The Way We Are Now, Alas!
by Clyde N. Wilson
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McCain is bound to win the nomination. He has Rambo and The Terminator on his side. Huckabee only has Church Norris and Romney only has the Prophet and his make-up man.
If you are reading this you are, according to legislation proposed by your President, a facilitator of domestic right-wing anti-government extremism, aka “homegrown terrorism.”
Money can always command talent and idealism, seldom the other way around.
In my experience there are generally two kinds of people: those who are luckier than they deserve to be and those who are unluckier than they deserve to be. Or maybe it is just those born with capital and those who have only their labour.
The automobile for Americans is strangely conflicted combination of freedom and dependency. The car, though dependent on remote sources of fuel and other complexities beyond the individual’s power, does offer some freedom to millions of Americans. Americans avoid mass transportation for the same reason they avoid or flee certain neighbourhoods. In both cases they lie about the reason.
Two things, at least, make a genuine democracy impossible in the United States. First, the immense accumulations of financial power in a few hands. Second, the long predominant Progressive mentality among the chattering classes and their patrons in power. Progressives assume that the inferior, unenlightened populace must be driven in the right direction by a wise elite—themselves—who know what direction history ought to go.
My family on both sides were here in the 1600s. Not that they were at all distinguished. They were plain folk, but they were here and did their part. I get mightily tired of being told what is the meaning of America and the truth of American history by people whose families have never known pioneering, liberty under law, the sacrifices of war, the homely virtues of Protestant commonwealth—who came out of crowded, reactionary/revolutionary Europe no more than a generation or two ago or even less.
Both the United States and California would be better off if the principle of secession had prevailed and California was a separate country. (And don’t get in a dither about lost military bases. Such things can always be negotiated.)
Mouthpieces for the present government’s wars of aggression are free in throwing around charges of lack of patriotism and even treason against their opponents. But treason is not disagreeing with the government; treason is violating the Constitution and betraying the people.
I was thinking the other day about how outmoded are the traditional elephant and donkey symbols for the political parties. Elephants are intelligent and noble animals, certainly not a proper symbol for Republicans. And the humble but stubborn and hard-working donkey hardly fits the Democrats any more. But I gave up trying to come up with replacements. American journalists and academics today would not understand anything as imaginative as a meaningful symbol.
The French now know that their once revered Revolution was an unnecessary and evil event. The Russians have come to understand the same about their Revolution. Perhaps some day Americans will come to understand the truth about the bloody Lincoln coup. That is the first step toward recovery.
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1 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 February 2008:
Dr. Wilson,
Your words:
“If you are reading this you are, according to legislation proposed by your President, a facilitator of domestic right-wing anti-government extremism, aka ‘homegrown terrorism.’ ”
Just a few days ago, one of my students, fourteen years old, I believe, asked me if I thought that U.S. soldiers would shoot Americans. I gave her the straight answer, “Yes!”
I note three things: one will be able to find American-born men who will shoot Americas; there are plenty of aliens serving in the armed forces who will obey their masters and not the Constitution; and the “powers that be” already have their private armies as in “Blackwater” which will do their bidding. Katrina and Rita, Grendel and Grendel’s mother, showed us how the military, the local police and the private armies will operate in “a national emergency.” There actions are merely a harbinger of things to come. The cops and the soldiers, public and private, were the dragon. (Notice that I am keeping up the Beowulf theme even here!) Add to those three the militarization of the police, and you have the means necessary to get the job done.
Up until this year, I served in a disaster relief organization – an organization associated with a certain Christian organization. We were told that we would be “serving” under FEMA and that under certain conditions we might be serving in within a martial law framework. When I serve through the Church, I serve only one Master and that is the Christ. I am no longer in that organization. The “good preachers” will do their duty. With a tear in their eyes for us wayward souls, they would even condescend to say a prayer for us as we are shot for having posted on the Chronicles site.
2 Comment by Joshua Cooney on 6 February 2008:
“Perhaps some day Americans will come to understand the truth about the bloody Lincoln coup. That is the first step toward recovery.”
We all know that racism is the atomic bomb used to marginalize voices like Dr. Wilson, who question the ethical and political consequences of Lincoln and his war. I don’t think the issue of the War Between the States is a lost cause, however. One example that comes to mind is Wendell Berry. He has defended southern culture and history while maintaining considerable appeal with independant minded liberals; nobody accuses Berry of racism. I suppose the difference between Berry and, say, Mel Bradford is that Berry never takes direct aim at Lincoln. Nonetheless, people who value peace, liberty, and ecological sanity, are drawn to the agrarian/Jeffersonian vision, which is so at odds with the tradtion of Lincoln, Wilson, and Bush. I’m not sure where we go from here, but, as I said, I don’t think it’s a lost cause.
3 Comment by Bruce on 6 February 2008:
I forget. Which one’s the stupid party and which one’s the evil party?
I can’t tell by lookin’ at ‘em.
4 Comment by Fred Fowler on 6 February 2008:
“Two things, at least, make a genuine democracy impossible in the United States. First, the immense accumulations of financial power in a few hands. Second, the long predominant Progressive mentality among the chattering classes and their patrons in power. Progressives assume that the inferior, unenlightened populace must be driven in the right direction by a wise elite—themselves—who know what direction history ought to go.”
That our country is not a democracy does not bother me, since I agree with Aristotle (assuming that I am right about what he said) that democracy is an illegitimate form of government, and the corruption of constitutional government. In fact, the concentration of power and the triumph of the “Progressives” at the beginning of the Twentieth Century came about in part because our republic had long since degenerated into a democracy ruled by demagogues. Many of the demagogues never held office, but they were very influential. Hearst is one example.
In fact, note the effective use of the words “progress” and “progressive” over the last hundred years by writers and speakers. “Progress” is not a semantic absolute; its meaning is “movement toward a desired end.” People differ about which ends are desirable, and therefore there is no such thing as progress in itself. The very name of the “Progressives” is an effective bit of demagoguery.
5 Comment by Bruce on 6 February 2008:
Progressive? I like to identify as a regressive.
6 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 February 2008:
Bruce @ 3
My son called me last night and was lamenting the entire process called the primaries which we must endure. At one point in our conversation he said that some aspect of the process, I forget which one, must be unconstitutional. I told him that nothing about political parties and how they select their candidates was constitutional. The Constitution does not even speak to them or of them. They are mere private associations which have become parasites on the polity and pathogens to society.
The Congress was to be a place where the sovereign states sent their ambassdors – think Westphalian Order with states, regardless of population, geographic size or natural wealth, being equal – to make laws on behalf of the states and the people of each, said laws to be carried out in the absence of the Congress by a dutiful executive. We were not to have a vulgar parliament of faction. But that is what we have. Senators and Representatives no longer represent their states and the people thereof but the parties and the interests groups which control them. At the state level, state senators and representatives no longer represent their districts but the parties and the those interest groups.
I have a very conservative friend, a genteel Southern lady, who, however, is a loyal party member. She is going to support Obama although he is absolutely antithetical to all of her values. I do not discuss politics with her. I get infuriated when I do. Such is the nature of faction and of party.
7 Comment by Fred Fowler on 6 February 2008:
Mr. Peters @ 6
I completely agree. Political parties are the bane of a constitutional federation. Factions always arise, but political parties have a deadly permanence. In the long run they become organizations that exist to secure patronage and power.
8 Comment by Jacob Aitken on 6 February 2008:
Dr Peters @ 1
Regarding the government’s confiscation of law-abiding citizens of their handguns, and given the reaction by several conservative law-makers, Rep Walsworth, I think, who passed laws to prevent the “gun grab” from ever happening again.
Will the 2nd Amendment be a stop to the government from grabbing guns when disaster strikes again?
9 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 February 2008:
Mr. Aitken @ 8
The reason that we individually bear arms, a right flowing out of natural rights, and that the states are supposed to maintain militias is to be able to have individually and collectively the force necessary to meet abuses of the general government. The second amendment, as I am sure you know, does not give that right; it, having been ratified by the states and the people thereof, states that the Congress of the general government can make no law to abridge or to resend that right which has existed among freemen, Celtic and Germanic, since ancient times – a freeman dies with his sword in his hand. When there are no longer men of integrity to respect the law, i.e. the Constitution in this case, then the unlawful force of the general government can only be met with the lawful force of the people, that is if they have the will and the courage to uphold the law and the rights of which the law is the handmaiden!
10 Comment by Nicholas G.P. MOSES on 6 February 2008:
“The French now know that their once revered Revolution was an unnecessary and evil event. The Russians have come to understand the same about their Revolution. Perhaps some day Americans will come to understand the truth about the bloody Lincoln coup. That is the first step toward recovery.”
Yes, the French know it, but they willfully deny that it is necessary to do anything to undo the evil (i.e., undo the revolution). Will Americans do anything to undo Lincoln? And once that’s done, will they have what it takes to nip any chance of recognition by going back and undoing the huge chain of events, if necessary up to and including 1776, that allowed Lincoln to happen in the first place?
11 Comment by T. Chan on 6 February 2008:
Kevin Gutzman believes the second amendment does not prevent individual states from restricting or banning gun ownership, and his reasoning seems correct. If a state were to do such a thing, (1) would the Supreme Court as it is today still rule that this law is unconstitutional? (2) How can we prevent states from doing this?
12 Comment by Thomas Miller on 6 February 2008:
“McCain is bound to win the nomination. He has Rambo and The Terminator on his side. Huckabee only has Church Norris and Romney only has the Prophet and his make-up man.”
You are a wag, Dr. Wilson. Cigars and tea are on the Mormon list of proscribed products, but apparently Grecian Formula is not.
What I can’t understand is how McCain is running away with the nomination. He is even winning among voters who list illegal immigration as their biggest concern! I knew Republican voters were boobs, but not to this extent.
13 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 February 2008:
Mr. Chan @ 11
Since the states are sovereign, noting that the “state” in that since is not the government or the bureaucracy but the people thereof, then it is both the right and the obligation of the people of a given state to affix such clauses as necessary to their state constitutions which restrict the tendency of government – local, state or general – of a state to infringe on the ancient right. People do carry responsibility for their rights – exercise it not and loose it!
The states, i.e. the people in their sovereign capacity in convention, created through the Constitution the general government and with that same instrument placed restriction on the creature, the 2nd amendment being one of them.
Thus, the Constitution was indeed not meant to be applied to the states, save in those quite specific places where the states allowed it to be applied to them. The amendments associated with the Bill of Rights do not apply to the states.
Now, of course, we have the little matter of the nine divines, an unelected and life-appointed arm of the creature, namely the general government, twisting the already very questionable 14th amendment into leverage for the court to apply the Constitution to the states which the court has done. The other branches of the creature, the general government, are not inclined to challenge one of the arms of the very leviathan of which they are all three a part.
It seems that even “conservatives” look to the unelected arm of the creature to “protect” their rights or advocate their issues: abortion, gay marriage, and now the right to bear arms. To ask the Supreme Court or any branch of the general government for that matter to protect a right is not unlike a group of hens, flustered at an overbearing rooster, asking the fox to protect the hen house.
14 Comment by Rob on 6 February 2008:
CW:
“My family on both sides were here in the 1600s…. I get mightily tired of being told what is the meaning of America and the truth of American history by people whose families have never known pioneering, liberty under law, the sacrifices of war, the homely virtues of Protestant commonwealth—who came out of crowded, reactionary/revolutionary Europe no more than a generation or two ago or even less.
[...]
“Mouthpieces for the present government’s wars of aggression are free in throwing around charges of lack of patriotism and even treason against their opponents. But treason is not disagreeing with the government; treason is violating the Constitution and betraying the people.”
Well, thank goodness the saintly paleos never question
the Americanness or patriotism of those they disagree with.
Of course, half of my family line came out of “reactionary/revolutionary” Europe, “only” three
generations ago. I guess that means I’m not really American,
or only a partial American according to Clyde Wilson’s
reasoning, though it might please him (barely) to note that the other half comes from the South.
15 Comment by robert reavis on 7 February 2008:
“Elephants are intelligent and noble animals, certainly not a proper symbol for Republicans. And the humble but stubborn and hard-working donkey hardly fits the Democrats any more. ”
Dr. Wilson,
Perhaps you considered some type of predator or fungus that grows in the dark ? Perhaps a Skunk or a Mushroom ? Or maybe a pig ? Mr. Buchanan once commented to some Iowa farmers that there was so much pork coming out of Washington that they should check the politicians for trichinosis. I also think a Chicken or Tom Turkey might be a possiblity.
16 Comment by Bruce on 7 February 2008:
Protestant Anglo-Saxons founded this country or, to be more inclusive, Protestant Anglo-Saxon-Norman-Celt i.e. the British. They should have a special place in our hearts and in our historical memory. They do in mine, despite my continental low Saxon (6th generation) patrilineal descent.
17 Comment by Bruce on 7 February 2008:
p.s. the above was not intended to trivialize the differences between the various British people(s) present in the various colonies and states (when the states were states). And, yes, there were a few French, Germans, Dutch, etc. Nor am I advocating WASP-worship or the exclusion of those who lack ancestral-purity (which is most all of us). But I don’t see how we can be fully American in anything but the neocon sense without a healthy respect for those who actually did the heavy lifting in creating what we’re rapidly destroying.
18 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 7 February 2008:
I’m third generation, and have no ancestry from the British isles.
The cultural foundation of this country is English and Scottish Protestant. Thank God. Just consider the alternatives.
19 Comment by Bruce on 7 February 2008:
That’s surprising. I’d always thought that most whites (and for that matter blacks) had at least some of “the island race” in them. Then again, I’ve never lived in the types of places that are heavily German, Polish, Swedish, etc. like the upper midwest.
20 Comment by D Simmons on 7 February 2008:
McCain has the Perot voters, he will gather the GOP “dead enders” and he like Dole will accrue 40-45% of the popular vote. Since the “respectable” conservatives trivialized the important issues in their feeble attempts to never cross the lines of PC taboo, they can join the compost pile. The real power will in the future go to those that learn to push the boundaries of PC taboo.
21 Comment by robert m. peters on 7 February 2008:
My ancestors on my mother’s side, with the exception of two sets, came from Danelaw in northern England. One of the two sets, the Madden clan, came from Ireland, being, however, Protestant. These maternal folk, Maddens and the Danelaw folk, came into Virginia in the 1600’s and then down into North Carolina, near New Bern. From there, they slugged their way westward into Louisiana in the 1840’s. The other set on the materal side came in via my great-great grandmother: she was a Louisiana Choctaw. Her ancesters were here well before 1600!
On my father’s side, most of the ancestors came out of Northumbria; however, the Peters themselves, having originally come out of Sweden into Germany, eventually found their way to North America via Holland and England, having been forced out of Germany because they were Anabaptists. They originally arrived in New England but were compelled to leave there because they were too “other” for the Puritan mindset. They also found their way to North Carolina, and then went into South Carolina, where they raised horses for and fought in the Revolution. They too then slugged their way westward into Louisiana, with some going on to Texas.
I have absolutely no problem with post-bellum immigrants. My problem lies with the false history which some of them, far too many of them, have internalized and which they attempt to impose on me when I know better and with their attempts to silence me when I tell the story. Of course, the false history has now become THE history for the majority of Americans with ante-bellum ancestors as well.
I heard just the other night the “esteemed” David Gergen, who claimed to be from North Carolina – and I guess that he is – say how gratified he was that the South was finally becoming like the rest of America, this in reference to Southern white males voting for Obama in Georgia. Had my dogs not been in the living room, I would have spit on the television!
22 Comment by Theodore M. Van Oosbree on 7 February 2008:
The progressive mentality Prof. Wilson decries is a product of the early settlers of the country, not immigrants (most of whom came from reactionary Europe). My impeccably progressive mother-in-law with her long list of 17th American ancestors is a case in point.
The immigrants to the Northeastern part of the country were infected with this virus by the natives (although it took a while for the disease to stick). Furthermore, these immigrants came here to work. The work on farm and factory was grueling, dangerous and frequently low-paid (which is why old-line Americans often avoided this kind of work in favor of Blacks or Irishmen). They would also fight when called upon, with the Irish and Germans being particularly notable as soldiers. The Germans Prof. Wilson so often decries were particularly industrious and notably more so than the old-line Americans. I have often wondered what Mr. Aaron Wolf, Prof. Wilson’s colleague at Chronicles, thinks of his anti-Germanism. Perhaps he can talk some sense into him. Meanwhile, let us follow the advice of the late Sam Francis and forget about all this Yankee, redneck,my-ancestors-were-here-before-yours stuff and work together to save our beloved country!
23 Comment by Bruce on 7 February 2008:
The Germans (my ancestors included) were smart enough to bypass the crowded, crummy northeast and head for the midwest. They built nice communities there.
I don’t know how to feel about the Irish. They seem to identify with the “nation of immigrants” rhetoric more than some other groups. I’m assuming that’s because they still hold a grudge against the English and tend towards the victimological mentality? The single most destructive American I can think of was an Irishman. On the other hand, I genuinely like most Irishmen I’ve met. And they sure can fight.
Again, I’d argue for the founding peoples enjoying a special place of honor (whose language are these writebacks being written in anyway?) without WASP-worship or without causing the type of fragmentation that’s gonna keep us on track to becoming another Brazil.
24 Comment by PcH on 7 February 2008:
Hear, hear.
25 Comment by PcH on 7 February 2008:
Three cheers to Bruce above, too. The founding people does need a special place of honour. And a good genealogist could prove case-by-case that a good many more families are descended from them than know.
26 Comment by Rublev's Dog on 7 February 2008:
Well…since we’re sharing family histories:
My direct paternal ancestors came out of Surrey County, England, got off the boat in Gloucester Co. VA and pushed into the NC mountains. Eventually my grandfather hooked-up with a direct descendant of a Hessian soldier (Rall’s Grenadiers, Co. 3) from Rodenhausen, Hesse-Kassel, who settled on the NC-TN border after the Revolution. The other side of her family came over from Wales, via Maryland, into the TN mountains.
On mom’s maternal side we are descendants of Connecorte (“Old Hop”), headman of the Overhill Cherokee town of Chota (now in respose under the TVA’s Tellico Reservoir near Vonore, TN).
So I have a lot of dogs in the fight — a dozen known Confederate ancestors, including four who fought in the Thomas Legion, an integrated Cherokee-white hillbilly unit. William Holland Thomas hoped the Smokies would prove to be the impregnable “Switzerland” of the Confederacy. Tough sledding, considering that East Tennessee was 2 to 1 pro-Union.
27 Comment by Bruce on 7 February 2008:
I suspect the same thing though I wonder if it’s a willful denial/omission. It’s not interesting to people to be ancestrally English in the same way it’s interesting to be Irish, German, Polish, Italian, Injun, etc. But isn’t the Anglo-Saxon the prototype and the core ethnicity?
Interesting fact: The LDS identify as English in the census more frequently than just about any other distinct group.
28 Comment by Bruce on 7 February 2008:
I don’t know as much about the Germans as I should but when they came over weren’t they Hessians, Thuringians, Westphalians, Low Saxons, etc? Does anyone have any idea how distinct these different groups were? My paternal ancestors Anglicized pretty quick.
29 Comment by Mark Depré on 7 February 2008:
To undo Lincoln, Mr Moses ??
You mean to restore slavery ?
start quote :
The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. (end quote)
(Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html#South%20Carolina)
30 Comment by James Newland on 7 February 2008:
Mr. Depre, no average American has any desire, nor indeed any motive, to reinstitute slavery. Slavery was a historical accident* that became the canvas on which the destruction of our federal compact was accomplished. Now that we are free of it, at a cost inestimably high, we need to return to the states’ rights system that was agreed upon in the beginning and ratified by the people of all the various states.
* “Accident” in the sense that slavery happened to exist at the time of the founding. Had it not, things would have been much, much different in this country.
31 Comment by James Newland on 7 February 2008:
“I was thinking the other day about how outmoded are the traditional elephant and donkey symbols for the political parties.”
I propose they be replaced with the tortoise (R) and the hare (D). In the race to destroy our country, the hare leaps forward in gasps and spurts, while the tortoise keeps plugging along at his own, slow pace…and just like in the story, it may just happen that the tortoise reaches the finish line first.
32 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 7 February 2008:
Years of teaching should have taught me the imperfections of communication, but I am always surprised anew at the tangents taken on some of my remarks. My remark was not about ethnic groups or immigrants—it was about the distortions of American history and the claims to see some eternal mission of America that became so prevalent in the 20th century and still dominate public discourse and public action. The Germans who came before 1848, which include a good part of my own ancestors, were OK. It was the Prussianised proto Nazi/Communists after 1848 that pushed ahead the Lincoln coup that I have written negatively about. I have also strongly condemned the Anglo Puritans of New England who were here not long after Virginia.
My own people were ordinary humble English, Welsh, and Scots, and German Christians escaping authoritarianism—all came to settle a wilderness.
33 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 7 February 2008:
……to settle a wilderness and live free—certainly not on a mission to Lincolnise the universe.
34 Comment by robert m. peters on 7 February 2008:
Bruce @ 28
Yes, the Germans usually assimilate quickly. There is a nice German word for it “Anpassungsfähigkeit,” “the ability to assimilate.” Many of John Law’s Germans, primarily from the Allemannic regions of France, Germany and Switzerland, who came to Louisiana quickly changed to French. Herr Waldmann became Monsieur Du Bois.
Westfalen reflect the name of one of three Saxon tribes which lived in the region. Westfalen today has three main regions: Münsterland, Sauerland, and Siegerland plus a portion to the east known as Lippe, where an excellent Schnapps is made, called Lippegeist. It was first established as a “kingdom” by Napoleon.
The original Germanic settlers of Hesse where the Chatti. The Saxons moved into portions of their territory. However, the Franks finally assimilated the Chatti, and Hesse and hence the Hessians now reflect Frankish customs and dialect.
The Thuringians were a tribe unto themselves but have been hard pressed by the Saxons and the Franks. The core of Old Thüringen is preserved in todays post-GDR state by that name.
Lower Saxony is a region to the north/northwest of the Harz Mountains. There is now a German state by that name. Other Saxons live to the south and southeast of the Harz up to and including Dresden.
35 Comment by T. Chan on 7 February 2008:
#13 Mr. Peters, thank you for your response. I do wonder if California (where I live) would be one of the first states to pass more restrictive gun laws, or laws banning ownership of guns outright. It is not evident to me that even if the majority of the people were to support an amendment upholding the right to own a firearm that the constitutional machinery that exists would allow this to pass, but I am not very familiar with it.
36 Comment by jmcnulty on 7 February 2008:
The commentary here is so other-worldly that no wonder it is ignored by the larger society. The site is so hostile to the society that bears it that it almost should be subterranean. Yes, we live in a fallen condition. Yes, Lincoln was in some respects a villain when compared to his predecessors. Yes, we can yearn for august Senators who never engaged in demagogery (as if such EVER existed). But you have to maintain SOME connection to the larger society to remain relevant to it. Man lives in a complicated reality. As conservatives, you should immediately be suspicious of any “system” in which man is supposed to live. Our choices are NEVER perfect. We have to make the best of a bad situation. It is called the “human condition.” Thus was it ever so, even in ancient times when Sanators were bloodless beings who never used demagogery. We badly need a sensible paleo-conservative and cultural commenter site, but not one with such lofty contempt for anything still alive.
37 Comment by PcH on 7 February 2008:
Mark Depietre:
Rather than cutting out half the declaration and quoting out of context, why not quote the whole thing?
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, “that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.”
They further solemnly declared that whenever any “form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.” Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies “are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”
In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments– Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article “that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.”
Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: “ARTICLE 1– His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.”
Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.
In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States.
The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.
If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were– separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.
By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May , 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.
Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.
We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.
In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.
On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.
Adopted December 24, 1860
38 Comment by robert m. peters on 8 February 2008:
PcH @ 37
On background, one can say the following, that three ancient principles are called upon, if indirectly in the document which you rendered supra:
1. The Westphalian Order: Agreed in the Peace of Westphalia among the powers of Europe in 1649 that all states, regardless of size, of population and of natural wealth, are equal and sovereign.
2. The sovereign capacity of the people: When the people of a state, the people being the state and are not to be confused with the polity or bureaucracy thereof, meet in convention for the purpose of amending or nullifying the polity which they have created, then they meet and act in their sovereign capacity.
3. Again, in the context of the Westphalian Order, when kings or states, by treaty, which is a contract, of their own volition relinquish all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof, then the party receiving them, in this case South Carolina from George III, possess them in the same way that an heir receives and holds his inheritance.
This is what one calls the rule of law and it is to this rule that the State of South Carolina appealed.
Of course, today, in my opinion, there is no rule of law. Things are done by power and not by authority.
39 Comment by T. French on 8 February 2008:
@jmcnulty
“We badly need a sensible paleo-conservative and cultural commenter site, but not one with such lofty contempt for anything still alive.”
There are plenty of places to go if you seek to prop up the corpse of the present dispensation. The fact that the empire creaks along at all is more a physical phenomena than any evidence of life. Indeed, even if it were possible to reanimate the morbid polity we must endure imagine the shrieks of horror from the authors of this enraging farce. I can’t say I would blame them, after all if you had spent several decades improving out of existence the very foundations of civilized life how could you look on and regard any resistance, however slight, without revulsion and deepest fear? It is long past time to start something new and to put the “lofty contempt” that such as you find disquieting to good use.
40 Comment by Allen Wilson on 8 February 2008:
Concerning Saxons, a few remarks:
The old Southern gentry came largely – though by no means excusively – from the gentry class of the south of England. That was where the Saxons had settled during the invasions of Britain. Most of the rest of England was settled by Angles, so the majority of English who came over here most likely were Angles. On the other hand, since so much of northern Germany is Saxon country, and, as far as I know, most of the Germans who came over here during early times were from the north of Germany, it is likely that most of the Saxon ancestry of Anglo-Americans is German, not English.
Then there are the Afrikaners. Their language and culture are based on those of the Netherlands, but about 43% of their ancestry is German, mostly from northern Germany. So when the English began to settle in South Africa, they met Saxon kinsmen already living there. The Afrikaners’ Dutch ancestry alone makes them our kinsmen, but they are more closely related to us than we realise. They are fellow Saxons. They are us.
41 Pingback by Meanwhile, in America… « : P Y H Ä : on 8 February 2008:
[...] Clyde N. Wilson: The Way We Are Now, Alas! [...]
42 Comment by jmcnulty on 8 February 2008:
Memo to T. French:
You are about one step from delivering a lecture Stormfront-style on the “unseen hand” and ZOG. By calling the present dispensation a “morbid polity” and “corpse,” you imply that there was previously some golden age towards which we should gaze backwards fondly. What nonsense! Lincoln’s qartermaster general was known to be so corrupt that Lincoln once said that he would not steal a stove — that is, if it was still red hot. South Carolina, a hotbed of secessionist sentiment was once described thusly: “Alas, South Carolina — to small to be a country, too large to be an insane asylum.”
Why are you so anxious to make yourself irrelevant? Of course, I could move along to other sites, and I do. But I also continue to like the “CHRONICLES” site and magazine because it provides insignts that we need.
But the universal contempt so present on the site (where the apocalyptic Pat Buchanan is somehow the most sunny) makes it too easy for general society to ignore and dismiss as being full of regional fanatics, nostalgists, agrarians, cranks, racial purists, men born the wrong time, and a grumpy old man yelling at those Hispanic kids playing in his yard. Sometimes, it seems as if history stopped about 1860.
We need paleo-conservatives who are engaged with the society, rather than those who want to condemn every change since women stopped wearing hoop skits. I find the hatred of America (for example, describing it as an “empire,” which you should know is silly and associated with the loony Left) especially distressing.
In short, while many times what I read may be truthful or at least arguable, the overall tone is bitter, resentful, and (worst of all) self-indulgent. You need to stop preaching to the converted and all standing back and throwing rocks at society.
43 Comment by robert reavis on 8 February 2008:
Mr. McNutty writes :
“But the universal contempt so present on the site (where the apocalyptic Pat Buchanan is somehow the most sunny) makes it too easy for general society to ignore and dismiss as being full of regional fanatics, nostalgists, agrarians, cranks, racial purists, men born the wrong time, and a grumpy old man yelling at those Hispanic kids playing in his yard. Sometimes, it seems as if history stopped about 1860.”
I don’t know one, darned, single, Chronicles reader who believes history stopped in 1860 !! — not one !! In fact most of us think that 1860 was about the time American history started — getting worse and worse. And precisely because regionalist, nostalgists( folks sick for their homes ) agrarians, cranks, men born in the wrong time , including grumpy old men; were all force marched into centralized, Globalonia, where men become homeless, city dwellers, looking for jobs from confidence men, wishing everybody (including kids like yourself ) to have a “Good Day.”
44 Comment by T. French on 8 February 2008:
@jm
Dissatisfaction with, and condemnation of manifestly harmful phenomena are certainly part and parcel of any relevant mode of thought. By failing to distinguish that which is good from that which is not good, irrelevance is not only encouraged, it is in fact guaranteed.
45 Comment by Bruce on 8 February 2008:
There’s nothing substantive the binds Massachusetts to South Carolina, Christians to darwinists, Mormons to Tradish Catholics to Mohammadens, sodomites and effeminates and abortionists to men who love God. The threads that hold us together consist of emotion-saturated boob-bait (designed to contrast in the boobs’ minds with the Lefts hatred of everything) and success at consuming LOTS of crap both in real and virtual format.
THEY offer those of us who love our ancestors and our posterity NOTHING!!
46 Comment by David Collins on 9 February 2008:
jmcnulty is distressed by us silly sourpusses calling America an empire.
Gee, I don’t know. Over 700 military bases in, I can’t remember, is it 30 or 130 foreign countries. Bombing whoever we want. Invading whoever we want – unless they have nukes! Sending special forces to every Godforsaken hellhole on earth.
Sounds like an empire to me, j. I sincerely hope you’re not one of those people who thinks the US is doing all of that to spread the blessings of freedom and other abstractions.
47 Comment by Allen Wilson on 9 February 2008:
Mr McNulty is simply one of those who come to the site every so often just so he can insult and offend everyone. If he dosen’t like us or our attitudes, I’m sure there are other sites he can go to. What does it profit it a man to walk into a room and rudely make verbal attacks at everyone else in the room, calling them names? What purpose is served? Perhaps Mr Mcnulty’s posts here say more about him than they do about anyone else.
48 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 9 February 2008:
America is routinely and accurately described as an empire these days – both by those who favor this development and those who deplore it. If Mr. McNulty thinks this term is confined to the loony left, he needs to get out more often – to his local Barnes & Noble, for example.
49 Comment by jmcnulty on 9 February 2008:
I am amazed, but not surprised, that my remarks bring forth the same sort of disdain that I experience when I make a conservative point on a liberal website.
I have no probem with you saying critical things. What I have a problem with is the generalized nature of the criticism. No one EVER has anything good to say about our society.
If we are an “empire,” then, perhaps we are the first empire in the world that has not sought to benefit from it; the world delights in insulting America, and we gain no economic benefit from our “empire.”
I suppose that the Iraq war (“No blood for oil”) has resulted in cheap gasoline for American drivers. How do our bases in South Korea benefit us as an “empire”? Should we send troops to Darfur? How will it benfit our “empire”?
Those are exmples of what I mean.
Whether or not we should have troops in this country or that country can and should be debated. Maybe we are there for historical reasons. Maybe we are there for strategic reasons. Maybe we are there because the host county WANTS the protection of an American “tripwire.” Maybe we are there because we are afraid, as we may be in Europe, that our absence will result in an inevitable drift out of the Western world. But you should not dismiss it all as “empire” betraying our “agrarian democracy” beginnings.
The criticism here is always made in the darkest “end of the world” terms, as if the readers of CHRONICLES were some sort of honorable remnant in a depraved world. No doubt someone will use that as a reply.
It is so much easier to stand aside and find some place nobody notices to make the criticism that the fallen world does not recognize the wisdom and honor of the tiny band. Do you not realize that you are isolating yourselves?
50 Comment by Mark Depré on 9 February 2008:
@jmcnulty:
If we are an “empire,” then, perhaps we are the first empire in the world that has not sought to benefit from it; the world delights in insulting America, and we gain no economic benefit from our “empire.”
I suppose that the Iraq war (”No blood for oil”) has resulted in cheap gasoline for American drivers. (end quote)
ROFL….”we gain no economic benefit from our empire”…
ROFL….well…maybe you are not included in the profit and
economic benefits part because it isn’t YOUR “empire”….get you
a CFR-member card and try again….
Halliburton CEO’s stock rises by $78 million since Iraq invasion
15 Sept. 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (HalliburtonWatch.org) — War and skyrocketing oil prices have been good to Halliburton’s CEO David Lesar, whose stock in the company increased by an estimated $78 million since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, a HalliburtonWatch analysis reveals.
(http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/lesar_stock.html)
51 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 9 February 2008:
Mr. Depre is correct. Empires benefit the imperial rulers and there may or may not be some trickle-down benefit to the subjects of the homeland or the provinces.
52 Comment by Thomas Miller on 10 February 2008:
Since jmcnulty is such a know-it-all on the subject of empires, then surely he is familiar with the works of Arnold J. Toynbee. Toynbee pointed out that the fruits of empire are not enjoyed by those who shoulder the burden of it – whom he referred to as the external and internal proletariat (his term for the conquered subjects and the masses at home). The benefits of empire are enjoyed solely by the elites who engineered it.
53 Comment by Mormon Paleo on 11 February 2008:
Mr. McNulty:
There is nothing conservative about current foreign policy or spending habits (both closely related). Our foreign policy is hard Wilsonianism, pure and simple. Wilson (not the good Dr. above) himself would likely blush if he saw what we had.
A true conservative would be up in arms about the idea of attacking a hapless enemy pre-emptively, under false pretenses. Are we really safer as a result of our foreign policy? How much good do you think our military does? Perhaps more pertinently, how much longer do you think we can afford it? Is it worth seeing the collapse of the dollar for?
There is reason for pessimism considering both sides of the aisle seem interested in increasing Leviathan’s powers and scope, both here and abroad. The defenders of freedom and liberty and low taxes are few in number.
And I believe there were some positive remarks made above:
“Perhaps some day Americans will come to understand the truth about the bloody Lincoln coup. That is the first step toward recovery.”
Certainly there is reason to hope for some recovery of our sanity.
54 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 11 February 2008:
Mr. McNulty mistakes despair (admittedly a failing and a sin) for pretentious nostalgia. Where is the center to be defended? What did Reagan’s sunny bromides acheive except to make some superficial people happy for a little while? Why join the crowd following the Rough Beast slouching unopposed toward Jerusalem?
55 Comment by David Collins on 11 February 2008:
@54
Amen, to Mr. Wilson’s comment. I was one of those superficial people made happy by Reagan’s sunny bromides; but, by the grace of God, I’m a recovering republican. All we can do, at this point, is pray for the people of this empire.
56 Comment by Joshua Cooney on 11 February 2008:
“It is so much easier to stand aside and find some place nobody notices to make the criticism that the fallen world does not recognize the wisdom and honor of the tiny band. Do you not realize that you are isolating yourselves?”
Mr. McNulty
What should people do if they prefer an intelligent discussion of culture rooted in history and human nature? Cable television, newspapers, talk radio generally fail in this regard. You act as if the “tiny band” of dissenters appeared out of thin air with no higher goal than heckling the people who possess real power and influence. Now I admit, I take pleasure in the heckling, but the central theme of Chronicles, it seems, is that certain ideas and principles are as old as civilization itself. That the majority has forgotten or rejected the wisdom borne out of over 2,000 years of human experience does not prove that those who attempt to preserve it are isolating themselves. It is very much the opposite that is true. As Chesterton said, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
57 Comment by Michael on 13 February 2008:
Many Germans who came to North America during the colonial period were from the County Palatine of the Rhine. It was just a short trip down the river to Holland, whence they embarked for the new world. My ancestor in the direct paternal line was such a person, travelling from Amsterdam to Philadelphia in 1748, then settling in the valley of Virginia. Other ancestors on my father’s side were English and Scots, who settled here in the 17th and 18th centuries. My mother’s family were lowland Scots and English, of similar history.
It seems that any time one mentions ancestry the accusation of snobbery or exclusivism arises, as e.g. at #14. I sympathize entirely with Dr. Wilson’s remark. I feel the same way. It is not an expression of overweening pride in ancestry but rather makes the point that there is a difference between people who settled a wilderness and those who came as immigrants to flourishing cities and took industrial employment. The families of America’s pioneers do not need to be lectured and hectored about “the American Dream” by persons whose ancestors came through Ellis Island. I am glad to know there is another who finds this as tiresome as I do.
58 Comment by Ed Roberts on 15 February 2008:
“The commentary here is so other-worldly that no wonder it is ignored by the larger society.”
Then you won’t mind staying off the commentary boards from now on. Go back to FR, troll.
59 Comment by Sam Graham on 15 February 2008:
“Just a few days ago, one of my students, fourteen years old, I believe, asked me if I thought that U S soldiers would shoot americans, I gave her the straight answer, “Yes”
If you were a US soldier would you not have the intelligence or the common sense not to? Of course you would, so why think the american soldier is some kind of robot, machine, like the SS were in Germany? You hold the american soldier not in very high esteem. You insult their intelligence and mine. You are a teacher, are you forced to teach a doctrine of Lenin, no your not. Would you be thrown in a gulag for refusing to, yes you would. Thank any soldier, airman, sailor or marine that has made it so you can teach without the fear of transportation to a gulag.
Shame on you…………..