Tag: Lincoln

US Civil War #2? No, Civil War #1 was Not a Civil War

I am a detail person. I love properly defined words. Governments and their historians twist words to favor their own agenda. This is why the secession of 7 and then 11 united States AND the resulting conflict for four horrible years is labeled a “civil” war.

What is hilarious is that Lincoln, knowing that secession was legal since he considered it during and even ten years after the Mexican-American War when he said:

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. – Abraham Lincoln, Peoria, Ill., Oct. 16, 1854

So when seven states, each, like an abused spouse, decided to cancel the voluntary contract she had entered into and go her own way, Lincoln decided to call this an “insurrection”.

Evidence is to the contrary however, as people today compare what happened in 1860 after Lincoln’s election:

Yes, there is a civil war looming in the United States. But it will not look like the orderly pattern of descent which characterized the conflict of 1861-65. It will appear more like the Yugoslavia break-up, or the Russian and Chinese civil wars of the 20th Century. – By Gregory R. Copley – Aug 19, 2017

The secession of whole states via legal means was the American patriots of the time effort to make the whole thing “above board”, “by the book” and “in accordance with the laws of the land”. We now know that Lincoln at the outset was not going to let that happen without a fight. It took the first month that he was in office to whip up the worst fears of life for the remaining 27 united States without the Deep South states. Economically, it looked real bad as the Northern economy and Western (Midwest) farmers would potentially lose their closest customers who in FEB1861 voted to become a relative “free trade zone” compared to the US’s 20%+ average tariff rate by setting tariffs at approximately at 13% on average.

A close inspection of Lincoln’s inaugural address (04MAR1861), two days after the US Congress passed a tariff increase (which the Republicans wanted and was in their platform) shows that ..

1. –  if you can believe Lincoln’s words, he was not going to do anything about slavery:

I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

2. – Lincoln’s primary interest lay in collecting duties at all southern ports, as the US general government wanted and needed this revenue stream:

.. there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.

Lincoln contended that divorce was not an option. Of course he “saw” the nation as a singular, and that union was paramount. However, in history we have seen peaceful secession work many times. Lincoln, who once thought and said that governing requires consent of the governed, changed his mind.

Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.

Properly conceived, the United States in 1861 was actually like polygamy, in that 34 spouses were involved, and 7 wanted to leave this arrangement:

This was NOT the 7 spouses wanting to rule over the WHOLE harem! That would be the true definition of civil war, where the winner gets EVERYTHING!

So in hindsight, the American Revolution was in fact 13 spouses wanting to rule their own households, so basically 13 civil wars as in each colony there was a mix of Tory/Loyalist and Whig/Rebel tendencies plus those that didn’t really care and just wanted peace at all cost.

The American Civil War was not really a civil war as after Lincoln called up 75,000 volunteer troops from the remaining 27 states, 4 of those said no way (Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia) as each of these had already voted once to stay in the union and now voted to leave.

This brings us to 2019. Are we facing a civil war? Again, I contend that most decent people want to be left alone. Most decent people don’t mind if the east coast from DC to MA and the west coast from CA to WA just leave (or stay and the rest of the states leave). Again, Gregory R. Copley shares:

It may, in other words, be short-lived simply because the uprising will probably not be based upon the decisions of constituent states (which, in the US Civil War, created a break-away confederacy), acting within their own perception of a legal process. It is more probable that the 21st Century event would contage as a gradual breakdown of law and order.

I tend to agree with this synopsis as the states are no longer entities with any autonomy, but are puppets of the federal government these days, a direct result of the union forcing the marriage covenant to be permanent.

Many will point to Trump or Brexit as the start of this so-called Civil War 2.0, but like most wars, their roots go back years if not generations:

It is significant that the gathering crisis in the United States was not precipitated by the November 7, 2016, election of Pres. Donald Trump, and neither was the growing polarization of the United Kingdom’s society caused by the Brexit vote of 2016. In both instances, the election of Mr Trump and the decision by UK voters for Britain to exit the European Union were late reactions — perhaps too late — by the regional populations of both countries to what they perceived as the destruction of their nation-states by “urban super-oligarchies”.

The last-ditch reactions by those who voted in the US for Donald Trump and those who voted in the UK for Brexit were against an urban-based globalism which has been building for some seven decades, with the deliberate or accidental intent of destroying nations and nationalism.

I contend that the roots of this go much further back than seven decades, but back to the very end of Amerexit, when the thirteen colonies each received acknowledgement in the 1783 Treaty of Paris that the British Empire would let them go in peace, finally. In the post war era, those former patriots would once again turn on the people to assemble a central government that would “protect” them, at a cost when in fact it was a guerilla war that actually freed the colonies from the British grip.

The myth abounded that formal confederation was necessary to win the war, although the war would be virtually won by the time confederation was finally achieved. The war was fought and won by the states informally but effectively united in a Continental Congress; fundamental decisions, such as independence, had to be ratified by every state. There was no particular need for the formal trappings and permanent investing of a centralized government, even for victory in war. Ironically, the radicals were reluctantly pulled into an arrangement which they believed would wither away at the end of the war, and thereby helped to forge an instrument which would be riveted upon the people only in time of peace, an instrument that proved to be a halfway house to that archenemy of the radical cause, the Constitution of the United States. – Murray Rothbard in ‘Conceived in Liberty Vol IV p.243

It is both sick and sad that even radical patriots turned back to central government as the safe way forward. Allowing the smaller states to work in a loose confederation would have provided a true “land of the free” much more than our tyrannical US Empire has allowed us domestically.

As the fictional Benjamin Martin said at the close of the movie The Patriot (2000)

“With the war ending .. I take measure of what we have lost. And what we have won.”

What was won was colonial-centric liberty and freedom from British Empire oppression, what was soon lost was that very same thing. Squandered, politics has a way of doing that every time.

-SF1

17SEP1787 – Coup d’etat in Philadelphia: US Constitution

Anyone who attended public school in the last 100 years have been taught that the US Constitution was one of the milestones in this country’s birth and maturation process towards being and becoming the land of the free.

This is rubbish. Americans were more free in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris than they were after the US Constitution was revealed on 17SEP1787 and finally ratified by 11 of the 13 former colonies two years later in 1789.

For those that would like to dig into the details rather than be persuaded by a single blog post I would recommend Sheldon Richman’s book ‘America’s Counter-Revolution: The Constitution Revisited‘:

This book challenges the assumption that the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for liberty. Instead, Sheldon Richman argues, it was the product of a counter-revolution, a setback for the radicalism represented by America’s break with the British empire. Drawing on careful, credible historical scholarship and contemporary political analysis, Richman suggests that this counter-revolution was the work of conservatives who sought a nation of “power, consequence, and grandeur.” America’s Counter-Revolution makes a persuasive case that the Constitution was a victory not for liberty but for the agendas and interests of a militaristic, aristocratic, privilege-seeking ruling class.

Personally, way back in MAR1976 when I was a high school senior and 17 years old, I made the oath below:

“I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

Enlisting in the US Navy, I had little to no idea as to the words I was repeating. At that time I was not aware how defective the Constitution was, the way it was created (the charge in 1787 was to amend the Articles of Confederation, not to replace it) and the way it has been abused.

Note that my first charge in this oath I took is to support and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. So what if the President of the US is that enemy, how can I still “obey the orders of the President of the United States”?

Looking back in history, I see that many if not all the presidents have subverted the US Constitution either in the letter or spirit of that defective document. LBJ, FDR, Wilson, Lincoln and even Washington all said that some existing crises necessitated their decisions and actions. So what good is this document (as Lysander Spooner said)?

The answer is “Absolutely Nothing!” This document does nothing to restrain tyranny in these united States as it was originally intended, by some of its authors.

But I digress, for a better question is why was this document needed? Why were the Articles of Confederation just tossed aside? Why was this document drafted in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia behind closed doors in tremendous secrecy?

The truth is, if word leaked out of the actual contents, the original intent and the agenda that was behind this major shift, the revolution that had just concluded would have been set ablaze again. The authors of this document were in a race against time and did everything in their power to ensure that the adoption took place as quickly as possible to avoid reflection and contemplation in the public square that would kill the proposal once the consequences of its agenda became apparent.

They were actually insisting that the states ratify first and then propose amendments later. The document had no bill of rights and it actually gave more power to the general or central government. It was a political coup d’état. No wonder Patrick Henry said he smelled a rat.

It was nothing less than an oligarchical coup to ensure that the moneyed interests, bankers and aristocrats could cement their positions and mimic the United Kingdom from which they had been recently divorced.

In the interests of truth, the document that should be taught before the US Constitution is in fact the Articles of Confederation that was conceived in 1776 and adopted in 1781. As William Buppert explains:

As Austrian economists have discovered, bigger is not necessarily better. The brilliant and oft-dismissed Articles of Confederation (AoC) and Perpetual Union are a testament to voluntarism and cooperation through persuasion that the Constitution disposed of with its adoption. Penned in 1776 and ratified in 1781, the spirit and context of the Articles live on in the Swiss canton system and are everywhere evident in the marketplace where confederationist sentiments are practiced daily. The confederation’s design divines its mechanism from what an unfettered market does every day: voluntary cooperation, spontaneous information signals and the parts always being smarter than the sum A. confederation according to the Webster’s 1828 dictionary is:

  1. The act of confederating; a league; a compact for mutual support; alliance; particularly of princes, nations or states.

This ‘marriage’ retains the freedom of the entities that would voluntary join to also exit. What is obvious is that the US Constitution did not guarantee this exit clause, otherwise the state constitutions of New York and Virginia would not have had exit rights penned into their own documents. Furthermore, when the Constitutional Convention convened in 1787, 55 delegates came but 14 later quit as the Convention eventually abused its mandate and scrapped the Articles of Confederation instead of revising it.

Ultimately, actions spoke louder than words when even the much admired Washington was revealed as having none of the talk of independence and wanting a firm hand on the yoke of the states to make them obey their masters on high. Washington’s behavior in the Whiskey Rebellion cast away any doubts of the imperious behavior of the central government a mere four year after the adoption of the Constitution.

There were those who stood in the way, but typical to politics in general, these people are marginalized. Patrick Henry gave the firmest defense of the skeptical posture when he questioned the precarious position the Constitution put to the state’s sovereignty on 5 June 1788 at the Virginia Ratifying Convention. It should be noted that the savvy ‘Founding Lawyers’ ensured that the process of ratification was sped along by bypassing the bicameral house requirements and simply asking the states to conduct ratifying conventions. Henry’s text says:

“How were the Congressional rights defined when the people of America united by a confederacy to defend their liberties and rights against the tyrannical attempts of Great-Britain? The States were not then contented with implied reservation. No, Mr. Chairman. It was expressly declared in our Confederation that every right was retained by the States respectively, which was not given up to the Government of the United States. But there is no such thing here. You therefore by a natural and unavoidable implication, give up your rights to the General Government. Your own example furnishes an argument against it. If you give up these powers, without a Bill of Rights, you will exhibit the most absurd thing to mankind that ever the world saw — A Government that has abandoned all its powers — The powers of direct taxation, the sword, and the purse. You have disposed of them to Congress, without a Bill of Rights — without check, limitation, or controul. And still you have checks and guards — still you keep barriers — pointed where? Pointed against your weakened, prostrated, enervated State Government! You have a Bill of Rights to defend you against the State Government, which is bereaved of all power; and yet you have none against Congress, though in full and exclusive possession of all power! You arm youselves against the weak and defenceless, and expose yourselves naked to the armed and powerful. Is not this a conduct of unexampled absurdity? What barriers have you to oppose to this most strong energetic Government? To that Government you have nothing to oppose. All your defence is given up. This is a real actual defect. . . “

We, in 2019, are feeling the full effects of this constitution’s real purpose with the emergence of the government spying on its citizens and the whole Red Flag law emergence. Total control implies that all guns are in the government’s hands so that “All your defence is given up”

Helpless tax slaves is the aim of the government we have today, thanks in part to the efforts of Madison, Hamilton and John Jay.

It appears that James Madison tried to reverse himself somewhat by introducing ten amendments called the Bill of Rights, but it was too little, too late, and only represented a piece of paper:

“Our constitutions purport to be established by ‘the people,’ and, in theory, ‘all the people’ consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this consent of ‘the people’ exists only in theory. It has no existence in fact. Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.”~ Lysander Spooner

-SF1

Criticizing the Government is the American Way – All Day, Every Day

With the advent of 9/11 and the perpetual War on Terror, that causes more terrorists and is therefore self-perpetuating, the Patriot Act has opened the door once again toward silencing dissent.

I mentioned in my last post:

Words matter. You know, like the “Patriot” Act.

One can’t help but shake one’s head when we see the word “patriot” to describe something that requires one’s mouth to be closed, or face punishment.

The effort to have thirteen colonies separate from the British Empire involved a LOT of criticism, specific criticism at government, even naming names:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures…

The above list was only HALF of the criticisms. As Thomas Jefferson said:

Yes, not just words, but to consider the next step as well.

So as we saw with the introduction of the Patriot Act, there has been a continual assault on free speech in the history of this country, especially in time of war. No wonder the state loves the perpetual condition of war in their war on terror and war on drugs. Leaders in 2001 seemed to “go back in time” to dictate the new order of things:

Attorney General John Ashcroft has said that critics of the war effort “give aid and comfort to the enemy.”

John Whitehead’s latest column charts this historical path this country has had in attempting to balance this freedom of speech. A few clips follow:

  • In 1798, during the presidency of John Adams, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which made it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish … any false, scandalous, and malicious” statements against the government, Congress or president of the United States. (less than 20 years after rightly criticizing the British Empire, Americans could not criticize the United States general government? )
  • President Abraham Lincoln seized telegraph lines, censored mail and newspaper dispatches, and shut down members of the press who criticized his administration. (not to mention sending hundreds of newspaper editors and printing press owners to prison ships)
  • President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which made it illegal to criticize the government’s war efforts.

This last one was especially broad in that it outlawed:

Uttering, printing, writing, or publishing any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language intended to cause contempt, scorn … as regards the form of government of the United States or Constitution, or the flag or the uniform of the Army or Navy … urging any curtailment of the war with intent to hinder its prosecution; advocating, teaching, defending, or acts supporting or favoring the cause of any country at war with the United States, or opposing the cause of the United States.

The fallout from this law shows the extent the paranoid state will go in protecting itself, it is at its core a SNOWFLAKE!

Excess patriotic zeal resulted in a draconian crackdown on free expression, including:

  • Authorities in Pittsburgh banned music by the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven during the course of the war.
  • The Los Angeles Board of Education prohibited all discussions of peace.
  • An Ohio farmer, John White, was imprisoned for stating that soldiers in American camps were “dying off like flies” and that the “murder of innocent women and children by German soldiers was no worse than what the United States’ soldiers did in the Philippines.”
  • A Minnesota man was arrested under a state espionage law for criticizing women knitting socks for soldiers, saying: “No soldier ever sees these socks.”
  • Twenty-seven South Dakota farmers were convicted for sending a petition to the government objecting to the draft and calling the conflict a “capitalist war.”

With the so-called “surprise” attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR signed similar legislation:

  • The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover emergency authority to censor all news and control all communications in and out of the country.
  • FDR proceeded with the internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans in concentration camps.

Even during Vietnam, when the peace protesting gained momentum:

Attorney General John Mitchell sought injunctions to prohibit the newspapers from publishing such information [ articles about some highly classified documents about the U.S. government and the Vietnam War ].

The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1971 ruled 6-3 in favor of the press. In his opinion, Justice Hugo Black wrote: “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”

Now we have returned to the “Patriot” Act put in place during the Bush II administration:

Part of the Patriot Act signed into law by President George W. Bush made it a crime for an American citizen to engage in peaceful, lawful activity on behalf of any group designated by the government as a terrorist organization. Under this provision, even filing an amicus brief on behalf of an organization the government has labeled as terrorist would constitute breaking the law.

The legacy extended into the “transparent” Obama (Bush III) administration:

President Obama signed into law anti-protest legislation that makes it easier for the government to criminalize protest activities (10 years in prison for protesting anywhere in the vicinity of a Secret Service agent). The Obama Administration also waged a war on whistleblowers, which The Washington Post described as “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration,” and “spied on reporters by monitoring their phone records.”

Nor is Bush IV, Trump, exempt from this attack on free speech:

President Trump, who delights in exercising his right to speak (and tweet) freely about anything and everything that raises his ire, has shown himself to be far less tolerant of those with whom he disagrees, especially when they exercise their right to criticize the government.

In his first few years in office, Trump has declared the media to be “the enemy of the people,” suggested that protesting should be illegal, and that NFL players who kneel in protest during the national anthem “shouldn’t be in the country.” More recently, Trump lashed out at four Democratic members of Congress—all women of color— who have been particularly critical of his policies, suggesting that they “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

While he probably delights in triggering these snowflakes, he himself comes across as the biggest snowflake and bully of all.

The US Constitution, the piece of paper all presidents have ignored since George Washington from time to time, says this:

Good, bad or ugly, it’s all free speech unless as defined by the government it falls into one of the following categories: obscenity, fighting words, defamation (including libel and slander), child pornography, perjury, blackmail, incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, and solicitations to commit crimes.

We are no longer in a federated republic, we have not been for some time. The government has morphed step by step closer to the very thing it fought against in the past, national socialism, fascism and communism, all variants of collectivism. All of these entities see individuals as something to be used and then discarded. See for yourself at the local VA hospitals.

Our government is now at this juncture:

This idea of “dangerous” speech, on the other hand, is peculiarly authoritarian in nature. What it amounts to is speech that the government fears could challenge its chokehold on power.

The kinds of speech the government considers dangerous enough to red flag and subject to censorship, surveillance, investigation, prosecution and outright elimination include: hate speech, bullying speech, intolerant speech, conspiratorial speech, treasonous speech, threatening speech, incendiary speech, inflammatory speech, radical speech, anti-government speech, right-wing speech, left-wing speech, extremist speech, politically incorrect speech, etc.

It goes back to the saying:

We need to return to the character of people that would say the following:

  • “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” – Thomas Jefferson
  • “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!” – Benjamin Franklin
  • “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government,” – Thomas Paine.
  • “insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties.”- Marquis De Lafayette

Where we are at in 2019 is here:

… the First Amendment was intended to protect the citizenry from the government’s tendency to censor, silence and control what people say and think. Having lost our tolerance for free speech in its most provocative, irritating and offensive forms, the American people have become easy prey for a police state where only government speech is allowed … We don’t have to agree with every criticism of the government, but we must defend the rights of all individuals to speak freely without fear of punishment or threat of banishment.

The opposite of this is what we have been sold, as described during the Nuremberg trials:

Beware of tyranny. Beware of those who sound good but lead you to group think, a cult or even the religion of statism or nationalism. It does get ugly.

-SF1

The Grand Old Party (GOP) is Not “Republican” and Was Not Anti-Slavery

There is a constant in politics. Smoke and mirrors, nothing is what it says it is or was, and everything comes down to the ability to lie well, “for humanity’s sake”

While I am picking on the GOP today, it would be equally easy to pick on the Democratic or even the so-called Libertarian Party as well.

A Republican today is someone who thinks .. :

*That unemployment compensation for laid-off workers is socialism and multi-billion dollar bailouts for banking and stock swindlers is capitalism.

*That killing women and children with high explosives in remote corners of the earth is defending “our way of life.”

*That the purpose of education is to train good workers.

*That immigration is good because it supplies good cheap workers.

*That the 10th Amendment means that the federal government should tell the States what to do rather than do it itself.

*That criticism of Lincoln is near treason.

*That the President is “Commander-in-Chief” of the country, especially when he is a Republican.

*That freedom is protected by undeclared wars and military tribunals.

*That “right to life” is a good campaign gimmick, but not to be taken seriously.

*That any campaign promise or slogan should gull the saps who are not in the know but is not to be taken seriously.

*That the way to beat the Democrats is to take up whatever they propose and promise to do it better

On that last one, know that Trump-care would follow Obamacare, the same thing only different. But I digress.

I think we can all agree to what these three parties are today, however, I do think we might have some disagreement on what these parties were in years gone past.

Today I will limit myself to the Grand Old Party, since I have limited time …

Here is some popular thoughts accepted by the masses and the people they trust from Paul H. Yarbrough:

[we can] blame the Democrat party for slavery, Jim Crow and most every other popular racial badness. The Republicans supposedly are angels wiping out these evils.

Yes, aligns perfectly with everyone’s history books, so this data must be good, but not so fast. It should be noted that:

  • Many, if not most, slave traders were Northerners regardless of political party.
  • Republicans, for the most part, were not opposed to slavery. They just did not want it extended into the western territories. They sided with the abolitionists only in that they wanted slaves freed so as they might be repatriated to Africa.
  • Republicans sponsored the Corwin Amendment introduced in 1860 by prominent Republicans William H. Seward and Thomas Corwin that would have kept slavery in perpetuity. The amendment was only ratified by two border states, Maryland and Kentucky and three Northern states: Ohio, Rhode Island and Illinois (which had passed laws prohibiting entry by free blacks into the state).

Let’s look at this amendment (would have been the 13th if ratified):

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.””

This does NOT sound like a party that is anti-slavery does it? No, this sounds like a party that changed its mind in 1862 when its invasion of the South was being frustrated, so it changed its mission from “Saving the Union” to “Free the Slaves” (to encourage a general slave revolt in the South to end the War Against Southern Independence faster).

About the Jim Crow laws that today’s Republicans claim is a legacy of the Democrats:

.. the Republicans who controlled the South during the military occupation following the war, forced the Black Codes, nonexistent in the South, on the South in 1866. The Black Codes were a Republican concept. And Northern Republicans were the creators of the later to come Jim Crow Laws.

Surprised? You should never be surprised when your beliefs based on political books like the ones on history are revealed as mere myths.

Now, how “republican” is the Republican party? About as “federalist” as the Federalist party was in the 1790s. Politicians even lie when naming their own parties, it has always been that way!

Paul H. Yarborough shares:

The Republican party is no more republican then the Democratic party is democratic. Both are oligarchies promoting their namesakes as if those in charge (power) have the interests of the people firmly in their hearts (with their pocketbooks in their hands).

True. When one looks at the legacy of the Republican party, one really has to stretch the meaning of the word to apply it even in 1856/1860 (thanks to Laurence M. Vance for his work on these very accurate attributes):

  • The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln. Republicans who liked to accuse Obama of being dictatorial some years ago have forgotten all about their beloved Lincoln. He issued a proclamation that freed no slaves. He destroyed the country to save the union. He presided over the first income tax. He supported an amendment to the Constitution that would have prohibited the federal government from ever interfering with Southern slavery. He shut down Northern opposition newspapers and imprisoned Northern political dissenters. He oversaw the deaths of 500,000 to 800,000 Americans. He destroyed the system of states’ rights and federalism created by the Founding Fathers.

Dang. Maybe in “peacetime” Republicans are more in line with the founding fathers and this federated republic? You can bet the GOP plans ZERO peace in the near-term. It is just not in their DNA to be anything but like the Democrats, only different.

Other attributes:

  • The Republican Party is the party of the drug war. Although Republicans say they are the party of the Constitution, they show their contempt for the Constitution by their ardent support of the unconstitutional drug war that has ruined more lives than drugs themselves. Republicans are the greatest advocates of locking up people in cages for possessing substances the government doesn’t approve of.
  • The Republican Party is the party of the warfare state. Closing a domestic military base is implausible. Scrapping a weapons system is out of the question. Cutting the bloated defense budget is inconceivable. Invading and occupying other countries is viewed as defensive warfare. Bombing, maiming, and killing whomever the government labels as “the enemy” is viewed as defending our freedoms.
  • The Republican Party is the party of empire. Republicans support the stationing of troops and the maintaining of foreign military bases all over the globe—including in Germany, Italy, and Japan even though World War II ended 70 years ago. Closing an overseas military base is unthinkable. Bringing all of the troops home is unimaginable.
  • The Republican Party is the party of the welfare state. Republicans are welfare statists just like Democrats. They believe that it is the proper role of government to provide public assistance, have entitlement programs, maintain a safety net, and guarantee income security. They continually support food stamps, WIC, TANF, federal job training programs, rent subsidies, heating assistance, farm programs, SSI, and refundable tax credits that allow some Americans to receive tax refunds when they paid no taxes to begin with. They support the government providing unemployment benefits so that those who work can support those who don’t. They have no philosophical objection to the government fighting poverty by taking money from some Americans and redistributing it to others. When Bush the president and had a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress for over four years, the Republicans could have eliminated or substantially rolled back the welfare state. They did neither.
  • The Republican Party is the party of Social Security. Although Republicans may criticize FDR and many of his New Deal programs, they love his Social Security program and want to “save” it so future generations of young people can support the elderly via an intergenerational, income-transfer, wealth-redistribution welfare scheme.
  • The Republican Party is the party of socialized medicine. Although Republicans rail against Obamacare, they are silent about their passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003—the greatest expansion of Medicare since LBJ. Like Social Security, Republicans are some of the greatest champions of “saving” Medicare. And just because they criticize Obamacare doesn’t mean that they favor a real free market in health care, the total separation of medicine from the state, the complete deregulation of the health-insurance industry, or the establishment of medical freedom. Republicans believe that some Americans should pay for the health care of other Americans.
  • The Republican Party is the part of foreign aid. Republicans have no philosophical objection whatsoever to taking money from American taxpayers and giving it to corrupt foreign regimes, including bribing them with cash and military equipment to get them to obey U.S. dictates. Spending on foreign aid practically doubled during the Bush years.
  • The Republican Party is the party of federal control of education. The Democrats may have given us Common Core, but the Republicans gave us No Child Left Behind. Republicans support the federal student loan program, Pell Grants, the National School Lunch Program, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and Head Start. And instead of eliminating the federal Department of Education when they had a majority in both Houses of Congress for over four years during the Bush presidency, they practically doubled the department’s budget. Republicans believe that some Americans should pay for the education of the children of other Americans.
  • The Republican Party is the party of an aggressive, belligerent, and meddling interventionist foreign policy. Republicans believe that the United States should be a busybody who polices the world and tells every other country what it should and shouldn’t do. They fully support CIA covert activities and torture—as long as the American people don’t find out about it.
  • The Republican Party is the party of taxes. Tax reform is unacceptable unless it is revenue neutral. Tax deductions, credits, and loopholes that allow some Americans to keep more of their money should be eliminated. “The rich” should pay their fair share via a progressive tax system. The government is entitled to a portion of every American’s income.
  • The Republican Party is the party of the national security state. Republicans gave us the Department of Homeland Security when we already had a defense department. They gave us the Patriot Act to violate our liberties. They gave us the TSA to grope us when we travel. The current vocal criticism by some Republicans of the NSA would be reduced to a whimper under a Republican administration. Republicans support a CIA that spies on the whole world and works mischief throughout.
  • The Republican Party is the party of massive government spending and debt. The national debt rose almost a trillion dollars between the Republican Revolution that wasn’t in 1995 and Bush’s first inauguration in 2001. During Bush’s presidency, government spending skyrocketed, the national debt almost doubled, and the federal deficit exceeded $1 trillion for the first time. Republicans in Congress regularly vote to raise the debt limit under Republican presidents. They have no philosophical objection to spending billions of taxpayer dollars on thousands of departments, agencies, grants, and programs that are not warranted by the Constitution.

Now you have a flavor of a political party that in no way reflects the “republican” nature of government that Thomas Jefferson, who formed the Democratic-Republican Party (formally called the Republican Party)  around 1792 to oppose the centralizing policies of the new Federalist Party run by Alexander Hamilton, who was Secretary of the Treasury and chief architect of George Washington’s administration.

Words matter. You know, like the “Patriot” Act. As Ron Paul points out:

The Patriot Act waters down the Fourth amendment by expanding the federal government’s ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight. The requirement of a search warrant and probable cause strikes a balance between effective law enforcement and civil liberties. Any attempt to dilute the warrant requirement threatens innocent citizens with a loss of their liberty. This is particularly true of provisions that allow for issuance of nationwide search warrants that are not specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight.

The Act makes it far easier for the government to monitor your internet usage by adopting a lower standard than probable cause for intercepting e-mails and internet communications.

How patriotic is that?

It is a minefield out there. Be careful in your assumptions! The labels are many times very misleading.

-SF1

Organizations Can Take on a Life of Their Own: Ku Klux Klan Version 1.0

As I have stated many times before, there is a bit of misinformation out in our world that can lead people to believe things that are not actually true. This happened well before the Internet’s “fake news” and “fact-check” phenomenon as Mark Train points out here:

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

So take all your history books (especially if they have anything to do with the South and the North and were published after 1865) with a grain of salt when you read them. Source material is out there but mining that is more and more difficult as search engines have been compromised.

While I never expect any politician except perhaps Ron Paul to get history > 90% correct, this latest article laments how Ted Cruz has latched on so some fake history in the last few days:

It is also appalling to me when a conservative such as Glenn Beck or Ted Cruz—who would never allow the politically correct to deceive them on contemporary issues—routinely allow themselves to be hoodwinked on historical topics. Nathan Bedford Forrest is a prime example.

So hang on now and consider these thoughts without accepting them as truth until you do your own homework. Context, as always, is imperative in making wise judgements:

  • The year 1865 was pivotal in American history. It was the year the Civil War ended, the Confederacy died, the Ku Klux Klan was born, and the Democratic Party transitioned from the party of slavery to the party of white supremacy.

It must be known that the GOP/Republican party was originally a Free Soil party that believed in white land ownership exclusively. Lincoln himself is on record saying many times that the black race was subpar to the white race:

“…I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”

Let’s look at the initial focus of this organization instead of focusing on what it became, especially in the 1900s when members were waving the stars and stripes and intimidating the general public into a race war like you see below:

1925 KKK March on Washington DC

Today’s focus if on the first version (1.0) of the Ku Klux Klan that ran from 1866-1869:

  • It (KKK) was born in the law offices of Judge Thomas Jones in Pulaski, Tennessee. Half its original members were attorneys. Its initial standards were high. One had to be in the Confederate Army at the time of the surrender or in a Union prisoner-of-war camp to be eligible for membership. Its original mission statement called for it to be “an instrument of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy and patriotism” which was to “relieve and assist the injured, oppressed, suffering, and unfortunate, especially widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers.”

You have to know how much the North, especially the government, hated everything about the South after Lincoln was assassinated. In fact, there is some contention that the assassination might have been orchestrated much like our current FBI and CIA helps unstable individuals to carry out these kind of things when a large public figure might go a direction they are not willing to travel. It was well known that Lincoln wanted a peaceful transition back to the Union for these eleven states. Not everyone in government was ready for that, in fact, they rather loved the way Lincoln shifted the republic towards a centralized, tyrannical state. “States rights” were violently dismissed by 1865. Eventually, military districts were established as these states were raped and pillaged one more time for the North’s benefit.

[US government] have a 47% tax on cotton, which they used to subsidize Northern railroads and other large corporations. On the other hand, they did provide pensions to Northern widows and orphans at the expense of Southern widows and orphans.

As 1866 dawned, here was the real ‘state of the South’ under Union occupation:

  • The loss of the war and the death of the Confederacy were not isolated events. They also signaled the breakdown of the Southern economy and the collapse of law and order in many localities. Gangs of criminals and individual thugs had a field day throughout the South. Union deserters, Southern outlaws, recently freed slaves who did not know how to handle their freedom, and professional criminals ran amuck. Arson, robbery, rape, and murder were the order of the day. At the same time, Carpetbaggers and collaborators pillaged the public treasuries, increased taxes 300% to 400%, ran up huge public debts, pocketed the proceeds, stole land and farms, and enriched themselves at the expense of a helpless and impoverished people.
  • African Americans suffered most of all. Much of the South’s land was ruined during the conflict, and 1867 was a year of famine. The new Northern rulers had no interest in the Southern people, black or white. Tens of thousands of Negroes literally starved to death. No effort was made on the part of the new rulers to even keep records of how many died.
  • Public health was almost completely ignored. Smallpox epidemics periodically raged throughout the South in the 1862 through 1868 period. The weakened and malnourished black folks were especially susceptible, often dying at rates of three or four times higher than Southern whites, who were themselves not well nourished. Black children were particularly hard hit. In one six-month period in 1865, 30,000 African Americans died in North Carolina and South Carolina alone. The epidemic lasted six years.

Much like the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in 2003 when the USA really did not have a game-plan except to overthrow their old partner Saddam Hussein, the North did not really want the blacks migrating north and so the GOP used the government offices of the south to entice them to stay. In the end the GOP “used” the blacks to maintain their control in these southern states. Not until the corrupt Grant administration was there the trade-off to allow the people once again to vote in even honorable ex-Confederate officers and enlisted men to public office and allow these states re-entry into the Union in the late 1870s.

It was in this context that Northern politicians actually entertained the thought of a 2nd Civil War:

Not content with theft and neglect, a significant minority of Northern politicians openly advocated a second Civil War. They included Thaddeus Stevens, the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives; General Benjamin F. “Spoons” Butler; Governor Richard Yates of Illinois; carpetbagger Governor Andrew J. Hamilton of Texas; and Senator Jim Lane of Kansas, among others. U.S. Congressman William Anderson Pile advocated “death to all supporters of the South, past or present.” General William T. Sherman wanted Southerners demoted to “demizens”: people who were given certain rights (such as the right to pay taxes) but not others (such as the right to vote). Governor William G. “Parson” Brownlow of Tennessee. A former Methodist preacher, slave owner, and newspaper editor, he believed slavery was “ordained by God.” He nevertheless supported the Union and a second Civil War. “I am one of those who believed that the war ended too soon,” he declared, and “the loyal masses” should not “leave one Rebel fence rail, outhouse, one dwelling, in the seceded states. As for the Rebel population, let them be exterminated.”

About this time in correspondence between Robert E. Lee and Lord Acton in England, Robert E. Lee responded:

.. while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.

At this point in time, in the middle of a despotic domestic scene, great men will arise and protect their families and their land. The character of Nathan Bedford Forrest can be seen in his quotes:

“I have never, on the field of battle, sent you where I was unwilling to go myself; nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue”

“I went into the army worth a million and a half dollars, and came out a beggar”

So here is Nathan’s entry into this foray and the real source of the term “wizard”:

The government were it was functioning at all was often in the hands of criminals, and they felt compelled to take the law into their own hands. There is a point between civilization and anarchy in which vigilantism is an acceptable, temporary measure, until law and order can be restored. Into that breach stepped Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was receiving a hundred letters a day from his former soldiers, relating eye-witness accounts of outrage and lawlessness .. Forrest applied for membership … In the spring of 1866, the leaders of the KKK met in the Maxwell House in Nashville, Tennessee, and created the position of “Grand Wizard,” a tribute to Forrest’s wartime nickname, “Wizard of the Saddle,” and gave it to the general .. Under Forrest, it [KKK] became, as he said, “a protective political military organization,” i.e., a paramilitary force, a counterbalance to [Governor] Brownlow’s Loyal Legion.

All government would react, but it is interesting how Tennessee’s governor reacts:

Governor Brownlow sought to pass a law making it legal for anyone to shoot a former Confederate on sight.

Now there is a data point to think about. What was it that really made the Union and the GOP so hateful? The treatment of blacks? I highly doubt it, it was more like when a spouse seeks to leave a marriage due to abuse and the other spouse ramps up the abuse to keep them in the “union”. What the South was to the North before the war was tariff income. After the war it became conquered territory to be used and abused.

Forrest knew the support he had from his former soldiers:

If that law passed, Forrest declared, there would be a second war, although he did not want it, but he would look upon the activation of Brownlow’s militia as a declaration of war. He also declared that he could raise 40,000 Klansmen in Tennessee and 550,000 throughout the South in five days. No one wanted to fight a half a million man cavalry army under Nathan Bedford Forrest ..

The Tennessee governor relented.

Just a few years later:

In February 1869, Brownlow resigned as governor. His successor sought to work with the Democrats, was conciliatory to his former enemies, and restored voting rights to Southern veterans and Confederate sympathizers. Forrest, meanwhile, became concerned that white trash elements were taking over large parts of the organization and were using it for their own nefarious and hateful purposes. As a result, Nathan Bedford Forrest issued General Order Number One, disbanding the Ku Klux Klan. “There was no further need for it,” Forrest commented later, “. . . the country was safe.”

So was Nathan Bedford Forrest this horrible guy? No. He had a heart for the people oppressed by the likes of Brownlow and other Northern politicians that had a hate streak for all things of the South. Obviously, if the South was that bad, why didn’t Northern politicians just let her go?

Money. Just follow the money.

-SF1