Monday, June 25, 2012

We're all slaves now, thanks to Lincoln

For years I've said that our Republic died under Lincoln, and it had nothing to do with slavery! A fundamental promise made by the Founders to preserve the sovereignty of the individual states was broken in 1865, and it's been downhill into ever-growing slavery for all Americans ever since. The back of the Federal Government's power must be broken! The states must reassert their sovereign rights... if we still have time.

And, "No!" I am not pro-slavery. In fact, my ancestors include John Adams, John Q. Adams, Harriet B. Stowe and John Brown, I have a long family history of hating slavery.

I even consider Lincoln to have been a decent Christian man, though misguided in his choice of how he sought to pursue one of his desires, which was to end slavery. That ending slavery was his only reason for the war, however, is doubtful (and his writings back up the fact he had other reasons). To Lincoln, preserving the Union was more important than preserving states' rights, and he was very wrong. He chose to break the Constitution rather than use the laws set up by that Constitution to settle such disputes between the Federal Government and various states.

The Confederate Constitution lists the states' right to continue their practice of slavery as one of the primary reasons for the South's cession, it's a fact of history that can't easily be erased. No honest discussion can avoid the fact the Southern states were pro-slavery.

But championing states' rights has nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with individual freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution. Freedoms stolen from all the people in 1865. The results of the Civil War was the enslavement of all the citizens of the United States under the onerous, ever-increasing mandates of an imperial Federal Government. We're all slaves now, thanks to Lincoln.

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