colonels from all Confederate states, Lee was just one out of three to join the rebellion. So no, joining the rebels wasn't the default choice for men in his situation. The vast majority who were in his situation made the opposite choice.

"Secession is a Constitutional and legal impossibility". Nonsense, by his own admission, secession is not addressed in the Constitution. During the ratification of the Constitution, the states did not grant, nor delegate, the authority nor power to the United States to prohibit state secession. In 1860-1861, the secession of the southern states was a right of the state in accordance with the 10th Amendment, which clearly 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.” Secession was neither a Constitutional nor legal impossibility. It was, in fact, a right granted to the states by the 10th amendment.

@manilajohn0182

2 күн бұрын

Spot on. That power of secession no longer exists today- but it most definitely did in 1860- 61.

A major point of contention from this dr. guelzo, is that the trial for treason must be held in Virginia, and that it was exceedingly unlikely that Virginians would find Lee guilty of treason. That argument falls apart by simply bringing the lawsuit from Pennsylvania, where Lee most assuredly waged war against, and aided & abetted enemies of, the United States. There were many many jurisdictions in that state that had standing.

@Greenfield-li3bg

5 жыл бұрын

They couldn't simply drag Lee to a court in Pennsylvania at the time. The trial for treason must be held in the state where the accused is native of. Nevertheless, Lee conceded his defeat and acknowledged he had committed treason by signing so-called Amnesty Oath. Therefore he was not tried.

@georgesetzer6501

5 жыл бұрын

@@Greenfield-li3bg On my....you have a basic lack of knowledge about jurisprudence. Trials occur within the jurisdiction in which the crime ocurres. He could have been tried therefore in Pennsylvania.

@LarryNathanielPhoto

4 жыл бұрын

It doesn't matter. When one looks at the history of how that Constitution was ratified, in secret, by men not authorized to represent their soveriegn states nor the united states as defined under the Articles of Confederation, it is then you realize that the Constitution as it was in Lee's day and today, is an act of treason.

@joejaksetic9004

3 жыл бұрын

@@LarryNathanielPhoto You ARE WRONG when you speak of 'sovereign' states. The States are from from sovereign regardless of what some think. Almost every last power a sovereign state has is denied to the States by the Constitution.

@joejaksetic9004

3 жыл бұрын

Treason, being a Federal crime, the entire country had jurisdiction. Lee could have been tried anywhere convenient. But the games go on.

Yes. Next question.

Lee's citizenship argument is hollow because Virginia did not forcebly conscript him into it's army, he was essentially a volunteer. Their is no compelling force exerted by Virginia on him to take the moral decision out of his hands. If Lee is a dual citizen of both Virginia and the US his only choice is to be a non-combatant as then he will not be committing treason on either of his citizenship statusus. As a legal argument only the removal of his US citizenship would free him the crime of treason, but this implies that Virginia's sucession can unilaterally strip a person of their US citizenship, which is clearly impossible.

@johnbrooks7144

2 жыл бұрын

The central government was already corrupted beyond mending when Lincoln was elected. The War of Northern Invasion" was 100% Lincoln's war. He wanted it, he promoted it, he manipulated the South to get it, and he deserved a much more painful death than he got.

@gordonsheaffer1228

Жыл бұрын

Guelzo makes the astute point in his book that Lee was raised in Alexandria before it was actually part of Virginia- since the Lost Cause folks like to split so many hairs....

@dougdawkins9513

11 ай бұрын

@@gordonsheaffer1228 And the intellectuals love to sit around, those self righteous characters, those who would be sailing around on their million dollar yachts shadowed by New York's skyline, demanding that Lee and Davis be hanged for treason. Lee and Davis being judged by those who in their own pompous, arrogant ways deserve the gallows much more than Lee and Davis who were just pawns in a much bigger game. There wasn't a single New York banker that didn't deserve to be hanged. Even Lincoln said that the Southern army wasn't his biggest enemy. His biggest enemy were the New York bankers. The longer the war lasted, the richer the bankers get. Today, as in the past centuries, the world banks have been financing both sides of the wars being fought. Don't matter who wins or loses, the world banks always walk away with the gold. This world is owned and controlled by Satan but for a good reason. God is allowing Satan to hold this Earth captive to drive mankind into aversion therapy to force mankind to become sick and tired of being sick and tired of man's form of government in which man has taken on satanic nature in order to govern. God is proving to puny, pompous, arrogant man that apart from God and His Ten Commandments, man is incapable of ruling over man. As long as Satan sits on the throne of Earth, man and woman will continue to be submissive to Satan's way of me, me, me, get, get, get, self pleasure, hedonistic lifestyle and instant gratification. Only when Jesus Christ returns the second time in power and glory and casts Satan and his demons from Earth into outer darkness will man and woman be free to submit to God's way of life. Only then will their judgment and salvation begin. Only then will the wickedness and evil be removed from this Earth and from the minds of humanity.

Yes. For next week's lecture...

“The doctrines and miracles of our Savior have required nearly 2000 years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! I can only say that I am nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation.” -General Robert E. Lee

I really did appreciate Dr. Guelzo shutting down the 10th amendment argument

@manilajohn0182

Жыл бұрын

He didn't shut down the 10th Amendment. The Tenth Amendment is fully applicable in this case. The Tenth Amendment states that: "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." Secession was not a power delegated by the U.S. Constitution to the United States government in 1861. It was likewise not a power prohibited by the U.S. Constitution to the states in 1861. It was therefore reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Will mention this. If secession is not defined in the Constitution then it goes by the individuals of the state that vote for it. Because it’s not defined in the constitution or Bill of Rights. So forth is a state issue. And was dealt as a state issue. Which makes secession legal in that retrospect.

Explain , Indiana, Ohio and Illinos?

I disagree with the speaker on the legality of secession. It would have been spelled out clearly in the Constitution if the people of the State who ratified the Constitution could not later choose to unratify it. Those people would not be any less authoritative to speak for their state after ratifying the Constitution.

@JohnnyRebKy

5 жыл бұрын

eflint1 it shouldn’t of had to specifically spell it out. Nobody joins anything they can never get out of or leave...unless it’s the mafia

@NewarkBay357

4 жыл бұрын

@@JohnnyRebKy Most of the Constitution is not specifically/explicitly spelled out, hence 'THE FEDERALIST PAPERS." That's why you people who still argue over an issue that a Civil War was fought over are not Constitutional scholars because you're making the same arguments that were deemed wrong in 1865 for perpetuity.

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

They were no longer a separate entity. Madison said that joining the union was “en Toto and fore ever”.

@eflint1

Жыл бұрын

@@NewarkBay357 who "deemed" those arguments to be wrong? Might does not make right. It was the "supreme authority" of each state (the people) who deemed authoritative inherently to override their states' obligations to the Articles of Confederation and t replace it with the Constitution. That same "supreme authority" in each state still gets to decide regarding any association their state has with other states. That is their inherent right.

@eflint1

Жыл бұрын

@@tlee51ftw Not exactly. He said that regarding New York's request to have conditional ratification with an expiration/renewal. "Prenups" were not permitted. A State could only ratify with the intention never to depart. However, New York's ratification included a clause retaining the right to recall the powers they had delegated to the Federal Government...."That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness." Congress approved this ratification. As New York's ratification also states, " That all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from, the people, and that government is instituted by them for their common interest, protection, and security.." Again, all power in each state is inherently of the people. Lee acted by the authority of the people o his country, Virginia, and defended their will.

The loyalty question was simple: Lee upheld his oath to defend the Constitution while Lincoln and every Union soldier did not. We were a federal republic and a voluntary union of free and independent States. Lincoln got it all wrong. The founders would be appalled that any State would be coerced to stay in the Union. The founders' writings, the ratification debates, the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federal Papers, James Wilson's State House Yard Speech, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, etc., etc., etc., made this crystal clear! Thank God an unintended consequence of the War was that the slaves were set free. It was an egregious evil. However, Lincoln and Congress emphatically and repeatedly made the point the War wasn't about slavery, but suppressing secession. In doing so, Lincoln destroyed the founders' voluntary Union and the Constitution. Lee fought to preserve the Constitution's principles. If you don't understand this, you don't understand the federal republic that was created. If you find any of what I've written objectionable, I encourage you to learn about our "wonderful" 16th president in The Real Lincoln, by Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo. It will certainly leave you wondering why you weren't told the truth about him, our history, and the Constitution. To the victors shamefully went the writing of the history.

@Tasmanaut

4 ай бұрын

you are 100% correct, very good summary

@hillbillyblackbeard5935

2 ай бұрын

You are right

@Pandaemoni

Ай бұрын

James Madison disagreed with you though. "I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten an abandonment of 'Secession.' But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy" --James Madison, letter to Daniel Webster And again when New York wanted to join the Union but reserve the right to secede if constitutional amendments were not adopted James Madison wrote to Alexander Hamilton, 20 July 1788: "My opinion is that a reservation of a right to withdraw if amendments be not decided on under the form of the Constitution within a certain time, is a conditional ratification, that it does not make N. York a member of the New Union, and consequently that she could not be received on that plan. Compacts must be reciprocal, this principle would not in such a case be preserved. *_The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever._* It has been so adopted by the other States. An adoption for a limited time would be as defective as an adoption of some of the articles only. In short any condition whatever must viciate the ratification."

@JohnGeary-yr4kq

Ай бұрын

@@Pandaemoni James Madison reversed himself on multiple issues, most importantly on nationalist issues, and he is on the record, as you clearly show, for doing so. His quote here clearly contradicts points he made in Federalist No. 39. It was the Federalist Papers, and James Wilson's State House Yard Speech, that sold people on ratifying the Constitution. It was the ratifying understanding of the Constitution that counts, not how Madison changed his mind. And, much more significant than cherry-picking a couple quotes, Dr. McClanahan is very thorough in a clear, concise, and conclusive justification for secession in the following video, "Secession: The American Tradition." The founders and the people of the States would have never ratified the Constitution without the understanding they could opt out. New Jersey's and Virginia's ratification documents had the same language as New York's. kzread.info/dash/bejne/nJNruauMnbzecco.htmlsi=vDaZP5KI-QwjsNYW

@JohnGeary-yr4kq

Ай бұрын

@@Pandaemoni Also, Madison said there was no coercive principle to the Constitution. And, if, as the Constitution clearly says, the States delegated powers to the central government, greater entities always delegate to lesser entities, not the other way around. Delegation always implies the ability to rescind the delegation. The 10th Amendment, that Jefferson called the most important amendment and the very cornerstone of the Constitution, makes it clear: any powers not delegated are reserved to the States. The key word used is ANY. Secession would be a power reserved to the States because it was was not denied by the Constitution. Jefferson said if any State in the Union preferred separation to union that he had no reservation in saying, "let us separate." In his first inaugural address, Jefferson also referred to New England States wanting to secede as "unwise" at the time but nothing about secession being prohibited. He called for tolerance of their position. The very concept of secession being "prohibited" is wholly antithetical to the founding principles.

I thought Washington and Lee Univ. was named after Richard Henry Lee?

@hesavedawretchlikeme6902

2 жыл бұрын

No. Robert E. Lee. He became president of Washington college at the end of the war, and died there in 1870. One of Lee's sons served as president a number of years following.

@alomaalber6514

Жыл бұрын

@@hesavedawretchlikeme6902 you are correct, but Richard Henry Lee was an ancestor of Bob.

Amazing how a non lawyer making subtle legal arguments, which franky he has no abilty to make, is being praised.

45:00 Robert E Lee himself showing up to defend himself

@occamtherazor3201

4 жыл бұрын

Well, yeah. His ass was kind of on the line.

A) King George III recognized the independence of the 13 colonies individually as sovereign states. B) As sovereign states they united under the Articles of Confederation. C) As sovereign states they seceded from the Union as it existed under the Articles to join a new Union under the current Constitution. D) No one involved in the Hartford Convention was prosecuted for conspiracy to commit treason. E) When the Republic of Texas, recognized by the USA as a sovereign state, joined the Union by popular vote there was no constitutional provision that they could not withdraw by popular vote as they later did. By this professor’s argument, a law cannot be made retroactive to change the terms of a treaty (and the Republic of Texas joined the Union by treaty) already agreed to. F) Lee didn’t commit treason if for no other reason than that he was never convicted of such and thus the presumption of innocence applies. Simple.

@storbokki371

4 жыл бұрын

King George recognized the colonies right to self determination after they whooped his army, and he did not dictate that they were 13 separate states and would of had no right to. That's ridiculous. See: the Treaty of Paris. There was no secession when adopting the U.S. Constitution. "The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union" is the first contract, and the "U.S. Constitution" is a second contract expanding on federal powers. sorta like if you contracted a house, then decided to add an attached garage before the house was finished. A second contract does not automatically void a first contract without explicitly saying so and agreed too by all parties in writing. The Articles clearly state how to secede from the first contract with a petition of congress and a vote of all states legislators agreeing. no such vote was ever taken. And there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution about voiding the Articles of Confederation. The United States of America has had a continuous government from 1777. So unless you can cite me the vote, you are incorrect. The law of the U.S. Constitution supersedes the Articles of Confederation on those issues they share in common. Those parts of the Articles of Confederation that are not superseded by the U.S. Constitution are still in full affect. This is basic contract law in the United States. Most of the Articles were superseded as to taxation, representation, powers of the legislator, eccetera, but at least one part of the Articles relevant to this conversation is still in full force and that is Article 13. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution changes that. It is the agreement of the colonies as to what type of union the United States of America was to be. And the answer is Perpetual, with the law only able to be changed in congress with all legislators agreeing. highly unlikely then, and more so now with 50 states. While states do have some degree of sovereignty, they have never had the right to unilateral secession. What's more, all states are equal, meaning Texas is under the same rules as all other states. Texas did put forth an attempt to join retaining the ability to secede if they chose to, but it was rejected by congress, then Texas agreed to the rules set forth by congress, the same rules as every state. The U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the law and the intent of the founders in the case Texas vs. White, and found that no unilateral secession is allowed. This was all settled over 150 years ago, but modern Neo-Confederates, and Anti-Federalist just keep crying and crying and crying. Lying and lying and lying.

@occamtherazor3201

4 жыл бұрын

Ok, the original 13 states, Vermont, and Texas were sovereign before forming/joining the Union, but there were 33 states in 1860. Can Louisiana, for example, was a Federal territory, bought with Federal money, claim the same rights of sovereignty as Virginia?

@storbokki371

4 жыл бұрын

@@occamtherazor3201 All states that join the union are equal as well as equally bound. There is no unilateral succession. Federal law supersedes any state law and they knew what they were signing when they joined.

@occamtherazor3201

4 жыл бұрын

@@storbokki371 Agreed. Just tossing the ball around.

@storbokki371

4 жыл бұрын

@@occamtherazor3201 sorry if I sounded short tempered. I've been trouncing neo-confederates on youtube. It's like shooting fish in a barrel when you know the material. haha

Grant and Sherman understood better than anyone that it was time to put the country back together again and reconcile. Lee was no traitor, and he was another instrument of ensuring peace.

@TheStapleGunKid

Жыл бұрын

Lee was a traitor, but even if you disagree, one fact cannot be denied: By winning many battles, Lee did as much or more than any other man to prolong the existence of American slavery, whereas his surrender did as much or more than any other event to end it.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

@@TheStapleGunKid The War of Northern Aggression was not waged by Lincoln for the purpose of freeing the slaves (nor did Lincoln ever free even the first slave).

@TheStapleGunKid

Жыл бұрын

@@gaiustacitus4242 No one said the war was waged by Lincoln to free slaves. The war of Southern aggression was waged by the South in order to preserve slavery forever. They made the war about slavery, not Lincoln. Lincoln had no need to wage a against slavery, since he already obtained the ability to put it "in course of ultimate extinction" by being elected president, which was exactly why the South seceded and started the war. Lincoln summed it up in his second inaugural address: _"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it."_

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

@@TheStapleGunKid It is the common narrative that the war was fought to end slavery. Furthermore, the South was not the aggressor and Lincoln clearly stated in his first inaugural address that he had "...no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." The initial act of war occurred on 9th January 1861 when the Star of the West, which was supposed to be unarmed, fired upon another vessel. This resulted in shots being fired from the Citadel Academy, with the Star of the West being hit three times. The initial act of war under Lincoln occurred when Lincoln's War Department dispatched a flotilla of gunships and other vessels to relieve Major Anderson's command at Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie. It matters not which side fired the first shot on 12th April 1861, for the entry into Charleston Harbor by Union forces was an overt act of war. If you weren't blinded by the narrative told in efforts to justify Lincoln's illegal war of invasion and conquest, then you would see the truth of the matter. Consider how you would feel if the Russian Federation or the Peoples Republic of China sent an invasion force that entered the territorial waters of these United States with intent to disembark and establish an armed presence. You and everyone else would see such an act for what it is--an overt act of war.

@TheStapleGunKid

Жыл бұрын

@@gaiustacitus4242 Show me someone who actually said the war was fought to end slavery. I've never seen anyone with any knowledge on the subject say that. Everyone knows the Union didn't make the war about slavery, the South did. They seceded and started the war in response to the election of an anti-slavery president, from an anti-slavery political party, elected specifically to put slavery in course of ultimate extinction. Lincoln's attempt to re-provision Fort Sumter was not an act of war. The CSA's unprovoked attack on the Fort was. There is nothing war-like about sending food to your own men in your own fort, particularly since Lincoln had already sent a letter to the governor of South Carolina telling him he was going to do that. If Jefferson Davis had allowed the food delivery to take place, nothing would have happened. There would have been no war and the status-quo would have been maintained. Davis didn't have to start a war, he just chose to, even though his secretary of state practically begged him not to: _"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."_ --CSA secretary of state Robert Toombs Lincoln's attempt to re-provision the fort was not an attempt to establish an "armed presence", it was simply to get them food. The armed presence was already there. They were his men in his fort. The men were already in the fort, they just needed food in order to prevent being starved out. Lincoln made it perfectly clear in his letter to SC's governor that he was just sending them provisions, not more troops or arms. It was the Confederate attack that stopped this which was the act of war.

What a surprise, W&L professor calling Les a traitor.

@artwerksDallas

2 жыл бұрын

Damn Right too. A Sociologist and Historian from Texas also calls Lee a traitor

I don’t think General Lee was a traitor or at least I wouldn’t charge him with it because I served 5 years in the military and was ALWAYS very proud to be New Yorker first. And I think most ppl felt that way about their home state (especially Texans) if my New York had tried to break away from America, I believe I would have followed my home state. I would have found it very impossible to take up arms against my home state especially since a lot of that war was fought in his home state (Virginia). The only way I might have turned on my home state is if my state was fighting for a horrible institution like slavery. But in those days the southerners were taught black ppl were inferior to white ppl. I don’t understand that belief, I would have to be raised that way and I wasn’t. But if I was I would like to think I would take the moral stand and stand by my country over my home state. But again I wasn’t raised that way, but I do understand how it might be almost impossible to take up arms against my home state. I wouldn’t call him a traitor just a man in a really shitty position. If I was on that jury I wouldn’t find him guilty of being a traitor.

@billscannell93

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly... It is too bad he based his decision to go with the Confederacy on his loyalty to his state, rather than thinking about things philosophically. It doesn't make much sense to defend one's freedom to take away someone else's freedom. If he had accepted Lincoln's offer to lead the Union forces, the war probably would have been a lot shorter.

@roccosantanelli2802

2 жыл бұрын

@@billscannell93 no doubt but I don’t think he would have EVER approved of “Sherman’s March” he just never would have signed on for that. And I personally think it was wrong on so many levels.

@eduar2971

2 жыл бұрын

Fighting for my city! do you belong to the Greeks of the 1st Century? You are a moral coward if you can not stand up for what is right. If you think every Virginian was a moral coward like Lee was, then you are wrong. Some of his families fought for the union and did not speak to him after the war. I am telling you right now If my city which I love so dearly decided to enslave and rape people, I would be the first to go against it.

@alomaalber6514

Жыл бұрын

Bob did go to the US Capitol to try to get his citizenship back. Also, Bob loved church since his boyhood in Alexandria and was a deacon near W & L. Prayful even the day he died. Cheers.

@Fixingtodraw

Ай бұрын

Mrs. Grant wrote in, The Personal Memoirs of Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant: “We rented our pretty little home (in St. Louis) and hired out our four servants to persons whom we knew and who promised to be kind to them. Eliza, Dan, Julia and John belonged to me. When I visited the General during the war, I nearly always had Julia with me as nurse.” (Pages 82-83) So if the Abraham Lincoln War was all about slavery, I guess General Grant was fighting the war to free his own slaves.

In one sense (the legal sense) Lee was not a traitor, because he was neither convicted of treason nor probably ever could have been convicted of that crime. As Dr. Guelzo says, the definition of treason in the Constitution was very narrow, a trial of Lee would have had to be held in Richmond, the document agreed on at Appomattox protected CSA soldiers from prosecution, and Salmon P Chase (Supreme Court) would likely have been against the conviction of it had been appealed. That may be the legal status. But in the more popular sense, he committed treason against the US in order to not be a traitor to Virginia and the southern states.

@davidwebb8217

2 жыл бұрын

Lee most certainly did NOT commit treason. Lincoln trampled all over the constitution and therefore it was he who was the traitor. Lincoln was a racist a tyrant and the most unconstitutional president in history.

@moonshine4u96

2 жыл бұрын

Lee may have been lot of things, but he was no traitor to his country.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

Lincoln and his followers were the real traitors to the Constitution of the United States.

Strange that the Trail would not be in Washington, DC; capital of the United States; having it in the States and Districts actually supports Lee argument. Did not States entering the Union agree they could not leave with sanction for the other States? Why do things have to be mentioned directly, and not simply implied by the circumstance and meaning of an agreement; especially at such high levels of governance?

Central to the Fouding Fathers was a VOLUNTARY union. They felt that the threat of secession would force compromise between competing factions. in 1814-15, when three yankee states threatened to seceed, Jefferson said, "It is but the younger brother differing from the older. By all means, let them go". Hamilton said: "It would be unthinkable for the general government to coerce a State". After Lincoln and the 14th amendment, that freedom is gone. We now have a union held together by the force of the bayonette, just like the Soviet Union.

@aaronfleming9426

11 ай бұрын

Patrick Henry and the anti-federalists opposed the Constitution precisely because they realized that it was a compact of the People, not the States, and that it required the States to surrender their sovereignty: "Have they said, We, the states? Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation. It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The question turns, sir, on that poor little thing - the expression, We, the people, instead of the states, of America.....Here is a resolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished: and cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case?" - Patrick Henry, from the Virginia ratification debates When the Hartford Convention dabbled with secession, Virginia called it treason, as Robert E. Lee duly noted: "The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for pepetual [sic] union, so expressed in the preamble, & for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution. In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jeffersons Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?" - Robert E. Lee, letter to son Rooney And the Hartford Convention can hardly be held up as an example of wide-spread acceptance of the legality of secession, since it was so unpopular that it wrecked the Federalist party. Besides which, the Confederacy as a whole hardly believed in self-determination. I mean, what were those 4 million slaves all about? Talk about states held together by the bayonet....

Dr Guelzo is very interesting but makes great logical leaps.

@markrutledge5855

Жыл бұрын

Totally agree.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

He ignores facts which are inconvenient to his highly political narrative.

Great talk! The answer is complicated. It comes down to the question, can you convict? If not, then don't. In 2021 the board voted 22 to 6 to not change the University name. W&L is a private liberal arts university in Lexington, Virginia. I suspect a name change will take place by 2030.

@cliffpage7677

2 жыл бұрын

The wind blows in all directions. Don't hold your breath. Virginians have awakened and made it crystal clear, they do not wake. Retribution will soon be upon the mountains, the piedmont, and the tidewater of the Old Dominion! Already whetstones are turning all across the Commonwealth.

@ScottOstr

2 жыл бұрын

@@cliffpage7677 I don't understand. Are you saying you think renaming the college will happen or will never happen? I'm sure how you're defining "awakened".

@cliffpage7677

2 жыл бұрын

The Red counties of Virginia have been awakened and they are not "woke". Retribution will come to those in power now who have damaged and defiled the Commonwealth and the symbols of its heritage.

@ScottOstr

2 жыл бұрын

@@cliffpage7677 Oh. Gotcha. Time will tell.

@paulwolf7562

2 жыл бұрын

Something tells me, you may not be wrong, in your assumption.

YES. VIDEO ENDED

Yes.

Yes. Next question

This man gave a terribly thin lecture then lost his debates afterwards.

Yes

The whole lecture did mean that the Confederates (Davis, Lee, Longstreeet, etc.) did commit treason and that it wasn't punished fit as such because of Grant's surrender terms at Appomattox and reluctance by Grant himself, Salmon P. Chase and others to indict the confederates fearing it might hamper the reconstruction.

@jimkennedy7050

2 жыл бұрын

And it took 100 years to turn a stone age race into modern basketball playing.men. and of course the British introduced slavery to the 13 colonies as the catholic Spaniards did not protect slavery.

@jimkennedy7050

2 жыл бұрын

It is all a snafu of history still being excused today

@johnbrooks7144

2 жыл бұрын

"Reconstruction" was cover for "unrestricted exploitation" by Carpetbaggers looting under Union army protection.

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

A lot of that "carpetbager" postwar propaganda was false. Much of it was assisting the freed slaves. It's a pity that the south didn't treat their country as well as they criticized it. All of the bad situations of the south was of their own actions. And don't forget the next 100 plus years of continued mistreatment of the former slaves.

@jimkennedy7050

2 жыл бұрын

@@tlee51ftw The vast majority of slaves remained in the South where there was no work for them which caused profitable trade. Their former work deemed unprofitable without a slave work force. Thre North took no responsinility for the slaves assumimg freedom would cure their ills.

Spoiler alert: I just finished the biography. As it turns out in the book, the traitor is the good professor. He throws around anti-American cultural Marxist tropes like “white supremacy”, “anti-racism”, “anti-racist”, etc. He even seems to promote our cultural commissars’ iconoclasm. What a disappointing way to end an otherwise engaging read.

@Ben00000

7 ай бұрын

The term "white supremacist" isn't anti-American, but being one is.

@amarranazo

7 ай бұрын

@@Ben00000 It’s a meaningless epithet, thrown around by the cult Marx Left, to delegitimize perfectly normal political advocacy.

ok, so a revolution is different than a secession --- but he sill does not explain why a 'revolution' - à la the American revolution - would be more ''legal'' than a 'secession.'

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

Splitting entities makes it easy every time a single one gets their feelings hurt. This country would have been totally destroyed before1860. Washington, himself, went out to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, where a tax on whisky perturbed them and they refused to pay it. Even Lincoln acknowledged that the entire union could change, in his 1st Inaugural. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember, or overthrow it. "

@timothymeehan181

Жыл бұрын

Read Lincoln’s Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861, wherein he very concisely explains the difference between revolution and secession.

Answer to the Title Question: *YES*

“Why did Lee choose to fight against his country?” is a loaded question. His country was Virginia.

@TheStapleGunKid

5 жыл бұрын

No it was America. The states are simply subdivisions of the federal government, not countries. A state can no more claim to be a country then a county or a city can.

@TheStapleGunKid

4 жыл бұрын

No they can't.

@bobtaylor170

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheStapleGunKid , brother, do you ever need to study the history of that pre - war period, to wit, the matter of how a large majority of Americans of both regions viewed the matter. They certainly did not have your view.

@TheStapleGunKid

3 жыл бұрын

@@bobtaylor170 And what evidence do you have that the majority of Americans felt that states were countries?

@frisco21

2 жыл бұрын

Virginia was never a "country," no matter how hard the Lost Cause crowd wishes it so. Such a notion is absurd, even ridiculous, on its face. I'm a native-born Montanan. It would never occur to me to say that "I am a citizen of the country of Montana." People would laugh at such a statement, and rightly so!

On July 22, 1975 the House restored U.S. citizenship to Robert E. Lee, who commanded the Confederate Army during the Civil War and became an enduring icon of the South’s “lost cause.” The 407-10 vote came after a campaign spearheaded by Sen. Harry F. Byrd Jr. (D-Va.). Though President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation of amnesty and pardon to the Southern rebels in 1865, it required Lee to apply separately. On Oct. 2, 1865, the same day that Lee was inaugurated as president of Washington College in Lexington, Va., he signed the required amnesty oath and filed an application through Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Nonetheless, neither was Lee pardoned, nor was his citizenship restored. After receiving it, Secretary of State William Seward gave Lee’s application to a friend as a souvenir. Meanwhile, State Department officials, apparently with Seward’s approval, pigeonholed the oath. In 1970, an archivist, examining State Department records at the National Archives, found Lee’s lost oath. That discovery helped set in motion a five-year congressional effort to restore citizenship to the general, who had died stateless in 1870. President Gerald Ford signed the congressional resolution on July 24, 1975, correcting what he said was a 110-year oversight. The signing ceremony took place at Arlington House in Virginia, the former Lee family home. Several Lee descendants, including Robert E. Lee V, his great-great-grandson, attended. “As a soldier, Gen. Lee left his mark on military strategy,” Ford said. “As a man, he stood as the symbol of valor and of duty. As an educator, he appealed to reason and learning to achieve understanding and to build a stronger nation. The course he chose after the war became a symbol to all those who had marched with him in the bitter years towards Appomattox

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

Whoopdeedoodoo”

@michaeloconnell8779

2 жыл бұрын

@@tlee51ftw that teaches us zero. Try writing what you really think.

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

I think it was insulting, and ridiculous, to grant a traitor that caused the death of many Americans citizenship, that he lost by his actions.

@michaeloconnell8779

2 жыл бұрын

@@tlee51ftw valid concerns but Lincoln did not want that and many feel he knew best. Our country was originally founded by treasonous traitors and they had slaves too. Very sad US history...

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

The Colonies were not allowed rights in parliament, or rights on their taxes. They had argued the issues for years, with no success. They chose to fight for their rights, as a whole, not partially. The south wanted to to secede that part of the union willing to do so in order to protect, and expand, slavery. Not hardly anything at all equal.

Although I think of W&L as "the other school in town", when observing the statue of Lee's horse there, Traveller, that his ass faces North.

Thank you. LNE.news taught kids last year about the Kappa Alpha fraternity...it no longer want to be associated with Robert E. Lee. @​

Virginia ( as well as RI and NY) reserved the right to "resume powers" delegated to the federal government when they submitted their ratifications. These ratifications were accepted, fully, and without debate. It may be debated, but Virginians considered that reserved right in play, and who could blame them for believing in such?

@mikelake1306

5 жыл бұрын

An interesting detail I hadn't known. Thank you for pointing it out. However, some quick reading makes it clear that these states reserved the right to resume powers to "the People of the United States" (VA) and "the People," i.e., the people of the Unites States generally (NY & RI) and not to individual states. Rhode Island even separately distinguishes powers it does reserve to the several states or people thereof. Secession or a general overthrow of federal government are not among them.

@bjohnson515

5 жыл бұрын

@@mikelake1306 That is an ridiculous, though popular historical twist. First, if you read the notes on the VA secession convention, they believed just what the ratification declared, that they could decide to resume the powers. They are the determiners of what THEY meant. Not post bellum historians. Secondly, the People at that point in time ONLY operated via their State governments. The Constitution was ratified by the States, and any decoupling would follow the same path. And finally, how could VA, if the reference was to the People of the nation, speak in behalf of the citizens of MA, PA, etc.? Another point, if VA RI and NY all included that language, and it was accepted by the Convention, because the Union was an equal bargain amongst states, those rights to resume powers thus emanated to the other 10 original States.

@bjohnson515

5 жыл бұрын

Virginians in their secession convention didn't see it that way. And they were the authors of the ratification. Also, the Constitution was ratified by the People through their States, and any undoing would require the same path in reverse. Thus the States did the ratifying, not the People en masse, and the States would initiate the resuming of powers delegated. There is no mention of a required agreement with any other states for the resumption to occur. And finally, how could VA NY and RI speak for other States or the people of other states? They had no authority. Your notion is a popular one, but doesn't hold up when studied in detail....and facts.@@mikelake1306

@bjohnson515

5 жыл бұрын

read federalist 39 read the VA NY and RI ratifications understand that ALL were accepted without debate or concerns

@NewarkBay357

4 жыл бұрын

@@mikelake1306 The Constitution is about the people of the United States, not the States.

Dr. Guelzo is a treasure of American Civil War history. My favorite historian; whereas, he always presents his lectures with facts and panache.

@SimpleManGuitars1973

2 жыл бұрын

Check out Brion McClanohan. He's the best. Way better than this.

@cliffpage7677

2 жыл бұрын

@@SimpleManGuitars1973 He is very good but I think he himself would accede to the words and wisdom of his master Dr. David Livingston.

@cliffpage7677

2 жыл бұрын

Dr. Guelzo is an unforgiving and blind reconstructionist and revisionist historian who promotes and embellishes on the Yankee and radical Republican agenda unapologetically and is brought into Southern universities by liberal (often Yankee) academics to undermine the history and values of Dixie. His arguments when confronted by historians of the true history of the Southland fall like autumn leaves. When he has the pulpit to himself and speaks to the ignorant he sounds convincing if his listeners have particularly been brought up on and groomed in revisionist history since the cradle and taught the mantra of nationalistic socialism and historical revisionism that the South has been subjected to, particularly in the last fifty years in public schools and in the media. But when Dr. Guelzo shares the stage with any one of the numerous highly qualified Southern scholars of Southern history his words are nothing more than the thumping on a hollow log standing in the Dismal Swamp, in which no matter how loud he bellows, civilization can not hear him. When he is confronted with true intelligence and history to oppose his lame arguments he gets his hide stripped.

@moonshine4u96

2 жыл бұрын

@@SimpleManGuitars1973 I follow McClanahan religiously.

@moonshine4u96

2 жыл бұрын

@@cliffpage7677 no one could have said it better.

The speaker you can tell had a rope in one hand while speaking of Lee.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

I believe he had a pistol in the other hand, which was to be used against anyone who dared speak the truth in disagreement with his ignorant opinions.

The simple answer is no, he did not.

@aaronfleming9426

11 ай бұрын

Lee himself disagrees with you: "Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for pepetual [sic] union, so expressed in the preamble, & for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution. In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jeffersons Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?"

So many comparisons here of Lee to George Washington. But their circumstances are not the same. The colonists left Britain because the British government had largely stripped away their autonomy and ability to self-govern themselves. The colonists had no representation in the British government, yet they had to submit to laws passed by British parliment. Not so for the Confederates. The South had full self-governance and autonomy at the state and local level. Furthermore, the idea that they were suffering under the federal government is absurd. The South held a massively disproportionate influence over the federal government for the nation's entire existence leading up to the war. Look at how many Southerners were presidents. Look at how many Southerners were supreme court justices. In summary, the South was fully represented at the local, state, and federal level. In fact, for most of the nation's history the South dominated federal politics. They left the Union because they lost one election and were upset they would have to give up some of their disproportionate federal power for a span of 4 to possibly 8 years. That is not a valid cause for secession at all.

@billhere5

5 жыл бұрын

Well said!

@alecfoster6653

5 жыл бұрын

Tell that to an informed Southerner. And it was NOT just losing one election. Please.

@mattedwards4533

5 жыл бұрын

You forgot about excessive taxes the British imposed on the colonist. The very reason for throwing British tea in the harbor. Self governing was already established and the British were in charge. Governing wasn't the reason for the revolution, taxes were. This was the same reason South Carolina seceded from the union. Read South Carolina,s history not the federal version that was driven into our heads in school.The federal,s reason for the war between the states if you believe it was slavery? Ironically only four southern states even mentioned slavery for their reason for seceding? The reason slavery was even mentioned was to be on the moral high ground.Lincoln didn't even free one slave! What he did was free them in states he had no control of while in the north slavery was alive and well. Lincoln was a racist by our present standards.Lincoln did some bad things prior and during the war by walking on the constitution.

@Nitroaereus

5 жыл бұрын

Robbing a bank isn't more justified because you are going use the money to pay off your mortgage or send your kids to college than if you're going to use the money to buy a Ferrari. Either way it's robbing a bank for your own self-interest. Treason is treason. And both the 13 colonies and the southern states committed it for self-interested political reasons. George Washington doesn't get a pass just because people like his excuses better.

@mattedwards4533

5 жыл бұрын

@@Nitroaereus ,I respect your right to express your beliefs but in this case you are so wrong! The south and the north had the right to leave the union. If one digs deep into the history of the states they will find that S.C. wasn't the first to try to secede only the first state to do it.The first states that were going to secede were in the north. I could go deeper but My time is limited due to obligation to my business.

Mr. we could use a man like Robert E. Lee today.

@charlesneely

Жыл бұрын

Play right my friend we could use more f****** traitors who turned on their country you took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic how about that man you like to honor a man that betrayed his country you know back in them days to call somebody a traitor was fighting words and I mean quick in a heartbeat so you want to honor a traitor wow 😲 a man that resign his military commissioned as an officer in the Union army to go fight in Virginia for the Virginians Confederacy unfuk and believable. Did you know that he was stripped of his citizenship by Congress and he wouldn't get it again until another seventy eighty years later in 1960 when Congress restored his citizenship posthumously spiritual Great patriotic American so when I hear people say that wow Robin Lee was a patriot yeah a patriot at going to war against his own country now let that sink in dude

@bebopkirby

Жыл бұрын

@@charlesneely That might be true about Robin Lee, but l was referring to Robert E. Lee.

@alomaalber6514

Жыл бұрын

Bob was a model school boy in Alexandria, honest and forthright. The PBS one part bio on Lee is great! Yes, most leaders the good ones, and those less so are typically a strong personality and intelligent I look around in the 21st century and wonder "who are these people"! Cheers! P.S. Bob loved to tell tales at the punchbowl. A Grant film is in the works in Hollywood, they all might be in it.

No

As a supposed history professor he should know the pronunciation is the case of Ex Parte v. Milligan. Pronounced par-tay. Not Part.

@gaiustacitus4242

Жыл бұрын

You are correct. He should know how to properly pronounce at least the Latin phrases in common use.

The Chase court in White v. Texas in 1869 held that secession couldn't happen and didn't happen.

@ichemnutcracker

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly. This is the ONLY argument. There is no such thing as "secession".

@mcl1169

2 жыл бұрын

Secession did happen and White v. Texas was a post war decision that has no bearing on the Secession of States of the Confederate States that seceded. Secession is legal if sustainable.

@ichemnutcracker

2 жыл бұрын

@@mcl1169 nope. While "secession is never mentioned in the Constittion", under Article 1, Section 10 it is clearly stated: "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation;..." and "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." However, I do agree that doing literally anything illegal is "sustainable" so long as you get away with it.

@Valicroix

2 жыл бұрын

@@mcl1169 White v. Texas related to bonds sold by the state of Texas. In the decision the court decided that Texas had never stopped being a state. "Our conclusion therefore is, that Texas continued to be a State, and a State of the Union, notwithstanding the transactions to which we have referred." The transactions referred to included the Ordinance of Secession. Something being "sustainable" doesn't make it legal. During prohibition many speakeasys were sustainable but not legal. Clearly succession could be made a reality though force of arms but that still wouldn't make it legal according to Chase and company.

@tlee51ftw

2 жыл бұрын

Texas v. White wasn't decided any sooner because none of the states asked the Congress to grant secession, or asked the courts to do so. They just up, and decided that they would leave. And then they attacked members of the US military on US property. There is zero excuse for it. Luckily they didn't spend years in prison.

If you were offered an army for the purpose of invading your own state, killing your own people, what would you do? All the people passing judgement are ignorant and arrogant. Most of them aren’t even worthy of touching the ground Lee walked on. He was an amazing person and soldier. What he did, he did out of honor and a sense of duty.

@thomasword5762

Жыл бұрын

Sure he fought for his freedom to take away the freedom of others. He still fought against the US which makes him a traitor. No man on earth has the right to put others into slavery or even discriminate against another people. If they are so superior, why are they so dumb!

@NathanDean79

7 ай бұрын

Once I would have agreed with you. Not so much now. The more I learned the less I agreed with your statement. 1/3 of all the West Point officers from Virginia stayed I. The US Army during the Civil War. That’s 33%. The other 2/3’s got it wrong. I would have stayed loyal to my country not my state. Lee was a rebel just like the rest of them. And if I had been in charge back then I would have put Lee, Jeff Davis, all the higest ranking members of the Confederate millitary and every single state legislator who voted for succession, on trial for treason and everyone else would have been spared. But those individuals would have went on trial and I think we all know what happened to people who were found guilty of treason.

@davidkomyate8014

7 ай бұрын

@@NathanDean79 ​​⁠I’m not sure you understand what treason is. Treason is a breach of allegiance and of the faithful support a citizen owes to the sovereignty within which he lives. Lee lived in Virginia. The sovereign state of Virginia seceded from the United States. Lee was no more committing treason than any of our founders were against the crown of England. Another aspect of treason is the attempted overthrow of your government. None of the confederates tried to overthrow the government of the United States. They simply tried to separate themselves. By definition that’s a revolution, not a civil war. Nothing they did fits the definition of treason. Quite frankly if you’re the type of person who would fight against your own family, your own community and kill your own people then you have no honor and no real sense of duty. If you think your allegiance to your country supersedes your allegiance to your family and your community I have to question your integrity.

@MarcosElMalo2

5 ай бұрын

@@davidkomyate8014 He swore a sacred oath to the United States of America, and to protect and uphold the U.S. Constitution. He broke that oath. Instead of fulfilling that oath, he joined the secessionist who had already aggressively attacked the United States. That sounds like a treacherous traitor to me. This “state loyalty” whitewashing is bullshit.

@jamesshepherd5246

5 ай бұрын

I agree with you 100% Sir! God bless. And thank you for the defense of Lee.

This professor is superb

@badinhbk

4 жыл бұрын

I totally agree :)

Research the States / Common Wealths archived Plat Maps and Property Tax records? How many Slaves do the Majority of Southerners need to Farm a 40 acre to 160 acre Farm? You need to put your remarks in the context to what the Farm s were in 1861.

Sophistry. He is the greatest single killer of U.S. troops in the 19th century and, while he had many noble and admirable qualities, that doesn't absolve him of moral responsibility for the deaths...certainly mere legalisms and loopholes do not change the ethical or moral calculus. You can of course find technicalities to suggest he wouldn't be *convicted* of treason by a jury in the proper jurisdiction (the killers of Medger Evers were not convicted of murder due to jury bias and that doesn't make them "not murderers," and similarly OJ Simpson...not a murderer by this argument since he was acquitted in the criminal trial). In my mind, that doesn't fundamentally get to the underlying question. The pardon by President Johnson is better evidence (in fact, conclusive evidence) that he couldn't have been convicted in a hypothetical court, far better than the venue of the hypothetical trial and the beliefs of a hypothetical and partial jury itself likely filled with his fellow potential "traitors." (Even if the hypothetical Virginian jurors despised him, as likely Confederate supporters themselves they were likely equally guilty of the same offense as Lee under the law, and that probably would bias their decisions. In fact, that kind of bias is usually grounds to dismiss a juror, at least in modern times.) More practically, from a moral standpoint, Lee is a fascinating individual who seems to have never expressed any remorse for the mass deaths he caused. So arguably he's more sociopath than hero, and a sociopath who definitely helped to aid and abet an open and violent rebellion against the U.S. government, killing "many thousands" (to be generous) of U.S. troops in the process. The moniker "traitor" is perfectly good to describe that aspect of the man.

@drew7155

4 жыл бұрын

Brainwashed. Not a single like or comment for a whole month. So much effort, for not.

@Pandaemoni

4 жыл бұрын

@@drew7155 Truth and quality are not measured in likes. To suggest otherwise is a logical fallacy known as an "Appeal to Popularity."

@TheStapleGunKid

4 жыл бұрын

I noticed your comment doesn't have any likes either.

@drew7155

4 жыл бұрын

@@TheStapleGunKid Not taking your loss well?... fledgling and grasping for a win wherever may find one. The effort is the point. I'm sure when Kurt wrote his ten page righteous diatribe he was optimistic that he would get the righteous validation he so desperately was seeking... to no avail. Poor Kurt.

@drew7155

4 жыл бұрын

@@Pandaemoni here's a like buddy. I feel bad