Question 1 (1 point) In its Declaration of Secession, South Carolina uses the De
ID: 111161 • Letter: Q
Question
Question 1 (1 point)
In its Declaration of Secession, South Carolina uses the Declaration of Independence to establish:
Question 1 options:
that South Carolina is an independent state, which is therefore free to secede from the Union if it so chooses
that South Carolina was an independent state before it adopted the Constitution, and can become one again if the Constitution is violated
that South Carolina is an independent state, which can secede if other states ignore the ends for which the Constitution was adopted
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Question 2 (1 point)
In its Declaration of Secession, South Carolina describes the Constitution as
Question 2 options:
an act of the states of 1787, which has no force for the states of 1860
an act of the American people
an act of the Americans of 1787, which has no force for the Americans of 1860
an agreement between states
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Question 3 (1 point)
In its Declaration of Secession, South Carolina describes the Constitution as specifically designed to
Question 3 options:
protect states from federal incursions on their sovereignty
protect the right of states to abolish slavery
protect the rights of slaveholders in states where slavery is permitted
protect the right of states to establish slavery
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Question 4 (1 point)
Which feature of the Declaration of Independence is NOT emphasized in the South Carolina Declaration of Secession?
Question 4 options:
a list of injustices done to those declaring independence
the claim that governments are instituted by humans for particular ends
the obligation to declare one’s reasons for claiming independence to the world
the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
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Question 5 (1 point)
South Carolina argues that states are free and independent even under the Constitution because:
Question 5 options:
the Constitutuion needed to be ratified by the individual states
the Constitution made clear that there are both slave and free states
the 10th Amendment reserved other, non-enumerated powers to the states or the people
both a and c
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Question 6 (1 point)
Lincoln cites the phrase “to form a more perfect Union,” from the preamble to the Constitution, in order to argue
Question 6 options:
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Question 7 (1 point)
Lincoln claims that the Union is perpetual because
Question 7 options:
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Question 8 (1 point)
Lincoln acknowledges that the country is currently arguing forcefully over slavery. But he claims that these arguments do not undermine the Constitution because
Question 8 options:
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Question 9 (1 point)
Lincoln argues that the American people must be left to settle their arguments about slavery by majority rule. This is because the Constitution
Question 9 options:
is not a contract between free and slave states, but between all states considered as equals
rejects both anarchy and despotism
understands all Americans as answering to the Almighty Ruler of Nations
can be amended to abolish slavery
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Question 10 (1 point)
Lincoln mentions the Declaration of Independence but discusses none of its specific passages. This is most likely because
Question 10 options:
Supporting Information
Introduction
The founding documents established the terms in which Americans have argued about politics. Throughout American history, men and women have used these documents to support very different positions, and have argued passionately about what the documents mean.
In this specific module, you will study how each side in the secession crisis of 1860-1 appealed to the founding documents. You will read arguments from that time and answer questions about the ways the arguments used the founding documents. At any time, feel free to return from the questions to the historical texts or to the founding documents themselves.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. Lincoln was the candidate of the Republican party, which opposed the expansion of slavery in any new territories or states. Southern states, most prominently South Carolina, concluded that they were doomed to minority status in a union of majority free states. This majority of free states would inevitably use its democratic powers against the institution of slavery in South Carolina, thereby undermining the sovereignty of the slaveholding states.
South Carolina therefore voted to secede from the Union. Was this act within their rights as a sovereign state? Obviously South Carolina and Lincoln disagreed. How did each justify their positions? The following texts explain their views. Read the texts and then answer the brief questions about them.
Collapse South Carolina Declaration of Secession, 1860
South Carolina Declaration of Secession, 1860
Questions 1-5 of the assessment come from this portion of content.
South Carolina begins its Declaration of Secession with an analysis of the Declaration of Independence. The analysis is supposed to confirm two important principles of the Declaration of Independence. Make sure you understand those two principles as explained in the following passage.
“And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
“In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, ‘that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES…’
“They further solemnly declared that whenever any ‘form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.’ Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies ‘are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.’
“Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.”
Having derived its two principles from the Declaration of Independence, South Carolina then turns to the ratification of the Constitution. What sort of act was that ratification, according to the following section of the document?
“In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.
“The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.
“If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were-- separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.
“By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared 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…
“Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.”
Finally, South Carolina explains why present circumstances demand its withdrawal from the Union. Why is this withdrawal consistent with, and perhaps even demanded by, the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
“We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.
“In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
“The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: ‘No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.’
“The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution…Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.”
Collapse Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 1861
Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 1861
Questions 6-10 of the assessment come from this portion of content.
When Lincoln was sworn in as President, South Carolina had already declared its secession from the Union. Lincoln responded in his inaugural address that this declaration of secession was invalid. No state, in his view, has a right to withdraw unilaterally from the Union.
That is because the Union is perpetual, as he explains in the following text.
“I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
“Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak--but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
“Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was ‘to form a more perfect Union.’
“But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.”
“It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
“I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States…
Having rejected South Carolina’s claim to secession, Lincoln then turns to the controversies over slavery that prompted South Carolina’s declaration. He makes two points in response:
first, that the Constitution has not been violated in these controversies
and second, that these controversies must be settled by majority rule
Pay careful attention to how Lincoln justifies these two claims in the following sections of his address.
”All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not…But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.
“From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority.”
“Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left…
“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…
“Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.”
Collapse Conclusion
Conclusion
In this module, you have seen that the state of South Carolina and President Abraham Lincoln used the founding documents to establish entirely opposite positions on the legitimacy of secession. As you reflect on the questions about their arguments, pay special attention to their views about the relation between those documents, and particularly between the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. It is not so much that the two sides disagree about what the specific words of the documents mean, but rather that they disagree about the roles that the documents are supposed to play in the political life of the United States.
Part II: Beyond the Essentials: Secession—To satisfy the module requirements you now must complete a 10 question exam; 7 correct answers are required to pass and complete Part I of the requirement. Once a 70% mark is attained you will have successfully completed the requirement.
a)that South Carolina is an independent state, which is therefore free to secede from the Union if it so chooses
b)that South Carolina was an independent state before it adopted the Constitution, and can become one again if the Constitution is violated
c) that South Carolina is an independent state, which is free to secede if it understands the Constitution differently than other states do d)that South Carolina is an independent state, which can secede if other states ignore the ends for which the Constitution was adopted
Explanation / Answer
1) a
The south Carolina is free state and and free secede from union
2) a
Act ot state 1787 which has no force to state of 1860
3) b
Protect the rights of state to abolish slavery
4) d
Inevitable justice to life, life and happiness.
5) d
Constititution is ratified by individual states and also according to the amendment, there are powers given to the states.
6) c
Union was existed before the southern states ratified the constitution
7)a
The constitution of union will be perpetual and and hence the union is perpetual
8) a
The issue about slavery is not mentioned in the constitution and hence the argument about slavery is going on.
9) b
The constitution rejects the anarchy and depotism
10) d
He thinks that the declaration is superseded by the constitution.