Originally posted by HotSnoJ
I don't think the South turned traiter during the Civil War.
The US is made up of (atm) 50 seperate nations, hence the name "United States". The Constitution binds the member States in a very close alliance that on the surface makes them seem like one nation, and somewhat act like one too.
This is flat out wrong. It is a hallmark of constitutional law that the federal law is supreme over state law. This is what is known as the supremacy clause. Whenever any state law conflicts with federal law (especially the Constitution), the federal law ALWAYS takes precedence. (I'm a lawyer, so I know this because I studied it for three years at law school.)
Stryke is absolutely right; the 50 states are
not separate nations loosely unified. They are like provinces in other countries. There is a reason we call ourselves Americans before we call ourselves "Marylanders" or Georgians" or "Vermonters" or whatever.
Originally posted by HotSnoJ
So back to the South. When the southern States withdrew from the Union (US) they in effect became foreign powers. These foreign powers banded together into the Confederate States of America.
No. Before the Civil War, the people of the Confederacy were American citizens. They broke away from the Union and took up arms against it to defend the "right" to keep slaves. If they had
won the Civil War and become de facto independent, then, and only then, would they be considered a foreign power. It's kinda like the Revolutionary War; even though we issued a Declaration of Independence in 1776, we didn't actually become independent and a foreign power distinct from England until we won the Revolutionary War in 1781 at the Battle of Yorktown.
Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it? Do the British look on us as former traitors because our rebellion against their rule was successful? How does history determine the difference between a war for independence and a traitorous rebellion?
Originally posted by HotSnoJ
So this brings in the question, "So where do my loyalties lie?" I'd say it's first your State then the US. Which is shown to us by General Lee of the South.
No, it's exactly the opposite. It's to the US first,
then to your state. When I became a naturalized citizen (I'm an immigrant, FYI), I had to swear an oath of loyalty. I did not swear that oath to any one state, I swore that oath to America as a whole.
General Lee thought the way you said he did (that is, state before country), but after the Civil War ended, he spent the rest of his life regreting that decision. Northeners looked on him as a traitor and shunned him, while Southeners saw him as a failure because he lost the war.
Lee may have done what he did for noble reasons, but he still took up arms against the country he swore an oath to defend. When the Emancipation Declaration changed the nature of the Civil War (see below), Lee should have realized that the cause he was fighting for (namely, states' rights) was dead. He wound up fighting for the wrong cause (slavery) instead. He commited treason (either against the Union for rebelling or against history for fighting for slavery) any way you slice it.
Originally posted by HotSnoJ
BTW I'm not saying the slavery is OK, I'm just saying that the south was more in the right legally then the north. True the South started the war over a fort, 
that's basicly what the war was about. But as we can see it exploded into something over slavery.
True enough but also false. The point of "more in the right legally" seems irrelevant when you take account into the fact that Southern military cadets fired
an unprovoked shot against a naval military vessel. That's like saying the Japanese were in the right legally when they attacked us at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese thought they were fighting for righteous reasons of independence from foreign powers as well.
I remember from my 6th grade history class (a long time ago; God has it already been 20 years?) that my teacher said that the Civil War was originally about states' rights, but that the Emancipation Declaration by Lincoln changed the whole nature of the Civil War and made it about slavery. A shrewd political move if ever there was one. Thank God it was good for the country, too.
And that fort that fired the first shot of the Civil War, isn't it part of the Citadel military academy in Charleston?
