Posted on 06/14/2004 5:16:34 AM PDT by Theodore R.
They Aren’t What They Used to Be
May 27, 2004
If I had to sum up American history in one sentence, I’d put it this way: The United States aren’t what they used to be.
That’s not nostalgia. That’s literal fact. Before the Civil War, the United States was a plural noun. The U.S. Constitution uses the plural form when, for example, it refers to enemies of the United States as “their” enemies. And this was the usage of everyone who understood that the union was a voluntary federation of sovereign states, delegating only a few specified powers, and not the monolithic, “consolidated,” all-powerful government it has since become.
Maybe Americans prefer the present megastate to the one the Constitution describes. But they ought to know the difference. They shouldn’t assume that the plural United States were essentially the same thing as today’s United State, or that the one naturally “evolved” into the other.
The change was violent, not natural. Lincoln waged war on states that tried to withdraw from the Union, denying their right to do so. This was a denial of the Declaration of Independence, which called the 13 former colonies “Free and Independent States.”
Washington and Jefferson at times expressed their fear that some states might secede, but they took for granted that this was the right of any free and independent state. They advised against exercising that right except under serious provocation, but they assumed it was a legitimate option against the threat of a centralized government that exceeded its constitutional powers.
Before the Civil War, several states considered leaving the Union, and abolitionists urged Northern states to do so in order to end their association with slave states. Congressman John Quincy Adams, a former president, wanted Massachusetts to secede if Texas was admitted to the Union. Nobody suggested that Adams didn’t understand the Constitution he was sworn to uphold.
But the danger to the states’ independence was already growing. Andrew Jackson had threatened to invade South Carolina if it seceded, shocking even so ardent a Unionist as Daniel Webster. Jackson didn’t explain where he got the power to prevent secession, a power not assigned to the president in the Constitution. Why not? For the simple reason that the Constitution doesn’t forbid secession; it presupposes that the United States are, each of them, free and independent.
Still, Lincoln used Jackson’s threat as a precedent for equating secession with “rebellion” and using force to crush it. This required him to do violence to the Constitution in several ways. He destroyed the freedoms of speech and press in the North; he arbitrarily arrested thousands, including elected officials who opposed him; he not only invaded the seceding states, but deposed their governments and imposed military dictatorships in their place.
In essence, Lincoln made it a crime — “treason,” in fact — to agree with Jefferson. Northerners who held that free and independent states had the right to leave the Union — and who therefore thought Lincoln’s war was wrong — became, in Lincoln’s mind, the enemy within. In order to win the war, and reelection, he had to shut them up. But his reign of terror in the North has received little attention.
He may have “saved the Union,” after a fashion, but the Union he saved was radically different from the one described in the Constitution. Even his defenders admit that when they praise him for creating “a new Constitution” and forging “a second American Revolution.” Lincoln would have been embarrassed by these compliments: He always insisted he was only enforcing and conserving the Constitution as it was written, though the U.S. Supreme Court, including his own appointees, later ruled many of his acts unconstitutional.
The Civil War completely changed the basic relation between the states, including the Northern states, and the Federal Government. For all practical purposes, the states ceased to be free and independent.
Sentimental myths about Lincoln and the war still obscure the nature of the fundamental rupture they brought to American history. The old federal Union was transformed into the kind of “consolidated” system the Constitution was meant to avoid. The former plurality of states became a single unit. Even our grammar reflects the change.
So the United States were no longer a “they”; they’d become an “it.” Few Americans realize the immense cost in blood, liberty, and even logic that lies behind this simple change of pronouns.
Joseph Sobran
Oh wow, I'm thrilled. I'm sure my ggggrandfather that was killed in battle; and his wife that was left to raise 3 children alone; and all the other men and women that were killed in battle or murdered; and the women and children that were raped; and the southerners that starved thanks to the union army destroying their crops and slaughtering their livestock; and those left homeless when towns, convents and churches were leveled by union armies; and the preachers forced to pray for Lincoln; and all those that had their gold, silver, money, jewels and other valuable property stolen by union soldiers; and those that lost their land after the war - I'm sure they will all be forever warmed and encouraged by you words. I'm sure that they all are comforted by your concern, and gladly welcome the sacrifices made in the effort to preserve a union they wanted no part of.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now I, and all other Southerners can go to our graves, understanding that our emotions and grief are misplaced, and that our ancestors deserved to die in the most inhumane method possible for simply believing "[t]hat whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
We will forever be gratefull, and would like to erect a shrine in yours and Lincoln's honour, so that we can worship you till the end of our putrid existence. Thank you.
Grammar is always being undermined: I have noticed that reporters tend to write "graduated high school," instead of "graduated FROM high school," for instance.
Are you THE Doris Kearns Goodwin, who wrote "Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream," which I read more than 20 years ago? Thanks for the statistics.
I contacted Professor DiLorenzo in MD, and here is his reply. I appreciated his taking up so much of his valuable time for my question:
Professor: About what percent of total tariff receipts were paid by the 15 slave states in 1860?
His reply: This is a bit complicated and requires a little economics education. Who pays a tariff is not determined by where the tariff is collected. That's because different people have different abilities to pass on the higher cost of living due to the tariff to the people who buy whatever they are selling -- goods and services or their labor. This is similar to how corporations always pass on most or all of the taxes imposed on them to their customers. It's called "tax incidence" in the field of economics.
The South exported around 75 percent of everything it produced, and international markets were very competitive. They found that they could not pass on any of the higher cost of living due to the tariff (more expensive clothing, blankets, shoes, farm tools, etc, etc. ) to their customers for cotton, tobacco and rice since their international competitors would then underprice them. Thus, to the South, the tariff was virtually all burden or cost and no benefit. They paid it all. Northern businesses that were protected by the tariff from international competition were essentially monopolists as a result and could pass on almost all of any tariff to their customers, and so they felt little or no burden. Quite the contrary, they benefited from it since it protected them from competition.
Others have made specific estimates, but it seems obvious to me that because of this "incidence," in the language of economic theory, the SOUTH ENDED UP PAYING MOST OF THE TARIFF. They had been complaining about just that ever since the tariff of 1824. And they also complained that most of the revenue raised was being spent in the North.
The economically ignorant have argued that since northern ports were busier than southern ports, the north paid most of the tariff. This is B.S. Trying to understand the incidence of tariffs without the benefit of economic theory is like trying to find your way around a strange city without street signs. Some of the bigshot "civil war" historians like James McPherson make this economically ignorant argument despite the fact that all they would have to do is pick up a freshman level economics textbook. Since they have not, I can only assume that they are not interested in discovering the truth.
Tom DiLorenzo
Actually, they thought they did, pretty explicityl in fact. It is known as the 10th Amendment.
I do have an economics minor, and anyone with half a brain should understand that protectionist tariffs are "extortion" monies to protect a product or industry from competition. Having a high tariff in place may result in NO tariff income, but still costs consumers much in the form of higher prices for protected products.
I've never seen anyone complain about paying too little in taxes - only those whose pockets are hit complain and strive for a reduction in rates. Those that benefit from higher tariffs/taxes (i.e. don't pay) are the ones that clamor for increased rates - it only puts more money in their pockets.
The ones that complain about reductions are the ones who have been leeching off the system. Which explains Lincoln's comments about "his" revenue to carry on the government.
Two times in one week, in casual converstaion, I was found myself in an argument regarding the "Electoral College." Both times the "opponent" characterized the Electoral College system as a system that is now obsolete. Reason: It was a system created for another time when the public was less educated. In one case the EC was characterized as a system used at time of aristocracy. The point I think was to cast the system not only obsolete, but apparently evil as well.
Both times I had to bring the argument back to the fundamental point of the EC. My view is this system has nothing to do with who gets to cast the votes for the individual States. This is secondary. Rather, the system is about balancing the power each state has with regard to voting for the President, this as a counter to a pure majority-rule system. I thought more about this after arguing in the first individual and it occurred to me then - and seems to be justified by this article - that we don't vote for the President of the People Occupying the Several States. We vote for the President of the United States - that is, the President presides over the States, not the people.
The whole push to somehow legitimize the popular vote is dangerous to the idea of several independent states, and liberals always love to banter on about the popular vote.
Even the term "popular vote" is not mentioned in that obsolete document called the "Constituiton of the United States."
I think one of the other posters had stated that Baldwin's testimony was not substantiated - and these were found by several of us to refute that ludicrous assertion. The meeting with Rev. Fuller was reported in 3 Baltimore papers.
I didn't claim that, TheodoreR did back around post 74. I just asked where he got that information from.
No one says that the Southern farmers themselves paid all the tariffs directly.
Bullshit. The Kennedy Boys do. Walter Williams does. TheodoreR did. Countless other southron supporters do.
When this amount, used to purchase goods for imports, re-entered the ports, they were taxed
And how much of those imports were destined for southern consumers?
You may have, Pea. But how much of those tariffs were paid by southern consumers. That's the question.
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