I am a Southerner although I have lived most of my life in the Midwest. I know that whenever the term, South, is used in discussing the Civil War, it conjures up all sorts of baggage. Maybe it is better to discuss the principles rather than the fight for southern independence. I make no defense of slavery. It was wrong even though it had been practiced throughout human history, even by the Founding Fathers. The issue deals with the authority of a central government over against a state’s authority. It is plain from the Constitution that the federal government was to be a limited government and that individual states were tasked with providing for the needs of the people in those states. The Civil War created a situation in which the Union’s interest superseded the interests of an individual state. It marked a dramatic turn in which America was no longer a nation composed of sovereign states, but a unified central government. Washington became America. As we have seen, the expansion and intrusion of the federal government into the lives of everyone living in the nation’s borders has all but destroyed state’s rights. We have an imperial hegemony sitting in Washington. More and more power is distributed amongst fewer and fewer people. It is truly closer to a dictatorship than a republic.
I am a Southerner although I have lived most of my life in the Midwest. I know that whenever the term, South, is used in discussing the Civil War, it conjures up all sorts of baggage. Maybe it is better to discuss the principles rather than the fight for southern independence. I make no defense of slavery. It was wrong even though it had been practiced throughout human history, even by the Founding Fathers. The issue deals with the authority of a central government over against a state’s authority. It is plain from the Constitution that the federal government was to be a limited government and that individual states were tasked with providing for the needs of the people in those states. The Civil War created a situation in which the Union’s interest superseded the interests of an individual state. It marked a dramatic turn in which America was no longer a nation composed of sovereign states, but a unified central government. Washington became America. As we have seen, the expansion and intrusion of the federal government into the lives of everyone living in the nation’s borders has all but destroyed state’s rights. We have an imperial hegemony sitting in Washington. More and more power is distributed amongst fewer and fewer people. It is truly closer to a dictatorship than a republic.””
Excellent post and dead on target.