Tag: secession

If At First You Don’t Secede …

So we did it once, secession that is, but the next time did not go so well for those who just wanted to live life THEIR way .. of course that time “slavery” was the excuse for not letting those 7 states go, EVEN THOUGH the Union slave states kept their slaves in bondage until the end of the war against southern independence.

Once the war was won by the Union and the Radical Republicans, the military districts set up ensured Reconstruction punished those who believed in the “consent of the governed” to put that ideal to rest and believe in “one nation indivisible”. It didn’t take, even after 100 years of economic hardship in the South, there is still injustice in the air.

Fast forward to 2021 and what have we learned? That a vast majority of Americans prefer safety to freedom. There is a lot of learning (and un-learning) to do in the years to come.

Tom Woods clarifies how wrong the state-educated Americans get the first secession of the thirteen colonies from the British Empire:

In school, we were told this: “No taxation without representation.”

Zzzzzzzz.

The real principles were more like the following.

(1) No legislation without representation.

The colonists insisted that they could be governed only by the colonial legislatures. This is the principle of self-government.

This is why a Supreme Court ordering localities around is anti-American in the truest sense. It operates according to the opposite principle from the one the American colonists stood for.

(2) Contrary to the modern Western view of the state that it must be considered one and indivisible, the colonists believed that a smaller unit may withdraw from a larger one. Today we are supposed to consider this unthinkable.

(3) The colonists’ view of the (unwritten) British constitution was that Parliament could legislate only in those areas that had traditionally been within the purview of the British government. Customary practice was the test of constitutionality. The Parliament’s view, on the other hand, was in effect that the will and act of Parliament sufficed to make its measures constitutional.

So the colonists insisted on strict construction, if you will, while the British held to more of a “living, breathing” view of the Constitution. Sound familiar?

I think these are key .. because we all know the taxes AFTER the war for independence were higher than before the war (thank you George Washington and Alexander Hamilton). NO legislation without REAL representation .. and I don’t just mean voting!

.. and this whole Pledge of Allegiance propaganda that implies one nation, indivisible .. well that could only have been written by a socialist (here is looking at you Francis Bellamy). Only empires, communist states and democracies want the largest territories to be able to tax the people from, as when you run out of other people’s money, well then that is the end of that road.

As far as Tom’s point #3, well I align more with Lysander Spooner:

I don’t care how limited you make a constitution, at the end of the day it is still a piece of paper.

Now beyond this I call attention to Peter R. Quinones’ latest:

… What did affect me was watching people just roll over and take everything that not only the State was doing to them when it came to COVID-hysteria, but how people also backed down from neighbors who turned into COVID-Karens and COVID-Kyles. THAT made me re-think just about everything.

Up until then I thought there was a chance that in my lifetime 5-8% of people would get on board with drastically reducing the size and reach of the federal government. Now, I no longer believe that’s possible… using the same tactics as before. Society has proven that it wants to be told what to do when it comes to pretty much every single action in their lives. And libertarians are the people “diligently plotting to take over the world and leave you alone.” Barf!

I’ve come to realize that any message about increases in individual liberty and contractions to government must be accompanied by an equally powerful message of personal responsibility. Does anyone reading this believe that the majority of the population wants to take responsibility for their lives? I don’t. Then maybe this message of personal liberty and responsibility needs be accompanied with a detailed plan on how to achieve that. I know, I know, we don’t tell people how to live their lives. However, if you don’t educate them someone else will, and that someone else will most likely be the State. Do you trust the State to actually help people with this goal? ..

I don’t trust the state, no way, no how.

After the past 16 months, if you still do, I recommend you get some counseling!

So the path forward  includes the hard work of showing how keeping people on the government handouts is a recipe for life long servitude. It should not be a surprise how the 1960s Great Society blew up the black culture in the US .. how many black families have fathers in the home today? Not as many as they did in the 1950s.

Well, it is apparent this last go around that the US government wants even more dependent people sucked in to the state’s freedom prison. Do know that boxcars are at the end of every one of these utopian totalitarianism wet dreams. People need to understand this with their head and THEN believe it with their hearts.

I am sorry to say that churches don’t even give hope in this present trajectory, just like the 1st century Pharisees and Sadducees gave no real hope to the people, just more of the same as they allied with the state at every turn.

Grassroots one person at a time, keeping any groups very small and be on the lookout for infiltration from the state .. you can never be too careful with your circle of “friends”.

May this 4th of July inspire you toward the next real secession event here in the USA.

-SF1

The Violence and Revolution of 1776 and 1865, Was it Necessary to Secure Liberty and Freedom for All?

Those of us that treasure the principles of liberty and freedom for all will have some very difficult choices in the days, weeks and months ahead. Knee-jerk reactions will have to be avoided as critical thinkers think through the consequences of possible decisions, not just the initial consequences, but the second and third tier consequences as well (something all political types are ignorant about). Unintended consequences of good intentions are still a problem. The end does NOT justify the means.

An article published today by Tom Luongo of Gold, Goats and Guns website challenges the conservitives of today to avoid the trap that the elites have laid out that was highlighted by this Brandon Smith (Alt-Market) quote:

To be clear, what I believe is happening is that conservatives are being prodded and provoked, not to separate and organize but to centralize. I think they want us to support actions like martial law which would be considered totalitarian. Conservatives, the only stalwart defenders of civil liberties, using military suppression and abandoning the Bill of Rights to maintain political power? That is a dream come true for the globalists in the long term. And despite people’s faith in Trump, there are far too many banking elites and globalists within his cabinet to ensure that such power will not be abused or used against us later.

Tom rightly responds:

Nothing would give Klaus Schwab and The Davos Crowd [moneyed global elites] more pleasure than turning us into them — willing to use indiscriminate violence to push otherwise humble and decent people into crazed killers and repudiate their inherent meekness, their inherent desire to pursue their bliss, allowing everyone else that same courtesy.

Principles people! Politics is NEVER a good answer. Fight the good fight using the Golden Rule even if it looks tough and shortcuts look appealing.

Part of the problem is that a vast majority of over 70M people who voted for Trump still believe in the Mythology of America. America as mythology has always stood as the ‘shining house on the hill’ for this enlightened idea that the wishes of the individual pursuing his bliss creates the community and culture which lifts the world out of a less attractive reality. This is why the US destroyed Iraq and Libya, which were each enjoying their own version of success to bring about US democracy, which left them in fractured states decades later, producing many dead innocent men, women and children, reducing Christian influence in these regions and causing many to be refugees, leaving their ancestral homelands of centuries.

That America has been dead since before the myth was birthed. In reality, the 1776 revolution brought HIGHER taxes and more central tyranny to this land than the Brits had even dreamed of. The 1865 reaction to a peaceful secession forever removed the sovereign states as a barrier to full blown federal tyranny, which is the prime reason we are seeing what we have now.

So we have all been taught a myth .. and now we have to critically think about our real options now that the myth has been shown to be a lie.

Tom laments:

What if the mythology of America today has these two wars backwards? What if all the conservatives mourning the Constitution today thanks to a feckless Supreme Court and treasonous Congress have it all wrong? What if the America they mourn the death of today died in 1865 not 2020?

Would that America still be worth finally fighting a bloody civil war for? Because that’s what The Davos Crowd is daring Donald Trump to do.

What if the better response is to do what the South tried to do and failed.

Simply walk away and say, “No more.”

Because fighting the bloody war of all against all, becoming raving fascists rising up to stop the rapacious (and economically backwards) communists in the process is always the wrong option.

Secession is always an option. Opting out of the hyper-collectivizing impulses of in-group/out-group bias is always the right choice. They want us to throw the first punch, to lash out, fire first out of fear, c.f. Fort Sumter, to justify their brutality afterwards.

Something to ponder on for sure.

Peace out.

-SF1

Secession Talk by the GOP? 2020 is a Crazy Year

Considering how little most Americans know about previous secession attempts in America, starting with the effort in 1776 to secede from the British Empire, I hold very little hope that any political solution can be hoped for in the months and years to come for where this DEMOCRACY bordering on a MARXIST nation will be in the future.

It is not enough that you know the history our government has taught us, because most of it are half-truths and outright lies.

Ask Americans about secession and you will hear how this was attempted by the southern states so they could keep their slaves. So with slavery being wrong, so is secession. We have raised a nation of historical morons in the last century, there is no easy recovery from this.

An article released today by the Abbeville Institute does well at highlighting the real history, which is imperative to know to truly assess if secession can be beneficial to the US’s situation in 2020. Here are some clips:

the original states (formerly colonies) were drawn into a confederated union for defense in their efforts to secede from their covenant host in Europe—The British Empire. Their secession was not from a tyrannical king, though such nonsense is perpetrated constantly by the socialistic-styled Eric Foner historical mischief i.e. that the colonies declared a single unilateral declaration of independence as a single state. This is ahistorical and therefore rubbish.

In fact, they seceded from the British Empire which was controlled by its parliament which, in fact, was controlled by The East India Company. This was, in its time, a corporate welfare beast that was (again in its time) probably more powerful than Google and Amazon combined, today.

The Boston Tea party took place due to the East India Company’s arm twisting of parliament which allowed, through corrupt legislation, the EIC a monopoly on tea from The British Empire into the colonies. The colonists were not going to pay a tax that was designed around corruption.

Yes, the linking of big corp and big government always spawns s**t for the average people and huge profits to the moneyed elites, both in the 1770s and 2020s.

The colonies became THESE United States and not THE United States—the former being the factual truth. Five states had singularly seceded via each’s declaration of independence prior to the now-famous July 4th Declaration of Independence: Virginia, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. The entirety of 13 signed the single document in July 1776 (following the Jefferson-Virginia styled document) purely as a show of strength. At the time there was no body of a single colonial government other than a Continental Congress, which had no authority other than suggestive influence through mutual consent among the independent colonies.

Got that? THESE united States .. NOT the United States. Words matter. each colony was noted in the Treaty of Paris 1783 SEPARATELY as INDEPENDENT states. It was NOT ONE nation!!!

Plus note that five states had ALREADY indicated their independence from the British Empire BEFORE July 4th, 1776, did your high school history book mention that fact? No, because they want you to believe that the nation of the US preceded the colonies, a lie that Lincoln himself tapped into during his war on the South.

Another fact not in your high school history book. There were SEVEN secession efforts BEFORE late-1860, and NONE of them involved southern states:

Secession talk was nothing new since the cultural differences across the united States from 1794-1860 begged the question about splitting the federated republic into two or more new republics.

So back to the hilarious notion that that GOP might think about secession in a positive light, after it over-reacted in 1861 killing 750K young men on battlefields around this land JUST because they wanted to be left alone from the tyrant, Lincoln.

The bottom line is this:

The only way of a successful secession would be for the truth to be told historically. That truth? That the republic was destroyed in 1865. A national government was formed and has grown into a nearly complete socialist-Marxist leviathan. Voters have no say. The unelected Washington Deep State has all to say.

The red states need to understand what freedom is. But they can only understand this if they understand what secession is. They can only understand if they truly understand what a declaration of independence means. If they can ever listen to historians who know what it meant.

The caliber of “we the people” in the USA in 2020 could never comprehend “secession” and its implications. The powerful elite will make sure that the media continues to paint secession in a bad light.

I hope I am wrong, but I do not trust the GOP at all to TALK secession, ever.

Peace out.

-SF1

 

Is the US’s Future Boxed In? (Why Secession is Off Limits)

I think most people understand that secession is a bad word, because the last time that was attempted in the US it was to keep slavery intact, at least that is what our school books say. Even our socialist Pledge of Allegiance implicitly says that “one nation, indivisible”, which is a lie. The US Constitution never suggested that. In fact, the Articles of Confederation actually said that it was to be a “perpetual union” and yet it was disposed of rather quickly in secret in Philadelphia in 1787 when the convention was intended to “tweak” the articles.

I have said before that some of the northern states thought seriously about secession from 1796 to 1814 (Danbury Convention) but after they became a more powerful region in the 1830s they quietly quit talking about it. The southern states talked nullification in the 1830s and by the 1860s it became talk of legal, peaceful secession.

Do note, according to Lincoln’s first inaugural address in 1861 he outlined that as long as the southern states continued to pay tariffs (taxes), that nothing would happen. Lincoln also used the Corwin Amendment bait to tempt the 7 southern states to reenter the union to gain protection of their domestic institutions (slavery) forever, guaranteed by a new 13th amendment to the US Constitution that was already getting support in Congress consisting of the states that were still in the union at that time.

Legally is the way the southern gentlemen approached secession, as outlined by what was mentioned in the secession documents and what was not there. What was there was insecurity about their domestic institutions (which is why Lincoln, in a Trump like move, called them out on). What wasn’t there was the elephant in the room, the fact that a majority of collected tariffs, what the general (federal) government had for operating income (tax revenue), came from southern ports. Since the 1830s the northern dominated Congress had squeezed that income to fund its internal improvements, a majority of such took place in the northern states. Income redistribution was already a thing! However, this complaint is more difficult to prove in “divorce hearings”, so slavery, an issue that the abolitionists had been harping on for over a decade, would do. Data was easy to come by to prove their point.

Secession itself did NOT start the war between the states. Non-payment of tariffs was the trigger as promised by Lincoln in his early MAR1861 address. Note that in the weeks following Lincoln’s offer, the economics drove the fear and war-talk:

.. the VERY day after the Confederate Congress set their tariff rate at 2% to effectively become a free trade zone, Lincoln’s Congress UPPED their tariff to even 60% on some items ..

It was Lincoln’s REACTION to tariff non-payment that ended up being worse than the exit of seven southern states would have been if it could have remained peaceful.

.. Lincoln called up 75,000 troops WELL before he called Congress into secession on July 4th, 1861 to put down the “insurrection” as Lincoln never admitted that these states had legally seceded ..

Who would think that government REACTION to a perceived threat (Covid-19) could be worse than the disease itself. But I digress …

For years, decades and over a century has passed and the scars of keeping the “spouse” in an abusive marriage has taken its toll, not to mention the 750,000 young men dead, the economic destruction of the south and the war debt that resulted. Reconstruction following the war helped to set the stage for intense hatred that is used by political types ever since to stoke race wars.

The GOP run Union also introduced “total war” domestically before they did a road show (WWII Dresden, Japan & Korea & Vietnam & Iraq, etc)

List of towns burnt or pillaged by Confederate forces:

ZERO

List of towns burnt or pillaged by Union forces:

Osceola, Missouri, burned to the ground, September 24, 1861 – The town of 3,000 people was plundered and burned to the ground, 200 slaves were freed and nine local citizens were executed.
Platte City – December 16, 1861 – “Colonel W. James Morgan marches from St. Joseph to Platte City. Once there, Morgan burns the city and takes three prisoners — all furloughed or discharged Confederate soldiers. Morgan leads the prisoners to Bee Creek, where one is shot and a second is bayonetted, while the third is released. ”
Dayton, Missouri, burned, January 1 to 3, 1862
Columbus, Missouri, burned, reported on January 13, 1862
Bentonville, Arkansas, partly burned, February 23, 1862 – a Federal search party set fire to the town after finding a dead Union soldier, burning most of it to the ground
Winton, North Carolina, burned, reported on February 21, 1862 – first NC town burned by the Union, and completely burned to the ground
Bledsoe’s Landing, Arkansas, burned, October 21, 1862
Hamblin’s, Arkansas, burned, October 21, 1862
Donaldsonville, Louisiana, partly burned, August 10, 1862
Athens, Alabama, partly burned, August 30, 1862
Randolph, Tennessee, burned, September 26, 1862
Elm Grove and Hopefield, Arkansas, burned, October 18, 1862
Fredericksburg December 11–15, 1862 – town not destroyed, but the Union army threw shells into a town full of civilians
Napoleon, Arkansas, partly burned, January 17, 1863
Mound City, Arkansas, partly burned, January 13, 1863
Hopefield, Arkansas, burned, February 21, 1863 – “Captain Lemon allowed residents one hour to remove personal items, and the men then burned every house in the village.”
Eunice, Arkansas, burned, June 14, 1863
Gaines Landing, Arkansas, burned, June 15, 1863
Bluffton, South Carolina, burned, reported June 6, 1863 – ”
Union troops, about 1,000 strong, crossed Calibogue Sound and eased up the May River in the pre-dawn fog, surprising ineffective pickets and having their way in an unoccupied village. Rebel troops put up a bit of a fight, but gunboats blasted away as two-thirds of the town was burned in less than four hours. After the Yankees looted furniture and left, about two-thirds of the town’s 60 homes were destroyed.”
Sibley, Missouri, burned June 28, 1863
Hernando, Mississippi, partly burned, April 21, 1863
Austin, Mississippi, burned, May 24, 1863 – “On May 24, a detachment of Union marines landed near Austin. They quickly marched to the town, ordered all of the townpeople out and burned down the town.”
Columbus, Tennessee, burned, reported February 10, 1864
Meridian, Mississippi, destroyed, February 3 to March 6, 1864 (burned multiple times)
Washington, North Carolina, sacked and burned, April 20, 1864
Hallowell’s Landing, Alabama, burned, reported May 14, 1864
Newtown, Virginia, May 30, 1864
Rome, Georgia, partly burned, November 11, 1864 – “Union soldiers were told to burn buildings the Confederacy could use in its war effort: railroad depots, storehouses, mills, foundries, factories and bridges. Despite orders to respect private property, some soldiers had their own idea. They ran through the city bearing firebrands, setting fire to what George M. Battey Jr. called harmless places.”
Atlanta, Georgia, burned, November 15, 1864
Camden Point, Missouri, burned, July 14, 1864 –
Kendal’s Grist-Mill, Arkansas, burned, September 3, 1864
Shenandoah Valley, devastated, reported October 1, 1864 by Sheridan. Washington College was sacked and burned during this campaign.
Griswoldville, Georgia, burned, November 21, 1864
Somerville, Alabama, burned, January 17, 1865
McPhersonville, South Carolina, burned, January 30, 1865
Barnwell, South Carolina, burned, reported February 9, 1865
Columbia, South Carolina, burned, reported February 17, 1865
Winnsborough, South Carolina, pillaged and partly burned, February 21, 1865
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, burned, April 4, 1865

You wonder why the south remembers? Like ISIS only different, right? There are many nations in this world that remember the last time the USA tried to bring “democracy” to them!

So since the US government has now educated generations of Americans to believe somehow that secession in 1776 from the British Empire was honorable but that secession in 1861 from the Northern and Western united States was not, there seems to be no option in 2020 for secession, only nationalism or globalism.

This is extremely sad for future generations of Americans. Somehow, we are so “exceptional” that we can’t even achieve what the USSR did in 1991, to split into 15 republics PEACEFULLY!

The US just can’t do this, give up empire and lose the 5th largest economy (California alone) in the world when in 1861 it could not give up 70% of the federal government’s tax revenue. Plus, giving up the west coast means all those ports for US fleets, and you know Hawaii would go with California, Oregon and Washington State. The US has a character flaw.

The ramp-up on sanctions against Russia and China has been in preparation for this moment in the American Empire’s timeline to cover the excessive debt needed just to survive Covid-19, not to mention expanding the US Navy from 300 ships to 500 ships to meet the “threat” in the South China Sea. (Don’t ask me how this threatens Americans in the 50 states, because it doesn’t)

This kind of looks like the NATO encroachment on Russia the last 25 years:

Who is the aggressor here? But I guess empires are like that and we better get used to this kind of talk. The only talk anyone will NOT speak of is SECESSION apparently. No one really wants peace, except the people, who are but pawns in this game the oligarchs have going on.

I prefer federalism as perceived by Lincoln (in 1846, well before he flipped on that issue when he was president):

“Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements.” ~ Lincoln January 12 1848, expressing the near-universally held Jeffersonian principle

I prefer Jefferson’s thoughts as well:

“Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part.  Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power.” ~ Letter from President Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Joseph Priestly, Jan. 29, 1804

These thoughts have been lost now that nationalism and globalism reign. We and our kids and grand-kids have lost much in 200 years.

Peace out.

-SF1

Character Flaw: US Government Has Lied Us .. Into the War Against Southern Independence (Civil War)

“.. They have surrendered, and this proud fortress [Fort Sumter], that was attempted to be a fortress for despotism, has now become, as its name indicates, a fortress for our independence. Besides one of their most scientific officers on the 26th of last December escaped from what he [Union Maj. Gen Anderson] called a weak fort and untenable, and went over to this strong and powerful position, because he could maintain himself, and because it was pronounced the key of our harbor. He left Fort Moultrie because it was untenable and at the mercy of Sumter. He chose Sumter as his fortress…” – Gov. Pickens of South Carolina 13APR1861
I am continuing the theme that the US government has lied us into all wars, even the War on Covid-19 (to cover up the financial bubble being burst in parallel). We were lied to about the rationale for the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and here we will talk about the so-called ‘American Civil War’.

Character Flaw: US Government Has Lied Us into War of 1812 All the Way to the War on Covid-19

As I have mentioned before, “civil war” is a misnomer due to the fact in a true civil war both parties want to be in power of the WHOLE country after the war is complete. With this war, more appropriately called the War Against Southern Independence, the southern states had no eyes on any of the northern territory or states.

In fact, we do need to separate out a few things here. Secession itself did NOT cause this war. Slavery, protected under the US Constitution, did not trigger this war even though it was pointed to in secession documents to cover the South’s legal exit.

The South wanted their secession to be constitutional in order to deprive the North of a pretext for invasion.  This made it impossible for the Southern states to argue that they were seceding because of the tariff.  The tariff was a federal issue.  The Constitution gave the federal government the right to pass tariffs.  So the real reason the South was leaving the union left the South with no constitutional argument.  On the other hand, slavery was a state’s right guaranteed by the Constitution.  This caused the South to seize on the noncompliance of some northern states with the federal law requiring the return of run-away slaves and make a constitutional issue out of it. This argument then appeared in some of the secession documents of the southern states. – Paul Craig Roberts

So we need to understand that the southern seven states that had seceded had voted on secession AND had withdrawn peacefully.

Southern Independence was indeed achieved as these seven states formed a confederation that Jefferson would have been happy with and saw as inevitable since the early 1800s.The Confederate States of America even took their peaceful approach a step further, they offered to pay the US for the federal property (forts, etc) in the south! Beyond this, they even sought peace negotiations even offering European leaders to be a neutral party as part of this peace conference. Lincoln ignored all of this to preserve his notion that this was an insurrection only and that the states were still part of the union.

In a neat case of Throwback Thursday, try on this Lincoln quote from 1847:

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Imagine that, by 1861 Lincoln changed his mind, placing expediency and power over principle. The commensurate politician!

So fast forward to late 1860 and early 1861 when things were happening fast-n-furious, most people with standard high school history probably believe that the firing on Ft. Sumter was the first hostile act of the war.

“FAKE NEWS” Just a little research shows that it just ain’t so. From DEC1860 to APR1861 some definite acts of aggression were made:

  • The first act that torpedoed trust in the relationship between federal units still in occupation of forts in the southern seven states AFTER the state seceded occurred when Major Robert Anderson, who commanded the US troops at Sumter, had of his own discretion moved the troops from Ft Moultrie, an indefensible position, to Ft Sumter in the night of 26DEC1860. He had done so without the direction of President Buchanan, and because the Carolinians were unaware of this, they received the information as a signal that the US intended to forcefully maintain possession of Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston harbor.. Although the South Carolina state troops refrained from attacking the fort, this action by US troops was regarded as an act of war.
  • Florida seceded on 10JAN1861 the very day the US commanding officer in charge of the Pensacola Bay fortifications transferred his command from Fort Barrancas to Fort Pickens. He made the decision to transfer his forces after hearing rumors that the people of Florida were going to seize all of the forts around Pensacola harbor and also that all of the forts in Mobile Bay, Alabama had already been taken. On the night of 13JAN1861 ten men were seen outside of the fort. These men from the Florida State guard were scouting the area to find out more information about the fort and it’s defenses when a shot was fired, a return shot was fired. These were the first shots of the War Against Southern Independence.
  • President Buchanan had ordered a reinforcement of the Fort and the USS Star of the West, loaded with supplies and additional troops, set out for Charleston. Cooper says that Buchanan attempted to rescind the order, but it was too late. The ship was already underway so word of this never reached the command. As with the relocation of troops to Sumter from Moultrie, this attempted resupply was likewise received as a hostile act by the Carolinians whose forces fired warning shots at the vessel on 13JAN1861
  • As the Confederate government was formed in FEB1861, and as Abraham Lincoln took office on 04MAR1861, correspondence between the two entities continued. William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, ostensibly acted as mediator between the Confederate government and the Lincoln administration. Cooper suggests that Seward had presumed to speak on behalf of Lincoln when no such authority had been delegated to him. In all probability, whether intentional or not, Seward was advancing a delaying action on behalf of the administration while a plan of action was formulated. Correspondence between the Confederate government and Seward went on for several weeks with Seward continually stalling and assuring the South that he was in favor of avoiding hostilities. Although he assured the Confederates that Sumter would be evacuated, he deflected any attempts by their officials to ascertain specifics or details.
  • Lincoln’s First Inaugural included the following myth that shocked the seven southern states who knew for fact that voluntary union meant voluntary disunion: “.. 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 … In doing this [rejoin the union] 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. ” – A. Lincoln on 04MAR1861
  • NOTE: Back on December of 1861, Anderson had informed President Buchanan that, due to his relationship with the Mayor of Charleston, as well as with the town merchants, he had access to all of the food necessary to keep his troops fed. This relationship only came to a halt with Lincoln’s inaugural address which the South received as a threat of invasion.
Pres. Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address 04MAR1861
  • 15MAR1861 Lincoln called a cabinet meeting and asked each member of his cabinet to submit in writing their view of what should be done with regards to Fort Sumter. Every member, except Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, voted against resupply and voiced their opposition to send reinforcements.
  • By 18MAR1861, a press laid clear what was ahead for the region: “.. The ‘Boston Transcript’ presented the underlying Republican argument for a Federal conquest of the Confederacy: specifically to keep prices of manufactured goods high by ensuring collection of Federal import taxes , not only in seceded States, but in Federal States as well. The Confederate Constitution prohibited all but modest taxes on imports, far below the Federal tax rate, which Republicans would soon triple on average: The Transcript argued “it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding States are now for commercial independence.
  • 20MAR1861 United States Senator James A. Bayard of Delaware began a three day speech on the prospects of war and the legality of secession. He began by offering a resolution in the hope of avoiding what he predicted would be a long, bloody conflict. It read: “Resolved by the Senate of the United States, That the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, has full power and authority to accept the declaration of the seceding States that they constitute hereafter an alien people, and to negotiate and conclude a treaty with “the Confederate States of America” acknowledging their independence as a separate nation; and that humanity and the principle avowed in the Declaration of Independence that the only just hosts of government is “the consent of the governed,” alike require that the otherwise inevitable alternative of civil war, with all its evils and devastation, should be thus avoided.
  • Senator Orville Browning, a close friend and confidant of Lincoln’s, advised him: “In any conflict…..between the government and seceding States, it is very important that the traitors shall be the aggressors, and that they be kept constantly and palpably in the wrong. The first attempt……to furnish supplies or reinforcements will induce aggression by South Carolina, and then the government will stand justified, before the entire country, in repelling that aggression, and retaking the forts.”

So President Lincoln in deciding the Sumter question had adopted a simple but effective policy. To use his own words, he determined to ‘send bread to Anderson’; if the rebels fired on that, they would not be able to convince the world that he had begun the civil war.

After Lincoln maneuvered the South into “firing the first shot” on 12APR1861, in a 01MAY1861 letter to Gustavous Fox, who commanded the naval detachment charged with resupplying Sumter, the following:

You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.

Mission Accomplished, Lincoln had successfully provoked war while, in his mind, maintaining the appearance of a non-aggressor. FDR took note of this in 1940 many months before Pearl Harbor in DEC1941.

At this point war was still not a sure thing, but Lincoln used the firing on federal property, even though no man was killed, as his justification to keep Congress from meeting until he had called up volunteers and prepared for war on the south.

The only reason a War for Southern Independence was needed was because the northern states invaded the south. The north, under Lincoln’s leadership would not let the south go and would call their action the putting down of a general insurrection. I have plenty of previous posts (post, post, post, post, post, post, post, in 2020 alone) that touch on much of the lead up to this war.

Remember US Senator James A. Bayard who spoke eloquently with logic back on 20MAR1861 to anyone who would hear. Later in 1861 when his son-in-law went off to fight for the Union Army in this War Against Southern Independence he again spoke wisdom:

“In embarking on this war therefore, you enlist in a war for invasion of another people. If successful it will devastate if not exterminate the Southern people and this is miscalled Union. If unsuccessful then peaceful separation must be the result after myriads of lives have been sacrificed, thousands of homes made desolate, and property depreciated to an incalculable extent. Why in the name of humanity can we not let those States go?”

Today, here in the awesome year of 2020, I ask the same question about portions of California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota and much of the New England states, can’t the United States federal government honor the possible roadmap shown in the 1990s by the USSR and peacefully split into many republics that can “serve” their own cultures the best?

Peace out.

-SF1