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.
In Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s classic “Democracy – The God That Failed“, the utter weakness of this form of government is laid bare, as all non-principled people pursue the “free” things government can provide, from the poorest in the street to the upper class CEO, government becomes the vehicle of theft:
With a [democratic] government anyone in principle can become a member of the ruling class or even the supreme power. The distinction between the rulers and the ruled as well as the class consciousness of the ruled become blurred. The illusion even arises that the distinction no longer exists: that with a public government no one is ruled by anyone, but everyone instead rules himself. Accordingly, public resistance against government power is systematically weakened. While exploitation and expropriation before might have appeared plainly oppressive and evil to the public, they seem much less so, mankind being what it is, once anyone may freely enter the ranks of those who are at the receiving end. Consequently, [exploitation will increase], whether openly in the form of higher taxes or discretely as increased governmental money “creation” (inflation) or legislative regulation.
The Right accepts the reality of human differences but the Left does not. Because Leftists try to make everyone equal, they favor massive interventions by the State to abolish human cdifferences.
I am not saying that the so-called Right is honest, honorable or trustworthy, it is just that it seems to be a few degrees away from evil in admitting that no entity can “make” everyone equal, except in slavery.
One must note that the so-called Left, who politically years ago were aligned more with Thomas Jefferson, has drifted very far from the thoughts of the founding document the US Declaration of Independence which says in part:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it ..
Are we really created equal. No way, no how. However, what is equal is the rights as humans created in the image of God have under natural law, that is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness retaining all the personal property we acquire honestly with our work along the way. Government was supposed to see us equal under the law. As it turned out, most in government, Democrats and Republicans, see themselves above the law.
The bent humans develop overtime can be used for good but also for evil. We should by now see start evidence of how this plays out in crisis events, tyrants and snitches at every level of society come out of the woodwork. People we have known for years seem to have abandon common sense and have a cult-like zealous look in their eyes as they argue the latest fad built on half-truths, either from the masses or from government.
Hans points out that it is not only the masses, but the elites that are on-board with this agenda:
The egalitarian worldview of the Left is not only incompatible with libertarianism, however. It is so out of touch with reality that one must be wondering how anyone can take it seriously. The man-on-the-street certainly does not believe in the equality of all men. Plain common sense and sound prejudice stand in the way of that. And I am even more confident that no one of the actual proponents of the egalitarian doctrine really, deep down, believes what he proclaims. Yet how, then, could the Leftist worldview have become the dominant ideology of our age? At least for a libertarian, the answer should be obvious: the egalitarian doctrine achieved this status not because it is true, but because it provides the perfect intellectual cover for the drive toward totalitarian social control by a ruling elite
The United States has been on this path at least since the War Against Southern Independence from 1861-1865 when the state crushed those who were following the Declaration of Independence when it said:
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ..
The seven secession documents outlined that these entities were taking back the powers it had given to the federation formed in 1787 with the US Constitution as they no longer consented! What, pray tell, will happen to us in the future when we lay claim to that founding principle? With the masses, the elites and the state in partnership, those that understand what is going on will be surrounded.
It has to be noted again that Lincoln’s centralizing of power was admired by Karl Marx, who correctly understood that:
So in fact it was the Republicans that led the United States down this road that the Democrats have fully embraced. How stupid is that.
Late 1930s American Communist convention
So today in 2020 we have the masses that are enthralled by “bread and circuses” while not being able to critically think what the end-game is here that the elites have for us all. Seems that most college graduates only see the first consequence of any action or decision, and rarely if ever see that the second and third consequences will be disastrous to them. But the masses are generally asses .. they go insane together in large groups and only then do some come back one at a time.
The other thing that democracy has done to society is to make it immoral. Few in society today think it is wrong to take with others have honestly earned and give it to the government to redistribute. Theft via government is honorable in their mind. Personal property of others means nothing as well.
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.
I am sure this title caught your eye. The point is that rebellion is actually GOOD once in a while. Personally, teenage rebellion is good as well, otherwise the teenager stays in one’s basement for decades and no honorable person, parent or child, wants that long term. Allowing and encouraging these young adults to “be all that they can be” is a most honorable path I would think.
Countries and cultures are similar in that there comes a time when going separate ways brings out the best for all parties.
Thomas Jefferson was one that spoke to the benefits of rebellion:
God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.- Thomas Jefferson (1787)
Rebellion is a warning shot that liberties have been violated. This is an honorable recourse when peaceful approaches have been ignored time and again. Liberty can grow in the way that the American Revolution’s conclusion was conducted, not so much how the French Revolution was conducted.
If the 1776 rebellion was honorable, why not the 1860/1861 rebellion? What might help to set the context is to compare the presidential inaugural addresses of both President Lincoln and President Davis.
Lincoln’s 1st Inaugural Address 04MAR1861
Lincoln made the strongest case ever in the defense of Southern slavery even supporting its enshrinement in the text of the constitution to be a perpetual right but on the issue of tax collections he would definitely go to war to enforce the newly doubled federal tariff.
Davis defined the South as an international trading community that sought free trade with the world and promised to resort to the sword if the North were to invade to put an end to the Confederacy’s free trade policy.
Davis also set the context for the formation of an agent to work on the principle’s (13 sovereign states) behalf when he said:
The declared purpose of the compact of the Union from which we have withdrawn was “to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity
He continued on why the seven states had voted to leave such a Union:
When in the judgement of the sovereign states now composing this Confederacy, it had been perverted from the purposes for which it was ordained, and it ceased to answer the ends for which it was established, a peaceful appeal to the ballot box declared that so far as they were concerned, the government created by that compact should cease to exist. In this they merely asserted a right that the Declaration of Independence of 1776 had defined to be inalienable .. they, as sovereigns, were the final judges, each for itself ..
What few people know is that this man was so honorable and such a Unionist up until his home state of Mississippi seceded, that his logic, actions and words were honorable to their core.
So what do we do with men like this after a War for Southern Independence is fought and lost? We honor honorable men of that day by naming military forts after them, even when they in the end were not victorious in securing an independent country against a country who secured a victory in less than honorable means.
Walter E. Williams addresses this in his article at Lew Rockwell today. He lays the groundwork as to why we have forts in the US today that bear the name of honorable Confederate generals who were fighting for their homes and families against a tyrant who violated the US Constitution left and right.
Walter addresses a statement made by an ignorant military man, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, who said in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee arguing in favor of renaming Confederate named military bases:
The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought, and it was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution.
Ignorance knows no bounds, as I pointed out yesterday that Lincoln himself was the one that acted treasonous and also acted violently against the US Constitution. The Southern state’s secession was NOT an act of treason, even if your feelings and emotions convince you and Gen. Mark Milley that way. He needs to find a safe space, and by renaming these forts I do hope he feels better soon.
But I digress ..
Walter E. Williams starts with context of the union in the first place:
Let’s start at the beginning, namely the American War of Independence (1775-1783), a war between Great Britain and its 13 colonies, which declared independence in July 1776. The peace agreement that ended the war is known as the Treaty of Paris signed by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay and Henry Laurens and by British Commissioner Richard Oswald, on Sept. 3, 1783. Article I of the Treaty held that “New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States.”
This fact is something that Lincoln himself ignored to retain his narrative that the “Union” preceded the states, which then dovetails into his own personal thought that the states should have asked permission of all the other states before leaving.
Walter continues:
Delegates from these states met in Philadelphia in 1787 to form a union. During the Philadelphia convention, a proposal was made to permit the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, rejected it. Minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: “A union of the states containing such an ingredient (would) provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”
The fact that Lincoln never acknowledged the states as having seceded, left him with the complicated aspect that he actually violated the principle above, that his making war on states still in the union meant the compact was in fact dissolved. He wanted to ask for the “divorce”, he did NOT want the spouse(s) to have that status!
With this thought, that each of the sovereign states would voluntarily join this union one at a time, each state also understood that they each could voluntarily leave this union.
During the ratification debates, Virginia’s delegates said, “The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.” The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments; namely, they held the right to dissolve their relationship with the United States.
Note that northern states also expressed interest in the ability to exit. Only 16 years later, there was talk of that from that section of the federation:
Many New Englanders were infuriated by President Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which they saw as an unconstitutional act. Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who was George Washington’s secretary of war and secretary of state, led the movement. He said, “The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government.” Other prominent Americans such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III and Joseph Story shared his call for secession.
Sparking secession talk again was the War of 1812 that hurt the New England commerce the most, rekindling this viable option:
While the New England secessionist movement was strong, it failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
By early 1861, many Northern government officials and presses were well aware of the dangers of not allowing an honorable rebellion to take place and voiced such before Lincoln took action to send armed reinforcements to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor:
Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, “Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty.”
New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): “If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861.”
The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): “An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil — evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent.”
The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): “There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go.”
Walter summarizes this so well in saying:
Confederate generals fought for independence from the Union just as George Washington fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who label Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals as traitors might also label George Washington a traitor. Great Britain’s King George III and the British parliament would have agreed.
Spot on Walter, you rock as an 80-something!
Named for Confederate General Braxton Bragg, who had previously served in the United States Army in the Mexican-American War.
Should the ten forts named after Confederate officers be renamed? No. But it seems that stupid people with a lot of feelings now rule. While the name of a fort does not do anything physically, it is a part of the culture cleansing going of to remove whatever is left of this country’s honorable past.
In my mind, the past was already being erased a little at a time over the last 100+ years. I think it is the shear momentum of this now that has many feeling that it is over the top and openly wondering when if ever will it stop.
Honestly, can we start talking secession now, or is it too early yet? Asking for a friend.
These days as Americans are bombarded with the names Whitmer (MI), Cuomo (NY) and Newsom (CA) leading the charge for born-again tyrants, we probably should look into history to see who might have modeled this best. Being confronted with a crisis reveals the true character of most people, and when these people are politicians, the resulting decisions in the reaction to times of crisis “try men’s souls”.
The GOP is stuck because the DNA in their party rests with Abraham Lincoln and his reaction to having seven states PEACEFULLY secede from the united States of America (written as it was inked in the 1783 Paris Peace treaty with the British Empire).
I bet you can guess who I am going to pick on once again. Yes, that president we all know and love from our grade school days, Honest Abe.
We also know from our last post that Lincoln’s reaction to these states leaving the union was NOT to free the slaves, no way, no how. He actually said on 04MAR1861:
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.
So after Lincoln tried to “resupply” Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor with TROOPS which triggered, no pun intended, the Confederate forces to pro-actively open the cannons on that fort to force its surrender, with ZERO deaths, Lincoln proceeded to accomplish a long list of decisions the cemented his inner tyrant behavior.
While the calling up of 75,000 volunteers from the remaining states in the union after the surrender of Fort Sumter was based on a 1795 act of Congress that gave the president to call up troops in case of insurrection, this act only allowed 30 days until the president’s authority would cease. Lincoln would milk this for FOUR months before Congress was called into session! Not only that, to add insult to injury, he asked Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri to send troops to fight against their culturally “sister” states as well.
The letters from the governors of these states is hilarious, the best first line of the response from Tennessee is priceless:
Your dispatch is received, and if genuine, which its extraordinary character leads me to doubt .. I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of this country, and to this war on the liberties of a free people ..
What they did not know was this was only the beginning of the reveal show that Lincoln would unfold in 1861. By 21APR1861 he ordered the blockade of southern ports (an act of war) and the purchase of five naval warships, without congressional approval. On 27APR1861 he suspended the privilege of Habeas Corpus nullifying every civil liberty of every citizen.
On 03MAY1861 Lincoln called up even more troops, this time for a three year enlistment! He also directed the Treasury Department to pay a private firm in New York state $2.0M for military equipment and by 04JUL1861 when Congress was finally called into session, war plans to invade the southern 11 states were already made.
If this were not bad enough, the night of 12SEP1861 he had Maj. Gen. Banks arrest all the Southern sympathizers of the Maryland legislature, 51 citizens in all, to prevent them from voting on secession.
Then, in NOV1861, to ensure southern sympathizers would not vote in Maryland, armed Union troops with bayonets guarded the polling places AND all the Union troops got to vote, even if they were not residents of Maryland.
In Britain, London’s Saturday Review commented:
It was a perfect act of despotism as can be conceived. It was a coup d’etat in every essential feature.
Any Northern press that criticized this the same way was shutdown:
Chicago Daily Times
The Journal of Commerce (NYC)
The Morning News (NYC)
The Day-Book
The New York World
The Freeman’s Journal (Catholic NYC)
Philadelphia Evening Journal
Christian Observer
Republican Watchman (PA)
Farmer (ME)
Democrat (NH)
Not only were these and another 1,000 newspapers were shutdown, the people involved (up to 10,000) were imprisoned without trial. Newspapers not shutdown were highly regulated throughout the war and censored.
This is only the beginning as Lincoln attempted to have the Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney who had ruled against Lincoln, in the case of Ex Parte Merryman (1861), arrested!.
Talk about the poster child for tyranny. Lincoln is the master.
So look at a picture of your governor or your president or possible next president and know what our US Constitution (and the state constitutions modeled after it) will allow in times of crisis.
I think we are about to see a “Lincoln redux” in action soon all across our land. 1861 was not an easy time to live through in many parts of this country!
Gov. Whitmer – Michigan
Gov. Cuomo – New YorkGov. Newsom – CaliforniaPresident Donald J. Trump – United States of AmericaJoe Biden – Possible Future President of the United States
