Confederate Flag Needs To Be Raised, Not Lowered (contains many fascinating facts -golux)

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:

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.

Well, what you've done is taken a side in a very controversial issue and convinced yourself that it is free of controversy.

No, i've convinced myself that one principle is more important than another; that free people can exercise the right of separation. That people cannot use an objection to something which was legal and accepted at the time, as ex post facto justification for forcing them back under the rule of others against their will.

And, it makes you unhappy to find that there are people on the other side of what was always a controversial issue, despite you self-delusion.

What makes me unhappy is finding people who cannot keep their history or their logic in the proper sequence. It's like declaring meat to be evil, getting laws passed after the fact, then punishing people for eating meat while it was legal.

It is the problem of people insisting ex post facto justification for the far greater offense of subjugating other people who no longer wish to associate with them.

There isn't any legal basis for your contention that our Constitution affords some of its citizens a right to cancel the United States citizenship belonging to their neighbors or to cancel the rights belonging to their neighbors as guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Your side keeps saying this. The very first "legal" document of the United States government is the Declaration of Independence, and it specifically cites *GOD* as the "legal" authority for freedom.

Under the rules of that time period, there was no higher legal authority than God. So why do you keep saying they had no "legal" authority to separate? Why do you keep saying that? Do you have to keep repeating it so you can swallow your own rationalization?

The fact that secession was attempted in order to preserve the practice of human bondage is unfortunate, but it is part of the baggage that you have chosen to carry.

Let us say the Union North was seceding from the Slave Holding South. Would they Union North suddenly have a right you respected, or must they still be forced back into the Union with the South?

Pushing the cause of slaveholders is not likely to somehow lead to an outcome favoring liberty. There's a tension there that just can't be avoided.

As I explained to you before, I am not "pushing the cause of slaveholders", I am pushing the right to independence.

Just as the ACLU defended the right of Nazis to march in Skokie, I acknowledge that we must protect the rights of bad people if we are to protect the rights of good.

Pssst. Nobody's going to hang you in a fortnight. Unless you hurt yourself, you're going to be ok. ;-)

Dude, "fortnight" and "hanging" are metaphors. More likely it will be "the next ten years" and "re-education/interment camps."

Your attitude reminds me of one of my favorite cartoons from the Jimmy Carter era. It shows a cartoon Carter walking down a path with "evil" trees on each side with large demonic eyes and claw laden hands reaching out to grasp him. Other threatening eyes are staring at him out of the darkness.

Jimmy Carter has a big smile on his face and the caption reads:

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.... because I am the dumbest sonofab*tch in the valley! "

I find your argument odd. You insist we must ignore the , the plain wording of the document, and instead divine what the signers intended to say.

One does not need "divination" to see what they did. That is a mater of record, and what they did does not comport with what you believe they said.

Ergo, their understanding of the meaning of the document at the time, does not comport with yours.

Then you turn around and say the later words and actions of those signers is not relevant to our trying to figure out what they intended it to say.

I don't think I am saying any such thing. I am saying that their actions do not comport with the meaning you impart to their words, and one must either conclude they didn't comprehend their own writing, or that your interpretation of it is wrong. A third, and likely explanation is that they meant for that bit to apply to themselves, but did not realize at the time that it ought to apply to slaves as well.

As you say, the primary writer of the Declaration was a major slaveowner. AFAIK, he has never been accused of being an incompetent writer, saying things he didn’t actually mean to say.

What does it mean when a slaveholder says "all men are created equal"? Equal to him? Then why is he the master?

Does. Not. Compute.

But typical behavior for Jet setting Liberals who constantly harangue the rest of us to use less fossil fuel.

However, there was a large and growing percentage of the population that considered it immoral.

And I assert that it would have continued to grow, that it was in fact, unstoppable. That the war was unnecessary, and that time would have done the job anyway.

Tracking the progress of the abolition movement it becomes apparent that it's an exponential growth. It would have slowed in the South because they were so heavily invested and dependent upon it, but the Social attitudes would have continued to erode it until it was gone.

I believe that the fact that slavery is almost universally condemned...

In Christian nations.

most hilariously of all, claim that they reason they seceded was unimportant.

"Irrelevant." Get it right.

I will only say that there were two sides to this discussion, and a vigorous debate was had by both

Force is not a debate. Ultima ratio regum, is not an actual argument. It is merely a reiteration of the principle that "Might makes right"; That the Strong justifiably conquers the Weak. It is, in fact, a Justification for the principle of Slavery. It is the very foundation of it.

In prosecuting the war, the Union affirmed it.

why do some folks nowadays have a problem with it?

Because it loses the larger point in all the emotional noise. Of course, this is the intended function of steering the discussion into that cul-de-sac.

An honest, and logical debate does not suit their ends.

A problem with your analysis is that nobody has ever contested your legal right to "exercise the right of separation." But, you insist on much more than that. You insist that you have a "God-given" right to force your neighbors to join you in your separation.

You like to frame all this as simply a struggle between the individual and the tyrannical state when in fact your conception of secession involves a whole lot of individuals and many of them may not agree with you about your utopian visions, whatever they may be. If you wish to cancel your citizenship, cancel your citizenship, but you have no right to cancel my citizenship.

And, the reality is that, as you have more or less conceded, you won't be happy in any "place" that is organized politically. You're unhappy. You seem to think that it has something to do with government and that your neighbors should pay the price for your unhappiness by the loss of their citizenship.

As a United States citizen, I am one of those who come within the terms of "We the People" and we are bound together politically by the United States Constitution. You have no right to interfere with the bonds between me and other American citizens.

Again, you are as an individual entitled to separate yourself legally from the rest of us. You seem in fact to be more or less separated already. But, this notion that you can drag the rest of us with you is an unfortunate delusion.

You have somehow convinced yourself that there was a time when everyone held your view. You played the same trick with yourself when the subject was Vattel and the "natural born citizen" clause. Views are and always have been diverse. In fact, most people probably never think about these issues at all and those that do arrive at all sorts of different conclusions. You need to develop a "decent respect" for the opinions of others.

I don't by any means think this country is perfect. I disagree with lots of people about lots of things. But, I have to concede that I have received opportunities to succeed here that just don't exist elsewhere. I know that I am lucky to have been born here.

I sincerely hope that you can somehow find yourself some happiness in a less than perfect world. Maybe the answer doesn't have anything to do with government or politics.

I’m having trouble following your argument here. You state that the war was unnecessary because slavery would have ended anyway. So, why did the South start the war by seceding because of slavery. As has been stated again and again, the North did not fight because of slavery, they fought to preserve the Union.

I don’t understand why you felt the need to add the qualifier Christian to the argument about slavery, while technically correct, what does this have to do with this discussion. I added Northern European countries to the discussion. I believe that the number of Hindu, Moslem, or Buddhist countries in North America and Norther Europe is vanishingly small. The importance of Asia, Africa or Antarctica in the discussion of slavery in the Southern US is infinitesimally small.

The definition of unimportant is “lacking in importance or significance”. I think I got it right.

You say force is not a debate. Let me give you a hypothetical. One portion of a nation illegally secedes from the country and starts hostilities by staging an unprovoked attack on a military fort of said nation. There is no international court or body to adjudicate the dispute. In my mind, the nation has only two responses. They can; 1) unilaterally surrender, or 2) defend themselves. I personally choose #2. This, n my mind, is legitimately an act of self-defense.
I really don’t understand your last sentence. You say “An honest, and logical debate does not suit their ends.” I contend that the South, by Seceding and opening fire on Fort Sumter, effectively ended any debate and led to the War. They could have stayed in the Union and continued to argue in the Legislature and in the Courts, but they chose to pick up their ball and go home, all because the country democratically elected someone they feared MIGHT do something about slavery.

You insist that you have a "God-given" right to force your neighbors to join you in your separation.

In a democracy, 50.1% of a population forces the other 49.9% to do what the majority wants. This is the accepted norm. It has been pointed out that Virginia voted for secession by a ration of 6 to 1. If this is indeed true, at what point do you think it is appropriate for the rump of the population to stop controlling what the rest wants?

If you wish to cancel your citizenship, cancel your citizenship, but you have no right to cancel my citizenship.

No more than the Founders had a right to cancel British Loyalists subjectude. Do you object to their having done that?

Again, you are as an individual entitled to separate yourself legally from the rest of us.

Not really, no. Ever hear of "Gay Wedding cake"?

You played the same trick with yourself when the subject was Vattel and the "natural born citizen" clause.

It wasn't a trick. I and others simply tracked the issue back to it's source rather than relying on what less informed people thought of it during the subsequent 239 years. It's funny that you should bring that up in this discussion because I regard the two issues as intimately connected in a critical juncture with the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration is the Temporal Nexus for both issues. It paradoxically created the Dichotomy we see relating to both issues. It's very existence is the Consequence of Vattel infusing the colonies with such an idea, and yet as a result of Thomas Jefferson's words, it was subsequently utilized to undermine the very sort of citizenship it created.

It is a tangled mess of contradictions and paradoxes, and if there was ever a critical point in World history, the Declaration was it.

Views are and always have been diverse. In fact, most people probably never think about these issues at all and those that do arrive at all sorts of different conclusions. You need to develop a "decent respect" for the opinions of others.

The emotionally and popularly driven views of the uninformed are entitled to no particular respect, and why should they be? A major problem in this nation today is that too many vital decisions are being made by people who are either uninformed or misinformed, our current "Precedent" being but an example of the consequences of giving the stupid people this power.

Obama is the ultimate rebuttal to your assertion.

We are running on inertia from the previous eras when the nation was inhabited by a decent and religious populace, but as Adam Smith observed, "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation."

We are running on phoney money. Our irrational and ill informed populace keeps electing people who have borrowed and spent us into poverty, but the irrational and ill informed have yet to realize all their current prosperity is built on borrowed dollars that will be paid back one way or the other. We live in a giant financial Potemkin Village.

I sincerely hope that you can somehow find yourself some happiness in a less than perfect world. Maybe the answer doesn't have anything to do with government or politics.

Your comment reminds me of what Trotsky said:

"You may not be interested in War, but War is certainly interested in you."

I’m having trouble following your argument here. You state that the war was unnecessary because slavery would have ended anyway. So, why did the South start the war by seceding because of slavery.

The reason you are having trouble following the argument is because you initiate it with false and irrelevant assumptions, but i'm not going to get into that right now.

Had the South stayed in the Union, Slavery would have eventually been overcome by the social forces. The rich people society tends to drag the rest of rich people society around with it, so that the "beautiful people" eventually end up on the same page.

Note how many wealthy in all parts of the country have embraced "gay marriage" and liberal social issues. Do you know any billionaires that are against them?

Had the South successfully left the Union, the same social pressures would still be in effect, and all the "high society" people of the South would still associate and socialize with all the "high society" people of the North. Over time, the subtle social pressures would force them into alignment with the dominant herd mentality because to remain contrary would be damaging to their social status amongst the people they regard as their "peers."

In other words, the social pressure is all one sided. It moves in one direction only, and so does the practical aspects of society. Machinery was coming, just as it did in the North, and once you undermine both the social acceptance and the economics, you have basically dealt it a death blow.

Now you may pooh pooh this reliance on Social forces, but I urge you to read the book "Leftism Revisited" where Von Kuehnelt-Leddihin points out how they operated on the Families of the French Aristocracy in the 1790s, much to their detriment.

I don’t understand why you felt the need to add the qualifier Christian to the argument about slavery, while technically correct, what does this have to do with this discussion.

Because it all starts out as foundational ideas, and it cannot be emphasized too much that a primary factor in what made this nation great is the underpinning of society by Christian ideas. Slavery is not at all inconsistent with Islam, in fact, it is a mandatory aspect of it.

It wasn't illegal, and it wasn't exactly "unprovoked." Why it wasn't illegal is because our first, and highest legal document says so. Why it wasn't "unprovoked" is because of the stubborn insistence of the Union in hanging on to property that was withdrawn from it by the consent of the governed, and it's refusal to negotiate any reconciliation on the matter.

The Union was in the wrong on both counts, but the Southerners should have exercised more prudence in tolerating their violations, at least until inertia was working in their favor.

I really don’t understand your last sentence. You say “An honest, and logical debate does not suit their ends.”

A logical debate must proceed as a sequence and in the correct order.

Did the South have the right to secede? If the answer is "Yes", then the reasons don't matter. If the answer is "No", then the reasons still don't matter.

In both cases, the "reasons" are immaterial to the prime question, but essential to stampeding irrational and ill informed people into an emotional argumentum ad populum.

"Appeals to slavery" are a constant attempt to short circuit the logical debate, and to turn it into an emotional debate where people outbid each other in their efforts to convey how much they strongly disapprove of slavery.

Again, the reasons they wanted to leave are irrelevant. If they have the right, then you can't gainsay their reasons, and if they don't have the right, their reasons for leaving won't grant them the right.

So, we are at a fundamental disagreement. You say that the reasons for the secession are immaterial. I fundamentally disagree with you and, more importantly, so did the legislatures of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, and Georgia, who actually published for the world and posterity the reasons for their actions. Again, if the people who actually did the Secession thought their reasons were important and material, why do you disagree?

As for whether the actions were illegal and unprovoked, I will ask you what court ruled their actions legal. Under our form of government, the Supreme Court of the United States ultimately rules on whether actions are constitutional or not. I do not recollect that they ever ruled that Secession was legal. As for the umprovoked portion, I will concede that the Northern States not enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act was certainly a provocation. I would suggest however, that seceding and starting a war that killed over 600,000 Americans was certainly an overreaction to this provocation.

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