Lincoln s Spectacular Lie

I'll try this one more time with you and attempt to keep it real simple. Pursuant to Article I of the Constitution, the United States (that's the government headquartered in Washington, D.C.) is empowered to, inter alia, operate a postal service in each state, including, for example, Wyoming. The Tenth Amendment deals only with powers that are not delegated to the United States. The power to operate a postal service in Wyoming is a power that is delegated to the United States. Thus, Wyoming cannot, by resort to the Tenth Amendment, attempt to interfere with the United State's power to operate a postal service in Wyoming because the Tenth Amendment only concerns powers which are not delegated to the United States.

When the southern politicians declared their "secessions," they intended to deprive the U.S. government of all powers within the territorial limits of the seceding states, including those powers (e.g., the power to operate a postal service) that are delegated to the United States. And that is why their declarations of secession could find no support in the Tenth Amendment.

As regards your quote from Mr. Rawles (a U.S. Attorney in Pennsylvania) I am not surprised that someone in the 1820's should have such a view. As I mentioned in post 247, the seeds for this notion of a "disunion" or "scission" (later called "secession") were being sowed as early as the 1790's. In that regard, you might look into the Thomas Jefferson (then Vice-President) - John Taylor correspondence in the summer and fall of 1798 regarding what could be done about the excesses of the Federalists then controlling Congress. And look into Jefferson's then secret role in the preparation of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.

But the long and the short of it is that none of these writings or conversations serve as a substitute for the terms of the Constitution itself. My understanding is that there were also numerous Northern newspaper editors who found no constitutional problem with secession. And if you're just looking for people who will say that the constitution does not forbid a state from unilaterally seceding from the Union, you don't have to look any further than some of the posts on this thread. The problem is that none of this is a substitution for the Constitution itself.

And I say that neither slavery nor "secession" has any current following in this country is because it just doesn't. Not in the north, not in the south, not in the east and not in the west.

Aw my feelings aren't hurt

Good man! I knew that pitiful "I'm just a slave" routine was just for effect!

Comments on this?

....

Toogood Reports | Henry Pelifian Column

[ Front Page News | Page Two Links | Book Shoppe | Link To Us ]

What Does A Government Of
No Limits Mean To America?

By
Henry Pelifian

See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's Counterterrorism Wars
by Robert Baer

Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides compelling evidence about how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA´s efforts to root out the world´s deadliest terrorists … Read more

Coloring the News : How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism
by William McGowan

A fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, presents evidence in which, reporters and editors got stories wrong or ignored topics worthy of coverage because of their liberal ideologies and their fear of offending African-Americans, gays or feminists. (Admitted to by many of the journalists later.) … Read more

The Death of the West:
How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization
by Patrick J. Buchanan

Buchanan sees for America four "clear and present dangers": declining birth rates; uncon-
trolled immigration of peoples of "different colors, creed, and cultures"; rising "anti-Western" culture antithetical to U.S. religious, cultural, and moral norms; and a "defection of ruling elites" to the idea of world government …
Read more

You Don't Say
by Fred Gielow

Prominent, influential liberals reveal with their own words they are anti-religion, anti-family, anti-truth, anti-freedom even anti-civilization! "You Don't Say" exposes liberals hidden agenda … Read more

Why Men Don't Iron :
The Fascinating and Unalterable Differences Between Men and Women by Anne & Bill Moir

So much for the politically correct sacred gender cows of feminism and the cultural marxists. The authors blend research data and an entertaining writing style to make this among the best books on understanding the differences between men and women …
Read more

American Jihad: The
Terrorists Living Among Us
Steven Emerson

Emerson is among the world's most fearless reporters (marked for assassination and offered enrollment in the federal witness protection program). He has studied groups operating in the U.S. for the express purpose of funding and managing deadly organizations. "American Jihad" summarizes what he's learned, and it isn't comforting …
Read more

The Federalist Papers :
In Modern Language
Indexed for Today's Political Issues by Mary E. Webster

Mary Webster has performed a great service by editing the Federalist Papers into modern language and indexing them for present-day political issues
… Read more

Search Now:

Toogood Reports [Thursday, May 2, 2002; 12:01 a.m. EST]
URL: http://ToogoodReports.com/

The federal government is growing daily because politicians care so much for us. What does the government of no limits mean? It means your government spends as much of the public's money as it wants, often under the pretext of helping you with a multitude of government programs that would be unacceptable to any cost conscious citizen, for the costs often far outweigh the benefits. Most government departments increase their budgets every year nearly ten per cent. The federal government piles up debt with no end in sight, as the debt appears to have no limit. This year the government borrowed $750 billion dollars. The only constant is that the trillions of dollars in debt keep increasing every year, every week, every minute. It stands at about $6.1 trillion dollars now and climbing fast. Endless and limitless spending is a dream come true for our government.

Also no limits to government means there is no limit to taxes in our future, for taxes can escalate with no bounds. Always the politicians want more and more spending because the politician with this power of the purse becomes the pivotal source of power and influence in the country. At the inception of our country politicians had an important but less than pivotal role to play in our lives. But the politicians have taken the power of the purse and made themselves the arbiters of our future and our economy. Politicians are bargaining with our freedoms with massive and intrusive government. With so many resources going to government the private sector has not only been shortchanged but also inhibited and stunted. Resources that would go to private citizens and businesses now go to government to spend as it sees fit in creeping or piecemeal socialism. Maybe those thousands of government programs we have today are really games of chance, for a high proportion of them line the pockets of the appointed and anointed ones.

Can you oil the machinery and gears of a free private sector capitalist system with the sawdust of unlimited government programs and expenditures? The politicians are trying to do the impossible: squeeze as much wealth out of our system for government programs and departments without damaging and curtailing our freedoms. Wealth is created and generated by our private sector capitalist system, not by government.

Politicians are risk averse. They want certainty for themselves. Already incumbents are re-elected at a 98% rate. The no limits applies to their terms of office, for they often spend decades in public office applying their unlimited terms to focusing on unlimited spending, constantly growing government while being less and less effective. Since the advent of the federal government involvement in schools there has been a decline in the quality of the educational system. With no limits on government spending the seeds of greater government involvement are laid with each successive program, until the government controls all of society and industry. There are now suggestions that government must regulate the prices of pharmaceutical drugs. Once the process of intervention has begun there is no end to it until there is complete government control. This is called socialism and it does not work, however laudable its claims for social justice it is a flawed model, more flawed than private sector capitalism, which has created all the wealth in the first place that the politicians redistribute to more and more groups in the country including their political clones.

The old saying that we are destroying the goose that laid the golden egg is happening before us now. If American private sector capitalism is the goose and the politician is the hired hand for taking care of the goose it is time we got rid of that kind of politician who is destroying our goose and hire elected officials who will not abuse it with unlimited demands on a daily basis.

What is the proper balance for government? It is already inscribed in the Constitution what the parameters ought to be. Often making government do more is like haphazardly building a flimsy, rickety and unsound structure because the politician cares so much for the people. Once the politician can make the streets and our borders safe, providing a speedy and fair justice system for all, protecting the people from all kinds of scams and crimes, the federal government would begin to be doing its job well.

The primary job of the federal government is applying and enforcing the Constitution of the United States of America and not one sentence more. That includes the Bill of Rights. By destroying or chipping away at the Constitution we do not save America, but endanger it. The politicians have taken the power of the purse and made themselves the final arbiters of our national future and economy.

The Constitution is in the process of being strangled by thousands of laws, administrative rules and exceptions by politicians who care for the people. Every time a politician says or implies he cares for the people, remember he cares for your resources to do things you have no control over because he knows best.

Thomas Jefferson noted "To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with debt." The greatness of America is that this mega-government can be reversed and changed if the American people decide on it.

To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Henry at uniskywriter@yahoo.com .

May 2, 2002
RECENT COLUMNS:
04/25/02: Revolutionary Victory: Our Founding Fathers Believed There Was No Greater Cause Than Liberty
04/18/02: The United States Of Utopia
04/11/02: Your Government Is The Mount Everest Of Generosity
04/04/02: Ending The Slush Fund In Washington With A Citizen Lottery
03/28/02: Liberty For One Is Lost
03/21/02: The College Squeeze
03/14/02: U.S. Throwing Money At Failure In An Out-Of-Step Government Educational System
03/07/02: Panicking Into More Government Control
02/28/02: Cultural Coup D'état
02/21/02: Government Subsidized Enron
02/14/02: Preventing Government From Overpricing Itself
02/07/02: Foreign Policy Tightrope

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Toogood Reports contributor and "Best of the Web" award-winning writer Henry Pelifian has an MBA in International Management and brings with him an international background in both the public and private sector. His work has been published in the Bangkok Post and The Nation, both newspapers in Thailand. E-mail your questions and comments to Henry at uniskywriter@yahoo.com.

[ Front Page News | Page Two Links | Book Shoppe | Link To Us ]

Although some of it seems a bit general and overstated, I agree with a lot of it. I'm not sure that I know where this guy got the idea that it's primarily a function of Federal government to "make the streets . . . safe" or to "{provide] a speedy and fair justice system for all," but I don't want to be overly picky.

Anything in particular you want a comment on?

By the way, that's kind of an interesting website. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out some more tonight after dinner.

The point, which you seem to have missed, is that the two unions were distinct and separate entities.

No they weren't. You're mistaking the marriage vows for the marriage. The Articles and the Constitution merely formalized the fact that the states (or more precisely, the people in them) considered themselves to be bound together by something more than paper and ink.

The first union, formed under the Articles of Confederation, consisted of 13 member States, and the unanimous agreement of all 13 States was required to modify the terms of the Articles. That unanimity of agreement was not achieved until May 29, 1790. The second union , formed under the Constitution, was established upon the mutual agreement of only 9 States – which occurred June 21, 1788.

On this point I offer up the words of James Madison, in Federalist 40: In one particular it is admitted that the convention have departed from the tenor of their commission. Instead of reporting a plan requiring the confirmation [of the legislatures] of all the states, they have reported a plan which is to be confirmed [by the people,] and may be carried into effect by nine States only. It is worthy of remark that this objection, though the most plausible, has been the least urged in the publications which have swarmed against the convention. The forbearance can only have proceeded from an irresistible conviction of the absurdity of subjecting the fate of twelve States to the perverseness or corruption of a thirteenth; from the example of inflexible opposition given by a majority of one sixtieth of the people of America to a measure approved and called for by the voice of twelve States, comprising fifty-nine sixtieths of the people an example still fresh in the memory and indignation of every citizen who has felt for the wounded honor and prosperity of his country. As this objection, therefore, has been in a manner waived by those who have criticised the powers of the convention, I dismiss it without further observation.

Note the difference in dates: the initial establishment of the second union violated the specific terms of the first.

The primary reason for Federalist 40 is to address that point.

Furthermore, one of the 13 States in the first union was not even represented at the convention which produced the second compact.

That state did, nevertheless, decide to ratify. The stubborn independence of some was not sufficient to dissuade those who wanted to remain part of the Union.

Several of the States existed as independent countries outside of the second union for extended periods of time before they eventually ratified the Constitution – and that ratification was by no means guaranteed.

But it did occur, and was eventually unanimous. But here again, you mistake the marriage vows for the marriage. The basic question for ratification was not whether the states wanted to join a Union, but whether they wanted to remain part of the Union under the new Constitution.

The fact that all 13 States were at different times members of both unions no more suggests “continuity” than Ronald Reagan’s membership in the D*mocrat Party, followed by his membership in the Republican Party, suggests “continuity” between those two parties.

Sigh. You're once again focusing on the vows. The Union was not changed, which is no surprise, given that its defining characteristic was a desire by the states to stick together in some manner. The presumptive difference between the "old" and "new" unions was little more than the paper that governed the relations between states and Union.

The convention delegates were not “representatives from the Union of states” – the delegates from each State represented that State alone.

Well of course they represented each state. However, they were assembled in Congress, and in the development and voting on the final form of the Constitution they agreed to be bound by the results of non-unanimous votes. They passed out of their convention a product that was developed by representatives of all the states, for ratification by all the states. This is not merely an act of individuals representing individual states, it is also an act of individuals acting as part of a Union.

And because the new Constitution was ratified by the States, each acting (in James Madison’s words) “as a sovereign body independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act,” it would be ridiculous to suggest that "'the Union” created the states.”

This has already been addressed and dismissed. In a nutshell, it is ludicrous to ask a state to ratify or reject a Constitution if it does not really have the right to do so. Only by treating each state as sovereign can ratification have meaning.

This has no bearing on the existence of the Union itself. Ratification was a vote to remain in Union. Failure to ratify could only have meant a divorce -- a decision to leave the Union.

At this point it is necessary to consider exactly what is meant by "state," something which you seem to have taken for granted up to now. However, for your position on states vs. Union to have any logical consistency, you are required to hold the position that the states always existed as sovereign and independent entities. This is obviously incorrect.

In point of fact, "the states" were created by the British.

The British defined the states as specific areas of land with certain geographical borders. People who lived within those borders were under the authority of the British governor.

However, there's obviously more to a state than people, borders, and a British governor. One must also consider culture, econonmy, and methods of government.

Herein lie the true roots of the Union, in that the various colonies, and later states, had common interests and goals in these regards. As it happens, the foundations of the Union were formed relatively early in the Colonial period, and thus long predated the States, which after the Revolution replaced the British government with governments of their own, but which pretty much kept the British borders.

Getting back to the Constitution, it is well worth noting that the same Congress (and many of the same men) who represented the Union of rebellious colonies (which were not yet states!), created the Articles of Confederation, defining how that Union would operate after the Revolution. And when the Articles proved unworkable, those same men, "in order to form a more perfect Union," replaced the Articles with the Constitution.

The Constitution defined the political limitations not only of the Union, but also of the states. In these ways, the Union did indeed create the states.

Anything in particular you want a comment on?

Sure. Where do you place primary responsibility for
the sorry state of affairs that exists today in this nation?

“To realize his dream of empire, Lincoln would have to crush any notion of the Union as a voluntary pact between sovereign states. In fact, the entire American political history, including the fact that America was born of secession, would have to be expunged, and secession tarnished as treason. Lincoln then would proceed to fabricate the notion that the federal government created the states, when the opposite was true.” --ILANA MERCER

BEAUTY AND BRAINS!
WHAT A COMBINATION!

Someday, if there is an afterlife, perhaps you can meet some real slaves who could be legally chained and bought and sold like corn. And you can tell them about government and swap slave stories with them.

As I said before, you don't listen, so I don't know why I bother. Back in the 1930s, the United States Federal government located a lot of former slaves from the era and asked them a whole slew of questions. The book was published, and to the chagrine of the interviewers, it came back about 70/30 split from former slaves reminiscing about their days of slavery. You see, contrary to your public education 4th grade mantra of 'slavery bad, lincoln good', there weren't that many huge plantations like we see so eloquently displayed in movies like Roots. Perhaps you might want to read a bit of Tocqueville, an observer of both northern and Southern cultures. Read Charles Dickens observations, who was a reporter during the war on this continent.

I'm not saying slavery was a good thing, it was bad. However, ask yourself how much lincoln did for slaves before the war. Did he teach them to read and write as Stonewall Jackson did? I know, perhaps he wanted to educate them before release so they would be prepared for the world as free men. No, that was Davis and Lee. lincoln's 'root,pig, or perish' story told us as much as that.

As for your silly 'secession was a made up right by the South', I suggest you look to Thomas Pickering, George Cabot, and the Essex Junto of the early 19th century. Those northern boys cared so much about the United States that they wanted to secede right in the middle of a war if they didn't get their way.

And I say that neither slavery nor "secession" has any current following in this country is because it just doesn't.

You better look to the Southwest then. There's rumblings out there from the Hispanic population about setting up the Northern Republic or something. A couple of professors have written some papers about it and done a study or two. They have less of an argument than the Essex boys in the 1810s did, but hey I'd be curious to see if they try it in the next 40 years (at least that's their plan)

Where do you place primary responsibility for the sorry state of affairs that exists today in this nation?

I think that political responsibility must rest with those who have political power. And the only people who have any power now are those of us who are alive now. So I'm very reluctant to go too far back in time looking for responsibility.

The most important lesson that I have learned from that generation which both won our independence and designed our initial constitutional framework is that each generation has the obligation to chart its own course and to accept responsibility for any of its own failures to competently deal with the challenges with which it is presented. So, if we don't like the way we are operating, it's our job to fix it.

The Constitution is certainly not a straightjacket. Certain of the provisions of the constitution are very definite in meaning (e.g., the minimum age for a Senator), but many of the provisions were intended to be more indefinite (e.g., "due process of law"). When a competent draftsman utilizes indefinite terms, he does so for the purpose of delegating to future decision-makers the right and obligation to provide greater definition to the terms. It is therefore no accident that the same indefinite terms might be defined somewhat differently by different decision-makers in different times. That is just one of the ways in which the Framers provided us with the flexibility that we have needed to deal with problems and needs that were totally unforeseeable to them. And, on top of all that, they provided us in Article V with the ability to amend the Constitution more or less as we see fit.

So, I think we have all the tools, we have all the power and we therefore have all the responsibility for our own political environment.

I'm not saying slavery was a good thing, it was bad.

I suspected that you and I were on the same side all along.

You better look to the Southwest then. There's rumblings out there from the Hispanic population about setting up the Northern Republic or something. A couple of professors have written some papers about it and done a study or two. They have less of an argument than the Essex boys in the 1810s did, but hey I'd be curious to see if they try it in the next 40 years (at least that's their plan)

Northern Republic, huh? Well, you gotta admire them for their ambition. Each of us could probably have a lot more influence if we just had a little more ambition.

However, ask yourself how much lincoln did for slaves before the war. Did he teach them to read and write as Stonewall Jackson did?

Lincoln did not teach slaves to read and write. If he is to be condemned for it then you must condemn Lee and Davis and also Stonewall Jackson because contrary to your claim none of those men taught slaves to read and write, either.

I would refer you the Byron Farwell's biography on Jackson, "Stonewall: A Biography of General Thomas J. Jackson". He makes it clear that this particular Sunday school existed at the church before Jackson arrived, so Jackson didn't found anything. It was a Bible lecture once per week for exactly 45 minutes. The students did not read the lesson because they were not taught to read in the class. It consisted of an opening him, the reading of a passage from the Bible, additional lectures in small groups, and the whole class reconviened for a closing prayer and hymn. Falwell notes that the opening hymn was always 'Amazing Grace' because Jackson, like Ulysses Grant, was tone deaf and that was the only hymn he could recognize. The reason why we know these things is that Jackson was an organized man and a detailed keeper of records. He documented everything to do with the school.

So if you want to condemn Lincoln for doing nothing to prepare slaves for freedom then I suggest you add the other three men to your list, too, because they did nothing to prepare them for freedom either.

And if they try secession then you will support them, right?

Malice noted. No reply necessary.

Now, I don't know what you might mean by the term "secession," but I know what the southern politicians trying to protect slavery meant. They intended to divest the government of the United States of its powers in the southern states. They meant to mess with the powers that are delegated to the United States.

You are confusing the secessionists with the nullifiers of the generation previous.

The Southerners didn't intend to impair the powers of the United States. They intended to leave the United States. Big difference.

You aren't breaking the rules of the Club if you aren't a member any more, and don't come around any more.

You quote the Tenth Amendment, and then post the picture of the man who turned it into a roll of toilet paper. You've just set some sort of land speed record for confusion as to concepts and consequences. Welcome to the thread -- you'll feel right at home with your fellow Unionists.

As for your silly 'secession was a made up right by the South', I suggest you look to Thomas Pickering, George Cabot, and the Essex Junto of the early 19th century.

Then look at Chief Justice Jay, Chief Justice Marshall and even Chief Justice Taney, who took the opposite position.

Walt

There was no secession threat over the income tax or income withholding. None over Social Security, FDA, OSHA, DEA, EPA, TVA or any other federal agency or giveaway.

Of course not, not from a beaten people. By the time FDR came along, the new Masters of America had had their churls on the time clock for two generations.

People overlook the enormous change in work relationships (and therefore in class and civic relationships) that was wrought by the introduction of large, integrated companies and their work rules and time clocks. Some sociologists have noticed.....but as upper-crusty, highly-educated intellectuals, they don't care. Intellectuals have only a negative interest in democracy anyway. They do better under despots.

Someone teased Ned about rattling his chains. Your recital of alphabet-soup agencies of the federal government is a pretty good imitation of chains rattling.

My point is that secession is far less likely to be invoked to defend individual, human, civil, or even property rights, and far more likely to be used by states to promote their own interests.

Error of logic. Secession was undertaken precisely in response to a prospective change in the definition of property rights, especially crafted to disadvantage Southern planters and despoil them of their capital. You don't suppose Abe Lincoln actually proposed to pay full face value for manumitted slaves, do you? His 1864 offer was about 20 cents on the dollar. It was tardy, inasmuch as hostilities had already gone too far, and there was too much ill will.

The backers of secession were looking to their personal interest, to which they knew Lincoln and his party were inimical.

It has been much more about power, than about freedom.

Well, that is a reasonable statement, but a false dichtomy. If I'm powerless, I can't defend my freedom. Certainly the secessionists reasonably (and correctly) expected Lincoln to invade their rights and freedoms on a personal level, as well as on a constitutional level (repeal of the Tenth Amendment).

Indeed, the interests and power of states may demand the repression of individual liberties. They aren't that different from the federal government itself.

This is a reasonable point, and I agree. Certainly the career of Jim Crow demonstrates the truth of what you say. But if you mean to say, oh, well, there's no difference -- let's just do it my way, then I'm afraid I'll have to demur on two grounds. The first is subsidiarity. It's a durable conservative principle that government tends not to oppress or to neglect the people, the closer it is to them. This is precisely why so many Freepers regard globalism, whether commercial or governmental, and its twin internationalism, as bad things. It isn't that someone from Switzerland can't hear a case and dispense justice, or that an English legislator couldn't serve a congressional district. It's that, in the estimation of history, imperial or transnational arrangements tend to have more bad habits than local ones. When the Hutus went after the Tutsis, for example, the United Nations was a veritable bump on a log.

There is nothing about more comprehensive forms of government that somehow makes them simultaneously more responsive or respectful of civli liberties. People who seem to think so, are laboring under the delusion that empires are still a desirable (for the populations involved) form of human organization. One could make some argument for their cross-pollenating and commercial functions 100 years ago, but now we know we don't need to put up with the institutional and social complications of imperialism to reap imperialism's benefits. One could argue, indeed, that we are benefiting entirely too much from global integration. Does the benefit of being able to hear for the first time two young women speaking Amharic in a parking lot (they were from Ethiopia) outweigh all the complications of excessive and illegal immigration? No.

The second ground for my disagreeing with you on this point is that it's a fallacy of distraction. The point is, that Lincoln disturbed by waging war, a settled arrangement of the Constitution, and this damage to the American Expeiment needs to be repaired. The American people need to learn to recognize and reject intellectual hustlers who advocate some multiplication of powers and offices, on the strength of some come-on moral argument like feeding the hungry or protecting children. Yet this happens all the time, and many things are transacted at the federal level as a result; this is a violation both of subsidiarity and of enumerated powers.

Continuing my reply to your post to me,

Nor do I share DiLorenzo's naive presumption that more "state's rights" necessarily means less government and greater individual freedom. States have themselves been capable of great oppression. The same would be true of any sucessor states to our federal union.

This is a kind of "they all do it" argument, and I continue to disagree with you about whether state governments would be more likely to abuse citizens than a national government full of big-wheel wannabes.

One could also quite easily turn your argument against you. Given completely sovereign, unchecked states, which were not required to abide by the Bill of Rights, what defense of due process would dissidents have against "a swift trip to prison?"

You mentioned the 14th Amendment. The putative lack of this amendment, in your mental exercise, would be supplied by Amendments V, VI, and VIII. If the entire Bill of Rights were removed, then of course there would be a problem.

In any case, if you look at what happened, the segregationists left the scene without being imprisoned or repressed. Indeed, in the 20th century they did far more of this to those they had power over.

Your claimed point is open to challenge on a couple of points. First, there is accumulating evidence of "reverse Jim Crow" or "Crow Jim" as I usually call it, from bans on displays of Confederate flags to banishment of placenames, removal of Confederate monuments, and flat refusal by black politicians in the South to permit public appropriations for Civil War memorials.

Furthermore, during the increase in violence that occurred in the 1980's and 1990's, murders in the United States rose to about 25,000 per year. Of these homicides, 50% were black victims, 91% of whom were killed by black assailants: this is "black on black crime". Of the non-black proportion of the decedents, some 50% of these as well were murdered by young black men. Crime statisticians have been ordered, I think, to cover up this hecatomb of "murdering out" by the black community (refusing to stipulate the assailant's race in some 25% of cases, e.g., putting down the race of the assailant as "unknown") and otherwise playing games with crime statistics in order to conceal the central social fact of 20th-century crime, which is that young black men are raping out, robbing out, and murdering out at a tremendous rate. During the years in question, they claimed a net imbalance of 5400 murders per year among non-blacks. This is a hecatomb of deaths that absolutely dwarfs the numbers of lynchings that were so prominent in the political arguments of the civil rights movement.

Therefore I think that, on the strength of these numbers, your statement that "in the 20th century they did far more of this to those they had power over" is categorically incorrect. Rather, the civil rights movement has been attended by the payment of a high blood price for the substitution of more liberal law-enforcement techniques for the old Jim Crow regimes, formal and informal, that formerly obtained in many big cities. This has to count as a major policy embarrassment for liberalism, and one that they are at pains to keep quiet.