Well, it's time a son of the South weighed in on the anniversary of Lee's surrender.
Let's hang some of those Southern rascals with their own words, OK?
One hundred forty years ago on Saturday, at Appomattox, General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant.
A number of Kossacks have posted to the effect that the Confederates were "traitors," and that their secession from the Union constituted "treason."
Well, it's well known that (white) Southerners are a treasonous lot, whereas -- thank Heaven -- the North had the Christ-like Abraham Lincoln, vindicator of the rights of the African-American people of the South, to thwart the secessionists' designs.
Let's look at what some of those "secesh" scoundrels said, in their treacherous attempts to justify their crime, and a bit of their blathering about "states' rights," and how Father Abraham put `em in their place:
The attributes of sovereignty are now enjoyed by ever state in the Union. (Alexander Hamilton).
The Thirteen States are Thirteen Sovereign bodies. (Oliver Ellsworth).
The States are Nations. (Daniel Webster, Commentaries on the Constitution, Vol. III, p. 287.
The States acceded to the Constitution. (Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Works, Vol. V, p. 409).
If the states were not left to leave the Union when their rights were interfered with, the government would have been National, but the Convention refused to baptize it by that name. (Daniel Webster, in the Senate, 2/15/1833).
If the Union was formed by the accession of States then the Union may be dissolved by the secession of States. (Daniel Webster, in the Senate, 2/15/1833).
We, the delegates of the people of the state of New York . . . having maturely considered the Constitution for the United States of America . . . do declare and make known. . . 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; [ . . . ] That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several states, or to their respective state governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution. (Excerpt from text of New York resolution ratifying the Constitution, 7/26/1788).
The Union is a Union of States founded upon Compact. How is it to be supposed that when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes either can disregard one provision of it and expect others to observe the rest? If the Northern States willfully and deliberately refuse to carry out their part of the Constitution, the South would no longer be bound to keep the compact. A bargain broken on one side is broken on all sides. (Daniel Webster, Capon Springs Speech, 1851).
Any people anywhere, being inclined, and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. (Abraham Lincoln, in the House of Representatives, 1/12/1848.
John Quincy Adams, in 1939, and Abraham Lincoln, 1847, make elaborate arguments in favor of the legal right of a State to Secede. (Judge Black, Black's Essays).
If the Declaration of Independence justified the secession of 3,000,000 colonists in 1776, I do not see why the Constitution ratified by the same men should not justify the secession of 5,000,000 of the Southerners from the Federal Union in 1861.
We have repeatedly said, and we once more insist that the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence that government derives its power from the consent of the governed is sound and just, then if the Cotton States, the Gulf States or any other States choose to form an independent nation they have a clear right to do it.
The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless; and we do not see how one party can have a right to do what another party has a right to prevent. We must ever resist the asserted right of any State to remain in the Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof; to withdraw form the Union is another matter. And when a section of our Union resolves to go out, we shall resist any coercive acts to keep it in. We hope never to live in a Republic where one section is pinned to the other section by bayonets. (Horace Greeley, New York Tribune).
We of the North couldn't make [slavery] pay, so we are convinced that it is the sum of all villainy. Our plan is more profitable; we take care of no children or sick people, except as paupers, while the owners of slaves have to provide for them from birth till death. So how we view the issue depends on what kind of glasses we use.
If we of the North were called upon to endure one half as much as the Southern people and solders do, we would abandon the cause and let the Southern Confederacy be established. We pronounce their cause unholy, but they consider it sacred enough to suffer and die for. Our forefathers in the Revolutionary struggle could not have endured more than these rebels.
A nation preserved with liberty trampled underfoot is much worse than a nation of fragments but with the spirit of liberty still alive. Southerners persistently claim that their rebellion is for the purpose of preserving this form of government. (Pvt. John H. Haley, 17th Maine Infantry, U.S. Army).
Judge Douglas has said to you that he has not been able to get me to answer the question whether I am in favor of Negro citizenship. So far as I know, the Judge never asked me the question before. (Applause). He shall have no occasion to ever ask it again, for I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of Negro citizenship. (Applause). Now my opinion is that the different states have the power to make a Negro a citizen under the Constitution of the United States if they choose. . . . If the state of Illinois had that power I should be opposed to the exercise of it. (Cries of "Good! Good! and applause). (Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Peoria, Illinois, 10/16/1854, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II, p. 281.
I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will forever forbid their living together in perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there should be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the supremacy. (Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Haldeman-Julius Co., Girard Kansas, 1923, pp. 80).