The American Civil War: The North Couldn't Afford Secession

A couple of years ago, I wrote a blogpost questioning the reasons for the American Civil War. I stated that there was more to the North’s naked aggression than just slavery. Historians, for the most part, have neglected northern complacency and the financial repercussions had the South left the union.


Today, California radicals are proposing a referendum to leave the union. Many people, such as myself, are just fine with that. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass!

I’m sure this is the same attitude many Northerners had at the time the South seceded. My suspicions were correct. Here is an excerpt from an article published in the Abbeville Institute by Philip Leigh about an interview on PBS:


She fails to consider that Northerners could have let the cotton states leave in peace, thereby avoiding a Civil War altogether. The original seven-state Confederacy was so weak that many believed her component states might end up humbly asking to be readmitted to the Federal Union. According to historian David Potter: “No one was much impressed with the Gulf Coast Confederacy. No one was convinced that it would be economically or politically viable.”[1]

Moreover, many Northern leaders were prepared to “Let the erring sisters go in peace.” Among them was abolitionist Horace Greeley, then editor of The New York Tribune, which was America’s largest newspaper. Greeley wrote, “We have repeatedly said . . . that if the slave states choose to form an independent nation, they have the right to do so.” President James Buchanan added that many Republicans shared Greeley’s opinion when he wrote: “Leading Republicans everywhere scornfully exclaimed ‘Let them go;’ ‘We can do better without them;’ ‘Let the Union slide,’ and other language of the same import.” Ohio lawyer and future Republican President Rutherford Hayes was satisfied to let the free states remain alone as his January 4, 1861 diary entry reveals: “The [twenty] free states alone . . . will make a glorious nation . . . scarcely inferior in real power to the thirty-three states we had on the first of November.”[2] Similarly, President Lincoln’s future War Secretary, Edwin Stanton, said, “Oh, I would let the South go; they will be clamoring to get back in three years.”

Interesting. How about the economic consequences of the South leaving the union? There are a couple of possibilities the North would have to confront. Mr. Leigh continues:

First, it could not hope to maintain a favorable balance of payments. The South accounted for about 80% of America’s exports on the eve of the Civil War. Thus, without the South’s export economy, America would become a perpetual debtor nation forever at the mercy of its stronger trading partners that would deplete her gold supply in order to settle the persistent trade imbalances.

Second, since the Confederate constitution outlawed protective tariffs, her lower tariffs would confront the remaining states of the abridged Union with two consequences. First, since ninety percent of Federal taxes came from tariffs, the government’s revenue loss would be sizable. Articles imported into the Confederacy from Europe would divert tariff revenue from the North to the South. Second, and even more importantly, a low Confederate tariff would induce Southerners to buy manufactured goods from Europe as opposed to the Northern states where prices were inflated by protective tariffs.

In other words, the North couldn’t afford to let the South go. I wasn’t taught that in school and no doubt neither was the rest of the country, not even Southerners. What’s that saying? To the victor belongs the spoils. And that goes for history as well.

Source:

https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/causes-of-the-civil-war/?mc_cid=abd07423aa&mc_eid=3fe7d9c1ad



https://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2016/01/have-progressive-historians-bastardized.html

Look to the North for Reparations; The South Already Paid

A couple of months ago, I read an article about a woman in North Carolina who was still collecting a pension for her father’s service in the War of Northern Aggression. Obviously, he was a Union soldier.


I was absolutely floored. That war ended over 150 years ago and there’s still a pensioner. This is a testament to the endurance of a federal government program. At what point and time do we put a stop to this nonsense?


Well, if Democrats get their way, Americans will end up paying reparations for an institution that died with the Confederacy. These grievance mongers are trying to shackle their ancestors to our pocketbooks. It’s not enough that over 630,000 soldiers lost their lives; no, their bloodlust extends to a perpetual welfare program.


I’ll make the argument the South already paid reparations in the form of Union pensions, protective tariffs, government bonds, carpetbagger theft, and northern monopolies. The 14th Amendment precluded, as a condition of readmission to the union, southern states interference to pay off the federal government’s debt in suppressing the late “rebellion.”


Civil War pensions became an astronomic expense of which the South didn’t benefit. To give you an idea on this transfer of wealth program, here is an excerpt from Southern Reconstruction:


Meanwhile, Republicans increasingly favored reducing the budget surplus by liberalizing Union veterans’ pensions. They succeeded with the 1890 Dependent Pensions Act. It enlarged the number of people who could qualify for assistance. Any soldier who served a mere ninety days and wives who married veterans anytime prior to 1890 became eligible. Any soldier injured during the war who later became unable to perform manual labor was covered. Within four years, pension disbursements doubled from $80 million to $165 million. The budget surplus vanished. Republicans dropped the Blair proposal, thereby demonstrating that protective tariffs and veterans’ pensions were higher priorities than the education of youthful African Americans.


In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt released an executive order that made all veterans over age sixty-two eligible for pensions. The disability platform was essentially augmented to also become an old age assistance program. From 1862 to 1942, accumulated Union veterans’ pensions totaled almost $8 billion. About $7 billion of that went to the North, and the remaining $1 billion was divided between the South and West.


For more than fifty years after the war, pension policy was linked to protective tariffs. Like interest payments on Civil War federal debt and the retirement of such debts, Union veterans’ pensions represented a distributive income policy that transferred income from the impoverished South to the prosperous North.


So, for all those teat squawkers who’re looking for a handout, I suggest you look to the North for reparations; the South already paid.


Source:

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/civil-war-vets-pension-still-remains-on-governments-payroll-151-years-after-last-shot-fired


http://freebeacon.com/politics/revealed-dream-democrat-agenda-includes-reparations/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=47f55f78b8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_04_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-47f55f78b8-45647961

Progressives Reconstruct History and the United States

Progressives have been on a mission to fundamentally transform the United States for over 150 years.  The great leap from federalism to nationalism couldn’t have happened without the War of Northern Aggression and Reconstruction.  Southern secession became a catalyst for centralized power and ironically will lead to the dissolution of a union the Yankee invaders purportedly wanted to save.

Before anyone gets offended, I want to emphasize this post is about Progressives, the U.S. Constitution and the federalist principles therein and not about slavery.  I realize this distinction can be difficult for some; however, one must try to analyze this perspective from a federalist viewpoint.

     

How can one define Reconstruction?  You would think it a term for an epoch in American history where the conquerors helped the vanquished get back on their feet by easing them into the union after a devastating civil war.  This interpretation is completely false.  What happened was the equivalent of the Progressive Era’s Eugenics Movement:  Southerners will restructure the way they think, act and live their lives according to the dictates of their Yankee masters, or be sterilized from the political process.  Congressional Reconstruction was all about power and control and to hell with federalism. 

  

The Radical Republicans wanted to ensure their hegemonic rule by forcing the 14^th Amendment upon a prostrate people.  Twelve states refused to swallow this poisoned pill, which had a provision that disenfranchised southerners who volunteered to fight for the Confederacy.  This act of defiance brought about the third phase of Reconstruction:  the South was divided into five military districts and ruled by military governors.

Military occupations breed resentment and enmity which ultimately leads to failure.  Reconstruction was and is considered a colossal failure.  A generation of historians, often referred to as the Dunning School, documented the abuses and corruption of the Radical Republicans and their agents of occupation.  This resentment manifested itself in the rise of the KKK and Jim Crow laws that were implemented shortly after the Northern occupation was lifted.

 If you are a student of the Reconstruction era, you’ll notice that today’s colleges and universities are filled with Marxist who has a bitter resentment toward the so-called Dunning School.  Almost every book I’ve read on this subject contains what can only be considered a smear campaign against these early historians.  Eric Foner in particular impugns the character of these men by assigning racist motives.  Ironically, these men were northerners and one reporter, James Pike, served in the Lincoln administration.  I’ve never experienced this kind of vitriol in other disciplines of history.

However, one must note today’s Reconstruction historians subscribe to the tactics of W.E.B. Du Bois who invented one of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

Du Boise seems to be a guiding figure for today’s historians, not to mention the fact that he too was a Marxist.  There seems to be a consensus by Progressives that the failures of Reconstruction were the defunding of the Freedmen’s Bureau and a lack of willingness to redistribute land and money which translates into confiscation of property.  Some even consider the withdrawal of troops a contributing factor as well.  Few are willing to accept that invasion, occupation, disenfranchisement, and forced homogenization were the main factors for the failures of Reconstruction.

One thing is for sure; Progressives will not accept the failures of a top-down centralized government, perhaps that’s why today’s Marxist historians are so vitriolic in their condemnation of critics of Reconstruction. 

A Confederate Soldiers Prophetic Letter to Home

I don’t know how many times I’ve been told that the average Confederate soldier fought to maintain slavery at the behest of the plantation class.  Their motives for taking up arms couldn’t possibly be to confront a Northern invasion and protect future generations from an abusive and controlling central government.

A Confederate soldier’s letter summarizes why he fought and it’s quite prophetic.

Source:

http://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2016-05-13T14:52:00-04:00&max-results=10

Federal Occupation Breeds Resentment

I’m not a fan of comprehensive histories.  They’re usually too broad in scope, prone to the author’s biases and rarely provide insight into regional aspects that pertains to the subject at hand.  The War of Northern Aggression and occupation is a perfect example of how history can be politicized and distorted.  The American Civil War is probably the most bastardized epoch in our relatively short existence.

Judkin Browning’s, Shifting Loyalties is a welcomed example of a microstudy that focuses on two eastern counties – Carteret and Craven –  in North Carolina that fell under Union occupation for most of the war.  Sympathizers to the Southern cause fled, except those who couldn’t afford to, and pro-unionist who welcomed the Yankee invaders.

Shifting Loyalties documents Southerners’ attitude towards a foreign military occupation, an invasion of Yankee do-gooders and thousands of contraband slaves that sought sanctuary behind Union lines.  By the end of the war, even pro-unionist resented their Yankee masters’ superiority complex and their meddlesome social engineering and when the Yankees finally left, collaborators would be ostracized or run out of town.

Today’s Americans can identify with certain aspects of a federal occupation.  Westerners are subjected to capricious bureaucrats who forsake personal property rights and laws for their version of the greater good which usually means what’s best for their agency.  This same kind of attitude happened in New Bern when soldiers stole, damaged property and assaulted citizens against direct orders with impunity. 

 We’ve witnessed standoffs by ranchers who have been seriously aggrieved by the Bureau of Land Management.  Our wannabe lords and masters should remember Federal occupation breeds resentment.  Representative Greg Walden addresses these abuses in the below video:

Source:

http://www.amazon.com/Shifting-Loyalties-Occupation-Eastern-Carolina/dp/1469613700

Have Progressive Historians Bastardized the American Civil War?

When the U.S. Constitution was going through the ratification process, concerned citizens debated the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed federalist system.  Advocates for a strong central government were deemed federalist, detractors were called anti-federalists when in fact it was just the opposite.  The power of branding and distortion of words was as important back then as it is today.  Laws and history aren’t immune.

The pseudonymous writer Brutus was considered an “anti-federalist.”  He warned fellow citizens of unscrupulous judges who would distort laws by the use of precedent.  Here is a quote:

Perhaps nothing could have been better conceived to facilitate the abolition of the state governments than the constitution of the judicial. They will be able to extend the limits of the general government gradually, and by insensible degrees, and to accommodate themselves to the temper of the people. Their decisions on the meaning of the constitution will commonly take place in cases which arise between individuals, with which the public will not be generally acquainted; one adjudication will form a precedent to the next, and this to a following one. These cases will immediately affect individuals only; so that a series of determinations will probably take place before even the people will be informed of them. In the mean time all the art and address of those who wish for the change will be employed to make converts to their opinion.

That’s prescient.  We’ve witnessed this first hand with the 14^th Amendment.  We’ve watched Supreme Court justices bastardize a law, that was meant to protect ex-slaves and their progeny while at the same time punish southerners who tried to protect their homeland from Yankee invaders, into a tool for gay rights, forcing local communities to educate illegal alien children and banishing Christianity from schools.  If Brutus were alive today, he’d have a huge “I told you so.”

After reading Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert, I began to wonder about the American Civil War and the propensity progressives have for distorting history.  Americans have been indoctrinated into thinking this war was all about slavery and the preservation of the Union.  We know that a majority of northerners wouldn’t have fought to free the slaves.   The New York City riots were a testament to that.  The real reasons should be more obvious: money and power.

We can start with the Tariff of Abominations that passed in 1828.  The intent was to protect northern industrial interest at Southerners expense by imposing outrageous duties on British imports, mainly textiles.  The South almost seceded from the Union which forced a compromise in 1832.

By 1860, the South was responsible for 3/5^ths of all U.S. exports and ¾’s of the world’s cotton crop.  Raw Cotton alone constituted 61% of the value of all U.S. exports.  Indeed, the supply of raw cotton to European and U.S. manufactures had “become a question of life or death for tens of thousands of workers, a question of prosperity or misery for all the developed industrial countries.”  This led to one planter to brag:

 “Our Cotton is the most wonderful talisman in the world. By its power we are transmuting whatever we choose into whatever we want.” James Hammond, speaking in the U.S. Senate five years later, was even more trenchant: “The slaveholding South is now the controlling power of the world. Cotton, rice, tobacco, and naval stores command the world.... No -power on earth dares . . . to make war on cotton. Cotton is king.”

The northeastern United States was heavily dependent on Southern cotton.  By the time of the Civil War 41% of the American labor force worked outside of agriculture.  Massachusetts had only 13.8% working on farms due to industrialization.  As you can see, Southern secession could have caused a huge cotton shortage and a possible loss of a market for northern finished goods, not to mention a substantial loss of revenue for the U.S. treasury.  Compound that with punitive duties to pay off Confederate war debt, the Northern government would have lost a substantial amount of wealth had the South succeeded in its endeavor for independence.

So we must ask ourselves, did the North invade the South for Union and altruism, or did they come to conquer for pure greed, power and self-interest?

We must keep in mind judges use precedent to advance progressive policies and historians source their fellow travelers to advance a leftist ideology.  And the distorted world turns around and around.

Source:

http://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2012/06/did-supreme-court-violate-constitution.html

http://www.newhistory.org/CH04.htm

 http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2536601340.html

http://www.ushistory.org/us/24c.asp

https://books.google.com/books?id=DqfjoUnOh64C&pg=PA574&lpg=PA574&dq=tobacco+and+rice+exports+1860&source=bl&ots=9Bb1KE8far&sig=4ERfB-kB5lAAfaK39uIyxXWDJEs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwisjfmvlY7KAhWC7yYKHZ5LDU8Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=tobacco%20and%20rice%20exports%201860&f=false

Progressives Anti-Christian Mission

If our ancestors could see the United States today, they would be dumbfounded at how spiritually bankrupt we as a people have become.  We are nothing like the preceding generations that forged this great nation.  As a matter of fact, elements in powerful places have waged a not so silent war on Christianity itself. 

Progressives and their black robed thugs have successfully bastardized the First Amendment and the language therein.  When our founding fathers defined religion, they meant Methodist, Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc.  They saw the United States as a Christian nation with a mission.  They believed this great country had a covenant with God.  Progressives have forced a new covenant.  They have shunned God and particularly Christianity for humanism and worship of government.  This is a recent phenomenon.  Their new “religion” is in direct conflict with the historical record; that is why they must corrupt the minds of our youth and our culture.

The American Civil War officially ended 150 years ago.  In historical terms, this is recent history.  Dr. Sean Scott, an assistant professor in American studies at Christopher Newport University, discussed his book, A Visitation of God on Carolina Journal Radio.  Here is an excerpt on their discussion on the Northern perspective on God, faith, religion, Christianity, and the American Civil War.

Scott: There’s, I think, kind of three themes that come out. The first one is the emphasis on providence or the sovereignty of God — how many individuals saw the war as being directed by God or being controlled by him. That yes, individual people were making the decisions and were fighting the battles and whatnot, but yet they saw a higher power that was kind of controlling American history.

 

And they thought this way because a second theme was the importance of the Union and the fact that it was sacred — that America was kind of destined in providential history to be that kind of last bastion of democracy and we would export democracy around the world. And not only that: Christianity would be sent around the globe and that heathens would be Christianized. And if America, as a nation, split in two, then what is that going to do with God’s plan for the Union? 

And so there was that sacred element that most religious people talked about in their letters. And so, battles weren’t just the specific [of] who won the Battle of Bull Run. Yes, obviously that’s important … but they also want to know how is this helping us move forward and promoting the vision of what they think America should be. 

And then, because of that, this kind of assurance that God was working on behalf of the North, you’ve got a divided citizenry. And so you’ve got a lot of Democrats who are opposed to the Lincoln administration or how he’s prosecuting the war, especially once it becomes an emancipationist war. 

And so on the home front you see a lot of division. And churches themselves are even divided when you have Democratic members who don’t like the fact that their pastor is always talking about the war — that it’s about slavery. And in some cases you’ve got Republican members who don’t like the fact that their minister isn’t talking about the war enough. 

And so you have church splits that I found; even small churches with only 20, 30 people. They would have resolutions on whether or not the war was about slavery or what exactly was going on. And you would hear these dissenters who would not vote for the resolution, then ultimately they would show up as, in a few months, not attending the church anymore, and — in some cases — pastors being forced out of their denomination because they voted for a Democratic candidate for governor or whatever the case might be. So this political division in the North came into the churches as well, and that was something that really kind of surprised me.

Pastors discussed politics in church?  That used to be the norm.  Now churches lose their tax exempt status for talking about politics.  Mind you, this codification didn’t happen until the Progressive Era and the big lie of separation of church and state was foisted upon the citizenry.

Once again, we have a demonstration of how successful liberals have been at bastardizing our history, language and laws.

Source:

http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=12338

Secession Checks Federal Tyranny

The right to secede was settled when the Yankees won the War of Northern Aggression.  That’s what we’re told.  Yet, many are still talking about it.  Was the North justified in invading the South?  Is the union an irrevocable compact; a veritable deal with the Devil? 

Progressives declare the U.S. Constitution is a living and breathing document, so much so, that it has become more of a suggestion than the law of the land.  If that is the case, shouldn’t secession be back on the table? 

Walter E. Williams wrote an op-ed about secession and the consequences following the American Civil War.  Here is an excerpt:  

During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made that would allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison rejected it, saying, "A union of the states containing such an ingredient seemed to 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."

In fact, the ratification documents of Virginia, New York and Rhode Island explicitly said they held the right to resume powers delegated should the federal government become abusive of those powers. The Constitution never would have been ratified if states thought they could not regain their sovereignty -- in a word, secede.

 The threat of secession was a valuable tool against federal tyranny; a tool that is badly needed in the Age of Obama.

Source:

http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2015/07/15/historical-ignorance-n2024814/page/full

The Confederate Flag Made Me Do It!

Let’s get this straight.  A racist, mentally deranged kid goes on a killing spree in a black church and liberals automatically blame this heinous act on the confederate flag.  What kind of logic is that?  I’ll tell you.  It’s the special snowflake kind.  The kind of logic that states no one is responsible for their own actions.  People used to blame the Devil for their transgressions.  In post-Christian America, liberals declare the confederate flag made them do it.

So, now we’re having a national debate on the meaning and relevance of the confederate battle flag.   Detractors state this “relic” has no place in modern America and should collect dust as a museum piece.  To them, it represents racism and slavery.  I disagree.

That battle flag represents resistance to northern aggressors who wouldn't take no for an answer.  The North was equivalent to an abusive husband hunting down his bruised and battered wife so as to smack her around some more.  Let’s face the facts.  The North invaded the South.  The Yankees were going to make damn sure this marriage stayed intact, even if they have to grab the South by the hair and drag her back kicking and screaming.  There’s no halfway house for two Americas.

Detractors would have us believe all Southerners fought to keep and perpetuate the institution of slavery.  The fact is only a small percentage of the population owned slaves.  Most were subsistence farmers who couldn’t vote because they didn’t own a prerequisite amount of land.  The South was ruled by landed gentry.  It was this political class that fought to keep slavery alive; not the average Southerner.

The reason that battle flag should fly high on every Southerners porch is to remind them that it was the North that invaded, murdered, raped and pillaged their homeland.  It was the North that repudiated the principles of the American Revolution.  It was the North that militarily occupied their capitols and cities while they starved and stole from the vanquished.

That’s why liberals want to banish the confederate battle flag.  They want to whitewash our history by denying Southerners their heritage.  That’s how a military occupation is called Reconstruction and students never heard of the “Era of Good Stealings.”  

Alamance County, NC Event: The War Between the States

Liberal Bigots Equate N.C. Voter ID to Post Civil War Occupation

Leave it to the Charlotte Observer to publish hyperbolic hogwash and a bastardization of history by agents of progressivism.  This Sunday’s funnies weren’t in the cartoon section where it should have been; instead, it was in the opinion pages.

Christopher Gergen and Stephen Martin inked out an op-ed entitled, “The Civil War and N.C. 2015,” warning North Carolinians of the precarious position minorities are in when Conservatives hold the reins of power.  They equated today’s voter ID laws to blacks being terrorized by the KKK during Reconstruction.  They went so far as to quote the “independent” U.S. Government Accountability Office that found blacks are the one minority group most impacted.

Does anyone still believe federal government agencies are disinterested and independent?  I laughed out loud when I read that.  As a matter of fact, liberal hysteria over disenfranchisement of black voters was proven just that: hysteria.  Tennessee implemented this common sense law before the 2012 elections.  The Heritage Foundation reported:

Black and Hispanic Turnout

In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, 60.8 percent of the black VAP voted in the general election, and 31.6 percent of the Hispanic VAP voted nationwide. In Tennessee, African American VAP turnout was 58.1 percent, and Hispanic VAP turnout was 19.2 percent.[14] Since white VAP turnout was only 53.7 percent, blacks voted at a higher rate than whites by slightly more than 4 percentage points.

In 2012, the national voter turnout of the African American VAP increased to 62 percent. Hispanic VAP turnout jumped modestly to 31.8 percent. Just as in 2008, African American voter turnout in Tennessee (57.4 percent) was below the national turnout rate. However, this result was a mere 0.7 percentage point decrease from 2008 and fell within the margin of error for the Census survey, so essentially there was no difference. Black Tennesseans still outvoted whites by 4 percentage points in 2012, since the white voting rate was only 53.4 percent.

Thus, even with a new photo ID requirement in place for the first time, blacks still voted at a higher rate than whites. Hispanic VAP turnout in Tennessee saw a huge increase in turnout in 2012, with 34.7 percent showing up to vote, nearly doubling turnout from 2008.

  

These two “concerned" writers were also dishonest on another sad chapter in North Carolina history.  Here is an excerpt from their op-ed:

They should study North Carolina’s Reconstruction era following the Civil War. With the KKK terrorizing blacks and their supporters in the late 1860’s, N.C. Governor William Woods Holden sent state troops into Alamance and Caswell counties to restore order.  Conservatives later got their revenge by impeaching Holden for illegally declaring martial law – making him the first governor in the U.S. to be impeached and removed from office.

Yes, Governor Holden was impeached for illegally declaring martial law.  He was also impeached for terrorizing disenfranchised North Carolinians.  Mind you, Holden was initially appointed by President Andrew Johnson as an occupational, provincial governor.

Holden’s political enemies brought forth eight charges.  Two charges were that Holden acted illegally by sending troops into Alamance and Caldwell counties when each county’s government remained in control.   Accusers also charged Holden with two counts of illegally arresting two men (Josiah Turner and John Kerr).   According to the prosecution, Holden also twice suspended the writ of habeas corpus when arresting the men.  Two other charges were that Holden refused to follow state laws when raising troops and acted illegally when paying troops. In essence, according to historian William S. Powell, Conservatives, under the leadership of Frederick N. Strudwick, charged Holden with “declaring martial law; unlawfully raising troops; illegally declaring counties to be in a state of insurrection; illegally arresting . . . citizens; . . . seizing, detaining, imprisoning, and depriving those citizens of their liberty and privileges as freemen; and . . . refusing to obey a writ of habeas corpus.

Liberals would have us believe there is a white sheet and hood in every conservative closet.  Those ghosts simply don’t exist, and if they do, they’re an insignificant minority.  However, I’ve yet to run into a liberal who wasn’t a bigot.

Source:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/03/lessons-from-the-voter-id-experience-in-tennessee

http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/260/entry/

http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/549/entry

Secession, Convention or Totalitarianism?

There are a lot of rumblings across this country on the state of our nation and impotence of citizens to do anything about it.  It’s getting to the point when Americans have to reassess the policies of Washington D.C. and the impact its having on our lives.  Has Congress abdicated its responsibilities to an unelected and unaccountable federal bureaucracy?  Do we now have an imperial presidency?  Can we truly decry the mantra of our founders, “No taxation without representation”?

There are three ways to address this runaway central government: secession, convention or do nothing and spiral into totalitarianism.  The War of Northern Aggression settled the first secession movement.  Northerners invaded, defeated, occupied and disenfranchised anyone who participated in the rebellion.  On top of that, the victors bastardized our history and the reasons as to why the South seceded.  Many contend it was all about slavery.  Yes, slavery was a major factor, but what no one talks about is the election of 1860.

Abraham Lincoln won the Electoral College solely on Northern votes.  Lincoln wasn’t even on the ballot in 10 out of the 15 Southern states.  Southerners saw the handwriting on the wall.  It was time to dissolve the union.

We don’t want a repeat of history.  Can we secede without actually leaving the union?  Can like minded states form a confederation and challenge the Washington D.C. Death Star?  Or, maybe states should call for a convention to amend the Constitution?

Many are concerned that we will end up with a runaway convention.  Advocates argue otherwise.  If one is called, it will be all for naught if the 14^th, 16^th, and 17^th amendments are not repealed, and the 1946 Administrative Procedures Act is abolished.  Will delegates to this convention have the political will and fortitude to do what is necessary?  Or, will they resort to political correctness and expediency? 

There are those who believe Washington D.C. is capable of reforming itself, if only the right people were elected.  That’s a pipedream.  It’s not going to happen.  It’s time states took a proactive stance and quit acting like vassals to the Potomac Caliphate.

Source:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/how-and-where-lincoln-won/?_r=1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1860

The 14th Amendment: A Repudiation of our Founding Principles

A majority of Americans take pride in their history and heritage.  Those principles, stated in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, resonate to this day.  However, I’m here to say Americans unwittingly rejected those principles a long time ago.

Whatever you may think of the American Civil War, the rejection of the Declaration of Independence was self-evident.  The North invaded, defeated, and occupied the South.  Southerners who participated in the rebellion were disenfranchised.  They were not allowed to hold public office or vote; therefore, they were at the mercy of ravenous carpetbaggers and scalawags.  Life, liberty and property were in peril.

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.

The 14^th Amendment facilitated the disenfranchisement of the South, even though, it didn’t pass constitutional requirements through the ratification process; yet, was promulgated and enforced by radicals in Washington D.C. 

Was the intent by the authors of the 14^th Amendment a repudiation of a limited central government as was dictated by our founders?  The Bill of Rights was meant to restrain the central government, and indeed was a prerequisite for ratification by the States; yet, those moorings have been turned on the States.  They’ve become bound by the very tools they demanded as a means to protect themselves from an abusive central government that they instinctively knew would abrogate States’ sovereignty and self-determination.

Not only is the 14^th’s legitimacy in question, so is its intent.  Many unscrupulous politicians employ broad language to deceive the general population. Section One is a perfect example of ambiguity in a law.   Statists argue that the 14^th Amendment dictates that the Bill of Rights applies to all States and not just the federal government; therefore, states’ laws and constitutions will constantly be under the purview of the federal government.  This is just the opposite of what our founding fathers intended.

 

I ask, did northern states willingly agree to abdicate self-governance and determination to a distant capitol?  Did they want an unaccountable federal judiciary declare their laws and constitution, unconstitutional?  I don’t think so.

So we are left with intent vs. construction of the First Section in the 14^th Amendment of which the principle author is Congressman John Bingham of Ohio.  Detractors state Bingham was a muddled thinker, a confused man, and Section One is a reflection of the man himself.

I contend Bingham was a typical politician who hid behind broad language to conceal his true intent, and that is a strong central government that would wield power over the states.  If you read the rest of the 14^th Amendment, there is no ambiguity.  Here is the 14^th Amendment:

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article

  

There is no ambiguity in subsequent sections.  Southerners who participated in the rebellion were not allowed to vote or hold public office.  Southerners were forced to pay Northern war debt, including pensions for their soldiers, while at the same time having to pay their own without any recourse from the federal government.  Yet, we are left with an ambiguous Section One and a continuous debate about intent vs. construction.

I believe we know the intent of its authors.  It was to use broad, ambiguous language as a means to shield politicians from the wrath of their constituents.  Their true intent was to unleash a central government that would use its arbitrary authority to exercise power over states and its citizens.  Ultimately, it was a repudiation of our founding principles.   

Source:

http://www.barefootsworld.net/dyett.html

http://www.constitution.org/lrev/aynes_14th.htm

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv