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CONCLUSION
Americans are used to thinking that once the Constitution was ratified, our Republic has remained inviolate and was “saved” by Abraham Lincoln via the victory of the central Federal government over the seceding states.
However, we must understand that the Civil War not only ended the Confederacy’s attempt at secession, it also in large part ended the Republic as it was set up under the Constitutional Order of 1789.
The fact is that even the government established in 1789 was not the first “republic” of the United States and was not, for all intents and purposes, the last. The victory of the Central Government over the States in the “Civil War” initiated as series of subsequent “virtual republics,” each with a central Federal Government more powerful than the one that preceded it.
Let us trace this path:
1776 – The Power of the States Supreme; the Power of the Federal Government Inferior
When the country was drawn together under the Articles of Confederation, the States were supreme and the power of the Central Government in Congress was extremely limited, mostly to matters of common defense. Even in military matters Congress had little control and, much to the frustration of General Washington, could barely force the States to pay for their part in the Revolution (at one point, Washington paid the troops out of his own money.)
1789 – The Power of the States Dominant; the Power of the Federal Government Expanded
The Constitution of 1789, seeking to remedy the excessive independence of the States which was seen as leading to multiple governing problems in both foreign and domestic affairs discarded the Articles of Confederation (which, unlike the Constitution of 1789, actually did call itself a “perpetual union”.)
1865 – The Power of the Federal Government Dominant; the Power of the States Diminished
The military victory of the Federal forces overturned the Constitution of 1789 and replaced it with one where the Federal Government was dominant over the States. This situation reflected the new reality which saw business interests allied with the expanded coercive power of the central government to facilitate their respective agenda: profits and power.
1933 – The Federal Government Supreme; the Power of the States Inferior
Using the “emergency” of the Great Depression as a pretext to create a situation (the “New Deal”) where the Federal Government became Supreme over the States.
1965- The Power of Federal Government Un-assailable; the Power of the States Marginalized
Using the vast expansion of government power provided by the Great Society programs, the Federal Government solidified its supremacy over the States to such an extent the States that the States became meaningless appendages to it.
2008 – The Federal System Fundamentally Transformed
With the election of Barack Obama, the Federal Government became an Imperial Government in all but name, complete with a cultic leader, a controlled press and an outright neo-Fascist, Crony Capitalism, Corporate State, authoritarian ideology. The States exist much as the Roman Senate did in the Imperial period: an impotent anachronism and rubber stamp of the central government devoid of real power or influence.
Therefore, our current terrible situation can be traced back to the counter-revolutionary overthrow of the Constitutional Order of 1789 by the Lincoln Administration. Ironically, Lincoln found himself in the same situation as the Lyndon Johnson Administration found itself in Vietnam, where it discovered it had to destroy the country of Vietnam in order to “save” it.
Apparently, we have been targeted to suffer the same fate.
The idea that killing hundreds of thousands of American citizens on the pretext that ending slavery could not have been accomplished by any other means (something disproved by the experiences of all other nations at the time) has generally become accepted by a majority of Americans as the right thing to do.”
This is the attitude of many today, both liberal and conservative. Indeed, Lincoln is beloved among many strongly conservative spokesmen!
But there is a price for holding the belief that the ends justify the means.
Those who do so may not condemn Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot or Mao or bin Laden, all of whom acted out of a belief that what they were doing was right and that therefore whatever they did to obtain their ends was justified. So those… especially scholars and historians… who justify what was done in the War of Secession with the plea that “it was necessary” are morally equivalent to the apologists for every tyrant who has murdered, raped, pillaged, and enslaved throughout history as well as every tyrant who will come forth in the future.
Changing the venue of tyranny does not change its moral dynamics.
CREDIT: ConfederateShop Archives/SCV Archives/ War Crimes Against Southern Civilians