I Pledge allegiance to the Confederate Flag

Dixienews.com ^ | December 24, 2001 | Lake E. High, Jr.

[glc1173@aol.com]

"Bull. A whole lot of Northern European-Americans were so angry at the prospect of being forced to fight Lincoln's war that a week of draft riots in NYC in 1863 left over 1,100 dead. The major cause of the NYC "draft riots" was intense anger among recent Irish immigrants about being forced to fight what they regarded as a war for the rich grandees of the North AND the black slaves."

The record also shows that those exponents of personal freedom in Richmond had to resort to a general draft a year before the United States government did. And a much greater percentage of the CSA army was provided for than in the Union Army. If memory serves 6% of Union troops were conscripted, as opposed to 21% in the CSA.

Irrelevant. Washington couldn't fight WWII without a draft - in spite of overwhelming public support for that war.

The historical facts of the War Between The States and the role of the draft on each side speak for themselves. The draft was needed by both sides. What percentage of Yankee troops were "draftees" is hard to discern - as those facing being drafted could get out of it by hiring "volunteers" to go in their place! But what is indisputable is that the draft in the South never resulted in significant riots - let alone any with over 1,000 dead in a week of urban fighting in a big city - unlike what happened in NYC in 1863!

We realize what all that meant. It meant that a high percentage of northerners felt no stake in the war worth fighting for. And that teaches us that when we push for a "velvet divorce" along the lines that the Czechs did in 1994, the spoiled Monicas of the North won't be the least bit interested in coming down here to try to keep us by force.

We realize from the 2000 elections what the one contiguous large region dominated by liberals (Northeast and urban Midwest) is increasingly learning - that, with Census trends and voting trends, the only way they will ever be able to have their cherished Barbra Streisand agenda "nationwide" is to have their own "nation" by (this time) them seceding from us!

We realize something else - that, historically, every time a national consciousness develops in a contiguous region, it eventually gets sovereignty, though the colonialist or imperialist enemy may be winning at halftime. Just ask the French who won Vietnam - though they were winning for quite a while. (Or American veterans of it.) Or ask any surviving Brit Colonial Office type who administered the colony the Brits called "Palestine" whether being ahead at halftime against the various pre-state Israeli groups meant the Brits won the game. (Or ask the Israelis whether being ahead for decades against the Arabs means they are defeating the Palestinians now.) Or ask the Brit colonizers whether winning India at halftime meant that they won the game when the game ended.

We have a powerful ally on our side this time that we didn't in 1865. It's simply that all the grandees who own so much of the unmovable assets and own so much of the debt owed from down here cannot afford 15 years of Vietnam here that would make their assets worthless - and will want a fast resolution of who owns what and who owes what, fearing nationalization above all else; they will lean hard on Washington for that Czech-style "velvet divorce" - and so will overseas investors and lenders, especially the overseas lenders propping up Washington's finances by buying all its Treasury paper.

In other words, you people are ahead 3-0 - but it's halftime, baby!

THE FLAG OF FREEDOM

[WhiskeyPapa]

But what is indisputable is that the draft in the South never resulted in significant riots - let alone any with over 1,000 dead in a week of urban fighting in a big city - unlike what happened in NYC in 1863!

Yes, you are right.

In Richmond, they rioted over bread. And Jefferson Davis threatened to have his troops fire on women.

Another thing we know about the late unpleasantness is that many men were hanged in East Tennessee and in Texas, simply for professing loyalty to the old flag. No one was hanged by the United States on any such basis.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

The record also shows that those exponents of personal freedom in Richmond had to resort to a general draft a year before the United States government did. And a much greater percentage of the CSA army was provided for than in the Union Army. If memory serves 6% of Union troops were conscripted, as opposed to 21% in the CSA.

Irrelevant. Washington couldn't fight WWII without a draft - in spite of overwhelming public support for that war.

Well, it certainly is relevant to those who might mistake the CSA battle flag as a symbol of person freedom and indepedence.

Even if we ignore slavery (and no appreciation of the American Civil War should do that), we see the government in Richmond being just as coercive as the government in Washington, if not moreso. That is certainly relevant.

Walt

[The_Media_never_lie]

Thank you for posting this great article. The South was (and is) Right. May God bless Dixie.

God bless Dixie and damn all traitors, including confederate ones. I posted this because it is laughably false, as the next oh, 4-500 notes will show.

Are you a paid Al-Queda agent or do you post this divisive crap just for fun?

[glc1173@aol.com]

"But what is indisputable is that the draft in the South never resulted in significant riots - let alone any with over 1,000 dead in a week of urban fighting in a big city - unlike what happened in NYC in 1863!

"Yes, you are right.
In Richmond, they rioted over bread." Starving people are likely to riot anywhere. That has nothing to do with whether or not they support some war effort by the government of their region!

What was worth noting in the 1863 NYC "draft riots" that left over 1,100 dead in a week of urban warfare against their own national government in one city was that the people involved weren't desperate for food - or any other basic necessity of life. They just rioted against their own national government because they saw no personal stake in its war worth even their own certain long-term inconvenience - let alone the possible loss of their lives.

The lesson to be learned from the 1863 NYC "draft riots" is that even the working poor of the North cannot be depended on for compliant recruits, much less your spoiled Monicas, willing to fight your grandees' war to attempt to hold us by force if you decide to try that when we declare a Czech-style "velvet divorce" - which is how it will happen in the "second half."

In contrast, few Confederate soldiers who fought had slaves (as only a small percentage of Southerners could afford them!); they were willingly fighting solely for freedom for their country - in the first "national liberation movement" to fight against Washington's imperialism, long before hippies heard that phrase and long before Ho Chi Minh was born!

And for those who think that Southern troops were fighting for slavery rather than for freedom for their nation, I remind you that - with current federal tax levels - "slavery" has come to apply to 100% of the U.S. citizen population. Current combined federal taxes alone are far higher than what prompted the colonists to rebel against the Brits.

Like I said before, it's now halftime and your side is ahead. See you at the end of the game!

The Flag Of Freedom

[TEXICAN II]

www.southernbookclub.com/albionsseed.htm The real issues are easy to find, but what is posted on this thread resembles a tourist's description of a quick trip through Washington, D.C., sans the documents & debates behind the documents which are the instruments of government. What is missed in the thread is what is described in the book on the URL-Albion's Seed. Several very different world views came via the original or early English settlers and people should really stop insulting Southerners long enough to actually read & understand why the South is so different from the North. Pray God the South shall remain so!

Try reading through the material on www.libertystory.net, especially the material on Great Thinkers-Von Mises, Bastiat, et al. Then quit the ad hominem attacks & review the material on www.Dixienews.com & www.Dixienet.org for some factual reasons for this argument that are ECONOMIC & POLITICAL. Stop the foolish insults. As did my ancestors, "I'll Take My Stand".

[TEXICAN II]

Your insult of a man so widely acknowledged as 'above reproach' is silly. Now we know how to regard your thoughts. Funny that people from Winfield Scott down to most every scholar of the War of Northern Agression fails to know what you know.

[Non-Sequitur]

See if any of this can filter through the liberal mesh about your head.

Ah, I wonderful example of that southern courtesy and hospitality that MissouriConfederate was talking about.

[Wm Bach]

Show me a single southern leader of the times whose position was more racially enlightened than Lincoln's. One who advocated the end of slavery. One who thought that a Black man stood on equal footing as a White man. Just one southern leader, that's all I ask.

You missed the point entirely. You wish me to judge Lincoln only in light of his contemporaries in order to judge his degree of racism, eh? Well, guess what? That is what I ask all of you south bashers before going off half cocked and calling for the disinterment of those brave Confederate soldiers because they were traitors according to your modern, centralized-goverment-is-good sensibilities. Lincoln, according to my modern sensibilities was a racist.

I both instances, it is wrong to apply the social values of our time in judging the words and actions of the people of the mid 19th century. Lincoln, according to my historically attuned sensibilites was the Great Emancipator.

Get it? Leave the freakin' Confederate soldiers in peace, already.

[ml/nj]

I sincerely doubt that Holt said that.

From the dust jacket of Holt's book (which you could have looked at if you had followed the link I gave):

"In its short life the Whig party helped shape the political and economic institutions of the antebellum Unitied States. And the party's death in the mid-1850s was both the effect and cause of the political breakdown that led to secession and Civil War. Michael Holt tells this in more detail and with deeper insight than any other historian. ..."

James M. McPherson, Princeton

Other pull quotes are supplied from Howe (Oxford), Cooper (LSU), Gienapp (Harvard) and Freehling (Kentucky).

In an anthology edited by Stamp (Berkeley), The Causes of the Civil War, the selection by Holt from his The Political Crisis of the 1850s is introduced thusly:

Michael F. Holt, in The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1978), rejects the interpretations of the "fundamentalists" who stressed slavery and cultural differences as Civil War causes. Rather, responsibility rested with the politicians, North and South, who politcized and exploited sectional differences and ultimately caused the collapse of the political process.

As always, it helps to know what you are talking about.

ML/NJ

[Non-Sequitur]

The Flag Of Freedom

Don't you mean "The Flag of Freedom for 61.553% of the 1860 Population"?

[sakic]

Personally I'd have no problem with these Confederate promoting fools leaving the Union today. Who needs em?

[Wm Bach]

I asked you to lay out a "long train of abuses" prior to 1860. Can you do that or not?

No. I can not lay out a "long train of abuses" that will satisfy you, ever. You are not a mid 19th Century Southerner. Get it?

I can lay out a "long train of abuses" that more than justifies to Johnny Rebel way of thinking cause to take up arms.

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war. Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers. Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation. Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time. Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the total overthrow of the Government. The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country. But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all. All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This question was before us. We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great. The case of the South was impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections-- of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice. The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to excluded either party from its free enjoyment; therefore our right was good under the Constitution. Our rights were further fortified by the practice of the Government from the beginning. Slavery was forbidden in the country northwest of the Ohio River by what is called the ordinance of 1787. That ordinance was adopted under the old confederation and by the assent of Virginia, who owned and ceded the country, and therefore this case must stand on its own special circumstances. The Government of the United States claimed territory by virtue of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, acquired territory by cession from Georgia and North Carolina, by treaty from France, and by treaty from Spain. These acquisitions largely exceeded the original limits of the Republic. In all of these acquisitions the policy of the Government was uniform. It opened them to the settlement of all the citizens of all the States of the Union. They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves). All were equally protected by public authority in their persons and property until the inhabitants became sufficiently numerous and otherwise capable of bearing the burdens and performing the duties of self-government, when they were admitted into the Union upon equal terms with the other States, with whatever republican constitution they might adopt for themselves. Under this equally just and beneficent policy law and order, stability and progress, peace and prosperity marked every step of the progress of these new communities until they entered as great and prosperous commonwealths into the sisterhood of American States. In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution. After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and outside of Missouri. The venerable Madison at the time of its adoption declared it unconstitutional. Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. His prediction is now history. The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity. This particular question, in connection with a series of questions affecting the same subject, was finally disposed of by the defeat of prohibitory legislation. The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded. The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers. With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers. The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization. For forty years this question has been considered and debated in the halls of Congress, before the people, by the press, and before the tribunals of justice. The majority of the people of the North in 1860 decided it in their own favor. We refuse to submit to that judgment, and in vindication of our refusal we offer the Constitution of our country and point to the total absence of any express power to exclude us. We offer the practice of our Government for the first thirty years of its existence in complete refutation of the position that any such power is either necessary or proper to the execution of any other power in relation to the Territories. We offer the judgment of a large minority of the people of the North, amounting to more than one-third, who united with the unanimous voice of the South against this usurpation; and, finally, we offer the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal of our country, in our favor. This evidence ought to be conclusive that we have never surrendered this right. The conduct of our adversaries admonishes us that if we had surrendered it, it is time to resume it. The faithless conduct of our adversaries is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union. They are content if they can only injure us. The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property. Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us. This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations. A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender fugitives from labor. This provision and the one last referred to were our main inducements for confederating with the Northern States. Without them it is historically true that we would have rejected the Constitution. In the fourth year of the Republic Congress passed a law to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision. This act depended to a considerable degree upon the local magistrates in the several States for its efficiency. The non-slave-holding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act, and imposed penalties upon those citizens whose loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their duty. Congress then passed the act of 1850, providing for the complete execution of this duty by Federal officers. This law, which their own bad faith rendered absolutely indispensible for the protection of constitutional rights, was instantly met with ferocious revilings and all conceivable modes of hostility. The Supreme Court unanimously, and their own local courts with equal unanimity (with the single and temporary exception of the supreme court of Wisconsin), sustained its constitutionality in all of its provisions. Yet it stands to-day a dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slave-holding State in the Union. We have their convenants, we have their oaths to keep and observe it, but the unfortunate claimant, even accompanied by a Federal officer with the mandate of the highest judicial authority in his hands, is everywhere met with fraud, with force, and with legislative enactments to elude, to resist, and defeat him. Claimants are murdered with impunity; officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity. In several of our confederate States a citizen cannot travel the highway with his servant who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon and being subjected to infamous punishments. It is difficult to perceive how we could suffer more by the hostility than by the fraternity of such brethren. The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and security of any other State and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offenses against the laws of nations. These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates. These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved. Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity. [Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861]

[Wm Bach]

formatting apologies!

[philman_36]

I just wanted to formally congratulate you. You are very good at the agit-prop game.

[Ditto]

Must be refering to Northern task masters. If I'm not mistaken, and I'm not, Massachusets was fairly deep in the slave trade.

Must be true that news is slow getting out to the Ozarks. By 1860, every State north of the Mason Dixon line had long ago abolished slavery.

Too bad that ignorant fools such as yourself follow blindly behind your politically correct leaders.

At least ours don't wear sheets and hoods.

Do us all a favor and stay on their side, it gives us who know the true histroy a great chance at victory.

You had your chance 140 years ago. You lost.

[BnBlFlag]

I wish I had ran across your sorry ass when we were in the "Crotch". I would have kicked your ass from the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli. Semper Fi!

[WhiskeyPapa]

Calling this false is to hold on high the revisionist history that you so soundly believe.

I know it is Christmas and all, but it is so -easy- to show your position as false.

Okay, is it revision to quote George Washington in 1786? Or the Chief Justice of the United States in 1793? What am I revising?

I know I am a brainwashed drone of the Yankee National Education Association, and all; that is why I quote the actual and early participants.

"I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several states. To be fearful of vesting Congress, constituted as that body is, with ample authorities for national purposes, appears to me to be the very climax of popular absurdity and madness."

George Washington to John Jay, 15 August 1786

"What stronger evidence can be given of the want of energy in our government than these disorders? If there exists not a power to check them, what security has a man of life, liberty, or property? To you, I am sure I need not add aught on this subject, the consequences of a lax or inefficient government, are too obvious to be dwelt on. Thirteen sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin to the whole; whereas a liberal, and energetic Constitution, well guarded and closely watched, to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence, to which we had a fair claim, and the brightest prospect of attaining..."

George Washington to James Madison November 5, 1786

"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds [at the constitutional convention] led each State in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude...the constitution, which we now present, is the result of of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible."

George Washington to the Continental Congress September 17, 1787

Consider also that the Supreme Court made clear in several seminal decisions very early in the nation's history that the sovereignty of the United States relies on the people of the whole country.

Consider an excerpt from Chisholm v. Georgia:

On October 31, 1777 the Executive Council of Georgia authorized state commissioners Thomas Stone and Edward Davies to purchase much needed supplies from Robert Farquahr, a Charleston, South Carolina merchant [Farquhar was killed in an accident, Georgia refused to pay...Chisholm, Farquahr's executor filed suit]. In 1792, Chisholm, nevertheless, filed suit in the Supreme Court...the decision came down February 19, 1793. All five justices delivered opinions; only Justice Iredell, holding to the view the circuit court opinion [no state was liable to be sued by an individual of another state], dissented. In the face of assurances made by Hamilton, Madison, and Marshall during the Ratification debates that a state could not, without its consent, be made party defedant in the federal courts by a citizen of another state, the Court took jurisdiction and decided against the state. {ed. note}

Excerpts from the Justices' opinions:

Wilson, Justice:-- This is a cause of uncommon magnitude. One of the parties to it is a state. certainly respectable, claiming to be sovereign. The question to be determined is whether this state, so respectable, and whose claim soars so high, is amenable to the jurisdiction of the supreme court of the United States? This question, important in itself, wil depend on others, more important still; and, may perhaps be resolved into one, no less radical than this--"do the people of the United States form a nation?"...

To the Constitution of the United States the term sovereign is totally unknown. There is but one place where it could have been used with propriety. But, even in that place it would not, perhaps, have comported tself with the delicacy of those who ordained and established that constitution. They might have announced themselves "sovereign" people of the United States; But serenely conscious of the fact, they avoided the ostentatious declaration...As to the purposes of the Union, therefore, Georgia is not a sovereign state...in almost every nation, which has been denominated free, the state has assumed a supercilious preeminence above the people who have formed it: Hence, the haughty notions of state independence, state sovereignty and state supremacy...Who were these people? They were the citizens of thirteen states, each of which had a separate constitution and government, and all of which were connected by articles of confederation. To the purposes of public strength and felicity the confederacy was totally inadequate. A requistion on the several states terminated its legislative authority; executive or judicial authority, it had none. In order, therefore, to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for common defense and to secure the blessings of liberty, those people, among whom were the people of Georgia, ordained and established the present constitution. By that constitution, legislative power is vested, executive power is vested, judicial power is vested...We may then infer, that the people of the United States intended to bind the several states, by the legislative power of the national government...Whoever considers, in a combined and comprehensive view, the general texture of the constitution, wil be satisfied that the people of the United States intended to form themselves into a nation for national purposes. They instituted, for such purposes, a national government complete in all its parts, with powers legislative, executive and judiiciary, ad in all those powers extending over the whole nation.

Jay, Chief Justice:-- The Question we are now to decide has been accurately stated, viz.: Is a state suable by individual citizens of another state?...

The revolution, or rather the Declaration of Independence, found the people already united for general purposes, and at the same time, providing for their more domestic concerns by state conventions, and other temporary arrangements. From the crown of Great Britain, the sovereignty of their country passed to the people of it; and it was then not an uncommon opinion, that the unappropriated lands, which belonged to that crown, passed, not to the people of the colony or states within whose limits they were situated, bt to the whole people; on whatever principles this opinion rested, it did not give way to the other, and thirteen sovereignties were considered as emerged from the principles of the revolution, combined with local convenience and considerations; the people nevertheless continued to consider themselves, in a national point of view, as one people; and they continued without interruption to manage their national concerns accordingly; afterwards, in the hurry of the war, and in the warmth of mutual confidence, they made a confederation of the States, the basis of a general Government. Experience disappointed the expectations they had formed from it; and then the people, in their collective and national capacity, established the present Constitution. It is remarkable that in establishing it, the people exercised their own rights and their own proper sovereignty, and conscious of the plenitude of it, they declared with becoming dignity, "We the people of the United States," 'do ordain and establish this Constitution." Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country; and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will, that the state governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform. Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a state to govern themeselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is liekwise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner. By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national Government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc."

-From Chisholm v. Georgia, 1793.

So the main point of the author of "I Pledge Allegiance to the Confederate Flag" has got some serious challenge when he commends the secessionists to us as heroes, doesn't he?

In fact, the whole thing makes him look like a revisionist, doesn't it?

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

I wish I had ran across your sorry ass when we were in the "Crotch". I would have kicked your ass from the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli. Semper Fi!

I think you are sending a mixed message. "Semper Fi!" is a friendly and spirited greeting in that Band of Brothers called the United States Marine Corps.

You wouldn't kick my ass anyway.

Walt