by Josh Eboch
Over the course of American history, there has been no greater conflict of visions than that between Thomas Jefferson’s voluntary republic, founded on the natural right of peaceful secession, and Abraham Lincoln’s permanent empire, founded on the violent denial of that same right.
That these two men somehow shared a common commitment to liberty is a lie so monstrous and so absurd that its pervasiveness in popular culture utterly defies logic.
After all, Jefferson stated unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence that, at any point, it may become
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…
And, having done so, he said, it is the people’s right
to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Contrast that clear articulation of natural law with Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, where he flatly rejected the notion that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Instead, Lincoln claimed that, despite the clear wording of the Tenth Amendment,
no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; [and] resolves and ordinances [such as the Declaration of Independence] to that effect are legally void…
King George III agreed.
Furthermore, Lincoln claimed the right of a king to collect his federal tribute, by violence if necessary. Without even bothering to pretend such authority existed in the Constitution, Lincoln offered (and eventually carried out) a thinly veiled threat that
beyond what may be necessary for [collecting taxes], there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere.
In the words of Tony Soprano, pay up and nobody gets hurt.
But perhaps, as some have said, Jefferson intended his Declaration merely as a political tool to justify American independence from Britain. He surely would never have acknowledged or defended an individual state’s right to secede from the very union he helped to found. Except that he did, in his own first inaugural.
Upon assuming the presidency in 1801, amidst severe political and sectional turmoil, Jefferson said
If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
In light of these facts, no serious student of history or politics could believe that Jefferson and Lincoln possessed similar visions for America. Or that Jefferson would have condoned the violent subjugation of a single sovereign state (let alone 11 of them), or thought Lincoln’s disregard for the Constitution in any way legal or justified.
Rather, he would have known at once that what Lincoln spawned through his belligerence was a government capable of violating its own fundamental law at will; of using illegal force to prevent the governed from withdrawing voluntary consent (regardless of their motivation), and thereby destroying consent altogether.
Such a government is incapable of liberty, and antithetical to the very existence of Jefferson’s America.
For that reason, it is not possible to truly understand, and yet still admire, the words and deeds of both men. Despite his occasional use of the Declaration’s language, Lincoln himself despised Jefferson; demonstrating by his policies that they occupied polar opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, as do their political descendants today.
But, after decades spent trying to ignore or deny the irreconcilable disconnect between these two figures, the political class has succeeded only in perpetuating the contradictory and inherently dishonest character of modern American government. Though our system is ostensibly rooted in the rule of law and the ideals of liberty, its current nature is really embodied much more accurately by the lawless despotism of our 16th president.
We cannot continue to have it both ways. The preposterous dichotomy between America’s founding principles and the actions of her government, from the War Between the States to the War on Drugs, has predictably eroded that government’s moral standing at home, and its credibility around the world.
As a society, we cannot both revere a man whose fierce dedication to the right of political self-determination formed the philosophical foundations of our republic, and at the same time worship a dictator whose arrogant and bloody denial of that right transformed our republic into an empire.
It is time to choose. If Americans truly are heirs to the Jeffersonian legacy, than it has always been and must always be, not only our right, but our duty as citizens to withdraw consent from any government that becomes destructive of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.
If, however, We the People believe ourselves incompetent to judge when that line has been crossed, then we will continue to find no shortage of political masters eager to carry on Lincoln’s legacy of contempt for our Constitution, and violent suppression of self-government.
Either way, one thing is certain: America will never regain the principles of her founding until her people muster the courage and clarity to finally separate liberty’s friends from its foes.
Josh is a proud “tenther”, freelance writer, and activist originally from the Washington, D.C. area. Josh is the State Chapter Coordinator for the Virginia Tenth Amendment Center.
Molecules don't cause crime and violence, very much the opposite. Only prohibition causes crime and violence. Don't reform prohibition, just repeal it. Society suffers from liberty-starvation. Only liberty can cure society's plague. One would think that the national embarrassment of having to burn a whole constitutional amendment just to say "oops, that prohibition idea was unwise," would've been a lesson to prohibitionists, but one would be wrong. Prohibitionists want you to believe that God goofed when He created the psychoactive plants, and determined the bodily response to their intake. Open season on hippies, commies, and non-whites under the war on drugs must be closed forever. The way forward is to repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and other drug laws. Void all convictions under the defunct laws. Let these shores once again know the lost blessings of liberty, and peace on the home front.
Mr. Eboch’s article is incredible! I have been informally studying the Constitution and its history for many years. So I know that I have to humble myself and rely on the efforts of others because there is so much material to assimilate.
What disturbs me about Lincoln’s ideas about seceding from the Union is this. The Congressional Globe shows that John Bingham, the main author of the 14th A., had officially clarified the purpose of the 14th A. to his colleagues in the House of Representatives around 1872. What surprises me about Bingham’s discussion is that other representatives indicated that they thought that the 14th A. was unnecessary because they thought that the Constitution’s privileges and immunities, particularly those in the BoR, already applied to the states. But based on records concerning Madison, Jefferson, Justice Marshall and Bingham, the Founders clearly did not intend for personal federal protections to apply to the states.
So although basic constitutional principals like state sovereignty, for example, are relatively to understand, serious distortions of the Constitution were evidently prevalent in Lincoln’s time, even among federal lawmakers. This makes me wonder if the Constitution was being taught primarily by word-of-mouth in those days, the problem being that gossip and wives’ tales about the Constitution were evidently distorting the Founder’s intentions for state sovereignty.
The bottom line is that I will now regard Lincoln, as good as his intentions might have been, as being among the constitutionally impaired.
As a side note, I think that if electronic global communications had existed in the 18th century that the USA would at least be a part of the Commonwealth today. After all, a part of the problem with the colonists and England failing to resolve their differences was having to rely on a ship crossing the Atlantic in order to communicate.
Again, kudos to Mr. Eboch for his comparison of Lincoln and Jefferson.
B. Johnson: I think your research will show that the states and the people created the federal Constitution, not the other way around. So how can you justify it now being used to limit the states and the people?
I think the answer must contain some reference to the 14th Amendment.
But the 14th Amendment was written by the federal government–not by the states, or by the people. It’s purpose was to give citizenship status to a formerly disenfranchised class, mostly freed slaves, but also residents of federal enclaves and territories.
That makes two types of citizenship, and they still exist today. Want to know how you can become the second, a United States citizen? You merely declare yourself to be “within the jurisdiction”!
Were state citizens ever “within the jurisdiction”? Don’t claim that they were unless you can cite chapter and verse, either from the federal Constitution thru Amendment 10, or from the individual state constitutions of the period.
TWO citizenships. Which one are you?
Senator Howard of Michigan, who authored the citizenship provision of the Fourteenth Amendment stated:
"This amendment [the Citizenship Clause] which I have offered is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is…a citizen of the United States."
John C. Calhoun, then a member of the United States Senate, made the following statement concerning citizenship:
"[E]very citizen is a citizen of some State or Territory, and as such, under an express provision of the Constitution, is entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and it is in this, and in no other sense, that we are citizens of the United States."
In his commentaries on the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote:
"Every citizen of a State is ipso facto (by the fact itself; by the mere fact) a citizen of the United States."
Alexander Stephens discussed the nature citizenship in his 1868 book, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States:
"Is there any such thing as citizenship of the United States, apart from citizenship of a particular State or Territory of the United States? To me it seems most clearly that there is not. We are all citizens of particular States, Territories, or Districts of the United States, and thereby only, citizens of the United States. I was a citizen of Georgia; being a citizen of Georgia, I became, thereby, a citizen of the United States, only because Georgia was one of the United States under the Constitution, which was the bond, or compact, of the Union between the States thus united. Had Georgia never united with the other States, her people would never have been, in any sense of the word, citizens of the United States.
There is no such thing as general citizenship of the United States under the Constitution."
Bob Greenslade: I prefer Wise on Citizenship http://www.constitution.org/cmt/jswise/citizenship.htm
Senator Howard couches his prevarication on the “subject to the jurisdiction” phrase of the 14th Amendment, in a deliberate misquote which you should have caught.
Senator Calhoun is just as guilty of falsehood. “[E]very citizen is a citizen of some State or Territory” is a half-truth, with the untrue half being the “citizen of some … Territory”. There was no such thing. I’ll stipulate to the first half of the statement, though.
Justice Story is correct, but your interpretation of him is wrong. The state citizen is a citizen of the United States THRU his state citizenship. Where is that citizenship effective? When the citizen is abroad, as the power of the federal government was delegated.
The Alexander Stephens quote is exactly on the mark, and I stipulate to every word of it. But he details only one type of citizen, the de jure state citizen; one of We, the People.
The other would be the artificial, corporate “citizen” usually termed a “person” defined by the 14th., and is truly a “subject to the jurisdiction” regardless of how Senator Howard wants to state the fact.
Two citizenships! Which one are you?
I did not take a position. You made several conclusions in your statements. I threw some more info on the table for consideration and discussion.
Escapee “The state citizen is a citizen of the United States THRU his state citizenship. Where is that citizenship effective? When the citizen is abroad, as the power of the federal government was delegated.”
Agreed, however, it should be brought to the public attention that you are abroad whenever you visit another state or a territory of the federal government. So if you are from Florida and on vacation in South Carolina the federal government is in charge of protecting you and South Carolina is bound to give you the same protection and immunities that its state citizens are entitled to.
Yes, the states agreed to that by the Comity Clause. The state citizen would be out of his country while visiting another state, true, yet he would be protected by the visited state as one of its own citizens. NOT by the federal government.
The 14th enfranchises an entirely different constituency. One NOT OF the state citizens.
See the scam yet?
Thanks for your reply Mr. Escapee. I basically agree with mostly everything you said about the states creating the federal Constitution and the 14th Amendment. And yes, some of my statements could use some clarification. But as we’re evidently not on the same sheet of music, I don’t know how to address your concerns.
Let's start by clarifying that I would NEVER claim the states or the citizens created the 14th Amendment.
But they did via their Congressional representative and by ratification.
Many have attachments to Lincoln, as we were miss-educated in schools. Breaking those attachments with the light of truth will require great reason and personal struggle to see the truth. This will not come easy for many, just as it did not come easy for me. It was my devotion to the cause of liberty and truth that forced me to confurt the reality of who and what Lincoln did.
I don't know that the majority of our country men so similarity attached to Lincoln's legend can be made to uses their higher reason and value in liberty to break a bond with a legend so deeply set.
If only we could do our task with out making it necessary to challenge the honestly and virtue of a legend such as Lincoln. Let us teach the truth to future generations so that they may be spared this betrayal.
AMEN on exploding the Lincoln myth (along with his temple of worship in Washington, DC). Reading "The Real Lincoln" by Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo will give everyone a good start!
Lincoln worship has diseased the country and progressive education has brainwashed the masses. Most people have no idea that what Lincoln did was anti-constitutional, most don't realize or have even taken off the blinders to see and listen to the truth, but the truth needs to be shouted from the mountain tops, because Lincoln turned this country into mishmash, and turned brother against brother. The states were doing what they always had the right to do. Lincoln was out of line , and he took the reigns as dictator. Since then the truth of state independence has been covered up by enemies of independence and Liberty. Even the Pledge of Allegiance has words crammed into it such as (indivisible) to make people think that we can not leave the government, when in fact the government has seceded from us. Our country was founded by secession from the same problems that we are now facing, so I will here none of the rubbish declaring we have no 'right'; on the contrary, we have a duty.
I hate to take Lincoln's side but would any of us really be happy if California broke off and merged with Mexico or became its own country? Don't get me wrong. I believe in the concept of the voluntary union since it puts a huge check on the federal government (or any government for that matter) but do we really want to dissolve the union and does anyone think that it would be wise to do so? Considering that a smaller state can't defend itself and who is to say that that state's government wouldn't be as tyranical as the government we left since it would go unchecked? One of the reasons why state governments don't come up with outragious laws is that they are always kept in check by either the federal government or other state governments. Once a state government is unchecked by others then why wouldn't that government become just as bad as any other? What makes the people who operate that government immune from the temptations of power that other people of other government don't have? My point being that leaving only removes one tyranical government but another one will be created in its place because of human nature. We will not escape because the same sin we were punished for in the Garden of Eden seems to revisit us in the form of government. What else explains why government does as much evil for mankind that any criminal or evil-doer is capable of doing.
Its a sad and tragic thing and it seems we are locked in God's crosshairs for our sins.
A state government may become as oppressive and tyrannical as the federal government. However, that being stated it has always been the responsibility of the people to hold the government accountable, have them on a tight leash, and being willing to defend their rights to the death should the government broach them. This is why it was key to keep the civilians armed, it was never really meant to defend yourself from each other, but to defend yourself from the government! That’s why politicians want to remove arms from the civilians so they can steal, exploit, and pillage the people without fear of substantial recourse.
@Monoprise,
I take your point and sympathize with it. I also wish it was not necessary to explode the Lincoln myth.
But if we don't understand the history of the struggle in which we are engaged, we will be doomed to repeat its mistakes.
I have just read a book called "Why They Fought," which showed through the letters and diary entries of Union soldiers that they believed themselves to be fighting and dying for the principles of the American Revolution. In reality, by refusing to let the Southern States go in peace, the Union soldiers were playing the role of the occupying British Army. Yet this irony seems to have been totally lost on them, and on many of our fellow citizens since.
Now today we have those who believe the best way to restore the Constitution is by applying the same faulty logic, and worshiping a dictator who ignored every limit the document explicitly placed on government power in order to achieve something he believed was for the good of the collective.
Lincoln's myth must be exploded because it is the myth that the ends justify the means. In truth, the ends can never justify the means in a free society based on the rule of law.
This fact I know and understand, and in learning from history we must come to understand exactly why the
"Union soldiers" thought they were fighting and dying for the principles of the American Revolution.
This basic error in judgment must be correct permanently in all future generations of Americans and American soldiers.
What is it that they did not know?
How was it that they were fooled into so clearly fighting against the cause of liberty?
If California wanted to secede and join Mexico then that is her right. We have no right to tell them how to run their lives as they have no right to tell us how to run ours. Even if we don't like what they are doing. That is Liberty. Besides, what does it really matter anyways? If they feel the need to secede then I'd have to wonder how much the people of California have in common with the rest of the Union anyways. If things are really that different between the people of California and the rest of the Union then why are they even in this Union? That is partly how the South felt going as far back as 1850. One cannot deny the differences between the culture of the North and the South and the East and the West. With such differences it doesn't make much sense to be in the same Union. Sure we may be able to get along well enough but the rules one or a few states might like won't work everywhere else. Eventually states will butt heads and conflicts will arise. Like the Roman Empire the Amerikan Empire has gotten too big for it's own good.
As far as a State's Govt. becoming just a tyrannical as the Federal Govt. after secession depends on the will of the people of that State. The difference between a State Govt. and the Federal Govt. is that the State leaders live among the people and have to answer directly to them whereas the Federal leaders are far removed from the people they govern. Its easier to get away with improper behaviour if your not around to get punished for it.
The terrible truth which everyone is reluctant understand is that our Republic was overthrown by the moneyed interests that brought Lincoln to power. There has been no union of states since the war of federal aggression ("Civil War") dissolved them into a subservient collection of federal territories held in bondage to an all powerful central government. The clear evidence of this is found in the abuses perpetrated against the people of the various states by the Federal Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches thereafter in defiance of the limited powers granted by the Constitution. The criminal abuse brought about by intentionally misinterpreting the 'commerce clause' must be corrected if we are ever to reclaim our republican form of government from these usurpers.
Chapman: I disagree. I believe that the Republic is still there. The citizens abandoned it for the wonderful benefits bestowed upon corporate persons “subject to the jurisdiction”.
This infers that you, personally, have the choice of relationship to government, IF you can understand and defend your status.
I'm fairly certain they buried the Republic with Lincoln. So yes, it's still there but we will have to dig it up from beneath Lincoln mythology.
My relationship to government is similar to that of the status a monkey has to the organ grinder.
I hear ya! But the best I can do is show how our view of the organ grinder is flawed. You could survive just fine in the jungle, if you wanted. He can’t survive without
Thanks for another great article!
It takes courage to write that Lincoln was not a great man. So many people have a VERY strong emotional feeling for Lincoln because of the idea that he ended slavery. They can't separate that idea from the argument that he eviscerated the Constitution and did untold damage. I've raised this issue on other sites and always get a massive flaming for my efforts – no matter how carefully I word my comments…
We are supposed to be a nation of laws – not of men. That means we have a written code that we follow (the Constitution) even if we personally do not like the result. In that case, we can try to AMEND the Constitution as provided therein. But, otherwise, our personal preference on any given issue is irrelevant and we need to follow the written rules or there are NO rules!
(Imagine a basketball game with no rules. I've done it (it's called 'rat ball' at the YMCA) – it's no fun and it ends up being a professional wrestling contest.)
When anyone ignores the written law as Lincoln did in order to get the result they want, we are no longer a nation of laws.
As a prior commentator noted, Lincoln decided "the ends justify the means." In effect, he ended slavery by enslaving the Southern States and kicking this country's founding principles in the groin!
I have to say that the "will of the people" is one of the things not only our constitutional system but our Federalism at large is made to help protect the rights of the minority against. Does that mean you can deny the right of secession? No. But i prefer to look at the union in the light of a voluntarily union.
States should be allowed to go at they please and come back-again as we mutually agree.
Your right that when a State leaves the Federation and comes to acquire control over its borders with regard to people it simply replaces the threat of the Federal government with that of the State now Nation-State government.
While this is clearly preferable if the Federal government is activity a threat, it is not preferable or wise if the same government is not exceeding its very limited powers and functions to the degree which unacceptably threatens the rights of the people in the judgment of the people.
A more "fluid union" is important to the chief object of Government which is of course Consent of the Governed.
Such is also clearly the case with regard to the practical constitutional limitations of the same government as well.
But there is no permanent place of safety in life, to that end, conditional union in Federation of separate and sovereign States is preferable for most of the time as to help practically protect the rights of the people from the long term excesses of the State.
This is a balance that will require perpetual vigilance and most of all mobility, both of the individual people and of the state at large when the Federal government should go to far.
Bravo, Mr. Eboch !! As you point out, the absurdity of honoring both men defies logic. Yet, in Washington, D.C., we have monuments to both men. Clearly, one of them should be removed. I volunteer to assist with smashing the Lincoln Memorial into rubble. Let's remove the ugly visage of Lincoln the Tyrant from our currency and coin (yes gold and silver would be best —but until then…). Jefferson deserves promotion to the $5 bill, leave him on the nickel. As an alternative, promote James Madison to the $5 bill. While we're at it, remove Grant from the $50. Besides being an agent of Lincoln's war crimes, Grant's administration was in the top ten most corrupt in U.S. history.
Well said, Steve!
I agree with removing the image of Lincoln from our currency and coin. I would even go further and never put ANY president's image on our money; that sounds too close to Caesar-worship for me. Coins should only have the image of symbolic ideals on the obverse side; old US coins usually followed this rule, with images of "Lady Liberty" or the Indian Head. It was only after the disastrous War of Southern Independence that we really got into president-worship in a big way.
I also think the obverse sides of coins can and should celebrate famous NON-politicians–folks who made great strides in the arts and sciences. Why not a gold or silver coin with the image of Thomas Edison, or Enrico Fermi? These guys actually did things that improved the lives of millions!
Outlaw all presidential images on coins!
As Ive always said, the wrong side won the so-called "civil war'. And of course the uneducated look at you cross-eyed and say "What? do you like slavery?" As if slavery had everything to do with the civil war. Jefferson was far more Republican than Lincoln was. The Southern states had every right to secede from a burdensome central govt. This United States was set up like a marriage, one partner violates the rules or vows and they cannot resolve the issues, they divorce or secede from each other. The North believed in domestic violence and didnt care if it beat or killed the south.
Well done, Josh Eboch!
On the path to re-establishing a free society, we have to challenge a thousand myths. One of the greatest of these myths is that of Lincoln as an advocate of freedom; he truly was the worst, most evil president in our history. And that's saying a lot, because God knows we've had a boatload of bad presidents.
I agree with King Jehu that the wrong side lost in the War for Southern Independence. Slavery was a secondary issue, as demonstrated by the fact several northern states were slave states (Maryland, New Jersey, Kentucky). The real issue was (and is) the right of free peoples to secede from a tyrannical central government.
Amen to that. That's but one in a long list of grievances that needs to be repealed. I once was a goose-stepping "law and order" storm trooper but after the years I've slowly woken up and realized that I'd been lied to about a lot of things, even the so called war on drugs.
How many lives did you destroy "Drug Warrior", before you had your" Road to Damascus"moment!
I should have clarified my bold statement. I was a "supporter" (bad enough) of said policies never one to actually carry them out in the field. I hadn't crossed that deeply into the dark side before my epiphany. When the scales fell from my eyes, so to speak, I realized a lot of things, above and beyond drugs, were all wrong.
I don't see the Feds as ever willingly relinquishing power so it's up to the states to find the courage to throw the keys back to the landlord and tell them to take a hike. If they want to take a state back by force then let them but it will for once and for all put to rest the false notion that D.C. supports "freedom" or "democracy". Those ideas are seemingly only for someone on the other side of the planet. Here? Those ideas are 'verboten".
You say:
'He surely would never have acknowledged or defended an individual state’s right to secede from the very union he helped to found. Except that he did, in his own first inaugural.
Upon assuming the presidency in 1801, amidst severe political and sectional turmoil, Jefferson said:
If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.'
You seem to be claiming (if I understand correctly) that the quote beginning with "If there be any among us" leads to you conclude that Jefferson "acknowledged or defended an individual state’s right to secede from the very union he helped to found".
I assume that the quotation is correct.
I also am willing to believe that Jefferson did so "acknowledge or defend" as part of his general philosophy.
But the one does not follow from the other!
The upshot of the quotation is that those "who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form" have an "error of opinion".
It's an argument for freedom of speech, not for the right to secede.
I think it weakens your piece. Do you have a better quotation?
It's often forgotten that Lincoln was up against an increase of Rothschild involvement in the Civil War. With Rothschild financial influence, 11 thousand British Troops were positioned along the Canadian boarder. He also paid Napoleon the III to invade Mexico. They were paid by Rothschild to do this by placing French and British troops along our Northern and Southern boarders to move in as soon as the country was weaken by the war.
The Czar of Russia's intervention on behalf of Lincoln was due to the fact that the South was financially backed by
the International Banker, Rothschild. This is not a well known fact. The strong Masonic influence of the Rothschilds was definitely a very real problem that historians must take into consideration. Judah Benjamin along with the interest of The Lehman brothers, Henry, Emanuel and Mayer, were cotton traders in Alabama. Henry Lehman died in 1856, but his brothers embraced the Confederate cause during Civil War, albeit only in their role as merchants and financiers. Lincoln went around the Internationals by printing his "Interest free" Greenbacks. A move that got him assassinated by a Masonic agent named Booth.
The Slave issue, prior to the war, was a minor aspect until it was eventually highlighted as a States Right Issue in the North.
Both sides of this issue were designed to raid the wealth of both the North and the South by International Bankers.
No where in this article or any of the comments is any mention of the Federal Gov't s obligation to the states to gurantee their right to a republican form of government. For most of our history the Federal gov'ts primary source of revenue was the import tarif. The south tried to nulify these tax laws as they felt they were discriminatory. By doing so they were subverting the legal authority of the Federal gov't that they knew of and had a agreed to in joining the Union. Neither can it be denied that the continuation of the abomination of slavery was a motivating factor in session. Nor can it be argued that slavery is in any way compatable with the concepts of republican government. Hence the weakness of the argument put forth. The conflict we face is not the one between Jefferson and Lincoln but rather the much older one between the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian visions of America's future. Jefferson's democratic agrarian vision brought us to the civil war. Hamilton's made us the wealthy, powerful and free nation in the history of the world. Any arguments that disilution of the union are a solution to our nation's problem are as falacious today as the were 150 years ago.
The Constitution of the Confederacy established a republic there as well, so the requirement for the Congress to maintain a republican form of government is irrlevent with respect to the War of the Southern Secession.
Joining the Union does not imply that they agree with or, until Andy Jackson threatened them with invasion, that they would enforce them. There are other ways of raising money — we use most of them now.
While slavery was (and still is, where it exists) an abomination, laying the blame squarely on one issue as you appear to have done is inaccurate. Six of the Southern states (VA, NC, TN, KY, AR, and MO) seceded over Lincoln's usurpation of power (as they saw it) in calling up troops to crush the rebellion. The book "Was Secession Constitutional" will lay out for you the multitude of indignities the South had suffered at the hands of the North, and it was getting steadily worse. For all the evil it was, I cannot see your argument about how slavery is incompatible with a republican form of government — are you arguing that the authors of the Constitution did not establish a republic and that we didn't have one until after the War Between the States?
Your point about Hamilton vs Jefferson is a great one; however, Hamilton didn't use force to get what he wanted.
Over the course of on nations history leading up to the session the tarif was the largest source of fedeal revenue. The north developed industrially (Hamilton) and the south did not, clinging instead to agarianism (Jefferson). This made the south for more dependent on the very imports that were subject to tarifs. So it could be argued that their weaker economic position was a largely self inflicted injury. Per haps yes it could be argued that slavery was out of context LEGALLY to a republican given the accomidations to it that were in the Constitution. I would argue that it was MORALLY incompatable with repuplican government when viewed in the context of the Decleration of Independence.
As to the states that "voted" to secede it should be noted that in some, noteably North Carolina, the votes in the state legislature was not taken until those opposed wer forceable removed from the chamber. That is what I would call a coup d’état .
Why does Andy Jackson get a free pass (or is forgotten) on sesession and Union, while using his arguments Lincoln is villified?
Great to see this article on lewrockwell.com also. Great job Josh!
Indeed! It is an excellent article!
Man, you really nailed it there Josh. The fact that a majority of Americans still thinks of Lincoln as a hero is an illustration of how out of touch we are as a people.
A reply to this article: http://stuffthatisgood.com/?p=310
So, Lincoln was a despicable, unconstitutional president because he didn’t want states to secede from the nation because they wanted to keep their slaves. And when that made them angry, he stated that you are still have to pay your taxes, whetheryou like it or not. What if he let them do what they wanted, how do you think things would be so much better now?
Some serious head hunting going on here. If Lincoln had not preserved the union, we would all be part of a different nation as we disagreed throughout the years. Texas would disagree and seceed. Being unable to defend itself from an entire foreign nation it would be part of Mexico. Followed by perhaps California, Florida, etc. Each state would fall prey to foreign countries due to its inability to call on National Defense. I agree that this could have been against what Jefferson intended and I agree that it has gotten out of hand with the Federal Government empowering itself further by limiting states rights. This has gone well beyond the intentions of our 16th president. To blame it on him is rediculous. His ability to hold the nation together shows supreme leadership when it was needed the most. You cannot take that away.