Colonel Baldwin Meets Mr. Lincoln
This essay is Chapter 13 in Mr. Taylor’s Union At All Costs: From Confederation to Consolidation (2016). “I supported President Lincoln. I believed his war policy would be the only way to save the country,… »
Sam Houston and Texas Secession
“Lincoln, under no circumstances, would I vote for … So, I say, stand by the ‘Constitution and the Union’, and so long as the laws are enacted and administered according to the Constitution we are… »
Was Lee a Traitor?
Were Robert E. Lee and the Confederates “traitors” who violated their oaths to the Constitution and attempted to destroy the American nation? Or, were they defenders of that Constitution and of Western Christian civilization? Over… »
Two Southern Presidents in History
It was Wednesday, April 19, 1865. The Confederate States of America lay prostrate under the twin plagues of starvation and despair. Richmond had fallen and Lee’s surrendered Army of Northern Virginia was heading home. Four… »
Is Secession Treason?
A review of With Malice Toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era by William A. Blair (University of North Carolina Press, 2014) and Secession on Trial: The Treason Prosecution of Jefferson Davis… »
The Only Way to Drain the Swamp
“When you are up to your hindquarters in alligators—it is hard to remember that your intentions were to drain the swamp.” This old country-boy saying seems most appropriate for President Trump as he attempts to… »
That Embarrassing Analogy
Is there a genuine analogy between the secession of South Carolina from the USA and the secession of Lithuania from the USSR? Or between the actions of Lincoln and Gorbachev? The press either ignores the… »
The Essex Junto
It was the purchase of Louisiana, therefore, which gave impetus to a plan which had been creeping upon New England, aided and stimulated by the Essex Junto. They agreed that the inevitable consequences of the… »
Knights of the Golden Circle
A review of Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War by David C. Keehn (LSU, 2013). “Maybe,” “Likely,” “It seems that.” Those are hardly the words of an author certain of… »
Zombies No More: Secession, Nullification, and the Academy
A review of Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought. Sanford Levinson, ed. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2016. The undead walk among us still, or so asserts Sanford Levinson, the editor of an… »
