What quicker way to unify people who believe that government is there to save them than to paint the government as the victim. This worked extremely well in 1933 (know your history) when the Nazi’s party HQ was torched. The masses saw this violent action and assumed the Nazi party had been victimized. The people placed their support behind the Nazi’s and their promises from that day forward.
The events of 06JAN2021 in Washington DC are the same thing only different. Why would a peaceful protest spread inside the capitol itself. I am sure that the masses only think one step ahead, like gain access and their voice would be heard, but the intelligent would know there are always unintentional consequences to these types of actions. The 2nd and 3rd effects of this event will be with us for some time and embolden the state and those who believe in that cult and that cult’s promises.
Jon Rappoport shared:
if the assault on the Capitol building was a false flag, all the blame cascading down on Trumpers paves the way for Biden and his handlers to carry out even more draconian measures on the American people, under the rubric of National Security—piled on top of the COVID lockdowns.
The Democrats, but especially the STATE, had the most to gain from this brief show, and the Democrat’s evilness has time and again tricked the stupid Republicans to fall for it all. (or at least faint ignorance since most of both sides are on the same team, fervent statists, in reality).
Both the Republican and Democrats have historically been behind doing this same thing in other countries under the guise of spreading “democracy” (mob rule) and it shows. It is no wonder that the voting machines and software used around the world would also come back to the US to “roost”, and as of yesterday, possibly pulling one more false flag to unify Americans (Remember 9/11).
The silver lining here is that the overconfident state will make more mistakes faster now and quicken the process towards its own disintegration, as its trajectory is not financially sustainable, and those that can critically think know it. It is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Daniel McAdams shared yesterday some wisdom:
The Democrats and Republicans are nearly identical in their view that only the political elites, from the Sacred Throne of Democracy recently defiled by the unwashed masses, can save us from ourselves. We don’t know how to manage our lives, we don’t know how to manage our health, we are far too stupid to simply live without their constant guidance…”
Y’all ain’t getting freedom by protesting in the politician’s “church” or aligning with a politician from either party .. only grassroots approach can change society from the bottom up.
Seems like many things in life appear to be black and while, high road or the low road, religion or hell. So in this election year where plenty of evil has been uncorked, there is a thought that the only recourse is to elect a certain leader, because “never before” has there been such an important election.
If it were only that easy. You see, those American colonists threw off the British Empire to be free, however, even before the American Revolution was over there were agendas afoot toward establishing a political power that would in fact bring less freedom and more taxes. Tax slaves once again.
Our rights, given to us by our Creator, were to be protected by this thing called government. The last two decades have seen our Bill of Rights evaporate “for safety from terrorists” (thanks GOP) ..
2012 version2018 version
.. and now our ability to elect representatives is about to be removed (thanks Democrats)!
I think it is that bait-n-switch that can get under the skin of those that do more than talk about freedom. Those that have either willingly chosen to serve in the military, or being drafted, gave it their all and then some that return to the USA quite disillusioned.
This happened with the Revolutionary War militia member of South Carolina that were indispensable in getting the British forces out of their region who NEVER were paid for their efforts. This is also what happened when Daniel Shay and his veteran groups found that being paid in worthless Continental dollars yet expected to pay back property taxes in gold in Massachusetts would sow the seeds of a rebellion whose core were those veterans who already gave more than lip service to liberty and freedom efforts.
More recently, we have many vets who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 who today wonder how they could have been so willing to go and fight to “spread democracy” and yet realize that democracy was never the objective. PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] is a real thing caused by an internal fight of morals for good or for evil. No one wants to wake up to the fact that they were used .. or to hear their leaders say things like this:
So as you see, this is nothing new. Every generation has to come to terms with this when they see their country and society being raped and pillaged by the evil in their midst. When politicians restrain law enforcement from protecting private property OR the citizens (that the US Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement had no obligation to attempt), it is up to “we the people” to take back what we had delegated to those who represent and serve us.
In 2020 we are seeing this vividly in the power struggle between the “establishment” (that has a swamp of their own) and the “Woke-Left” who desires to put their politicians and employer (Soros) into the US’s driver’s seat. Here is a chart that shows the span of principles (from tyrants to woke-left to real conservative) from Vasko Kohlmayer from his post at Lew Rockwell’s site today:
It should be no surprise what direction this nation is heading, and why there are those that say only Trump can save America.
Well, in truth, America has not had a healthy society or culture for many generations, and the more the federal government thinks it can fix things both in LA and in Podunk, Louisiana with the same tools, the more ineffective and out of touch it becomes. The more money it then needs to FORCE the fix. No wonder the bloated budget, the staggering bureaucracy and the perpetual of kicking the domestic issues down the road while we go and invade some nation, any nation somewhere elect on this globe.
But I digress. Maybe it is time, past time, to go full on local!
An example of think locally / act locally is what the last part of today’s blog post is set to communicate. I would like to now go back in time and unpack an era just after WWII in Tennessee where that corrupt local government combined with a corrupt law enforcement was finally “right-sized” by people of principle, veterans that knew something had to be done.
You see, in my mind, fixing this country where life, liberty and property are valued starts with me ..not relying on the state whose only tool is force:
Once we each have researched how people can live in proximity in this world filled with scarcity, it is THEN we can go about sharing ideas of freedom, liberty and prosperity with our neighbors, our co-workers and if possible, even with family!
With that, please either read the full post at the link below OR follow with me the Reader’s Digest version in the clips below from a post from Abbeville Institute’s Neil Kumar called ‘The Battle of Athens, Tennessee‘ :
Bill White, a vet, has seen the injustice and issues this declaration –
Well! Here you are! After three or four years of fighting for your country. You survived it all. You came back. And what did you come back to? A free country? You came back to Athens, Tennessee, in McMinn County, that’s run by a bunch of outlaws. They’ve got hired gunmen all over this county right now at this minute. What for? One purpose. To scare you so bad you won’t dare stand up for the rights you’ve been bleeding and dying for. Some of your mothers and some of your sisters are afraid to walk down the streets to the polling places. Lots of men, too!
The local government had secured a monopoly that terrorized the local taxpayers. No one even wanted to walk past the jail in case a lazy deputy accused you of doing something wrong and locking you up. This environment had gone on for years, and neither the state OR the federal government helped:
There were no “elections” in McMinn County through the war years. The ballot boxes were in Democratic offices, and Cantrell’s deputies served as the election officers, some of whom were brutal killers with the blood of innocent civilians on their hands. .. Word was put out among elderly voters that their pensions would be held up unless they voted “the right way.”
When the Republican election judge, a disabled veteran of the First World War, attempted to view the ballot count, he was dragged into the corridor and beaten, leaving him paralyzed. Another man who attempted to observe the ballot count was pistol-whipped, and one gunman fired at a poll worker who tried to leave the courthouse … Several Athenians petitioned the Department of Justice for relief, knowing that local and State officials would not take any action against the machine. A hardware store owner wrote Attorney General Francis Biddle, imploring, “The good people of this county are sacrificing for the cause of America’s freedom but have lost their freedom at home. Both parties have lost the freedom of the ballot box, a dictatorship has been set up, the county treasury is being raided at the expense of the taxpayers, and the good people of this county would like to sell their property and move away. Your department is our last line of defense. Please, for God’s sake come to the rescue of a helpless people.”
The (typical) response from the federal government:
The Department of Justice compiled a report, observing that “the alleged violations in McMinn County were the worst ever brought to the attention of the Department of Justice.” Despite overwhelming evidence and continuing petitions, the Feds took no action. A separate ouster lawsuit against McMinn election commissioners was finally tried by the Assistant Attorney General, largely due to the fact that the U.S. Attorney and the two U.S. Senators who had recommended him were believed to be associated with the machine, but this case was held before a judge who was also rumored to be a part of the organization. The judge dismissed most of the charges and fined the men one penny for the charges that stuck.
At the end of the day, when corruption comes local, y’all will have to be ready yourself, because:
In this case, the returning vets had skin in the game, they had been fighting for freedom and was horrified at what they came home to and decided that the first recourse was political:
.. another veteran said, “It wasn’t really a town anymore. It was a jail.” Another GI deplored the deputies, who “were nothing but a lot of swaggering, strutting, storm-troopers, drunk most of the time, beating up our citizens for the slightest reason.” Yet another observed that “if you were on the right team, why, you could get away with almost anything. If you were on the wrong team, you couldn’t get away with anything.” This should all sound all too familiar for us today.
When Cantrell announced that he was returning to Athens to “run” for Sheriff, Mansfield his handpicked successor to the State Senate seat, the GIs knew that now was the time to take action. Despite having been warned to stay away from the polls and to not even consider running for office, the veterans began organizing. As one of the soldiers put it, “We just got plain tired of being pushed around by a bunch of thugs.”
Politics however was in the back pocket of the county’s thugs, but the process brought about public relations that allowed the people to know someone was trying to save them. The Republican party was actually honorable enough to give the GIs a shot at the offices up for election:
The local Republican Party resolved to officially endorse the veterans’ ticket instead of running its own candidates; after seconding the motion in favor of the resolution, one party official delivered an excellent summation: “We are involved in a conflict with desperate enemies who have sought to subject us to tyranny and oppression…We feel a deep sense of obligation and now seek in measure to repay…Young men who have fought against oppression abroad will continue that fight for honesty and decency at home.”
However, those in power do not concede it easily, if at all:
Election Day had finally arrived. A local minister exhorted his congregation thus: “If you do not vote as your conscience dictates, then you have sold your citizenship and do not deserve to be citizens. It is the responsibility of each and every person to preserve our most cherished possession, liberty, or forever lose it.” Armed deputies “guarded” each polling place, and reports of election fraud poured in to GI headquarters almost immediately. One veteran lamented, “They already started knocking our boys in the head and putting them in jail. They’re taking this thing… At one polling place, a deputy beat and shot a sixty-year-old whose only crime had been his surplus of gumption in exercising his right to vote. Meanwhile, another deputy delivered a brutal beating to a GI election judge after he protested the brazen voter fraud happening before his eyes; the deputy tried to draw his gun, and likely would have killed the veteran, but it snagged in his holster. When he had exhausted himself, he had the man dragged to the jail bloody and insensate.
By this time, DeRose notes, “there were twelve ballot boxes: one in the jail, another inside a heavily defended courthouse, a third barricaded in the Dixie Café, a fourth in the vault in the Cantrell Bank Building, and poll watchers had been ejected at two other locations.” Inside the courthouse, deputies held a handful of GI poll watchers hostage, two of them wounded.
The powerful WILL turn to violence to keep power. Keep that in mind people of California, New York State, Michigan and other states in between! Just know, at the right time when that line is crossed, one may have to fight fire with fire:
Do you know what your rights are supposed to be? How many rights have you got left? None! Not even the right to vote in a free election. When you lose that, you’ve lost everything. And you are damned well going to lose it unless you fight and fight the only way they understand. Fire with fire! We’ve got to make this an honest election because we promised the people that if they voted it would be an honest election. And it’s going to be. But only if we see that it is. We are going to have to run these organized criminals out of town, and we can do it if we stick together. Are you afraid of them? Why, I could take a banana stalk and run every one of these potbellied draft dodgers across Depot Hill. Get the hell out of here and get something to shoot with. And come back as fast as you can. – Bill White
Inspired by White, the veterans fanned out to procure all of the weapons and ammunition that they could. They returned with an arsenal of pistols, rifles, shotguns, squirrel guns, and European souvenirs like a German Mauser. White still wasn’t satisfied: “We need some more firepower.” A group got together to raid the nearby National Guard armory, where they found revolvers, a Thompson sub-machine gun, an array of .30-caliber M1917 rifles, and plenty of ammunition. For good measure, one man drove to his hunting lodge in Asheville to collect his stash of ammunition. DeRose describes the scene well: “They draped themselves with bandoliers of bullets, took everything they could carry, and drove back to town.”
Things were about to get real, but a noble cause does sometimes require violence, sometimes more than turning tables over in a temple!
He had sworn to defend America against all of her enemies, and he meant to satisfy his vow. Later, White would explain that “if it was worth going over there and risking your life, laying it down, it was worth it here, too. So, we decided to fight.” The GIs set out, ready for action. They formed a line on a hillside across from the jail and demanded that the machine men bring out the ballot boxes. From the jail, someone called, “You’re going to have to come get them.” The GIs answered that that’s exactly what they would do. Someone else inside the jail shouted, “Why don’t you call the law?” A GI delivered the rejoinder: “There ain’t no damn law in McMinn County!” According to Byrum, the first fire was a shotgun blast from inside the jail; in any case, gunfire erupted.
Flashes pierced the night, both sides keeping up a sustained assault on one another. Athens, DeRose writes, “rattled to the roar of Tommy-guns, rifles, and pistols” and the “blunt blast of shotguns mingled with the sharper crack of rifles and the whine of ricochets.” The GIs, under the ceaseless torrent of bullets, climbed rooftops to take positions atop a ring of buildings encircling the jail. In the streets, the veterans further hemmed in the crossfire, firing from behind walls and parked cars. The soldiers shot out the transformer that supplied the jail, Byrum notes, “leaving the deputies not only low on ammunition but with the difficult task of groping around trying to load guns in the dark.”
With the National Guard on the way, White and his men stepped it up:
After receiving news that the National Guard had been mobilized, the GIs asked White what they should do. He replied immediately, vowing, “We’re not going to do anything about it. We’re going to keep shooting here until we get those ballot boxes and get those people out of there.” Running out of time, they realized that they needed to pick things up. One of the veterans reminded Bill that there was an enormous stockpile of dynamite in the old county barn that the county used to clear roads and blast stumps and stones. The dynamite procured, the GIs commenced tossing dynamite in increasing amounts at the jail, aiming closer and closer with each throw, finally promising that the next would be through the window. This last threat was followed by the veterans’ ultimate volley. The machine men, outgunned and out of ammunition, surrendered, and the deputies marched out one after another, their hands held high in supplication to their victorious conquerors. A swollen crowd of townspeople cheered.
Unlike most insurrections and revolutions, this one was not followed by another team in power that sought to intimidate to maintain their position:
“They realize [that] they have taken a serious step, but do not interpret their action as [having taken] the law into their own hands. Rather, they say [that] they just put the law back in the hands of the people.”
Now that is honorable and principle-based.
On August 1, 1946, a group of Southern World War Two veterans in Athens, Tennessee, fought and won the only successful armed insurrection in the United States since the War of Independence.
May a grassroots growth of liberty and freedom-minded men and women set about to repair this land from the local and up in the weeks and months to come. Regardless if the USA remains a union is not important. The most important aspect is what these GIs fought for in Athens, TN in 1946.
Usually, when the bombs start to drop, it is really the middle of the story. The start of the story is usually hidden to the public at large, both intentionally and by sheer ignorance.
The “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq by US forces in 2003 was not the reaction to something Saddam did wrong, like having WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), but was part of an agenda that was set in motion years if not decades before:
It’s surely clear to almost everyone now that we were lied into an illegal war which not only destroyed an entire country, but which also led directly to the rise of ISIS and helped bring terrorism to Europe too. – Ron Paul (2016)
While statism kills, empires kill on a whole different level. While nations like Germany (Jews) and China (farmers) and USSR (Ukrainians, etc) and USA (Southerners and American Indians) do their share of genocide, there is nothing like an empire that can take that to a whole different level.
But it was not always so. Take for instance a majority of the time the British Empire was a world power, as Eric S. Margolis in this article explains:
The British were always masters of efficient imperialism. In the 19th century, they managed to rule a quarter of the Earth’s surface with only a relatively small army supported by a great fleet. Many of their imperial subjects were so overawed by the pomp and circumstance of British rule that they often willingly cooperated, or at least bent the knee.
Call it colonialism 101. Ardent students of Roman history, the British early on adopted the Roman strategy of ‘divide et impera’, divide and conquer. The application of this strategy allowed the British Empire to rule over vast numbers of people with minimal force.
For over one hundred years, life in the American colonies were not bad at all actually. This is why there was 1/3rd of Americans that did NOT want to go to war with the British Empire, as up until the 1760s, the British ruled in a minimalist way!
When we reflect on the poor country of Iraq, and how it was somewhat abused by English power in the early 20th century especially after the discovery of oil, never really knew what was in store for them by 1990. From a post WWII transition that saw American influences in the Middle East region on the increase, and with Saddam Hussein in the employ and control of the CIA, even supplying Iraq with chemical weapons in its war against Iran in the 1980s, it is clear that the American Empire was in the driver’s seat.
In 1990, when the world was shocked that Hussein invaded Kuwait, there were those in the US Government that were not surprised as they gave him the green light. This even allowed the US Empire a “reason” to respond to this attack on an adjacent sovereign nation and allowed a “coalition” of UN nations to mount an attack on Iraq (Gulf War I) to place it under tighter control until the US again invaded 12 years later.
Eric S. Margolis goes on to explain:
I was in Iraq in 2001 and 2003 and saw how much it had developed in spite of the draconian rule of Saddam Hussein. I was one of only a few journalists trying to dispute the western lies about Iraq. The dim-witted Iraqi secret police threatened to hang me as a spy – after I revealed their germ warfare plant at Salman Pak had been set up and was secretly run by British technicians.
There was enough fake news in the early 2000s to convince the American public and the world that Saddam was bad and that the US and its allies were good.
Iraq, let’s recall, was the target of a major western aggression concocted by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Britain’s Tony Blair, financed and encouraged by the Gulf oil sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia.
Truth be told, these “leaders” are in fact war criminals still walking free.
Most people don’t understand that Iraq remains a US-occupied nation. We hear nothing about the billions of dollars of Iraqi oil extracted by big US oil firms since 2003. For the US, Iraq was a treasure house of oil with 12% of world reserves. It was OPEC’s 2nd largest producer.
Recall one of the leading neocons who engineered the invasion of Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz, claimed the US could finance its entire invasion of Iraq (he estimated the cost at about $70 billion) by plundering Iraq’s oil. Today, the cost of the occupation has reached over $1 trillion. Wolfie is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, President Trump says the US will grab Syria’s oil fields.
It is all very sick, but the problems in Iraq do not make it into MSM these days:
Ever since the 2003 invasion, Iraq has been ruled by a succession of US-appointed figureheads who have proven as corrupt as they are inept. During the war, the US destroyed most of Iraq’s water and sewage systems, causing some 500,000 children to die from water-borne diseases, wrecking much of its industry and commerce, leaving millions of men unemployed. Public services have broken down.
Before the US invasion, Iraq led the Arab world in industry, farming, medicine, education and women’s rights. All that was destroyed by the ‘liberation.’
The fallout from this conflict and that in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria have produced economic refugees that have invaded Europe and dispersed Christians out of the Middle East. Will we ever know the true statistics for all the chaos that was put into action in 2001 (Afghanistan) and 2003 (Iraq)?
How is that for the legacy of American Exceptionalism?
Blow-back (CIA term) is a thing, and we thought the 2000/2010s had seen enough terrorism as a result, just wait ..
Whether one thinks of all those scared by Afghanistan and Iraqi “burn pits”, or “Agent Orange” from the Vietnam War, the typical bureaucracy of government things makes the post-war treatment of those that have sacrificed much to be delayed at best, or never facilitated by these governments themselves until after they have died.
Jason Bourne:Do you even know why you’re supposed to kill me? Look at us. Look at what they make you give.
When you think on it, one gives and sacrifices in a conflict. But one rarely understands what one may be forced to give during the balance of one’s life! This is the beauty of selecting, targeting or conscripting 18-20 year olds. Conscription, when it comes again as the US Empire crumbles, will target “fresh meat” for its own use, and in the end, will discard them just as fast.
In the news lately has been a condition that has yet to be conclusively linked to the burn pit procedures practiced by the US Department of Defense, by far the largest polluter on this globe:
This is not new news, for even ten years ago, vets were calling attention to the characteristic of statism .. the ability for this “collective” to avert responsibility of the decisions of the state. As Karen Kwiatkowski shared over a decade ago:
But we can take a short lesson on statism.
When I burn waste here on the farm, I don’t always obey the county rule that restricts burning before 4 pm — I make a judgment call based on wind and weather, and go from there. But, as the county guidelines advise, I don’t burn chemicals, Styrofoam, recyclable materials, or ammo. There is a simple reason I don’t burn those things — it might be hazardous for me, my family, and my livestock, and damaging to my property. Even though I’m next door to an often malodorous chicken farm, I do care what my neighbors think and don’t wish to do harm to their property or environment either. I imagine that the soldier pictured throwing waste into the burn pit, and every other soldier at Balad behaves much the same way when disposing of garbage on his or her own property.
Why can’t we extend private property good sense to government? This is the fundamental problem — whether we are considering Congressional and Federal Reserve bailouts, partnerships, and nationalization of bad banks, uncompetitive car manufacturers, or underfunded insurance companies, or if we are trying to understand why the military pollutes at home and abroad with such impunity.
So it is with government in general, that they (unlike individuals) can:
mandate “service” (called conscription, which is really slavery)
escape prosecution for war crimes (killing of innocent people in a war area), for the wasting of thousands of people’s lives when wars are based on lies (i.e. every war the US has fought since the American Revolution)
escape prosecution for damaging the health of those that survive as well as the environment.
This did not start in the 21st century or the 19th/20th century, but even in the 18th century it was apparent that even the most honorable government (which most history books paint the republic of the united States of America as outlined by the Treaty of Paris in 1783) could also accomplish an incredible disservice to those that served in wartime.
Here are a few examples from 1783 and beyond for the American hero Francis Marion. While Francis and his men were not conscripted, they did feel the post-war abandonment by the very government they risked their lives to protect.
First to set the context for Francis Marion returning to civilian life:
Returning to Pond Bluff he found desolation as there were no furniture, no livestock, no clothing, no household goods, no provisions and not enough money to buy cattle and horses. Everything was overgrown and there was a lot of work to do for this 50-year old. He had some money from inheritances but he would have to go into debt to make this plantation viable. Rice growing had depleted the soil and with the British no longer a trading partner all he could do was subsistence farming. Cotton would not be introduced in the region for a few more years and so the future did not look all that good. Half of his twenty slaves had left for parts as far away as Nova Scotia. The other ten had been working his deceased brother’s plantation Belle Isle in Pineville. His pre-war overseer June and his wife Chloe and their daughter Phoebe and her daughter Peggy plus ten field hands were available.
Now the areas where the US government, after the fact, dropped the ball in being as honorable as Francis Marion himself was:
The November 1782 election meant that Marion had to leave Pond Bluff yet again for the January 6,1783 legislative session. Writing from there on January 18th he shared the inequalities that tainted his excitement about the future of the colony as well of the federation of states. It seems that the Rhode Islander Greene was awarded 10,000 guineas from SC toward the purchase of a SC plantation and quoted an old saying “that kissed goes by favor”. The correspondence he had with Greene stopped abruptly as the hostilities stopped in December 1782. Marion had hoped that Congress would follow through on the promise of a lifetime of half-pay for officers but it would be 50 years before that practice would finally start. He lamented that “idle spectators of war” were in charge now. Yet, he still loved his country and his principles.
Early in 1783 the SC legislature did vote Marion a commendation complete with a gold medal but there is doubt if that was ever delivered. In 1785 he would receive a 300 acre land grant but for unknown reasons he never applied for the 500 acre land bounty granted by Congress to Continental officers. Marion was promoted but only to full colonel and he suspected it was due in part to his leniency toward Tories as the war wound down.
March 1784 saw Marion received a position at Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor of basically a port collector paying him 500 British pound sterling per year but required him to be at the fort most of the time. He was not keen on Charleston life and the upper class that emerged again there. Four years later with budget cuts this position was reduced to 20% of the previous pay so he resigned. Another legislative piece that Marion wanted no part of was protection from lawsuits due to wartime decisions and actions (like plunder). Marion was confident that his actions were proper during the whole course of the war. No lawsuits were ever filed against him.
The government did not treat Francis well at all when the war was over and this 50-something had to try and start over again.
Enter “Providence”:
Marion found himself with a secret admirer, a spinster and first cousin Mary Ester Videau who was in her late 40s. She had inherited a considerable fortune over the years in money and land. It was Marion’s niece Charlotte Ashby (daughter of his brother Gabriel) and her fiance Theodore Marion (son of his brother Job) that prodded uncle Francis to call on Mary. At 54, Francis and Mary married on April 20, 1786 in a double wedding that featured the two cousins that got them together. They traveled, camped and fished together while also “adopting” a son and daughter in the extended family. The son was to take Marion’s last name if he was to see his substantial inheritance at age 21 so that the Marion family name through Francis would live on, except that this adopted son would have 8 daughters and no sons.
Marion now focused on expanding the wealth with cattle and hogs mainly as well as rice when the economy improved. Marion could be considered upper-middle class at this point in SC. His post-war terms as state senator are unremarkable and even attended the 1788 SC ratification of the new constitution but was not present for the final vote. He was more a Federalist than a states rights guy like Thomas Sumter and Wade Hampton. He continued to command a militia brigade until 1794 when Charles Pinckney was promoted to major general (Marion and Sumter caused a deadlock in voting so the legislators opted for someone else). Marion was in poor health at that time anyway as he expressed in a letter to his grandnephew (adopted son) that a cramp in his fingers and constant pain in his head plus a fever. At 63 on February 27th 1795 he died at Pond Bluff and buried at Belle Isle. His land was worth about $500,000 in today’s money. While Francis had a will it had not been witnessed so his wife received only 1/2 the proceeds and Francis’ nieces and nephews the other 1/2. Mary ended up buying out the nieces and nephews and the adopted son inherited slaves “and their increase” upon Mary’s death in 1815. When the adopted son died in 1833 he had more than 150 slaves. No slaves were freed upon his death, but there are two things to consider with this. 1) He must have wanted to provide for Mary and allow her to free them upon her death. 2) SC law states that freed slaves have to leave the colony within 6 months or face re-enslavement which meant the breaking up of a slave family.
.. and loyal friends and those touched by his efforts for “the cause”:
Prior to his death, a delegation of Georgetown dignitaries traveled to Pond Bluff and presented him with a written address: “Your achievements may havenot significantly swelled the historic page .. but this is of little moment. They remain in such indelible characters upon our minds, that neither change of circumstances nor length of time can efface them .. Continue general in peace to till those acres which you have wrested from the hands of the enemy. Continue to enjoy dignity, accompanied with ease, and to lengthen out your days blessed with the consciousness of conduct unaccused of rapine or oppression, and of actions ever directed by the purest patriotism.”
Called the “Washington of the South”, the more one learns of Marion and his character, the more he inspires admiration.
Government .. not so much!
-SF1
(back from three weeks of R&R, highly recommended!)
Sometimes only a nugget of truth can cause one’s mind and heart to seek out the deeper meanings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
From Clyde Wilson comes this gem:
“there has not been a real opposition party in U.S. politics since Mr. Jefferson sent Colonel Hamilton and His Excellency John Adams heading back north.”
Source: “Annals of the Stupid Party: Republicans Before Trump” by Clyde Wilson
Think about it for a minute. I am sure going back ten or fifteen years almost everyone will lament (maybe only privately) that no matter what party or what president is elected after promising the moon, one always seems to get the same “nothing-burger”.
Well, let’s just say the further you go back in the history of the United States of America, the more you see the two or three parties bringing more of the same to this country, sometime the red team is more “progressive”, sometimes the blue team is, but at the end of the day, the politicians will just politic this nation to its eventual death. There is no major difference in the political parties of 2019, same has been the case since the early 1800s. The two parties are the wings of the same bird!
Another quote I came across that had me thinking:
“A civil war, by denotative or connotative definition, occurs when a faction wishes to overthrow or control an existing government in order to impose its own ideology upon the governed. The Southern states that seceded from the Union had neither the desire nor the plans to take command of the country. They simply wanted to withdraw from it, and arguably, according to even some modern constitutionalists and historians, had a right to do so, based upon the nation’s origins. Virginia, New York and Rhode Island demanded that the right of secession be reserved before they would even agree to the Constitution, thereby implying that secession was indeed a right reserved by individual states.”
Source: “Slavery and The Civil War: What Your History Teacher Didn’t Tell You” by Garry Bowers
It is true, and yet 99% of all Americans think, really do think, that the 1861-1865 conflict was a “civil” war. It is a myth, plain and simple.
So what was it? Well, to be honest, if someone files for divorce, is that ever a reason to be an aggressor on individual as in doing personal harm to him or her? Only psychos will “take out” the other person so “no one else can have him/her”.
To break it down properly, you have to know that EACH state acted independently to weigh the pros and cons of secession. Some state representatives said that exiting the federation was too early, others said it was past time. In the end, from December 1860 until early February 1861, seven sovereign states left the federation and others like North Carolina and Virginia decided to stay in the federation of states.
The very act of leaving verses trying to force seven state’s priorities, beliefs and convictions on the remaining 20+ states, means that they were ready to live and let live. There was zero aggression on the part of the exiting states. Even when these states came together in Montgomery, AL in February 1861, there was never the thought of pushing their agenda on the more northern states or the “union” as a whole.
This was not a civil war. People need to know that. It will become important someday, soon I hope.
Another quote from the same source as above might help convince you of a truth, as you consider whether or not to accept it as such:
“In U.S. official government records, it is known as “The War of the Rebellion.” This title, too, is incorrect. In 1867, none other than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Salmon P. Chase noted, in his declaration that Jefferson Davis (or any other Confederate) could not be tried for treason, that “Secession is not rebellion.”
There you have it. The action in 1860/1861 was the same thing as in 1775, when a year later, in 1776 it was stated:
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Please notice that the word “united” is not capitalized. Words and capitalization matters. These were thirteen sovereign states that decided to separate and divorce the British Empire.
Please notice too that the dissolution of the political bands is something that happens in this broken world, and that separate and equal can be better than together and miserable and abused!
This discussion is needed today, in the USA!
If the USSR can do it (break apart into smaller republics), one would think the US, which was born of secession, could do the same. Right?
Just think about it. Research it. Consider it. You don’t have to accept it as truth you know.
