[FLT-bird]

You sound to me like a modern Democrat. You’re far more concerned - obsessed really - with defending big government in whatever usurpations of power it wishes to engage in. You sound like the “living constitution” Leftists who think the power of the federal government should not be constrained be the constitution because it’s “old”.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "You sound to me like a modern Democrat. You’re far more concerned - obsessed really - with defending big government in whatever usurpations of power it wishes to engage in."

Nonsense, I certainly don't defend big government's:

• Dred Scot decision denying a state's right to declare slaves emancipated, giving them citizenship.
  Do you?

• 1850 Compromise making big Federal government, not states, responsible for capturing fugitive slaves.
  Do you?

• Secretary of War Jefferson Davis' Gadsden Purchase ($10 million, nearly 20% of the Federal budget, equivalent to $1 trillion today) and efforts of Senator Davis to have Federal government to construct the first transcendental railroad on the Southern route.
  Do you?

• Southern Democrats first-in-line support for the 16th & 17th amendments.
  Do you?

• Southern Democrats support for progressive big government programs under FDR's New Deal.
  Do you?

As for Lincoln's responses to the Confederate rebellion and declaration of war against the United States, none of that was "big government" and virtually all wartime measures -- including the income tax -- were abolished after the war.
Federal government consumed 2.6% of GDP in 1858, 2.5% in 1871, excluding war-debt payments.
That's the very definition of small government.

"Progressive" non-military big government didn't get under way until 50+ years later with full throated support from Southern Democrats.

But all that big government is A-OK with Flt-bird, right?