Tag: union

Just Say NO to “Civil War” and Try Some Peaceful Secession!

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”

― Alexander Fraser Tytler

So, it is time to end this “experiment” (Thomas Jefferson always thought that it might end within his lifetime .. and was fine with the federation at that time splitting into North, South and West (current Midwest) nations.

Secession CAN be done peacefully (as long as you keep tyrants like Abe Lincoln away) … California agrees to split into three states and become part of a Pacific Coast nation, then a Mountain West nation (two to four states north and south), and Texas obviously as a real lone star nation. When you get to the east it becomes pretty difficult as many existing states have some very different cultures. Here, city-states might work best (i.e. Chicago, Atlanta, etc.) and allow the balance of these states for form alliances (federations) that make economic and cultural sense.

In hindsight, why couldn’t Lincoln have just let the South (7 states) secede peacefully? It wasn’t his love for blacks that’s for sure (read his quotes from the 1830s – 1860s and you will see) .. it was about both finding the general government (revenue) and keeping the “Union” big enough for the big business to be able to parasite on government .. and therefore become dependent and under government’s control (railroads, steel industry at the time and more).

Which Slaves Did Abe Lincoln Free?

The easy answer is none.

The Emancipation Proclamation was written to only free the slaves that were behind enemy lines. Those slaves were not under his jurisdiction.

The Emancipation Proclamation declared the slaves in ten states free, but there were seventeen states in which blacks were held as slaves…

There were exemptions as well .. as Abe readily admitted that this move was a “war measure” (i.e. hoping to incite a slave uprising to end the war earlier, as he had no real desire initially to “make slaves free”)

..the portions of Virginia and Louisiana which were occupied by Union forces were exempt from it, meaning that their slaves were not freed. This was made clear by a circular issued by Union Provost Marshall Captain A.B. Long in New Liberia, Louisiana on April 24, 1863. In it, he informed the slaves in St. Martin Parish who thought that they were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation that they were not because that Parish was exempted in it … Lincoln declared the slaves not under his control free, but not those who were under his control.

This make perfect sense as Abraham Lincoln had offered perpetual slavery in the states that had seceded IF they returned to “the Union” according to his first inaugural address when he referenced the Corwin Amendment.

The slaves in the District of Columbia had been freed by act of Congress on April 16, 1862, and those in U.S. territories by the same on June 17, 1862, before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Lincoln then tried to get Delaware to be the next entity to free its slaves, but the state refused. Under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, Washington, D.C. and the territories were the only jurisdictions over which the Federal Government had authority. Authority over slavery in the states was reserved to the states themselves.

So Lincoln had no authority under the Constitution .. but we know that many presidents of the United States have disregarded that document ever since. Even George Washington’s “Whiskey Rebellion” move was not constitutional.

So what law actually freed the slaves in the United States of America?

The date on which the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified was the date upon which the last of the slaves were truly freed. Therefore, December 6 should be celebrated as Emancipation Day.

From Abbeville Institute

Lysander Spooner had it right: