CLAIM:
” … As if it (Alabama) left the Union.”
INVESTIGATOR:
John Needham
VERDICT REVIEW:
INACCURATE and MISLEADING. The writer’s opinion expressed does not match up with established facts. The State of Alabama resumed its powers on January 11,1861 from its agent, the general government. After the War, the State of Alabama was under military occupation by the armed forces of the United States. As a punishment by the Republication administration, Alabama’s provisional government was forced to renounce it’s Ordinance of Secession on September 25, 1865. The rescinding of the Ordinance was a necessary legal requirement imposed by the Union government upon seceded states to clear questionable legal challenges that were sure to arise over the legality of the secession. It clouded and impeded the scope of authority of the Constitution over states and was necessary to be revoked to ensure the authority of the US Constitution was not in question. Ultimately, by not being able to charge and convict President Jefferson Davis with treason in a civil or military court out of fear secession would have been declared legal and overturn the verdict of the War, the question of the issue was handed to the Supreme Court. On April 12, 1869 the Supreme Court of the United States decided on Texas v White. The Court held that Texas ( and the rest of the Confederacy) never left the Union during the Civil War, because a state cannot unilaterally secede from the United States. The tally of the judges was 5 to 3 in support of the decision. From the State’s agent, the general government’s point of view, secession is illegal but not from the State’s point of view under the powers of the 10th Amendment which has never been declared unconstitutional.
SOURCE: LINK
ARTHUR: DANIEL TAYLOR, Sand Mountain Reporter
INVESTIGATOR FINDINGS:
On January 11, 1861, the Alabama Secession Convention passes an Ordinance of Secession, declaring Alabama a “Sovereign and Independent State.” By a vote of 61-39, Alabama becomes the fourth state to secede from the Union
SOURCE: ORDINANCE OF SECESSION, Alabama Department of Archives and History
During May and June 1865, Alabama had no legally constituted government; Governor Thomas Hill Watts and other prominent leaders had been arrested by the United States military. On June 21st, President Johnson issued a proclamation, establishing a provisional government. In September a convention adopted a new constitution for Alabama, abolishing slavery, repealing the Ordinance of Secession, and repudiating the State’s war debt. By declaring the act of secession in a legislative context “null and void”, the radicals recognized the act of secession as a legitimate power enacted by a sovereign nation.
SOURCE: The Constitution, and Ordinances Adopted by the State Convention of Alabama by J.W. Sheperd, September 12, 1865 – LINK
NOTE: Once notified, The Sand Mountain Reporter corrected the factual error it made with the following note:
“Note: This article originally included a sentence with a typographical error reading, “The Alabama Secession Convention adopted the flag in 1861 as if it left the Union.” The word “if” has been removed for clarification.”
The edited Sentence is as follows:
“The Alabama Secession Convention adopted the flag in 1861 as it left the Union.”
Civil War Fact Check appreciates the Sand Mountain Reporter’s retracting its comments and accepting established historical facts.
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