Most of the political problems in this country won’t be settled until more folks realize the South was right.
I know that goes against the P.C. edicts, but the fact is that on the subject of the constitutional republic, the Confederate leaders were right and the Northern Republicans were wrong.
Many people today even argue the Confederate positions without realizing it.
For example, if you argue for strict construction of the Constitution, you are arguing the Confederate position; when you oppose pork-barrel spending, you are arguing the Confederate position; and when you oppose protective tariffs, you are arguing the Confederate position. But that’s not all.
When you argue for the Bill of Rights, you are arguing the Confederate position, and when you argue that the Constitution limits the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, you are arguing the Confederate position.
One of the things that gets lost when you adopt the politically correct oversimplification that the War Between the States was a Civil War all about slavery is a whole treasure load of American political history.
It was not a civil war. A civil war is when two or more factions contend for control of one government. At no time did the South intend or attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. The Southern states simply withdrew from what they correctly viewed as a voluntary union. They formed their own union and adopted their own constitution.
The U.S. government remained intact. There were just fewer states, but everything else remained as exactly as it was. You can be sure that, with as much bitterness and hatred of the South that there was in the North, the Northerners would have tried Confederates for treason if there had been any grounds. There weren’t, and the South’s worst enemy knew that.
Abraham Lincoln’s invasion of the South was entirely without any constitutional authority. And it’s as plain as an elephant in a tea party that Lincoln did not seek to preserve the Union to end slavery. All you have to do is read his first inaugural address. What Lincoln didn’t want to lose was tax revenue generated by the South.
As Northern states gained a majority in both houses, they began to use the South as a cash cow. Here’s how it worked: Most Southerners who exported cotton bartered the cotton in Europe for goods. When the protective tariffs were imposed, that meant Southerners had to pay them. To make matters worse, the North would then use the revenue for pork-barrel projects in its states. The South was faced with either paying high tariffs and receiving no benefits from the revenue or buying artificially high-priced Northern goods.
Southerners opposed pork-barrel spending. Their correct view was that, because the federal government was merely the agent of all the states, whatever money it spent should be of equal benefit. Their position on public lands was that they belonged to all the people and the federal government had no authority to give the lands away to private interests.
Northerners had announced they would not be bound by the Constitution. What you had was the rise of modern nationalism fighting the original republic founded by the American Revolution.
So, regardless of where you were born, you may be a Southerner philosophically.
Originally published at the Orlando Sentinel.
The views expressed at AbbevilleInstitute.org are not necessarily the views of the Abbeville Institute.
Charley Reese could say more with fewer words than most of the best. I still miss him.
Many great ones went before us.
The yankees CHANGED their military officers’ oath of office one year into the war (1862 Ironclad Oath) from allegiance to the United States to defend THEM from THEIR enemies to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States”.
When your army LOSES a war, the oath of allegiance is CHANGED…the yankees lost the war in 1862. We lost the war in 1865.
Fedgov won…the States lost.
I followed and was an avid reader of Charley Reese’s writing’s. Paul Y. above said about Reese that he: “could say more with fewer words than most of the best.” I agree.
Reese in his column here said: “What you had was the rise of modern nationalism fighting the original republic founded by the American Revolution.” I agree, that’s what came to be, and on that point in time, I am a “Confederate.” (Man, I think Franklin said more than even he knew, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”)
However, I now think the Revolution was wrong, with all due respect and honor to Washington, Madison and the other’s.
The Loyalist’s “might be criticized for a pessimistic attitude toward change…Who is to say that Americans might not be better off independent from Great Britain? For (the Loyalist’s), however, such a criticism is missing the point. One cannot simply replace colonial status with independence; there must be a war in between. In order to justify the horrendous human and material toll taken by revolution, as well as to justify THE PRECEDENTS it sets, there must be some overwhelming and unavoidable reason—some unbearable oppression and tyranny. They did not believe that situation existed in the American colonies and, according to Seabury, the lack of it ‘enhances [the American Revolution’s] Guilt to a Degree of Enormity not to be paralleled in History.'”
2025: “No King’s.” Now, isn’t that interesting?
The fact remains, that the American Revolution lawfully established the states as 13+ separate democratically sovereign nations; not a single nation, ruled by government officials; and their union was only international, like the UN and the EU.
And it is this fact of history, which destroys the US government’s current claim of national union over the states, as my website shows.
“‘No King’s.’ Now, isn’t that interesting?”
Take a look at what C.S. Lewis said about Kings.
A lot of people greatly misunderstand the concept. JMO
This article is very similar to what I have been arguing for many years. I now feel validated.
“The Southern states simply withdrew from what they correctly viewed as a voluntary union.”
The key here, is lawfully proving that they were correct— which I attempt to do at https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/state-sovereignty/
There, I argue that the USA was simply an international union of sovereign nations, like the UN or the EU.
Accordingly, it was not a “war between the states,” since the Union denied the national sovereignty of the states, and thus their sovereign power to LEVY war; while the Union had no actual national sovereignty of its own.
Neither was there any overt claim to ALTER any state’s national sovereignty, which would have at least permitted such by coup; but on the contrary, the US government simply claimed that the states were never 13 sovereign nations, and that therefore all additional state lacked such character as well (or relinquished it, in the case of Texas).
Accordingly, the US government made no valid claim of national union over any state; and thus the incident can only be lawfully categorized as a coup of international treason by rogue officials against 34 sovereign nations; while their proclamation of national union stands void, under all interpretations of international law.