America Doesn't Deserve Our Constitution

It’s all over social media. People from left and right are ecstatic that President Trump just signed a bill making animal cruelty a federal felony. Who doesn’t love animals and who can object to criminalizing cruelty to animals?

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t about animals. I love animals, and I would happily string up any low-life that tortures animals for fun. But we have to step back and ask ourselves, do we care about the Constitution or not?

The US Constitution, Article 1 section 8 lays out the enumerated powers of Congress:

1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence[sic] and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

4: To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

6: To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

9: To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

10: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

11: To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

13: To provide and maintain a Navy;

14: To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

17: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Nowhere in there is there a single word that suggests that Congress has the power or authority to criminalize animal cruelty. Therefore, under the tenth amendment:

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.

It’s an issue for the states to legislate on.

Recently I saw a comment about DUI checkpoints, and many people opined that they would be happy for the inconvenience of a checkpoint if it helps keep drunk drivers off the road. They don’t seem to have a problem with warrantless searches and seizure without probable cause, in clear violation of their fourth amendment rights.

Our federal budget is wildly out of control. Congress authorizes spending, and most of the federal spending today has no constitutional authority supporting it. But nobody asks our elected officials to account for the constitutionality of their pork projects, their welfare or their bloated departments. We’ve gone way past the point where the population has realized they can vote themselves bread and circuses. The elected officials in Congress have no incentive to uphold the Constitution. They stay in power buy wielding their governmental influence to get enough money to buy a propaganda machine to dupe the tax serfs into keeping them in power.

If the President doesn’t like what Congress does or doesn’t do, he does what he wants anyway with executive orders. Nobody cares if he usurps the powers of Congress. Congress doesn’t care, because it would be bad publicity to get into a constitutional face-off with the President, and bad publicity is how you lose elections.

Our federal courts issue injunctions against laws and executive orders they don’t like. The Left has for decades sought to get from the judicial branch what they couldn’t possibly pass as laws in the legislative branch. Nobody cares that the Judiciary usurps the powers of Congress and legislates from the bench.

Once upon a time in America, everyone knew the Constitution. They understood the limits of the powers between the three branches of government and understood that the government couldn’t do anything not spelled out in the Constitution. There was a nationwide effort to make alcohol illegal, which was a dumb idea, but at least they had enough respect for the Constitution to know they needed to pass an amendment that gave Congress the power to do it. But they stopped teaching our children the Constitution in civics class. They started teaching some nebulous feel-good history cum culture called social studies instead. The result is a whole generation who pays lip service to their “constitutional rights” without having any idea what those rights actually are or understanding that they do not come from the government. They think the first amendment gives them the right to say anything they want on Facebook or YouTube, not understanding that the first amendment only keeps the government from passing laws about what can and cannot be said. Facebook and YouTube aren’t the government, and to use these services, you have to agree to their terms.

People get the government they deserve. Congress has an all-time low approval rating; but come the next election cycle most of the bad actors will remain seated. Few people call them to account for their behavior under the Constitution, and those who do are shouted down and ridiculed by the masses who apparently care nothing for the Constitution and the very clear limits it places on government.

If you don’t learn the Constitution and demand that our elected officials operate within its bounds and remove them from office if they don’t, then you don’t deserve the Constitution. You honestly deserve to be the powerless tax serfs you have become, subservient to leaders you think you elect, instead of having public servants working for you. You rightfully deserve the feudal chains that have been placed on you by our elected nobility, dressed up with modern terms to make you think you’re a free man. 

You need to demand that the schools and universities stop indoctrinating our children with failed political, economic and social ideologies. Today we spend record amounts of money on education to teach our children to not only be happy little tax serfs, but to openly advocate for it and condemn and attack those who prefer to be freemen who repudiate a government that doesn't even follow its own rules.

We once had a pretty good thing going here in America, where every man was free to be who he could be. Now we’ve accepted a crony capitalist oligarchy which exists to fleece the tax serfs and ensure that the competitive advantage always stays in the hands of those who can buy the best politicians. You did this. You allowed it, by not demanding that the branches of government stay in their constitutional lanes. The American people can take back their government in less than a year, but first you have to be willing to forego laws that you like and make you feel good, if they lack a constitutional foundation. We either follow the rules, or we bow in obedience to our noveau feudal lords. The choice is yours. Learn your Constitution. Demand your elected officials follow it. Remove them if they don’t, even if you like them, they’re from your party, or bring the pork home to your district. 

The Civil War: Yeah, it was About Slavery

Gordon was an escaped slave who joined
and fought for the North in the Civil War

It’s been 155 years since the Civil War. It’s been going around for years that the South didn’t secede because of slavery. Revisionist historians have delved deep into the culture, the politics, the sentiments of the day and have served up well-researched treatises on the causes of the civil war, the political strife leading up to it and the sentiments that caused it. We’ve had people writing revisionist books that cherry-pick and take out of context passages from Lincolns writings and actions, to try to show that he fought the war to keep the country together, not to free the slaves. We’ve seen people point out that the emancipation proclamation didn’t free all the slaves in America, only those in unoccupied confederate states. Ergo, Lincoln didn’t care about freeing the slaves. We’ve seen revisionists rename the conflict the “War Between the States”, “War for Southern Independence” or the “War of Northern Aggression.” 

All of this revisionist history is designed to overload the senses of the casual scholar, confuse the issue, cast doubt on the conventional wisdom and regenerate the narrative to paint the Southern cause in a more acceptable light. And it’s all poppycock, and easily swept aside with one question and one fact.

The question: Would the Civil War have happened if there had been no slavery in the United States of America?

This is the root cause. There is a common technique in Quality Systems theory for discovering the root cause of any problem called the 5 whys. Ask why something happened, and then ask why the first reason happened, etc. Eventually – usually within five iterations – you get to the root cause. If you apply the five whys to any of the revisionist reasons for the Civil War, you will eventually always come back to slavery.

What few realize today was that the road to secession was a long one. The various states didn't jump up one day and all declare their break from the US Constitution. It was a process that took nearly a year from the time that South Carolina seceded until Kentucky seceded. These states that later followed the other's lead cited their outrage that the Union was using military force to enact their will on those states left because of their slaves. The notable point of this oft-cited cause is that it seems that only slave states shared this outrage. If the cause really concerned the rights of states to secede, then whether a state was slave or free should have had no bearing on its outrage over union over-reach.

The fact: Every single state that seceded from the union published a declaration or ordinance of secession. Of those declarations that gave reasons for their secession all either cited slavery as the prima facie cause of secession, the election of Lincoln and the fear that he was an abolitionist, calling him a "sectional party." Lincoln's personal interest in freeing the slaves was subordinated to his understood duties and limitations under the constitution. Lincoln understood that he could not constitutionally abolish slavery, and said as much many times both before and after he took office.

Lincoln was elected easily by 28 electoral college votes, breaking directly in terms of slave vs. free. The fact that he was elected showed the South that the winds of public opinion were turning against them and slavery. The recent admission of Oregon and Minnesota into the union was shifting the political power towards the North, and southern slave states knew they would be soon outnumbered in electoral votes, as the populations of the increasingly urban free states boomed and shifted the electoral power north. Lincoln's election was proof of this, and it became plain that the South would never regain their influence in the House or the Oval office, the Senate would always hang by a thread, and the subtle pressure to punish slave holding states in petty fashions would only increase.

South Carolina, December 24, 1860:
“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 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.”

Mississippi, January 9, 1861:
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. "

Alabama, January 11, 1861:
"Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions [i.e. slavery] and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and manacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security, therefore:"

"And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,"

Texas, February 1, 1861:
"WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression; THEREFORE,"

Virginia, April 17, 1861:
The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:

Arkansas, May 6, 1861:
Whereas, in addition to the well-founded causes of complaint set forth by this convention, in resolutions adopted on the 11th of March, A.D. 1861, against the sectional party now in power in Washington City, headed by Abraham Lincoln, he has, in the face of resolutions passed by this convention pledging the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity any attempt on the part of such power to coerce any State that had seceded from the old Union, proclaimed to the world that war should be waged against such States until they should be compelled to submit to their rule, and large forces to accomplish this have by this same power been called out, and are now being marshaled to carry out this inhuman design; and to longer submit to such rule, or remain in the old Union of the United States, would be disgraceful and ruinous to the State of Arkansas:

Arkansas was adopting the "Hang together or hang separately" paradigm. Having the North win the war that was already being fought would certainly be ruinous to the slave holders of Arkansas.

Kentucky, November 20, 1961:
". . .the President and Congress have treated this supreme law of the Union with contempt and usurped to themselves the power to interfere with the rights and liberties of the States and the people against the expressed provisions of the Constitution, and have thus substituted for the highest forms of national liberty and constitutional government a central despotism founded upon the ignorant prejudices of the masses of Northern society, . . ."

Yes, folks, the idea that blacks aren't inferior and shouldn't be enslaved was considered an ignorant prejudice.

Any attempt to whitewash the civil war as being about anything but slavery ignores the context. If there were other causes, they weren't addressed by the requirements that the rebel states needed to comply with to be readmitted to the union. As soon as the Federal occupation ended, many state governments in the South proceeded to pass Jim Crowe laws.

Yes, the politics leading up the Civil War are fascinating to study, but whether you use the 5 whys method of root cause analysis, or just look at the cited reasons for the secession of the Southern states and their subsequent behavior, no matter how you slice it, it comes up slavery.