[Aurelius]

We have come to the end of our discussion. Like all of the Union apologists you appear to favor a government which is strong on authority and coercion and weak in the protection of liberty. In short, a government which is a master of the people rather than a servant. I don't understand what makes people such as you tick and find that the value of interchange of ideas with them is rather limited.

[LS]

It has nothing to do with what I think, or even what I "favor." It has everything to do with what the FOUNDERS intended when they wrote the Declaration and the Constitution. With very few exceptions (whom I have noted), the Founders did not intend for individual states to be supreme to the federal government. Now, far from being a "union apologist," that makes me purely in the mainstream of American thought alongside Madison, Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jackson, and others. It means that the "interpretation" that you subscribe to is purely of your own invention, because you cannot cite with any consistency ANY Founders other than Jefferson (but only at times) and Mason who advocated state supremacy over the federal government. And it has nothing to do with liberty. The federal government was the source of LIBERTY for the slaves, because you cannot cite a single example of any state below the Mason-Dixon line voluntarily eliminating slavery.