Posted on 07/11/2015 9:54:21 AM PDT by golux
The Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered
Ladies and gentlemen, I submit that what we see happening in the United States today is an apt illustration of why the Confederate flag was raised in the first place. What we see materializing before our very eyes is tyranny: tyranny over the freedom of expression, tyranny over the freedom of association, tyranny over the freedom of speech, and tyranny over the freedom of conscience.
In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned his fellow Southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose their war for independence. He was truly a prophet. He said if the South lost, “It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the influences of History and Education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” No truer words were ever spoken.
History revisionists flooded America’s public schools with Northern propaganda about the people who attempted to secede from the United States, characterizing them as racists, extremists, radicals, hatemongers, traitors, etc. You know, the same way that people in our federal government and news media attempt to characterize Christians, patriots, war veterans, constitutionalists, et al. today.
Folks, please understand that the only people in 1861 who believed that states did NOT have the right to secede were Abraham Lincoln and his radical Republicans. To say that southern states did not have the right to secede from the United States is to say that the thirteen colonies did not have the right to secede from Great Britain. One cannot be right and the other wrong. If one is right, both are right. How can we celebrate our Declaration of Independence in 1776 and then turn around and condemn the Declaration of Independence of the Confederacy in 1861? Talk about hypocrisy!
In fact, Southern states were not the only states that talked about secession. After the Southern states seceded, the State of Maryland fully intended to join them. In September of 1861, Lincoln sent federal troops to the State capital and seized the legislature by force in order to prevent them from voting. Federal provost marshals stood guard at the polls and arrested Democrats and anyone else who believed in secession. A special furlough was granted to Maryland troops so they could go home and vote against secession. Judges who tried to inquire into the phony elections were arrested and thrown into military prisons. There is your great “emancipator,” folks.
And before the South seceded, several Northern states had also threatened secession. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island had threatened secession as far back as James Madison’s administration. In addition, the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were threatening secession during the first half of the nineteenth century--long before the Southern states even considered such a thing.
People say constantly that Lincoln “saved” the Union. Lincoln didn’t save the Union; he subjugated the Union. There is a huge difference. A union that is not voluntary is not a union. Does a man have a right to force a woman to marry him or to force a woman to stay married to him? In the eyes of God, a union of husband and wife is far superior to a union of states. If God recognizes the right of husbands and wives to separate (and He does), to try and suggest that states do not have the right to lawfully (under Natural and divine right) separate is the most preposterous proposition imaginable.
People say that Lincoln freed the slaves. Lincoln did NOT free a single slave. But what he did do was enslave free men. His so-called Emancipation Proclamation had NO AUTHORITY in the Southern states, as they had separated into another country. Imagine a President today signing a proclamation to free folks in, say, China or Saudi Arabia. He would be laughed out of Washington. Lincoln had no authority over the Confederate States of America, and he knew it.
Do you not find it interesting that Lincoln’s proclamation did NOT free a single slave in the United States, the country in which he DID have authority? That’s right. The Emancipation Proclamation deliberately ignored slavery in the North. Do you not realize that when Lincoln signed his proclamation, there were over 300,000 slaveholders who were fighting in the Union army? Check it out.
One of those Northern slaveholders was General (and later U.S. President) Ulysses S. Grant. In fact, he maintained possession of his slaves even after the War Between the States concluded. Recall that his counterpart, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, freed his slaves BEFORE hostilities between North and South ever broke out. When asked why he refused to free his slaves, Grant said, “Good help is hard to find these days.”
The institution of slavery did not end until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865.
Speaking of the 13th Amendment, did you know that Lincoln authored his own 13th Amendment? It is the only amendment to the Constitution ever proposed by a sitting U.S. President. Here is Lincoln’s proposed amendment: “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that a person's held to labor or service by laws of said State.”
You read it right. Lincoln proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution PRESERVING the institution of slavery. This proposed amendment was written in March of 1861, a month BEFORE the shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
The State of South Carolina was particularly incensed at the tariffs enacted in 1828 and 1832. The Tariff of 1828 was disdainfully called, “The Tariff of Abominations” by the State of South Carolina. Accordingly, the South Carolina legislature declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were “unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States.”
Think, folks: why would the Southern states secede from the Union over slavery when President Abraham Lincoln had offered an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the PRESERVATION of slavery? That makes no sense. If the issue was predominantly slavery, all the South needed to do was to go along with Lincoln, and his proposed 13th Amendment would have permanently preserved slavery among the Southern (and Northern) states. Does that sound like a body of people who were willing to lose hundreds of thousands of men on the battlefield over saving slavery? What nonsense!
The problem was Lincoln wanted the Southern states to pay the Union a 40% tariff on their exports. The South considered this outrageous and refused to pay. By the time hostilities broke out in 1861, the South was paying up to, and perhaps exceeding, 70% of the nation’s taxes. Before the war, the South was very prosperous and productive. And Washington, D.C., kept raising the taxes and tariffs on them. You know, the way Washington, D.C., keeps raising the taxes on prosperous American citizens today.
This is much the same story of the way the colonies refused to pay the demanded tariffs of the British Crown--albeit the tariffs of the Crown were MUCH lower than those demanded by Lincoln. Lincoln’s proposed 13th Amendment was an attempt to entice the South into paying the tariffs by being willing to permanently ensconce the institution of slavery into the Constitution. AND THE SOUTH SAID NO!
In addition, the Congressional Record of the United States forever obliterates the notion that the North fought the War Between the States over slavery. Read it for yourself. This resolution was passed unanimously in the U.S. Congress on July 23, 1861, “The War is waged by the government of the United States not in the spirit of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or institutions of the states, but to defend and protect the Union.”
What could be clearer? The U.S. Congress declared that the war against the South was NOT an attempt to overthrow or interfere with the “institutions” of the states, but to keep the Union intact (by force). The “institutions” implied most certainly included the institution of slavery.
Hear it loudly and clearly: Lincoln’s war against the South had NOTHING to do with ending slavery--so said the U.S. Congress by unanimous resolution in 1861.
Abraham Lincoln, himself, said it was NEVER his intention to end the institution of slavery. In a letter to Alexander Stevens who later became the Vice President of the Confederacy, Lincoln wrote this, “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.”
Again, what could be clearer? Lincoln, himself, said the Southern states had nothing to fear from him in regard to abolishing slavery.
Hear Lincoln again: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” He also said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.”
The idea that the Confederate flag (actually there were five of them) stood for racism, bigotry, hatred, and slavery is just so much hogwash. In fact, if one truly wants to discover who the racist was in 1861, just read the words of Mr. Lincoln.
On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln invited a group of black people to the White House. In his address to them, he told them of his plans to colonize them all back to Africa. Listen to what he told these folks: “Why should the people of your race be colonized and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss; but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think. Your race suffers very greatly, many of them, by living among us, while ours suffers from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be separated. You here are freemen, I suppose? Perhaps you have been long free, or all your lives. Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of our race.”
Did you hear what Lincoln said? He said that black people would NEVER be equal with white people--even if they all obtained their freedom from slavery. If that isn’t a racist statement, I’ve never heard one.
Lincoln’s statement above is not isolated. In Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, Lincoln said in a speech, “I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races from living together on social or political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white.”
Ladies and gentlemen, in his own words, Abraham Lincoln declared himself to be a white supremacist. Why don’t our history books and news media tell the American people the truth about Lincoln and about the War Between the States?
It’s simple: if people would study the meanings and history of the flag, symbols, and statues of the Confederacy and Confederate leaders, they might begin to awaken to the tyrannical policies of Washington, D.C., that precluded Southern independence--policies that have only escalated since the defeat of the Confederacy--and they might have a notion to again resist.
By the time Lincoln penned his Emancipation Proclamation, the war had been going on for two years without resolution. In fact, the North was losing the war. Even though the South was outmanned and out-equipped, the genius of the Southern generals and fighting acumen of the Southern men had put the northern armies on their heels. Many people in the North never saw the legitimacy of Lincoln’s war in the first place, and many of them actively campaigned against it. These people were affectionately called “Copperheads” by people in the South.
I urge you to watch Ron Maxwell’s accurate depiction of those people in the North who favored the Southern cause as depicted in his motion picture, “Copperhead.” For that matter, I consider his movie, “Gods And Generals” to be the greatest “Civil War” movie ever made. It is the most accurate and fairest depiction of Confederate General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson ever produced. In my opinion, actor Stephen Lang should have received an Oscar for his performance as General Jackson. But, can you imagine?
That’s another thing: the war fought from 1861 to 1865 was NOT a “civil war.” Civil war suggests two sides fighting for control of the same capital and country. The South didn’t want to take over Washington, D.C., no more than their forebears wanted to take over London. They wanted to separate from Washington, D.C., just as America’s Founding Fathers wanted to separate from Great Britain. The proper names for that war are either, “The War Between the States” or, “The War of Southern Independence,” or, more fittingly, “The War of Northern Aggression.”
Had the South wanted to take over Washington, D.C., they could have done so with the very first battle of the “Civil War.” When Lincoln ordered federal troops to invade Virginia in the First Battle of Manassas (called the “First Battle of Bull Run” by the North), Confederate troops sent the Yankees running for their lives all the way back to Washington. Had the Confederates pursued them, they could have easily taken the city of Washington, D.C., seized Abraham Lincoln, and perhaps ended the war before it really began. But General Beauregard and the others had no intention of fighting an aggressive war against the North. They merely wanted to defend the South against the aggression of the North.
In order to rally people in the North, Lincoln needed a moral crusade. That’s what his Emancipation Proclamation was all about. This explains why his proclamation was not penned until 1863, after two years of fruitless fighting. He was counting on people in the North to stop resisting his war against the South if they thought it was some kind of “holy” war. Plus, Lincoln was hoping that his proclamation would incite blacks in the South to insurrect against Southern whites. If thousands of blacks would begin to wage war against their white neighbors, the fighting men of the Southern armies would have to leave the battlefields and go home to defend their families. THIS NEVER HAPPENED.
Not only did blacks not riot against the whites of the South, many black men volunteered to fight alongside their white friends and neighbors in the Confederate army. Unlike the blacks in the North, who were conscripted by Lincoln and forced to fight in segregated units, thousands of blacks in the South fought of their own free will in a fully-integrated Southern army. I bet your history book never told you about that.
If one wants to ban a racist flag, one would have to ban the British flag. Ships bearing the Union Jack shipped over 5 million African slaves to countries all over the world, including the British colonies in North America. Other slave ships flew the Dutch flag and the Portuguese flag and the Spanish flag, and, yes, the U.S. flag. But not one single slave ship flew the Confederate flag. NOT ONE!
By the time Lincoln launched his war against the Southern states, slavery was already a dying institution. The entire country, including the South, recognized the moral evil of slavery and wanted it to end. Only a small fraction of Southerners even owned slaves. The slave trade had ended in 1808, per the U.S. Constitution, and the practice of slavery was quickly dying, too. In another few years, with the advent of agricultural machinery, slavery would have ended peacefully--just like it had in England. It didn’t take a national war and the deaths of over a half million men to end slavery in Great Britain. America’s so-called “Civil War” was absolutely unnecessary. The greed of Lincoln’s radical Republicans in the North, combined with the cold, calloused heart of Lincoln himself is responsible for the tragedy of the “Civil War.”
And look at what is happening now: in one instant--after one deranged young man killed nine black people and who ostensibly photo-shopped a picture of himself with a Confederate flag--the entire political and media establishments in the country go on an all-out crusade to remove all semblances of the Confederacy. The speed in which all of this has happened suggests that this was a planned, orchestrated event by the Powers That Be (PTB). And is it a mere coincidence that this took place at the exact same time that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to legalize same-sex marriage? I think not.
The Confederate Battle Flag flies the Saint Andrews cross. Of course, Andrew was the first disciple of Jesus Christ, brother of Simon Peter, and Christian martyr who was crucified on an X-shaped cross at around the age of 90. Andrew is the patron saint of both Russia and Scotland.
In the 1800s, up to 75% of people in the South were either Scotch or Scotch-Irish. The Confederate Battle Flag is predicated on the national flag of Scotland. It is a symbol of the Christian faith and heritage of the Celtic race.
Pastor John Weaver rightly observed, “Even the Confederate States motto, ‘Deovendickia,’ (The Lord is our Vindicator), illustrates the sovereignty and the righteousness of God. The Saint Andrews cross is also known as the Greek letter CHIA (KEE) and has historically been used to represent Jesus Christ. Why do you think people write Merry X-mas, just to give you an illustration? The ‘X’ is the Greek letter CHIA and it has been historically used for Christ. Moreover, its importance was understood by educated and uneducated people alike. When an uneducated man, one that could not write, needed to sign his name please tell me what letter he made? An ‘X,’ why? Because he was saying I am taking an oath under God. I am recognizing the sovereignty of God, the providence of God and I am pledging my faith. May I tell you the Confederate Flag is indeed a Christian flag because it has the cross of Saint Andrew, who was a Christian martyr, and the letter ‘X’ has always been used to represent Christ, and to attack the flag is to deny the sovereignty, the majesty, and the might of the Lord Jesus Christ and his divine role in our history, culture, and life.”
Many of the facts that I reference in this column were included in a message delivered several years ago by Pastor John Weaver. I want to thank John for preaching such a powerful and needed message. Read or watch Pastor Weaver’s sermon “The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag” here:
The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag
Combine the current attacks against Biblical and traditional marriage, the attacks against all things Confederate, the attacks against all things Christian, and the attacks against all things constitutional and what we are witnessing is a heightened example of why the Confederate Battle Flag was created to begin with. Virtually every act of federal usurpation of liberty that we are witnessing today, and have been witnessing for much of the twentieth century, is the result of Lincoln’s war against the South. Truly, we are living in Lincoln’s America, not Washington and Jefferson’s America. Washington and Jefferson’s America died at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
Instead of lowering the Confederate flag, we should be raising it.
© Chuck Baldwin
The colonists called it an rebellion.
Because the British called it so. And many Southerners called themselves rebels too, because the North called them so. It was still a case of secession in both cases. Re-read the definition of secession again please.
“Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect - We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own Country's Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions - The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.” ― George Washington
And at the same time they said they ratified and were bound by the Constitution that was passed out of convention. Their assumption they could just walk out doesn't mean they could.
The Southern states had more of a legal basis for their actions than did the colonists.
Hardly.
They joined the Union voluntarily and can leave voluntarily.
Five of the seven original states didn't join anything. They were allowed into the union only with the permission of the other states. So if you're trying to say that states should be able to leave the same way that states are allowed to join then I wouldn't argue with you.
Do you really believe the Founders would be stupid enough to join a Union from which they could never leave if things went bad?
Do you really believe that the Founders would allow states to leave in a way guaranteed to cause disagreement and conflict?
But Great Britain recognized the United States, which was a nation that allowed slavery. So your previous comment that Great Britain would not recognize the Confederate States of America because it (CSA) allowed slavery makes no sense at all. If GB refused to recognize CSA because of slavery, it would not have recognized USA for the same reason. But, it didn’t.
GB played it cautious, and wanted to see how the CW turned out.
Too funny! No one ever said that Jefferson was the savior of the blacks, but you Yankees have for generations said Lincoln was, and Lincoln was the quintessential white supremacist.
We just expect you to be honest, and consistent. But that is too much to ask.
I think that is too skewed, you wanted independence only for WHITE PEOPLE
Ideas incite men, but it is men that bring about war. Men may have their reasons for conflict, but if they are politicians, entrusted by the people with the power to conduct war, then they have the responsibility to couch their reasoning not in the excuse of another’s shortfalls, but in the logic of law.
Many, who would lay blame for the great American war at the feet of the people of the South, invoke the logic that there would not have been war without slavery. They make the case that slavery was at the root of the argument between North and South. Slavery, it is said, was the obvious difference between the two sections; slavery aroused conflicting passions, principles and interests. The cause is variously presented as a moral issue, a political issue, an economic issue, a racial issue, an ideological issue and a highly emotional issue.
Concerning the moral issue, in practical terms, the slavery controversy was conducted, not on the basis of facts and realities, but in terms of symbols, slogans, images, and all the trappings of irresponsible and ill-informed propaganda. The North viewed the entire South through the eyes of Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Brown, Ward Beecher, Senator Charles Sumner, and Frederick Douglas.
It cannot be said that North and South were divided on racial prejudice. Even though the Republicans protested over the Dred Scott verdict, blacks were still actively prejudiced against in the North. Indeed, it is reported that one of the reasons why Republicans supported abolition was the belief that “even the free Negroes in the north would return to the southern states, their natural habitat within the United States”.
Final proof of Northern hypocrisy on the morality of slavery was offered by the discrimination against the Negro which was practiced, both officially and unofficially, legally, publicly and privately, throughout the northern states. The Northern abolitionists who did want to eradicate it were a small, distrusted and atypical minority in the north, who manifested radical attempts to incite racial violence.
Slavery was but the surface manifestation of a wider and deeper conflict between two cultures. Going beyond morality to politics, others, including Abraham Lincoln, had stated that the real political issue of the pre war years was not slavery itself, but its further extension into the western territories. It was claimed that slavery in the states where it already existed was not under direct political attack.
That was not true.
What was true in 1783 with the signing of the treaty of Paris, was not necessarily true in 1861. In 1783, the British themselves had slavery so of course they had no trouble with slavery in the US. However, the British passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, and after that increasingly had a problem with slavery.
As far as England was concerned, there was a great deal of sympathy among the aristocracy and upper classes for the Southern cause, but they were prevented from recognizing the CSA as a country due to the widespread hate of slavery from the middle and working classes.
Nice quote. Not to speak badly of the dead, but J. Taylor Ellyson was eloquently wrong.
I will quote from the Mississippi Declaration of Secession, second paragraph, first sentence: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world.” So, regardless of what Mr. Ellyson might have said, the citizens of Mississippi were very clear what they fought for. As were the citizens of South Carolina, Texas, Georgia, and Florida, as they so clearly stated in their Articles of Secession. When refuting the words of an apologist after the fact, I always like to go back to the source material.
As regards the charge of Northern hypocrisy, you have to remember that the North was very clear that the reason they were fighting was for the maintenance and the preservation of the Union, not Slavery. To prove this I quote Abraham Lincoln’s letter to Horace Greeley dated August 22, 1862 “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
My position is that the South seceded and started the war because of slavery, as is proved by the Articles of Secession from the five states listed above. They were all VERY clear as to why they fought. While there were other issues of contention between the North and the South, it is very clear that the retention of the right to own people was the highest priority in the minds of the Southern elite (BTW, for those who would point out that only 5 states listed slavery in their Articles of Secession, and the others didn’t, if you read all of the other Articles they really don’t list any reasons – they just essentially say, we’re going).
Well I suppose you can say the same thing about the founders.
Do you really believe that the Founders would allow states to leave in a way guaranteed to cause disagreement and conflict?
It wasn't guaranteed to cause conflict. Disagreement, sure, but conflict, no. They had hoped that the states if necessary could just part in peace and there would be no conflict. The only reason there was conflict was because the North refused to simply let the South go in peace, just like Great Britain would not let the colonies go peacefully. Both stood to lose too much economically. They didn't care about the rights of the other states.
Yea, I read it. Secession implies an orderly, negotiated settlement as part of the withdrawal. Nothing in either the American Revolutionary war or the American Civil War was orderly or negotiated.
They were open rebellions, not secessions.
The Dems need to get rid of the name “Democratic Party.”
It’s represented slavery and oppression for more than 130 years longer than the Confederate flag.
If they thought that was an option under the Constitution that they ratified then it turns out they were mistaken.
And as we know, a right that one state has is a right that all states have.
And a restriction one state has is a restriction all states have. The states are co-equal. No one state has more rights than another.
Not sure where you are getting the idea that a state can't leave a union that they voluntarily joined.
And again, with the exception of the first thirteen states, none of the states "joined". They were admitted with the permission of the existing states, and only once they received that permission. That is all that matters, permission to join not desire to join. There are several cases of states, like Colorado, who wanted to join long before they were allowed in.
If France were to leave the European Union, should all the other countries wage war against them to make them stay, in order to "preserve the union?"
Well I don't know. Is the European Union goverened by the Constitution of the United States?
It wasn't guaranteed to cause conflict. Disagreement, sure, but conflict, no.
Well let's see. They walked out without discussion. They walked away from any responsibility for debt or treaty obligations the country took on while they were a part. The walked away with every bit of government property they could get their hands on. Seems to me that conduct like that was guaranteed to lead to more that simple disagreement.
They had hoped that the states if necessary could just part in peace and there would be no conflict.
Because they believed that any such parting would be mutual and done after both sides negotiated away any possible disagreements. I cannot find a single writing from any of the founders that says, or even implies, that a decision to leave should be one-sided and done without any thought to the impact the decision might have on the states remaining.
The only reason there was conflict was because the North refused to simply let the South go in peace, just like Great Britain would not let the colonies go peacefully.
It had been pretty peaceful from the time the states announced their secession up to the point where the South blew up Fort Sumter. So it's not that the North wouldn't let them go in peace, the South chose not to leave in peace.
Both stood to lose too much economically. They didn't care about the rights of the other states.
From a purely business and economic standpoint, an independent Confederacy would have had almost no impact on the rest of the U.S. The Confederacy would have continued to sell the U.S. cotton, the U.S. would have continued to sell the Confederacy manufactured goods, handle their finance, and broker and ship their exports because the South had no real alternative. Which is why opposition to Southern secession was political in nature, and that would have faded over time had the South not attacked.
Obviously, but that dodges the point here. Do *you* think they had a right? Does the evidence support what they thought?
The salient aspects are the same, and the Declaration does not stipulate that the right to separate is contingent upon specific reasons.
Yes, the rules were different between the Government of Great Britain and that of the United States. Britain never asserted a God given right to Independence, but the US government did.
Britain was never in contradiction with it's laws, but the US government was.
The salient point remains: There are two ways to leave the union - through congress or at the point of a gun.
The Declaration does not mention "congress" it mentions "God". I believe he trumps congress.
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