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Wednesday, March 27, 2002
The real Lincoln --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: March 27, 2002 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Walter Williams
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� 2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Do states have a right of secession? That question was settled through the
costly War of 1861. In his recently published book, "The Real Lincoln," Thomas
DiLorenzo marshals abundant unambiguous evidence that virtually every political
leader of the time and earlier believed that states had a right of secession.
Let's look at a few quotations. Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural
Address said, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union,
or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the
safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to
combat it." Fifteen years later, after the New England federalists attempted to
secede, Jefferson said, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers
separation ... to a continuance in the union ... I have no hesitation in saying,
'Let us separate.'"
At Virginia's ratification convention, the delegates said, "The powers
granted under the Constitution being derived from the People of the United
States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their
injury or oppression." In Federalist Paper 39, James Madison, the father of the
Constitution, cleared up what "the people" meant, saying the proposed
Constitution would be subject to ratification by the people, "not as individuals
composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent
States to which they respectively belong." In a word, states were sovereign; the
federal government was a creation, an agent, a servant of the states.
On the eve of the War of 1861, even unionist politicians saw secession as a
right of states. Maryland Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel said, "Any attempt to preserve
the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical,
and destructive of republican liberty." The northern Democratic and Republican
parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.
Just about every major Northern newspaper editorialized in favor of the
South's right to secede. New York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and
despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not
justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the federal Union in
1861." Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded
States, even if successful could produce nothing but evil � evil unmitigated in
character and appalling in content." The New York Times (March 21, 1861): "There
is growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States
go." DiLorenzo cites other editorials expressing identical sentiments.
Americans celebrate Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but H.L. Mencken
correctly evaluated the speech, "It is poetry not logic; beauty, not sense."
Lincoln said that the soldiers sacrificed their lives "to the cause of
self-determination � government of the people, by the people, for the people
should not perish from the earth." Mencken says: "It is difficult to imagine
anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against
self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of people
to govern themselves."
In Federalist Paper 45, Madison guaranteed: "The powers delegated by the
proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which
are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." The South
seceded because of Washington's encroachment on that vision. Today, it's worse.
Turn Madison's vision on its head, and you have today's America.
DiLorenzo does a yeoman's job in documenting Lincoln's ruthlessness and
hypocrisy, and how historians have covered it up. The framers had a deathly fear
of federal government abuse. They saw state sovereignty as a protection. That's
why they gave us the Ninth and 10th Amendments. They saw secession as the
ultimate protection against Washington tyranny.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WorldNetDaily contributor Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin
Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax,
Va.
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