Who Was Right?
The
American Vision recently hosted a debate on the topic: Who was right in
the War Between the States; The Union or the Confederacy? Rev. Peter
Marshall, ordained Presbyterian minister and author of the *Light and the
Glory* presented the perspective of the North. Rev. Steve Wilkins,
Presbyterian pastor, author of Call of Duty and United States Taxpayers Party National
Committeeman from Louisiana, presented the perspective of the South.
Debate: Closing Statement of Reverend Steve Wilkins:
People ask me, "Do you want the South to rise again?" And
I reply, "That might not be a bad idea." But what I really desire to
see is not only the South but our entire country rise again. I want to
see the day come when this entire country cares more about the glory of
God and true liberty than it does about its own well-being or what the
stock market did today or who won the Super Bowl or whether or not
Seinfeld is ever going to come back on the air. God's glory and true liberty
were what guided the majority of Southerners in the last century and
that is what I want to see again.
But with the defeat of the South, true liberty, liberty in the
historic and Biblical sense, was lost to this land. James McPherson has
remarked, "the Civil War changed the United States as thoroughly as the
French Revolution changed that country. . . The United States went to
war in 1861 to preserve the Union; it emerged from war in 1865 having
created a nation." (Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution,
p. viii) The War for Southern Independence was indeed the American
equivalent of the French Revolution.
It is little wonder that a young man named Karl Marx who was
living in London at the time working as a correspondent for the New York
Tribune, followed the War with great interest and excitement. He saw
the implications of the War for the world and wrote gleefully to his
friend Friedrick Engels that the War would be the beginning of a "world
transforming . . . revolutionary movement."
Slavery, so far from being the cause of the war, was merely the
pretext for revolution. As Prussian military theorist, Carl Von
Clausewitz once stated, "War is the pursuit of political goals by other
means." We have seldom seen a more successful revolution. The old
Constitutional Republic was destroyed and an octopus-like centralized
government took its place.
James McPherson has noted, "The war marked the transition of the
United States to a singular noun. The 'Union' became the nation, and
Americans now rarely speak of their Union except in an historical
sense." This is a significant change. We are no longer a union of
confederated states, but a nation where the individual integrity
and political sovereignty of the states is denied.
Thus, the old federal republic in which the national government
rarely touched the average citizen except through the post-office is now
dead and has been replaced by centralized bureaucracy which seeks to
control every action. What we call liberty, our forefathers called slavery.
This was precisely what Dr. James H. Thornwell and others had
feared. In a tract entitled "Our Danger and Our Duty" Dr. Thornwell
stated in regard to the consequences of a Northern victory, "If they
prevail, the whole character of the Government will be changed, and,
instead of a federal republic, the common agent of sovereign and
independent States, we shall have a central despotism, with the notion
of States for ever abolished, deriving its powers from the will, and
shaping its policy according to the wishes, of a numerical majority
of the people; we shall have, in other words, a supreme, irresponsible
democracy. . . The avowed end of the present War is, to make the
Government a government of force."
The 14th amendment was particularly notorious in this
regard. It has been interpreted so as to apply the Bill of Rights to the
individual States. Section 1 says, "No state shall make or enforce any
law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the
United States. . ." This has had the effect of changing the nature of
our government in two ways:
1) It changed the intent of the Bill of Rights which were
originally intended to limit the Federal government's powers, to
restrictions upon the particular states. Thus, whereas before this
amendment, the states had protection against the intrusions of the
Federal government, now the Federal government has become the
watch-dog of the states. The states became "subsidiaries" of the nation
rather than "parties" to the Union. The central government became the
master rather than the servant of the states.
2) This shift has transferred immense power to the Federal
government to restrict the internal actions of states. Senator Lot
Morrill of Maine stated quite bluntly the purpose of the 14th amendment:
"We must see to it, that hereafter, personal liberty and personal rights
are placed in the keeping of the nation...against State authority and
State interpretations...The great object of this amendment is,
therefore, to restrain the power of the States and compel them at all
times to respect these great fundamental guaranties." (Abraham Lincoln
and The Second American Revolution, p. 143)
Within five years after it ratification, the Supreme Court in
the Slaughter-House cases began to redefine "privileges and immunities."
The Court rejected the historic view of these things as biblically
or religiously based and declared that privileges and immunities owed
their existence to the grace of the Federal Government. Liberty in
short, did not come from God, but was a gift of the Federal Government.
By this definition, the Federal Government has taken the place
of God. It has arrogated to itself the privilege of defining what is
right and wrong, good and evil. When God is not acknowledged, man
becomes the sovereign. When man becomes the definer of liberty, liberty
is lost.
Thus we find that we have lost what our forefathers called
liberty. We have grown up in a world where no one truly "owns"
property (you may think you own it, but try not paying your property taxes
one year and you will see who really owns your land).
Further, we do not have liberty to use our property in
lawful ways. "Environmental" laws limit the freedom of use as well. We can
kill our unborn children, but are forbidden to cut down a tree on our
own property without a permit. The Federal Government as if it was God,
asserts a pre-eminent claim the earth and the fullness thereof. One
peculiarly blatant expression of this is "eminent domain." Whatever and
whenever the Government desires the use of your land, it claims the
prerogative to it. God destroyed Ahab for doing what the modern
Government does every year.
We are no longer free to exercise our gifts and talents. More
and more the Federal Government limits how and when and where we may
labor. Licensing laws, labor regulations, minimum wage legislation,
unemployment taxes, social security taxes, union standards, federal
health and safety regulations, racial quotas, anti-discrimination
legislation, environmental regulations, and a well-nigh endless host
of others laws, fees, prohibitions, limitations, regulations, and
specifications, severely restrict the exercise of God-given gifts
and abilities.
Need I mention that by means of the income tax, the Federal
Government has claimed the right to the fruit of our labors. By it, the
Federal government exalts itself over God (by claiming more than God
does in the tithe).
In recent years we have seen how this is in fact a claim on all
the livelihood of an individual. Tax exemptions are now viewed as
"subsidies." The argument is, to be granted a tax exemption is the same
as being given a subsidy. The implication is that all your income
belongs to the National Government and the Government could take it all
should it so desire, but by means of tax exemptions, it graciously
allows you to keep some of your earnings.
In education: certification, accreditation, and educational
standards set by Federal bureaucrats continue to limit educational
freedom. The Government continues to view the children as belonging to
itself by asserting a "compelling interest" in this or that aspect of
our children's upbringing.
Freedom of religion has come to mean "freedom to believe
whatever you want, so long as you do not act in a way contrary to public
policy." Practically this means, our freedom of religion has been
confined to the space between our ears.
We have now lived to see what our Founding Fathers thought
impossible in this land. The Congress regularly legislates immorality,
lines its own pockets, makes decisions based upon self-interest rather
than upon what is right and best and then brags about its
public-spirited generosity and compassion.
We live in a country where the Constitution has no more real
authority than the Royal Family in England. We like to be able to refer
to it and trot it out on patriotic occasions, but we have no desire to
take it seriously and find those who would suggest that we should,
fearfully flatheaded.
We live in a land in which the people expect the government to
protect them and provide for them and secure their futures. We have not
freed the slaves, we have simply extended the plantation. Now, we are
all slaves, captives to our liberators.
We think we are free only because we have never known true
freedom. Like it or not, all this is the legacy of the South's defeat.
Thus, the question of who was right in the old struggle is not so hard
to answer after all. Look around you. Do you like what you see? If not,
you have answered the question in my favor.
A. H. Stephens, in speaking about the future for this nation and
the consequences of the Reconstruction policies, once said that the only
hope for our country was that the people would one day realize what had
happened to them as a result of this war and that a cry would go up akin
to that which filled the land prior to the first War for Independence
(the cry then was "The cause of Boston is the cause of us all"). Now,
said Stephens, the only hope left for the preservation and maintenance
[of Constitutional liberty] on this continent is, that another like
cry shall hereafter be raised, and go forth from hill-top to valley, from
the Coast to the Lakes, from the Atlantic to the Pacific: 'The Cause of
the South is the Cause of us all!'"
I appeal to you to consider afresh the consequences of the War
for Southern Independence. The defeat of the South spelled the defeat of
constitutional liberty in our land.
If you long for constitutional order, legislative integrity,
limited government, and true freedom under law then you, my friend,
agree with me that the South was right.
The time is passed due for us to think for ourselves and quit
allowing the media and the educational establishment and the current
orthodoxy to do our thinking for us. It is time to repent of our sins
and beg for God's mercy. It is time, in short, to take up afresh the
cause of the South.
American Vision sponsored the debate and is selling videos.
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