Posted on 06/23/2012 7:52:50 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
150 years after the great divide in America, reality seems to be proving that the South was right on everything but slavery, lets look!
The Kennedy brothers, Donnie and Ron shook book stores across the land when their book The South Was Right boldly proclaimed a view which asserts that the original founders of America were right, and Lincoln and the progressives were wrong!
The Kennedy twins are intelligent, educated, successful southerners who focused their intellects on researching the politics and economics of the ante bellum era and found considerable evidence that the South was right. It's a terrific book available at Barnes and Nobles, and if you are an American who believes in God, the original founders of America and Declaration of Independence, then The South Was Right should be in your library.
Now, before we go further let's do what we have to do, condemn slavery as the sin of the past. It was wrong. It was wrong in the North, and wrong in the South. Taking a man's liberty is taking a gift from the Almighty Father and that is wrong. No point wasting a lot of space in debate, or discussion. So let's move on.
This article is not about the past, it is about today. It is about an America seemingly in cardiac arrest. It is about an America over regulated, over taxed, over governed. It is about present day fashions and trends crushing the spirit of liberty which made us America. America is headed in the wrong direction and the markets, and our economy, and our young know it. America needs a new direction, and that direction can be found in the South, in its past, and in its present.
The division in America started almost before the Constitution was dry. Justice Abel P. Upshur, of Virginia, wrote a treatise on the Southern interpretation of the Constitution. Within that work Upshur points to God as the author/creator of soveriegnty. Soveriegnty is handed from God to man. From man, soveriegnty is passed to the states. And it is the states who share a small portion of soveriegnty with the federeal government. The federal government is last, not first, and the Constitution is a leash to restrain the natural inclination of men in power to seek more power.
Let's start with the beginning. The South, Dixie, is also known as the Bible Belt. 150 years ago, in the Preamble to the Confederate Constitution, the southern founding fathers called on God for His protection and His guidance. God was invited to the "governing table." This was not something new in America, but it was one of the things the North was changing and the South wanted to keep. If you read Forged in Faith or The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States you will discover that Christ had been with America since before its conception. Christ and the church were with each of the colonies as they were discovered and settled. Christianity was at the heart of the laws, at the core of the spirit of the people who made the venture from Europe to America. Christ was about liberty, the rule of law, consent of the governed and majority rule. Sovereignty came from God. God is sovereign. From Him all authority flows.
Many of today's writers on this subject credit the Pilgrims and Massachusetts with using the Bible, and Higher Law to write the Mayflower Compact and plant the seeds for American democracy. The separate religious faiths of Christianity and the pulpit was critical to the foundation of Ameirca. The first cohesiveness of America, the first spirit of unity amongst the colonies came from a mutual belief in a Christian God. All believed that God had brought us to America, and that God was in charge.
The North is portrayed as the original Bible Belt. Yet something happened. The North has moved away from God. The South today, has not. Barack Obama, as President, has declared we are not a Christian nation. That may work in New York, or with the main stream media, but it don't set well if you live south of the Mason Dixon Line, or in the Heartland. America is Christian today. We do believe in the Bible. We do believe in Christ. Our morality, our sense of right and wrong, come from the Higher law. Everything that America can be stems from this starting point. Everything that man can be emanates from the understanding that God exists, that the Bible is His word.
This is not past. This is today. This is the South. Go in its towns. Go to its churches. Talk to people. Listen. The South is not conservative because it has less colleges or universities. The South is not conservative through some genetic fault. The South is conservative because the root of conservatism is a Christian God. It is a belief in something other than government. It is a belief in the partnership between God and man. The South is Right!
Since Eden man has wrestled with the questions of right and wrong. There's no need to. God outlined right and wrong. Like a loving parent He wrote a letter to mankind in the form of the Bible. It tells us right and wrong. No secrets. Nothing scientists have to discover. Nope. Like the basic laws of physics right and wrong do NOT change. Yet, so much of man's energy is wasted in the ebb tides of morality. Yet like gravity, or magnetism, right and wrong are consistent, not changed or altered by man.
The South is this place. It is a place where the anchor of God sets the table. While other parts of the nation, or people within the nation may chide the South for being the Bible Belt, we wear that description knowing Christ told us we should endure in living His word.
But the South is about much more then its bedrock faith.
The South is about American values. It is about federalism, state's rights and local control. It is about the people in the local area having the most to say about governing themselves. The South is about limiting federal government. The South is about limiting the benefits of working for the government! The best and brightest should not be in government. They should be in medicine, or inventing new technologies, or creating new business formations, or caring for the land and resources of a region.
The South is about capitalism. It is about competition. The right to work is a southern concept, and unions are seen as a socialist tool to organize workers. Unions have become their own political parties, their own sources of power. Unions do not represent their members. What American jobs did unions fight for? Unions are internationals, not American. They are not Christian, they are secular. Unions are myopic; they are manifestations of cumulative greed seeking power and advantage for a small set of people. And because the South rejected unionism, and wealthy investors poured their monies into the north and not the South, the South was spared the natural inflation which comes with unions.
The South is about understanding that wealth is not money. Wealth is in the land, in the family, and in the things we produce. Money is a tool, not a source of value.
The South is about pride in one's home town, and region. The South is about a regional identity and unity. It is about a way of thinking, a way of singing, and a way of enjoying life. What other region in America has a symbol equal to the Confederate battle flag?; a symbol internationally known and respected, a symbol in opposition to tyranny and oppression. And then there is the South's national anthem; Dixie.
The South offers an alternative American model, one that is needed in the modern world. The South is the antithesis to modern global hegemony and collectivism. The South is about nationalism, independence, autonomy, personal liberty, limited government. The South embraces God as the sole supreme authority. The South provides an alternative course, alternative direction, an alternative to human secularism and socialism. The South is right.
I would like to recommend a book written by Tony Horwitz, “Confederates in the Attic.” It is both humorous and sobering. He explains why the Confederate flag is hated these days and how that got started. And, believe it or not, Sherman was not the hated man as some portray him now! It is a very interesting book. I wish everyone could read it. I got mine at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA in March of this year.
But of course. I could have told you. Sometimes I miss my “home” states of TN & AL. Miss the slower pace, the food, neighbors, and the smell of Honeysuckle in the evening. Besides the people don’t talk funny like they do up north.
As the song goes - "I'm from the country, and I like it that way."
Can you supply any documentation on that? Since slavery was a total states rights issue then (prior to the 13th Amendment) who was stopping them from ending slavery? Northern states ended it on their own, and no one stopped it.
Your knowledge of history has some very serious gaps.
I would recommend you read the Cornerstone Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens.
Defending slavery was all the Confederacy was about. Without slavery, there would have been no Civil War.
Please, you mean to write Nazis when referring to them as a group, not Nazi’s. FRpers, please don’t fear to add an unadorned S when making a noun plural.
Please, you mean to write Nazis when referring to them as a group, not Nazi’s. FRpers, please don’t fear to add an unadorned S when making a noun plural.
I’m an American. However I have a sister-in-law from the Tar Heel State. (Reigalwood). Two of my brothers graduated from a little Catholic college outside of Charlotte, Belmont Abbey. Been to NC a number of times . Nice place, eighth largest state in the nation. I don’t hate Southerners by the way, just the “Johnny Reb’’ wannabe’s.
The South tried to end slavery before the war? Then what was Kansas all about? And you mean to say the South was fighting to end slavery?
How in the hell did the South put a Klansman in the Senate?
“Please, you mean to write Nazis when referring to them as a group, not Nazi’s. FRpers, please don’t fear to add an unadorned S when making a noun plural.”
Don’t be afraid to follow a thread closely enough to address the author of the passage in question.
Equating those who fought for the Confederacy with the Nazis really shows what little you know about this subject.
Wasn’t West Virginia created by President Lincoln and the North? How is it then a Southern state?
I am proud of my Confederate Ancestors (including those who rode with Quantrill). All those who have a problem with that can rot in hell.
Sorry, I sometimes get confused about who’s who and who said what.
Because it’s always considered itself to be a Southern state.
It was the part of Virginia that split of from the Confederacy.
Hell is right where “Bloody Bill’’ Quantrill is right now and no doubt those who rode with him. The man was a murdering psychopath.
There are plenty of places across our great land that have pride in their community and still hold to the values that or forefathers had.
Obviously these folks think the south is the only place these things happen. Not true. We don’t talk about the southern spirit we talk of the western spirit.... the need to build and innovate. Where a man is a man and his word is his bond. Where it matters not what you have done or where you are from but rather what you are willing to do, what you are willing to stand for and fight for.
Do you know the last slave state in America?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.