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Murat -> RE: Secession, right or wrong? (11/29/2006 3:02:14 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: RERomine
Yes, I've heard of eminent domain and there is a process. It varies some from state to state, but it doesn't starts with, "WE WANT IT, GET OUT". The first step is to negotiate the prices, if the seller is willing to sell. For sake of argument, we can conclude the Federal Government made it very clear they didn't want to sell. Hearings are then held to deteremine if the property is required for public use. Again, we can conclude South Carolina would have found this to be the case. Then South Carolina would have determined a fair market value of the property and this amount would be paid and the title transferred. Therein lies the rub. No fair market price was ever established and certainly no payment rendered other than steel. Appeals may take place at the end of the process.
All that aside, I don't believe State courts can seize Federal property under eminent domain laws. The simple fact is their was a fort in Charleston Harbor that South Carolina deemed a threat and wanted it. This I understand, but there weren't any laws existed that gives them legal rights to it. Rebellion is a sometimes violent process where people break away from parent nation. It all depends on how the parent country reacts to this. There is no international court of law where a country can go and declare their independence. If this was the case, Taiwan would have done that a long time ago. They act independent, up to and including having their own military, but no one officially recognizes them because China has made it clear they do not view they as independent and would consider any foreign recognition an act of war. Military threats have the ability to veto right.
We could go all day long on the legal aspects of rebellion and get nowhere. Courts interpret and enforce laws and often they don't agree. There are many things in life that are right, but illegal. Was the legal for the colonies to break away from England? I'm sure England felt it was not. Was it right for the colonies to break away? For them, they felt it was, just as the people of South Carolina felt it was right for them. I didn't live then and don't know how they felt. Through books, I can read how they felt, but I can't feel it anymore than I can feel how people thought about Pearl Harbor.
I was going to quote Two Tribes but he has left reality so in short:
1] get a law degree. I worked hard to get mine.
2] International law as it existed at the time was followed by South Carolina in seceeding and in reclaiming all property from the US, research it.
3] As for getting reimbursed for property previously owned that had been seized, the US made treaties to handle such circumstances (Britain and the Oregon Territories for example) both prior to the War and after it.
4] There is an International Court of Justice in the Hague today. Each of the 5 permanent members f the UN Security Council has veto power over its cases. The US does not grant it jurisdiction over any matters wherein the US would be a party but much of the rest of the world uses it.
5] Taiwan was recognized by the US for quite a while, now they are in limbo. China would veto any case in the Hague by Taiwan involving independence.
6] As to what right South Carolina (and others) have to seceed, look no further than the Declaration of Independence (Recognized along with the US Constitution, Articles of Confederation, and the Common Law as being the Supreme Law of the Land by the US Supreme Court in 1803):
quote:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or 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.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
This is still in effect today although I think none would use it but an extremely few who could be handled by local police without much difficulty.
ALSO South Carolina almost seceeded in 1832 (Nullification Crisis), but President Jackson invaded then too and we relented (but got most of our concerns addressed in the Tariff of 1833).
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