What I will be sharing with you over the next few weeks may be considered by some, perhaps many, seditious at the least, treasonous at worst. Fortunately we still enjoy freedom of speech in this country and political speech in particular. This will not be the time or place to argue the methods of secession. Should a state currently operating under the contract of the Constitution of the United States find these arguments compelling in the future, or if the national government continues its slide into tyranny and obligates free men to act to preserve their freedom, it is my hope that the attitude of Thomas Jefferson would prevail; “Let them part by all means if it is for their happiness to do so. It is but the elder and the younger son differing. God bless them both, and keep them in the Union if it be for their good, but separate them if better.”
Since the “Civil War”, or the War for Southern Independence, established the preeminent place of the national government over the states, eliminating their ultimate sovereignty and right of self determination guaranteed under the tenth amendment of the Constitution, and the continual implementation of the progressive/statist agenda beginning with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the people of the various states in the union have been “disposed to suffer, while the evils are sufferable...” In recent years, more and more Americans are no longer finding the evils “sufferable”. We are tired of having our money confiscated for “redistributive justice” or wasted on pork barrel projects. We are tired of distant politicians thinking they know better than we how to raise our children, take care of our own health and well being, and spend our own money. We are increasingly worried that the national government will treat our God given rights as merely privileges to be exercised at the whim and direction of those in power. We are continually offended by politicians who treat us with contempt and disdain. We are fearful of the results of out of control spending and debt accumulation. Many of us believe that if we continue along the path we are on, our children and grandchildren with inherit a country that is merely a shadow of its former self. We believe that the greatness of the United States of America rests in the morality and industriousness of its people and the wisdom of a system of government whose chief aim is to secure their liberty. In a world where tyranny and oppression have been the rule rather than the exception, the United States has demonstrated the great things that can be accomplished by a people unencumbered by class, strict religious ideology or oppressive rulers. To see all that made this country the beacon of light to the world that it has been under attack by the very government we entrust with its perpetuation has become insufferable.
To even contemplate secession brings tears to eyes of every patriot who admires the courage of the men who formulated this Union, remembers the sacrifice of those who gave their all to preserve it, and takes pride in the accomplishments such a great nation has given to the world. Many of the original patriots said the same about Great Britain. It was the best system then available in the world but had become increasingly tyrannical, marring all that was good about it. To see the Union dissolve after all these years is a distressing thing to contemplate. Yet free men are under no compulsion to yield their freedom to perpetuate a government that no longer secures their liberty and happiness, no matter what their affection for its history.
There are those who say “This is America, love it or leave it!” Some among the dissent, myself included, have formulated “escape plans” to be implemented when the confiscation of our wealth or restrictions on our liberty become too great. For a small minority, of which we may be, this would be the moral and proper thing to do. However, if the majority of the people in a state or region become dissatisfied with their government, no longer willing to endure the “long train of abuses and usurpations”, finding no reasonable redress for their grievances and envisioning only despotism in the end, then the secession of that state or region becomes reasonable, just and proper. Why should a people who have invested their lives in the soil of their ancestors be expected to pick up and leave because an oppressive government seeks to reduce them to servitude? Do not those who have toiled to reveal the wealth of the land for their own prosperity and that of their progeny have a right to stay on that land without the expectation that they or their children will be brought into bondage? Do we not have the right to stay in an area where our history and culture have developed in conjunction with our geography to make us unique, without subjecting ourselves to the policies of a government that embraces the antitheses of our culture and values?
Most will object to secession with the idea that we still elect our representatives, we just need to put the right people in office, we need to change Washington from the “inside”. Do we really believe that’s possible any longer? Let’s say that in 2010 we “threw the bums out” and there was a historic fifty percent turnover in the house and senate. Would anything really change? Thirty years ago we had the Reagan Revolution. Twenty years ago there was the Contract with America. Where are we today? Did anything change? Is government smaller, did it shrink even a little? Tom Daschle was voted out and replaced by Harry Reid. Wishy-washy Republican leaders are replaced by other wishy-washy Republican leaders whose best plan of action is to give ground slowly and whose worst is to cooperate to give away our freedom. There is a systemic problem in Washington and it is that the two parties are entrenched in power and the radical party leadership calls the shots because they hold the money for everyone’s reelection in their hands. If ignoramuses like Nancy Pelosi, criminals like Charlie Rangle and Chris Dodd and just plain weirdoes like Barny Frank can be reelected time and time again in their gerrymandered districts, the system is broken and there is no hope for real change in Washington. The parties and the huge Washington bureaucracy are holding us hostage and that is not going to change before the economic and moral damage becomes irreparable.
Finally, consider the fact that the liabilities and obligations assumed by our national government are unsustainable and will, in the near future, result in the destruction of our currency and economy. If our ship of state is like the Titanic and some of us can see the iceberg ahead, Obama, Pelosi and Reid have just given the order for full speed ahead. Some may say deliberately, and not just out of ignorance or stupidity. If the national government is going to commit national suicide, are the people of the many states obligated to go down with the ship, particularly if the people in those states have been continually dissatisfied with the policies that brought us to the point of impact? Would it not be a wise course of action to get into a lifeboat now so you are assured a seat when the ship goes down? A state that secedes before the ship strikes the iceberg, develops a sound currency and economy based on free market principles and an efficient private sector utilization of resources will not only survive the catastrophe, but thrive, because it will have recaptured the ideals and values that made this country great.
I have written this introduction and what will follow based on the idea that a single state or a few that make up a region of the country with similar values and culture would choose to leave the union. If a larger number of states would seriously consider this course of action, then we need to ponder the consequences of a constitutional convention. If the many states choose to, in essence, form a new government under a revised contract, restoring freedom and common sense in government, then perhaps this nation can remake itself in the image of its former glory.
Why consider this now? Although this is not the place to consider the history of the secession movement in this country or its legal ramifications, suffice it to say that a country founded on the right of secession has had secession movements throughout its history. Massachusetts was the first and the southern confederation was the last to be taken seriously. The events of the last two years have awakened many people to the deficiencies of their government, while their government has flaunted those deficiencies as if they were a badge of honor. There are those of us who believe that our national government, with its entrenched leadership and bureaucracy, is incapable of relinquishing power. Perhaps the grab for power and control has become too blatant to ignore but it is only the acceleration of a pattern that began with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Even if we put a stop to the current attempts at tyranny like health care or cap and trade, it will only be a temporary reprieve. The vast majority of the people in our national government, and many state and local governments as well, believe that they can do a better job of managing everything than the people can. Democrat or Republican, they believe their job is to fix things the government was never meant to fix, many of which are not broken or are broken because they broke it!. Such an attitude will only lead to more tyranny, more absurdity and the absolute ruin of our economic and moral foundations. The ship is steaming full speed ahead for the iceberg. It may be ten yards or ten miles from hitting but it will hit. The laws of economics and the lessons of history make it certain. Will we jump over individually, swimming for safety as best we can? Or will the people of several states rise up and declare their right to liberty and self determination? If the latter is a consideration, the following essays will provide some powerful ammunition to make a case for secession and provide some of the philosophical foundation for building a free state based on the principles that worked so well for so long in the United States.
www.patricksamuels.com
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Comments: 43
Well, no... but downright stupid comes to mind.
(To Chuck L. Please. Can we disagree with civility?)
The demand for the Bill of Rights showed that the Revolutionary Confederates were terrified of a powerful Federal Government. And the USA is the sole Superpower on Earth menacing the World with our military might, especially our Nuclear Arsenal if seriously challenged...
Patrick Samuels, Why throw the baby out with the wash? Why not Amend the Constitution to reduce the Federal Government to common defense & currency? And increase State's responsibilities Internationally...
First of all, the War of Northern Aggression settled nothing. If anything, it destroyed the constitutional Republic. You cannot have a voluntary union with half the union held by the point of a bayonet.
Secondly, the central government is not a party to the constitution. It is the product of it. Jefferson explained the relationship of the states and central government in a letter;
“With respect to our state and federal governments, I do not think their relations correctly understood by foreigners (or present day Americans). They generally suppose the former subordinate to the latter. But, this is not the case. They are co-ordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. To the state governments are reserved all legislation administration, in affairs which concern their own citizens only; and to the federal government is given whatever concerns foreigners and citizens of other states; these functions alone being made federal. The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government - neither having control over the other, but within its own department.” -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Major John Cartwright, of June 5th, 1824
Thirdly, crying out for amendments to the constitution is shear folly for government, by its very nature, is not governed by anything but force. When was the last time you heard of a court protection order stopping a bullet or knife? The force reserved by the states to force compliance of the central government is the Militia that the central government is charged with arming and provisioning.
Either we reconstitute the Militia or prepare for brutal subjugation the likes of which have not been seen on this earth.
Congress, by continuing on its merry way and ignoring the people has committed the felonies of False Swearing and Perjury. They should be arrested, tried, convicted and removed from office to jail.
And then there's Madison, one of Jefferson's lieutenants. I only need for you secessionists to read his letters written during the Nullification crisis during the Jackson administration, when Calhoun tried nullification with the State of South Carolina.. One of Madison's outright statments in a letter to Edward Everett was that no State has the right to seceed--I commend this to you. In a later letter he railed agains thtose who think that the States have any sovereignity--and this from the same Madison, with Jefferson, who penned the VA-KY resolutions.
In a word, you all need to examine the whole corpus of the Framer's and Founder's stuff--not the bits you like. And after that, we shall see who is running from that meaningful opposition--I give you Calhoun's retort to Madison's objection to the nullification, that Madison was senile--now that is a cute and meaningful remark in the manner of running for the exit. And all of this was long before Lincoln--so we can stop the nonsensee about the "war of Northern aggression" and all of that--who was the stupid idiot who fired on Ft Sumter and gave the excuse and the right for the North to invade? In Mitchell's words "cotton, slaves and arrogance".
You are correct in advising that the entire corpus of work by the founders and their immediate successors, such sages as John C Calhoun, Patrick Henry, William Rawle, et. al., should be studied to get the full meaning and intent of what they thought and did. However, I think you may be engaging in a bit of your own cherry-picking, compounded by some basic misunderstanding of texts and contexts.
Take the Declaration of Independence, which you claim speaks of 'one people'. True, the phrase, 'one people' is in the first sentence; however, reading further, we must note that the PLURAL pronouns 'them', and 'they' are used again and again in reference to that supposed, 'one people'. Are we to believe that this was a glaring oversight and miserable use of English grammar by men who possessed educations whose jock straps couldn't be carried by most PhD's today? I think not. The title of the document says it speaks for the THIRTEEN united States (more plurals). All of which was done, 'in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies', (plural) to declare THEM to be Free and Independent States (plural). So it would appear that it was about the independence of 13 separate peoples.
Additionally, and germane to the topic at hand, the Declaration is, itself, a secession ordinance. It dissolved the political bands that connected the American colonies to England, and they assumed the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature entitled them. It also sets the stage for future secessions, as it declared that just government rested upon the consent of the governed, and that it was the right and duty of the People to abolish any form of government that became destructive of life, liberty, and property. Note well, all you idiot lincoln-lovers, that liberty is to be maintained, while governments are subject to come and go as necessary to maintain that liberty. The founders were English subjects, and the union jack was their flag; however, they rejected king and flag when they saw them as a tyranny. This was a process patriotically repeated by Southerners in 1860-61, as they rejected yankee rule and their candy-striped rag as the tyranny, and symbol of tyranny, they were (and still are).
Mr Rawle, who I mentioned above, and who was a personal friend of Washington and Franklin, authored a text on constitutional law that was used at West Point from about 1824 to 1832. Chapter 31 was all about why and how a State should secede from the union. Hmmm...... I guess we must conclude that men like Lee, Jackson, and Davis were making straight A's in constitutional law while Grant, Sherman, and Custer were barely graduating. This explains a lot, doesn't it? Perhaps Webster and Lincoln could have benefited from a class or two. Of course, Webster did recant his 'people in the aggregate' heresy in his later years, but by then he'd done a lot of damage and confused a lot of people (like Lincoln) about the true nature of the 'union'.
By the way, doesn't the term 'union' necessarily imply free consent? When your girlfriend's daddy forces you at gunpoint to marry his daughter, it seems a crime against language to call that a 'union'. Forced 'unions' should have the word Soviet in them, don't you think? Hmmm..... lincoln's destruction of the old republic, and the pinning of the South back onto the united States by force should, in all honesty, be called the united Soviet States of America. Without free consent, that's all it can be. To claim otherwise is a mockery of liberty and complicity in the subjugation of your fellow men.
As for the prohibitions imposed upon the States by the Constitution, they are only applicable so long as a State is a member of the union. Should a State secede, then those prohibitions no longer apply, as she has resumed her status as an independent State (read: country).
Regarding Madison, I am reminded of the words of Dr Clyde Wilson, PhD of the Univeristy of South Carolina (a prolific author and historian - especially on John C Calhoun), 'Will the real Jimmy Madison please stand up?' Not to put to fine a point on it, but Madison tended to be a political opportunist-schizophrenic. You couldn't ask for a more ardent exposition and defense of federalism, State sovereignty, and States' Rights than the Federalist Papers and the Virginia Resolution. He hinted at secession from time to time, but was careful to never come right out with it. As with most things, it was a matter of whose ox was being gored whether he was for or against it. Thus, it depended on which way the wind was blowing for Little Jimmy. On balance, though, I find him more of a States' Rights federalist than a lincolnian centralizer.
Lastly, about Fort Sumter, here again ignorance abounds. The Confederate government sent ambassadors to Washington to settle up on issues like Sumter. For over a month they were lied to by Seward and Lincoln. Seward wrote them that Fort Sumter would be evacuated. In the mean time, Lincoln organized a fleet to reinforce the fort. When the Confederacy discovered the treachery, it was forced to reduce the fort in self-defense as the reinforcments lay outside Charleston harbour. So it was 'northern aggression', along with northern treachery and infidelity, that started the War for Southern Independence. The South merely found herself in the unfortunate position of having to 'fire the first shot' in defense - not out of arrogance.
May God save and free the South! [><]
Imagine that a police officer has been assigned to a post at the end of your driveway where he does not allow anyone from your home to leave or anyone else to visit and provide supplies for your family. You have someone in your home who is sick and needs to see a doctor and you are always needing to go to the store for groceries but the officer will not let you pass. You call his chief who promises you that he'll have this officer removed but when the chief stops by he drops off more supplies for the officer to prolong his stay at the end of your driveway. The situation is getting desperate in your home. The officer must leave if you intend to survive. Are you justified with threatening him with deadly force to make him leave? If not, then the firing on Fort Sumter was an act of aggression on the part of the South and it got what it deserved. If you are justified to fire a shot at the officer then the South Carolina Militia was also justified and Lincoln created his own excuse to wage war against his fellow Americans.
There are several problems with your approach to the Sumter issue.
First off, the ordnances of secession, the one that SC passed, were done after Lincoln was elected but before he was inaugurated--meaning that for those months beteewn November 1860 and March 1862, he could do nothing--there was not the easy change overs of power that existed, say, from the Reagan adminstration the the first Bush administration. and Buchana sat on his hands in every respect regarding Sumter. Further, the policeman, that of the "policeman" of Ft Sumter, had not fired on nor blockaded the trade in and out of Charleston. Indeed, it was claimed by the SC secessionist that it was no supply ship that was arriving, but a warship, and on this whipped up rumor, the firing took place. Let's also be clear that in many other parts of the South, instead of allowing the federals to depart peaceably from thier installations, they too were fired on. And even if the Ft had blockaded the trade, the smart thing to do would have been to refrain from firing, checking the worse alternative of the Northern invasion, which could only have come by this "act of aggression" by the South. A final observation on this supreme act of Southern stupidity was that the South actually thought that it could wage war with the North and win--based upon an idea of an older and soon to be obsolete form of war and the arrogant notion that the South possessed distinct military advantages in the quality of its manpower and leaders. But it wasn't fighting a Napoleonic war, indeed, it wasn't even fighting the romantacised version of the Napoleonic wars where few civilians were killed--which was never true--, it was fighting a new kind of war, and if we exclude the total nature which involved civilians, the terrain and new small arms altered the tactics and the strategies. Indeed, as both Sherman and his opposites, such as Joe Johnston, soon discovered, the soldier's next best friend was his entrenching tool and his ability to build defense works. But the Southern cavalier tradition said nothing of the kind, expecting the usual single decisive battle and the glorious cavalry charges of Murat. However, neither side really knew what was behind that door labeled "this kind of war, 1861" until they went through it. But the South was far less prepared for this new kind of war (even excluding the total nature of it)--indeed, it hamburgered diplomatic attempts to draw in foreign assistance, which brings us to its real failing, its overall strategy--it hadn't any, in the end, except to somehow keep the Northerns off, and if the opportunity arose, get at D C. The political and military bickering amongst Davis, Lee, Beauregard, Stephens and the rest is a thing of legend, in how not to run a war or a confederacy. But these are things that are not in the Politically Correct Guides as thes things, well, it would ruin the case for secession and success with that secession. So let's stop with the analogies and the play acting with the counter-factuals and get to cases.
I'm sorry sir but the analogies must continue. You stand as a man looking back over a road you have already traveled, or more correctly, read about in someone else's journal, and judge those who had never been on the road before and are about to make that trek for the first time. War is a terrible thing that, like marriage, should not be entered into lightly or hastily but since no mortal man can tell the future we have no idea what will result.
My original analogy was for the purpose of helping people understand the mindset (gestalt) of the Southern people at that time. Nobody was "play acting with counter-factuals" but simply breaking things down into easier to understand points of empathy. I did leave it for the reader to decide their opinion on the matter. My purpose was to get them to think instead of simply react with more male bovine fecal matter...
Well said, that is, following the style of Thomas Dilornenzo, who is quite willing and able to do the personality attack if his mischievious interpretations and argument fail. "more male bovine fecal matter" Non responsive. And no, you were not giving the readers to think as your "breaking things down into easier points of empathy" is merely a mask of your bias. Indeed, your opener in your first post here was the arrogance in your opinion or observation that few (except of course those few elitie who hold to opinions like yours) can find Ft Sumter ro indeed, the South, on a map, much less know anything of imporance or relevance(menaing the right opinion--you and yours) on that conflict. Dilorenzo, Woods and the rest of the PIG authors, not to mention Dr Wilson, have this same arrogance--I am reminded of the book review done by the Independnet Institute of Dilorenzo's first work on Lincoln, an Institute that Diloenazo is a member of, a supposedly libertarian institute, which review slammed his book, stating that it was a work of fatallly flawed scholarship.
As for the road traveled, and as to counter-factuals and ananlogies, it is you and your who are looking backwards to a mythical South, to a Constitution that never was, and are willing, like your Southern forefathers, to jump right into secession and war. Indeed, a thoughtful Austrian economist posting at LRC asked what good will this kind of secession be if you are simply to replace the "tyranny" of the central U S govt with the tyranny of say, the State governemtn of Texas, when the whole ides is, supposedly, to get the governemt, State or national, out of our lives? To repeat, it is you who are going to travel that rad already taken, to arrive at the past hopeless Confederacy, which was simply another kind of tyranny, according to the anarcho-capitalists.
Note: I am no Austrian nor anarcho-capitalist, and find the whole business of secession by States or the idea of setting up these anarcho-capitalist utopias as quite unrealizable--human nature herself has laws stronger than anything of the Austrian school. I'll simplify this, give you that "gestalt"- the American people gripe, but the will, in the end, find more blessings than curses in the present situation. The talk of secession is quite amusing, but it will never happen as there are simply too many Americans, be the Texans or Vermonters, happier with what they know than with the prospects of these unknowns of any seperation or utopia, to allow this. When the economy revives this talk will all go away. And besides, we have had periods of this kind of talk--during the depression of the 1930's, it was for a socialist revolution then, and during the stagflation of the late 1970's, when it was asserted that America's days were over.
So, I respond to you all in the manner of a Thomnas Dilorenzo: You are childish and tiresome.
Methinks you presumeth too much about me. You appear to be an expert of History, or more correctly, the trivial minutia thereof. My field of specialty is Criminology, the study of the inner workings of the minds of criminals. I have not attacked your personality and care nothing for your insulting demeanor but I will prefer to take the high road.
My original point was the ignorance of the general population in the root cause of the Lincoln's War; Fort Sumter was just a specific point of reference at the time. The South had the right to secede and to expel the "foreign" troops stationed on their soil. The government of the Confederacy was not necessarily superior to the U.S. government but it was the government the Southern people had chosen for themselves and Lincoln had no Natural right or authority to overthrow it. His actions were that of a criminal.
As for today's discussion, any person or any people have the right to emigrate or secede from any social "contract" they find injurious to themselves and form a new relationship or have none at all (as an Anarchist - a proponent of Anarchism - I prefer none). It is one of the first Natural rights that humans retain when they came together to form civilization and, unfortunately, there are always those criminals who will continue to enslave those who would prefer to leave. It comes down to a cost/benefit analysis on whether the risks to remain are greater than the risks for someone to strike out on there own and have to strike back at those who will try to force them to stay.
I can think in the short time I have to type this that there have been four wars for Independence fought on this continent and only one has failed. That shows there are pretty good odds for success...
The rest of your stuff is to be countered by at least the wriritngs of, as an example, St Thomas Aquinas, who in his "On Kingship" in chapter six, argues that the replacement of tyrants by acts of sedition only makes things worse, that according to one of Peter's letters ( 1 Peter 2:19) that it is a sign of grace, that it is better to endure the evils of say, tyranny than to rail agianst them. Further, he notes in chapter five that the failure of sny such sedition will cause an increase in the tyranny, and the success of any such sedition will cause the breakup of the whole political community--to borrwo from Hobbes, that war of all against all. Indeed, the first case is precisiely what Dilorenzo and co. argue, that the failure of the secession brought on greater evils via Lincoln and the "new" nation and the "new" Constitution.
As to those four wars of independnence--I know of only say, two--if the Southern secession can be counted as one of them, the other being the one of 1776. The War of 1812 was not a war for independnence, unless you want to inlcude by this mischievious interpretation say, WW I and WW II, the Cold War and any other war where the US was threatened with the loss of its independence. As a criminologist, you should know that things that seem alike are not necessaruly so-- the last three wars mentioned were fought by the "State" vs other "States", and were won by the "State", not any anti-State or confederacy--if you are also to include the wars with the native Americans as wars for independence, well they lost, didn't they? If you also wish to include the "civil wars" fought in the courts against the old resurgant South during the 1950's onwards, well the South lost those as well, with the Civil Rights acts and such. If we include all of these, the track record for success with a new war of secession, in or out of the courts, on or off the battlefiled, is not very hopeful.
But all of this is lost on you because of your bias towards anachism. "Methinks" that you have only read what you want to agree with, safely removing yourself from any serious study, indeed, not following the advice of say, Machiavelli, who would, after a days work, retire to his study and open up the works of the best minds of the present and past, and have a sort of dialogue with them, asking them questions on the several issues, posing say, in our time, the political philosophy of Thomas Aquinas against that of say, Robert Nozick.
But then I am no "expert" in history, I stand in awe of these minds, knowing less than I know each day with the several intractable issues. As I pointed out in another section on this site about the issues of secession and compacts, it was Madison's "fault", not to mention the Sates that signed off on the new Constitution, for the "mixed" arrangement, of a nation that is neither "federal", meaning confederal, or national. Out right assertions that this is a compct of the States is quite at variance with Madison as is any assertion that this is a unitary national government.
Taken together, I couldn't care less about your historical trivia question about where Ft Sumter is than if the respondent knows the mixed character of the new Constitution. In short, the person who has read the full writings of Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton, to name but three, and without the aid of any such gloss or blog or work such as the PIG stuff, is far better prepared than if he knows the exact geographical trivial of Sumter. And someone on this site agreed that it would be a good thing to actually do this.
But you are pushing a partisan opinion, which has become quite hardened.
You can see only the one idea; indeed, you run to your "teachers' whenever the anarchist view is seriously questioned--as it is in, again, as one example, Thomas Aquinas.
You must really talk to someone about that big chip you carry on your shoulder. Your paranoia causes you to believe anything I say openly to all persons has to be directed at you personally just because of my "bias." Who as human cannot express some bias when that person gives their opinion on anything? Isn't that the reason for an opinion? The problem is that you're biased in thinking that your bias is superior to other peoples' bias. It isn't and can't be because we are all human.
As a student of the Martial Arts, I am well aware of the risks in fighting back when attacked and just going with the flow to avoid the extra injuries that might come one's way for resisting an assault. All of us individually and collectively have the right and the duty to decide when we have had enough. When the choice is to fight back or be raped, I'll fight back even though my attacker may rape me after he has knocked me unconscious. Surely, you are not suggesting people just lay back and enjoy the "sex?"
For the record I read plenty on any subject that interests me and from authors and editors with bias on all sides of a particular issue and then I make up my own mind on how I shall consider the issue settled. You're wanting to assign me to some "camp" of your making and designation is just an ego-defense mechanism to make it easier for you to dismiss me and my opinions. Marxists, Fascists, and Nazis do this. I hope you are not among them.
As for the Wars of Independence on this CONTINENT, I was referring, along with Lincoln's War, to the American Revolution, Mexico's fight for Independence from Spain, and the Texican fight for Independence from Mexico. The "good guys" won three of those. Surely, you can't be against these other conflicts?
I choose to have no government ruling over me and to live in peace with my neighbors as we voluntarily have dealings amongst ourselves as it serves us individually. Unfortunately there are those who believe they have some God-given right or authority to enslave us and force us to live by their will. Those people are aggressive and criminal in their thoughts and actions. I hope you are not among them...
Mr Burnett.... you appear to have read much but to understood little.
Regardless of bias, there is the the Truth (which is what St Thomas Aquinas would remind you we should be seaking).
And regardless of biased interpretations, ultimately, the objective of American liberty is that We the People of the States are the ultimate arbiters of what kind of governemnt we shall have - not the other way around (which is the lincoln-hitler-stalin-mao argument). You seem to be arguing for the tyrannical lincoln-hitler, et. al. approach. By the way, in Mein Kampf, Hitler praised lincoln and held him out as an example for his later destruction of the German Republic. Now ain't that interesting? Politics certainly does make for strange bedfellows! (Oh..... lincoln was also admired by Karl Marx, who expressed joy at lincoln's destruction of the American republic as a victory for the proletariat. You just can't make this stuff up and have it be better than the truth.)
So just what is it that you have against government by the consent of the governed? Just why to you loath the People being the ultimate defenders and deciders on their liberty? All of your high-toned blather above seeks to defend the idea that some group of elected bureaucrats gets to decide what our freedom is rather than We the People. We Southerners who still believe in, and love liberty, reject that foolish and slavish notion out of hand, and that is why we seceded in 1860-61, and why, God willing, we'll secede again soon.
Madison, and many of the Founders referred to the constitution as a compact. If you've read Madison's Virginia Resolution, you'd know that, which makes me suspect the extent to which you've read the multitude of references you cite as though drawing a gun. Here I cite Mr Madison's Virginia Resolve.......
That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them.
The word 'compact' is used FOUR times in the above citation.
In reference to my earlier post, I did not evade your question on the context of the Declaration of Independence. I answered it in detail. You either ignored it or just didn't read it. In summa, all the language of the document referencing the 'people' is PLURAL. Go back and see my full comments if you care to.
And I'll offer one other argument to explode this erroneous 'one people' idea, which even Daniel Webster, in his last years, recanted as the fallacy it was - and is. The demolition of this foolish notion turns on a simple historical chronology of events, and the words of the historical documents themselves. To wit:
U. S. Constitution, Article VII
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
Note that the constitution is to be ratified by conventions in each of the States, and that once 9 of them ratified, the new union would subsist ONLY between those States that ratified. This is clear language. How can you misconstrue it to mean that the first nine States who ratify automatically such the other four into the vortex whether they like it or not? This is contrary to the plain meaning of the words and the fundamental principle fought for and vindicated by our independence from England - We the People have the right to determine what form of goverment we shall have over us.
This truth (independent State by State ratification, each State acting only for itself and her people) is underscored by the words of all the separate State Acts of Ratification. I offer Virginia's as a representative example.
‘WE the Delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the General Assembly, … DO in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that 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, … We the said Delegates, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, do by these presents assent
to, and ratify the Constitution…’.
Notice that they identified themselves as the delegates of the People of Virginia only. This is the only people for whom they had the authority speak or act. The delegates of Virginia could no more vote to bind the people of North Carolina or Rhode Island than could a man in the flipping moon! If they had asserted that power in any way, they would have been scoffed at, rebuked, and if necessary horse whipped by the good people of North Carolina, et. al.
Note well, also, that they reserved the right to recall their delegated powers if they were perverted to their injury or oppression. Yes, they used the phrase, 'the people of the United States', but we must keep in mind and in context, who that is. Just as Virginia's delegates could not force another State to accept the constitution, neither could they force them to abjure it. In recalling those delegated powers, they could, and did, ONLY speak for the People of Virginia. The recall of those powers is another way of saying - secession.
Now to underscore the truth of these assertions, lets look at the chronolgy of events. Each individual States' conventions took up debating and ratifying the constitution for themselves. And here is how it shook out.
1. Delaware – 7 Dec 1787
2. Pennsylvania – 12 Dec 1787
3. New Jersey – 18 Dec 1787
4. Georgia – 2 Jan 1788
5. Connecticut – 9 Jan 1788
6. Massachusetts – 6 Feb 1788
7. Maryland – 28 April 1788
8. South Carolina – 23 May 1788
9. New Hampshire – 21 June 1788
(This completes the requisite nine States in Article VII.
If no other States ever ratified, according to Article VII,
the Constitution would have gone into effect, and been
binding on these nine States ONLY)
10. Virginia – 25 June 1788
11. New York – 26 July 1788
(30 April 1789 – George Washington takes the oath of
office as the 1st president of the ELEVEN united States
of America, and the new government created by the
constitution goes into effect for those ELEVEN States)
12. North Carolina – 21 Nov 1789 (7 months later)
13. Rhode Island – 29 May 1790 (13 months later)
So what are we to make of North Carolina and Rhode Island, Mr Burnett? You see, unlike the tyrant lincoln, Washington did not call for an army to invade those States and drag them kicking and screaming into the glorious union against their will. I have read correspondence between the Governor of Rhode Island and Pres. Washington expressing the hope that even though they were not a member of the united States (that is, still an independent country), that they could have amicable relations and trade with one another.
So much for this 'one people' nonsense.
The truth is that under a dispassionate examination, the actions and arguments of lincoln and his successors can not stand the light of day any more that a filthy cockroach can. Perhaps because they are of the same lowly genus. Truth is error's best antagonist.
As I noted, you bioth are students, nay, partisans, for and of the likes of Dilorenzo, Woods and Gutzamn, hardened partisans who are following in the footstpes of those in the South--the story is told about a possible exchange of views before the conflict in question, that a Southerner pro-slavery/secessioniost could come North and air his views and return, and the revers, an abolitionist/Unionist air his views in the South--but the Southerners made one change, that they'd hang the abolitionist/Unionist after(or even before) he had a chance to give his side of the issue. You are pulling out the rope--I need go no further than your idiotic assertion that I am paranoid and have no interest or idea or agreement with the fundamental notion of consent of the people. You make the changes and the mischievious interpretations that it is We the People of the States, whne ther is no such language--you ignore or try to make mischief with say, Article I sect 10, and the clause concerning the suspension of the writ in times of rebellion. (Dilorenzo has a mischievious argument that the "then" in the section on treason applies to "them" the States,and therefore there can be no such thing as a rebellion--unless the Framers were right out of their heads, making contrary staements left and right in the Constitution, the the word "rebellion" has to apply to something like say the States in rebellion or a portion of the people in rebellion) But that's one of your teachers, Prof Tom. Your posts are quite hilarious in many respects: the capitalization of the word "truth" as if you have it on your side. The deliberate lower case of Lincoln'c name "lincoln" It is these things that made me remark that your arguments are tiresome and childish--and your reponses of the usual Southern kind are also the same as those before that conflict--even to the so-called proper name of that convlict. The name of "Civil War" is a "Northern" name and only a true patriot or whatever would name it "the war of Northern Aggression" ot "the war of Southern Independence" or whatever.
All of this is instructive in one area--the issues are not to be resolved via any so-called dispassionate examination when the parties claiming such dissapsion are in fact quite emotional about the whole thing, which passion leads to war--there is a time for war, so says the bible, too bad. Indeed, if you all decide to try out the act of secession by taking say, Texas, out of the Union (assuming that there are enough of you to do this, which there is not), the result will be either that of what happened during the Andrew Jackson administration re SC( a Southern President threatening to attack a State?) which resulted in the backing down of that State, or the conflict that you cannot win. And just so we understand each other, a real conflict would only make things worse for those of us who do love liberty. It was noted by a recent author of a work on the Bader-Mienhof gang in Germany that the defeat of that gang by incresing the police forces and the "police state" of Germany was due to the same problem that I outlined from Thomas Aquinas' work mentioned, that the failure of such a rebellion only makes things worse--but you idiots seem not to care and will provoke the authorities into action against all, innocent or guilty.
You act and say things in and out of season regardless of the consequences. There are reasons to tolerate evils, and indeed, these evils you see I do not see (how's that for "paranoia"?; indeed, it is you conspiracy idiots who see an IRS agent or the black helicopters behind every tree) I see an increse in liberty--the slaves are free and got rights, women are liberated from that second class citizenship of the 19th century, American capitalism and government have made the nation the richest and most poerful and productive, citizens have more, not fewer, rights, no longer can, say, the Los Angeles Police Dept ot the NYPD beat up on suspects, hold people without recourse to lawyers and so forth, and the usual lynch mobs of the North and South in those wonderful days of the early Republic are long gone, along with that "rough justice" But for you, the "consent of the people of the States" means to return to those days whn you could shove your bondsman and your woman into the ground.
In a word, this secesh talk is a mask for the real new order of government or society of, by and for the strong and the strongest--and like your hero Hitler, to kill of the weak and the maimed. My only "paranoia" is about what would happen if the likes of you people actually took power. But that is never going to happen, and the talk of secession and so forth is the usual griping of Americans agaisnt whatever is ailing them, not to be taken seriously in the extremes--no the checking of the new health care plan is not the same as making seccession legal, nor isit a victory for getting rid of the Fed. If nothing else, remember that there are a lot of those of us who voted for McCain and Obama and are quite happy with the way things are in general and are not willing to give these things up to buy the secessionist/Austrian pig in a poke.
Lets us see if I can break this down to a level you can comprehend so that you can quit playing the "innocent victim card." The reference to "the road" was about the intrinsic unfairness of people in the 21st century looking back through History with 20/20 hindsight judging people in 19th century for decisions they made of which they could not possibly have known what the actual outcomes would have been.
And "fecal matter" was about the vomit that most Americans can regurgitate in a Pavlovian response that has been ingrained in them by the Public Indoctrination Centers (AKA Public School System) when it comes to discussing Lincoln's War. The most common version is that "Lincoln had to shred the Constitution and violate the Natural Rights of the people in the South AND the North so as to save the Union." If he shredded the Constitution, there no longer was a Union. But, hey, if you want to think that it was a label for your loquacious postings here then I am reminded of the old adage of what people should do when they find properly sized footwear.
I have studied your writings here and find you to be consumed by fear on three points. First, you have met persons who are as learned and as well-read as yourself and you find they have reached totally different conclusions than you on the social relationships amongst men in modern civilization. Because this suggests that your own reasoning could be faulty it is causing you a great deal of anxiety. That is understandable but it is your problem and you are the only one who can solve it.
Secondly, you are fearful that should an oppressive regime continue to meet resistance from the people it will lash out in an over-reaction of force that will harm the innocent along with the so-called guilty. This does not prove the foolhardiness of the actions of any freedom-fighters but only the utter depravity of benevolent government officials who will act in such a manner. And you need not worry; History shows us that oppressive regimes always get around the punishing the innocent anyway.
Thirdly, you are fearful that we who love Liberty will somehow overthrow a government that you have chosen to "lead and feed' you and nothing could be farther from the truth. As much as I am a proponent of Anarchism I also believe in Panarchy. If you want to voluntarily submit yourself to bondage then you may do so. That is one of your Natural Rights. You just don't have the right to make that decision for other people.
You really must get a handle on your fear. Fear is the stronger of our two primal emotions and is the root cause for a great deal of evil that Man inflicts on his fellow Man. Like the great sage Barney Fife once said: "You gotta nip it in the bud!"
Lastly, you give us a list of societal ills that you laud government for solving when you are missing that is was the institution of government that caused those inequities in the first place. It was not the officials but the people, through acts of civil disobedience, that forced the changes in government policies. You are confusing cause and effect and what were the true agents of change. Fear can do that to a man.
And slavery has never left our shores. It has merely gone through a Marxist transformation. The ownership of the means of production - the slaves - has been forcibly transferred from the individual to the collective and we have all been turned into the "means of production."
Your analysis is the usual stuff, almost all wrong. There are two points of agreement. The item that those of latter periods view those of the past with that 20/20 hindsight is and has been with us since the beginning--and it is not only the "Lincoln cult" who do this but also everyone else--to include you Yje second point is that of a reaction by any governemtn against rebellion, be that government be just or not, does bring with it the problem of harming the innocent as well as the guilty, a "fear" that vexed such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, James Madison and many more. But it is not a "fear" but a reality that this happens all too many times. The same also can be said of Progress, where with the new advances in medicine using nuclear science goes hand in hand with thermonuclear warfare, where science makes life easier, by discovering the existence of small organisms, and then can use these for warfare as well as for peace.
The rest of your stuff, about my so-called fears and your assertions against government are simply wrong. The normal teaching of the history of the Civil War and Lincoln does not include the idea that Lincoln had to shred the Constitution. This nonsense comes from the Politically Incorrect Guides, which rarely get anything right, even about their own positions. As an example, the downplaying of slavery as a key issue in the making of that conflict, of the reason for secession, ignores the fact that the State secession conventions directly stated that the threat to the ownership of slaves was the reason for the break--this is clearly stamped on the secession ordinanace of Texas, for example. as is clearly stated in Calhoun's own Disquisition on Government. The idea that Lincoln did "shred" the Constitution is remarkable as the Constitution had been shredded, by your won account, with the Alien and Sedition acts, the Louisiana Purchase, the creation of the Second U S Bank and so forth--done by the Framers and Founders and Jeffersonisns. It was not Lincoln who threatened to send in troops against SC in 1830, but the Southern born President Andrew Jackson. It was not Lincoln who argued agaisnt secession in 1830, but the Virginain James Madison.
In a word, you can't take this--instead of acknowledging that Madison was no opportunist or hypocrite (as some of you have claimed that he was the opportunist or hypocritie in order to placate your own biases against this Southerner, who is more important than the Henry's and Masons in the Founding and Framing) and trying to understanf the new Constitution as partly federal and partly national, you have made the ancient error of the governemtn having to be either a league of States or a unitary government. Now you Wickham really don't care as you hate all govt--so in the end this nonsense about the State's rights is irrelevant as you are against all govts, as another anarcho-capitalist at LRC had pointed out when he argued against secession if that merely meant the replacement of opressive govt power by the national govt with the State govt.
To put words or ideas in your mouth(which you have done with me), it is your fear that if such a secession is succesful, that this will happen, and instead of black helicoptors with "U S Army" markings on them, you will be assaulted by "State of..." black helicopters and State revenue agents.
In a word, it is you who are flying under false colors, advocating not the secession of the States, nor even that, as many secessionist see it, that the U S govt was created by the State governments (the notion of the people of the States being really a msk for the argument against the consent of those very people, and that the real consent is of the State govts, as again, Madison pointed out--you should read his stuff before waving your rank ignorance and arrogance about) but that any and all govts are unnecessary in securing rights--an idea against even that of the Declaration, and in that, hardly even of or by the American polity, be it the Articles or the Constitution or any State govt. This is simply because of you far too many errors. Take consent. You seem to think that consent of all and everyone is necessary for anything at all, that anyone at any time may withdraw from any contract or any agreement as all such things are voluntary--you might as well think that your hands may "seceed" from your body. But this is not consent. And this is not the place to try to argue the version of concent that Madison or Jefferson wrote about--it is for you to read and study their version of consent, indeed, even to their teachers, who include Aquinas. Augustine, Plato and Aristotle.
But you will not do this. I have at least read the several sides--be it Calhoun's Disquisition or Paine or Marx, as well as those others mentioned. I do not think that you have--and reading the commentaries by Dilorenzo or Hayek or Ayn Rand are not subsitutes for reading these authors. You have made the critical and fatal mistake--and it is all too obvious--of using second rate interpreters such as Rothbard and Spooner, to interpret first rate thinkers.
If this be "homeschooling", well, I am against it, because it has produced you. And it doesn't much matter what credentials you have--Machiavelli wrote an ambivalent letter to Lorenzo the Magnificent, praisng him, sort of, at the beginning of the Prince, while writting another opening letter to two friends of his that were not princes, but should have been--the so-called Magnifico was not a Prince, while his freinds, not in the position of prince, had more right to be princes. Socrates as well--not given the diploma that our modern "professional philosophers' have, and by the conent of the man, more of a philosopher than the usual batch we see today, be they a Prof Dilorenzo or a Dr Clyde Wilson.
Mr. Thomey has come at this argument from a historical and legalistic argument and I have come at this from a human/natural rights stand. I cannot argue for Mr. Thomey (he does a fine job all on his own) but only for myself and it would come in handy if you could keep us separate in your mind as we are in the physical world.
Here in the Republic we have four levels of Fascism: Local/Municipal, County, State, and Federal. The worst part of these four levels is that the tops levels always dictate to the lower levels on how and what they should dictate to "We the People." If the State should secede then that removes the one level. That's the same as a 200 pound overweight teenager losing 50 lbs. of dangerous fat and that the Federal level can no longer dictate to the lower levels is the same as that same teenager staying on his more healthy diet.
As an Anarchist and a reasonable person I know that dissolution of government cannot happen overnight. Breaking from one super-sized oppressive government into smaller working units will be both more to my liking and more conducive to Liberty for all people within the new settings. When the government is closer to the people, then it more closely represents the people.
That is one reason I support any and all secession movements based on the choice of the people to relieve themselves of overbearing taxes and regulations. I am an easily contented man and something short of the goal of nothing, where respect of my Liberty is the primary duty of government employees, could suit me just fine.
The second reason is what I consider my moral duty to fight crime where ever I should find it. A crime is simply defined as an act whereby a person intentionally and knowingly causes direct and measurable harm or loss to another person without that second person's consent. To take away people's Liberty without their consent is a crime.
"You (Mr. Wickham) seem to think that consent of all and everyone is necessary for anything at all, that anyone at any time may withdraw from any contract or any agreement as all such things are voluntary--you might as well think that your hands may "seceed" (sic) from your body."
If you mean that some people have the authority or the right to do unto others without first securing those people's consent, then by your own words you have shown that you are a criminal and no amount of fancy words or citing philosophers from ages past can change that. You might argue that you have the Law on your side but as Bastiat pointed out just because something is legal doesn't mean that it is not evil.
Be careful what Sword you put into the hand of Caesar to do unto others in your name because that will the same Sword he will use to do unto you when others have his ear.
And yet again, you have shown how your notion of consent is simply wrong. Again and again, Madison wites about wht that consent of the people means, and it has nothing to do with the constant and continual "re-consenting" that you would have all of us do, even on the smallest of things. But then, you will always have that bias towards government, even if that government was of the mallest kind, such as a family, where the parent's do not ask for the consent of the children, who entered this world not by their choice. In the real world, the involuntary is as much an important element as the voluntary--one can choose one's form of governemtn, but cannot choose which parents one is born to--indeed, one cannot even choose one's form of society until one has the ability to do so. This is why for all of your authorities on anarchy and its supposed virtues, such as Bastiat, the society of anarchists lasts only a few minutes at best because, in the end, the opposition ot authority of any kind renders each individual seperate and apart--but this is at odds with the practicla observation--no not from Marx but from Adam Smith--that men are needy beings, for Aristotle, he is a political animal, for Rousseau, social, and in need of association. Dissolution of any kind, especially as radical as the anarchists would have it, simply will place man into a new dark age.
Besides which, the Apostle Paul noted that the hand cannot simply do things other than what the brain wants (disease etc being an exception--indeed, the "secession" of the hand being recognised as a disease, as is secession itself is)
Further, your moral duty to fight crime carries with it the extreme and the problem of perceptions. The perception of the criminal act, or even the anticipation of that act, has been cause for many injuries that were unjust as the perception by the so-called victim was in error. And the other result also, where the victim really doesn't know what is happeneing, and defends himself when it is too late, or is incompetent to get back at the perpetrator. This is the reason for the law--to sort out these things. That all criminals, such as confidence artists or murderers have not been caught and punished doesn't at all lessen the need for those sanctions. But then, for you, Thomas Aquinas as well is a criminal as he makes the case for the rule of men by other men, by the law and the need for that government and law. In point of fact, for you, almost all of those who write in say, the Great Books series, are criminals, as they advocate some form of government. But that moniker "criminal" is all too easy to use--it indicates that you are, yet again, a hardened partisan for your point of view, incompetent to be able to understand any other opinion. Indeed, there are anarchists who view even the Bible as an anrchist tract, which is the very height of absurdity.
However, I do agree with your last paragraph--that if a majority faction(to use Madison's language) somehow holds to an outrageous idea long enough(and Madison used paper money as an example) despite the natural rights, the laws of Austrian economics or whatever, then they will get that idea enacted and enforced--and this affects those in societies of anarchists who will be at the mercy of their fellows who deny the anachist creed and become something else. Yes, even the First Amendment can be voted out--the same vexed issue that confronted Socrates, that of a society gone mad. And the advice to these people, to do no harm, to behave like adults, will be wasted. I not bore you with historical examples, except for one. When Phillip II of Spain visited Valladolid during his reign, he found the populace cheering on the torture and execution of 12 heretics by the Inquisition, and made a speech in support of such things. If this can happen with Christians, then no one is really safe, unless the people have that check of a government that is set up to secure rights, as was stated in the Declaration--but you seem to think that all governments are like that of Phillip's, that all such societies are like those of Catholic Spain of the Inquisition. If this is so, then you have lost touch, and it is useless to continue this conversation.
I do agree with you on one point though. This conversation has grown, in your word, "tiresome" and I have had enough. "Live long and prosper."
Re: Secession and nullification and the VA-KY resolutions(I write here so that the others may read this as well), Madison wrote a letter to Nicolas Trist on Dec 23, 1832 that directly addresses the arguments that have been made attempting to use those resolutions to justify nullification and secession, and he addresses point blank the issue of the compact theory that has been presented here by the secessionists.
The second point is more distressing. Yes, I have my bias and my authorities as do also you--and it seems that there are two solutions to this: Ballots or bullets. There may be a third, which is the dissolution of societies and governments, but that is a situation that has yet to appear. We are then left with majority rule--and this for some is mob rule, or the rule of the least qualified(sentiments that such as Dante or Aquinas would agree with as they thought that monarchy was a better system than popular government, indeed, to a certain extent also Plato and Aristotle--the very translation of the word "democracy" means the rule of the many who are not best, meaning the rule of the less qualified to rule) But then, as all of these also point out, the good monarch is rare--and they all also agree that men need to be ruled, if not by some philosopher king, or indeed, a tyrant, then by some association of themselves. Now f ballots will not do, then unfprtunately there will be bullets. The unfortunate history of the world shows at least two things--that there are those who do not like the ballot as a device to determine public policy and there are too many people willing to follow the Caesar or Sulla or Napoleon or Hitler or even, the John Knox's or Oliver Cromwells or Phillip II of Spain into battle to enforce or extend a French Revolution, an Inquisition, or the wishes of that "strong man on horseback"--and you are right in that nothing has changed. Indeed, there are even libertarians who are all too willing to get down and dirty whenever Ayn Rand's name is mentioned---
If Aristotle is right and that we are political animals, and Adam Smith right in that we are needy beings, then the assosiations we have are partly voluntary and partly involuntary, meaning that there's no right solution to the human condition, economically, politically or socially. The vexed issue of secession will continue.
Yes, I argue with passion, but that does not necessarily mean that I'm blinded with partisanship. I'm interested in the truth. There is room for some difference in interpretation in some of our founding documents; however, plain words are plain words. In many, many more cases than not, they are substantiated by jurisprudence and habitual belief and use in antebellum America. Additionally, legal reasoning and interpretation are to be based on sound principles, long established and recognized, not wishful thinking or purposeful distortions.
I suspect more than a fair share of partisan zeal on your part. There have been powerful facts of history and logical arguments presented to rebut your assertions, but your habit has been to simply ignore them or ramble almost incomprehensibly over the same, well-plowed ground. And like Mr Wickham, I have concluded that it is pointless to continue.
Yet, this gulf of opinion between us powerfully makes my argument for secession all the more compelling - and yours for a heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all approach all the more damning. Why should those of us who have such divergent ideas on liberty and government be trapped in the same system? The answer is that we needn't be. My solution - secession - allows for a peaceful separation and the hope of being good neighbours. Yours allows only for the use of force by those of your mindset to hold other people, like me, under a system deemed unjust and oppressive. Forgive me if I find your idea of 'liberty' very different from mine, our Colonial fathers, and my Confederate forebears. There is no other description for your 'idea' than tyranny or despotism. You do not, in fact, care a whit for the Consent of the Governed, and to claim so, while hold the position you do, is the acme of hypocrisy, mendacity, and obfuscation.
I fail to capitalize lincoln's name because I hold him in contempt for the scandalous, liberty destroying tyrant that he was. So forgive me if I fail to fall down and worship his graven image, ensconced inside its Greek-style temple, or give support to his destruction of our old republic.
And I use the term War for Southern Independence because it more accurately describes the nature of the 1861-65 conflict. Civil war is defined as one in which two parties fight for control of a single county's government. That does NOT accurately describe the situation of 1861-65. It is a gigantic lie, foisted upon us in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
My gr-gr-grandfather's parole paper from the Siege of Vicksburg, an official u. s. government document, lists the contending parties as the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. I find that to be an obvious admission about the nature of the war. Wouldn't you think that those smart-ass yankees would have caught such a blunder?? Here again, the truth finds a way to make itself known despite almost a century and one half of lies and propaganda.
May God save and free the South! [><]
Let's look at one of your mixhievious definitions: "Civil War" has been defined to mean almost anything--the war between the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese and the war between the North Koreans and the South Koreans, not to mention the wars between the English King and Parlaiment during James I's reign, and the wars between the two rival royal houses earlier, and the wars between the Irish Protestant North and the Catholic South, and the several wars in China, have all been described as civil wars. But look at the many differences. In the case of the Korean conflict, these were two seprate nations, formed by a supposedly temporay act of partition to decide where the victorious occupying troops of the different powers would be, to accept the Japanese surrender. But this partition developed into two seperate nations--was it a struggle to "fight for control of a single country's govt" or a war of conquest attempted by one of the parties against the other nation? The CSA was never recognized as a nation, although it tried to get such a legal justification, and therefore was never in the category of a recognized nation--despite whatever the CSA may have thought about itself. Just as the King and Parliament in the UK fought that war, it was over the control of that single nation--as it was with the "War for Southern Independnence"--it is like this" The secession of the South broke the law of the Constitution--it was an act of rebellion, it was an attempt to unlawfully break that Constitutional compact because that break did not have the consent of the people of the whole United States, which differed from the total consent that was delivered by all the peoples of the states in the making of the new Constitution.
And there's no way that you can convert a parole paper given on the battlefield into a high state document that acknowledges the CSA as a seperate nation. This would require someone like say, a Lincoln or a Jefferson Davis to do such a thing, which was never done. But the use of such minor documents or affairs or, if you pleae, blunders, doesn't alter the fact that no other nation, in its full capacity as sovereign nations, acting through thier rulers, ever recognized the CSA--and this would be necessary--no treaty was ever signed to acknowledge the CSA as a nation.
But the most onerous thing about your "God save the South" is that it implies the approval of that peculiar institution in the South, that of slavery.
I do not care if the slaves were black or brown or white, as indeed, the reason that Eastern Tennessee and West Virginai did not want to go with the secessionist was that these white folks were being treated like slaves--the problem is the arrogant attitude of the Southern ruling class towards all those who were not as rich or as socially acceptable as they. This by itself alone counts them as tyrants, not only to their slaves, but to everyone else of a lower station. It is the South that was the repositiory of tyranny. And not getting their way as they had been for so very long, they decided to depart, to protect thier tyranny over their subjects. So, to borrow from you, forgive me if I do not fall down when this new messenger, this angel of light, delivers the new doctrine or book on the "War for Southern Independnence"--as St Paul noted, prove everything and hold to that which has met the test. The new history or facts as delivered by such as Woods or Dilorenzo or Gutzman have not met the test---
This is all very unfortunate--in another world we may have been freinds, but this difference, like that of 150 years ago, can only be resolved by ballots or bullets--if the ballots will not work, and as reason has been exhausted, then there's only bullets left. It is the human condition.
If you had not been constantly referring to the War of Southern Independnece, to a hatred of Lincoln, and to those Southern traditions, one of them being slavery, I'd take a different view of your case for secession as not involving or implying a return to slavery. But you didn't. Secession is not a peaceful appeal to the ballot box, but a breaking of a covenant. People can peacefuly appeal to the ballot box to repeal the Bill of Rights, to amend the Constitution in such a way as to really make this a unitary government or to really make this some sort of a very loose league of soveriegn states--but all of these things would be wrong, even done peaceably, and what's worse. no minority may make a new situation or law for the majority, which is what the minority, the South, did. It was the attempt by that minority to break the covenanat that these States had signed off on that was another cause of that war, along with slavery, which animated that covenant breaking. You simply do not know the difference between lawfgul resistance, which means staying in the union, but resorting to legal means (of which secession is not) to get redress and rebellion or revolution. It is stange that you of the South preach secession when in fact it is revolution that you are preaching--but then, revolutions are not done peaceably, despite whatever Dilorenzo has to say. And unlike so-called sanctioned or legal secessions, if there can be one, a revolution may be lawfully put down by the "powers that be" To make the case for that so-called peaceable seperation, you have tried to redifine every revolution as a kind of secession in order to find a fig leaf to cover the South's rebellion and covenenat breaking.
And you still have missed everything--I never said that I wanted to use bullets--I said that if after reason and the ballot box has been exhausted as solutions, warfare is necessary in these cases to resolve intractable issues. And tw3o last things--calling me repeatedly a tyrant will not make the case; and I thought that we were through with this stuff as I can see nothing mature in your rants. You, sir, are a tyrant, and childish and tedious, to boot. Like the South, you and yours do not like the political process, think that you are being restricted in your liberties and are simply not getting what you think you deserve--the actions and thoughts of a child. So you want to take your marbles and leave the game--this is no child's game. You have yet to learn that you must, as we all must, endure evils, misfortune and circumstances.
Yours is truly a sad case. You've followed Alice through the looking glass and become as mad as the Hatter himself. I wouldn't call my posts 'rants'. You've got that territory covered quite well. I offer evidence to contradict you, you ignore it, then repeat the same sophisms ad nauseum. Talk about tedious. Do you actually read your own stuff? As my Mom used to say, I wish I could buy you for what you're worth, then sell you for what you think you're worth.
And that's just a manner of speaking; however, I'm sure in your twisted mind you'll conclude that it confirms my desire to be a contemporary Simon Legree. Note to the SPLC - I've got a prospective employee for you. He, too, considers those who dare disagree with the court historians and lincoln worshipers to be hooded white supremacists (now there's some irony for you considering lincoln's strong white supremacist beliefs) and hatemongers in need of a suit at law or arrest by homeland security thugs in black ninja suits and a turn on the waterboard.
How am I the tyrant? I'm not the one who INSISTS that you have to suffer evils without hope and live under an unjust government because I say so. That's your modus operandi. LIke Thomas Jefferson, my stance is that we are disposed to suffer evils while they are sufferable, but we've got one hell of a long train of abuses that more than justifies our right and duty to throw off this government and establish a new one that suits us better. But then you've shown you don't believe in the principles of the Declaration of Independence either. So what's the point?
And a free people does NOT need the permission of a petty tyrant like you, nor that of a gross tyrant like the u. s. government to do so. The one salient point of the original and true American system that you have missed, or ignore, is, as President Jefferson Davis wrote, that NO government is sovereign - The People are the ONLY sovereign. All power to make, or unmake, governments rests with them. What free people, possessed of their right minds, would join a government they could never leave if it became despotic? Especially after they had just won a war for independence to vindicate that very principle? Especially when they explicitly reserved that right in their acts assenting to that government? But, again, like your hero lincoln, you ignore the plain facts of history and law to pursue your own twisted version of 'union'. Union necessarily implies FREE consent, and that works both ways - except for you. You're happy to grant it for joining, but you deny if for leaving. Your entire premise, and the reasoning [sic] you attempt for supporting it, are fundamentally flawed; therefore, your conclusions are equally flawed.
But hey, if that's what it takes for you sleep at night ........ may your chains set lightly upon you as you roast in the bowels of the u. s. empire's hell.
I prefer liberty. Secession is a means to that end.
The South was right, and may she soon have a name and place among the nations of the earth.
But you have also yet again declared yourself in a sort of league with the antebellum South, which did have slavery--if you could only argue secession without any reference to the CSA, then the business of your association with slavers would stop. A case for secession can be made without using Calhoun or Jefferson Davis--Calhoun argued in his Disquisition on Givernment that secession and slavery were linked. He denied the principles of equality stated in the Declaration in his speech on the Oregon Bill in 1848. He there also denied that men were created, except for the first pair--interesting take regarding abortion, don't you thjnk?
Look, I could gaff you all day long, I could pull quotes out to show the hypocrisy and malevolence in the South's secession movement before that war. But, as you said, why bother---
FOR ME IT DOESN'T MATTER MUCH ANYMORE WHAT THE DOI AND THE CONSTITUTION SAY. THE PEOPLE THAT WE HAVE CHOSEN AS OUR LEADERS HAVE IGNORED THOSE ELOQUENT WORDS FOR A LONG LONG TIME EXCEPT WHERE IT SUITED THEIR TYRANNICAL AIMS.
SAMUEL, I AGREE WITH VIRTUALLY EVERY WORD OF YOUR ARTICLE.
Not at all.
Dr Wilson is merely repeating Calhoun's snort that Madison was senile. The psycoanalysis of Madison is quite amusing, and quite an evasion. Madison hinted at secession--only if you think that he did, indeed, he hinted at a lot of things, supposedly, he is even claimed by some to be a libertarian, until you read, say, his observations on the Articles written a few months before the Constitutional convention, The problem lays in the new construction of the whole of the government, central and State, being that as Madison put it, the Constitution is neither a document of, for or by a national or central government nor is it one of a set of State governments compacted together--neither a national nor a confederal form, but somehting inbetween, perhaps. So, the secessionist claim that Madison hinted at or wrote for secession in say the VA-KY resolutioms, and the nationalists claim that he denied the States have any right to seceed, nullify or interpose. The problem is in the context--with the VA-KY resolutions, he and Jefferson were writing agains the Alien and Sedition acts, appealing to the States to check the usurpation of powers and rights, as Madison and Hamilton(yes, Hamilton) had argued in the Federalist. In the case, however, of the SC nullification, he went the other way, denying to Calhoun and SC his approval of the nullification by correcting Calhoun on his interpretation of those resolutions, The same kind of "hypocrisy" can be found in George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many others. But this has to do with the vexed problems that say, Plato, outlined--the Constitution is a thing of words, as Madison noted in the 37th Federalist, and these words have meanings, which cannot be defined by a quick look at Websters dictionary, but only through discussion, other legislation, indeed, even war is hinted at. This smae also for the Declaration--you evaded my question--if that document is so plainly clear about the sovereign states, why then in the first sentence the phrase "one people"? Further, your definition of secession includes, as it were, revolution. We can, by your definition, define the French Revolution as a "secession" by which the French people "seceeded" from the monarchy. Secession is also defined as the appeal to a document, in this case, the Constitution, that supposedly alllows for this parting to happen--no such document existed regarding the colonies under the crown. The South has always appealed to the Constitution, had asserted a right that Madison and others claimed to not exist, thaty of the compact theory(the notion that the States made the Union and could withdraw at any time) which was agrgued against by Madison in the Federalist when he pointed out that the State legislatures had not ratified the Constitution, but seperate ratification conventions not connected to the States as States, meaning that the people of the United States as "one people" as in "We the People" of its preamble had made the Constitution, But then again, to check the problem of a central government usurping powers, there was the appeal to the States and the people--and the reverse, also, the appeal to the central government and the people to check States trying to usurp powers. In a word, the Federalist is not a secession document, nor a libertarian document--it, along with the Declaration and the Constitution as what Plato would refer to as "works of art" needing the study and wisdom of the statesman or philospher king--of which there are very few.
He would regard such as Ron Paul, who reads the Constitution as if it were a dime store novel, as a simpleton. Jefferson himself violated the Constitution, appealing to a "law higher than the Constitution" that of necessity. But he also voiced opinions favoring secession--and was opposed by Madison--see their exchanges. And Hamilton's idea of what the Presidency should be was approved of by this same Jefferson--see Jefferson's letters written in Paris at the time. There are those who want the Constitution defined--OK--but by simply snippping off parts of it or redefining it. The notion that the prohibitions of Article 1 sect 10 do not apply to States that have seceed and then formed confederacies is a mischievious interpretation--the section does not state that particular exception--it clearly states that no State may do those things, in or out of the Union. Let us also be clear that the ordnances of secession themselves were in violation of that section, regardless of whatever compact or league they entered into because the act of secession was to become a seperate political entity not authorised by the Constitution. Thus Madison's rejection of secession--but revolution is another matter entirely, and I wonder why the South did not(but it really did) appeal to the right of revolution? Again, the colonies did not appeal to secession but to the right of revolution--which are two seperate things. The colonies appealed not to any British law, but to the basic human rights--a thing that Calhoun found objectionable, and considered the appeal to natural rights as irrelevant to the break with the UK. The South appealed not to natural rights or the right of revolution, but to specifics in the Constitution they claimed gave then the right to seperate. In the first instance, the appeal was to form an entirely new political community--in the second, to "adjust" the "new" political community along the lines of the Articles. But this break was a smokescreen to protect the property, the slaves. Indeed, even for the South, to have announced that the break with the Union was a revolution to enslave, or to keep slaves, was revolting from a moral point of view, hardly digestible even though Southern preachers had reinterpreted Scripture to assert that the Negro was no real human being. The usual notion that Lincoln was a racist and the rest is refuted by him when he commented that he didn't want the slave woman for his wife, but to free her so that she could be let alone--again, a thorny position in a society that, both North and South, regarded the negro as soemthing less than human. And lastly, as with the slave woman, I am not going to "marry" Lincoln, and am not "married" to him, and I also do not want that divorce that several are calling for, such as Dilorenzo--I just want him and his whole corpus looked at in the context of the times--indeed, and this is the last comment for now, all of these, Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington and Madison, had to function in a society that had certain views, certain opinions, and to be the true "radicals"--say announcing Social Security programs or the Civil Rights act of 19643 in 1790 would have not only made these all unelectable, but those opinions would have denied to us their talents in creating that Declaration and Constitution that has made capita;ism and freedom possible--you may obkect and say that these thing are not of government, but then again, the Declaration statres that to secure these rights governemnts are necessary and that the statement of these rights is necessary as the sheet anchor--another government or political community, not stating these rights or ignoring them needs not to respect these at all, we at least have the words to appeal to. In a word, it has always been about what the political community is for--as Aristotle pointed out in the third book of his Politics, when describing the competing kinds of justice(and this is the key issue, not economics, but justice), that the contenders do not look at what the political community is for--only at the "forms" or lower issues. And this was the question that Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson and the rest tried to answer, in the circumstances of the new wholly popular government of the Constitution. In the end, the issue of secession is a cover for the answer to the question of what the political community is for--and if say, Texas. seceeds today--why? What for? and what will be its principles? There are those who balk at secession because the potential new powers that be in the new political communitry will not answer that question. Sure, a little revolution from time to time is a good thing--unless we have with it say, Lenin's boys shooting the Kulaks or the French Revolution's Committte of Public Safety with those moderates like Marat and Robespierre. Vive L'Emprereur Napoleon.
My interpretation is NOT mischievous - yours is. The terms of contracts, which is what the constitution is (see Madison's use of the term 'compact' which means the same thing), can ONLY apply to the parties to those contracts. This is not just common sense, it is legal sense. According to your logic (sic), I'm bound to observe the terms of the Teamster's Contract with UPS even though I don't work for UPS or belong to the Teamsters! Such a notion is utterly ridiculous!
Also, you should refer to the Constitution more carefully before you make schoolboy mistakes in citing it.
Article I, Section 10
1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
2: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.
3: No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
Funny, but I don't see the phrasing, 'no State may do these (sic) things, in or out of the Union' ANYWHERE in this article and section. Do you? I thought not. Again, as shown above, it is utterly ridiculous to assert that contractural obligations apply to any but the parties making the contract.
Good Lord! No wonder we're as subjugated as we are.
There is no need to state the obvious, that no State may do these things in or out of the Union--which was precisely Madison's argument during the Nullification crisis--you should read his letters of that time.
I restate that it is you and yours who are making the mischief.
And one last note: as reason cannot solve this, and when compromises and discussions reach an end, just like the situation before that conflict, then the resort to force is the only thing left. This is the direction that you are heading in. The problem lays with the fact that the States or the people of the States or the People voted in the new Constitution that did not have the forward statements of the Articles of Confederation that the States were sovereign. Whatever was wriitten or could be so interpreted from the Declaration, and whatever was in or of the Articles about the sovereign States and the compact theory went out the window with the new Constitution. But even here, if we follow Madison, the case is still murky, as his formulation of the new Constitution is a governemtn that is partly confederal and partly national--but it is not all like the Articles, a league of sovereign States, but also not a unitary government run from the central government. And this also you missed. To quote you, it is no wonder that we have opinions like yours.
Chris Coyle Nov 18, 2009, 8:31pm EST
The very fact that nowadays someone who loves liberty enough to seriously consider secession will be labeled as "stupid" is evidence enough for me that the time is ripe for discussion of the topic.