friendica.eskimo.com
Stirring article...
Does anybody believe that the representatives of the former Thirteen Colonies, changing their post-Revolution organization from the original Articles of Confederation (1783) to the United States Constitution (1787) for themselves and their “Posterity,” added an implied clause that said “If our Posterity ever decide to leave this compact, you have our permission to raise a huge Federal Army, stock it with black and immigrant troops, and burn down their cities”?
The Mencken quote here is also amazing:
The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination —“that government of the people, by the people, for the people,“ should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the States, i.e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into battle free; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and veto of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that veto was so effective that they enjoyed scarcely more liberty, in the political sense, than so many convicts in the penitentiary.
[The Vintage Mencken, pp. 79-80]
