"All it would've taken would've been a group of Southron elites who gave more of a damn about freedom than their own power."
Perhaps true, to a point. One wonders, though, how long it would have been before the national socialists in the north to think of a pretext for dismantling the limited government envisioned by the original Constitution. I guess it would have been ...probably until the 1930's when government action set off the depression...which resulted in more government action...which prolonged the depression...which resulted in more government action...the packing of the court...until eventually depression passed.
At least they would have had further to go had the first Constitutional revolution of the CW amendments not happened. That would have given about another 40 years or so to liberty.
And then we could talk about the good old days of the Constitution without aligning ourselves with slavery.
Gentlemen, here's the point. When we see liberty being squandered, we need to strike hard and fast. If we compromise, all we are doing is waiting for the day when that compromise is going to come back and haunt us. Our founders let slavery live on when it could have perhaps been dealt with in a more manageable way. Then it became a growth industry, then a crisis, then a way....then we lost the consittution.
Then there was a period of status quo, until we got hit with an economic crisis. Then a previous generation put in a smiling, genial communist who promised to deliver us from want and deprivation. What he did was dismantle what remained of the constitution. Again, we were asleep while liberty suffered.
There are a few battles worth fighting today. Guns, contra income tax, growth of government, homeschooling, life, the UN. We should all agree to be absolutists on these points. If we win onthem continually and WITHOUT COMPROMISE...then, maybe, slowly, we can start to resurrect the original vision of the Constitution of limited government.
I'd remind you that although the "alpha-dog" National Socialist happened to be from the State of New York, the former Confederate States voted for him and supported him as a solid block through 4 terms. He never reached that level of support in the North. But then again, while FDR handed out taxpayer cash to his supporters, North and South, he never once tampered with Jim Crow.
And how about the tall, bombastic Nationational Socialist from Texas in the 1960s, or the little, mean, vindictive anti-American one from Georgia in the 1970s.