Conservatism and Liberalism

State’s Rights and Civil Rights

“States’ Rights are easy enough to define. The Tenth Amendment does it succinctly: “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 [of the States]”

Civil rights should be no harder. In fact, however – thanks to extravagant and shameless misuse by people who ought to know better – it is one of the most badly understood concepts in modern political usage. Civil rights [are] frequently used synonymously with “human rights” – or with “natural rights.”

As often as not, it is simply a name for describing an activity that someone deems politically or socially desirable. A sociologist writes a paper proposing to abolish some inequity, or a politician makes a speech about it – and, behold, a new “civil right” is born! The Supreme Court has displayed the same creative powers.

A civil right is a right that is asserted and is therefore protected by some valid law. It may be asserted by the common law, or by local or federal statutes, or by the Constitution; but unless a right is incorporated in the law, it is not a civil right and is not enforceable by the instruments of the civil law.

There may be some rights – “natural,” “human,” or otherwise – that should also by civil rights. But if we desire to give such rights the protection of the law, our recourse is to a legislature or to the amendment procedures of the Constitution. We must not look to politicians, or sociologists – or the courts – to correct the deficiency.

[The] federal Constitution does not require the States to maintain racially mixed schools. Despite the recent holding of the Supreme Court, I am firmly convinced – not only that integrated schools are not required – but that the Constitution does not permit any interference whatsoever by the federal government in the field of education.

It may be wise or expedient for Negro children to attend the same schools as white children, but they do not have a civil right to do so which is protected by the federal Constitution, or which is enforceable by the federal government. The intentions of the founding fathers in this matter are beyond any doubt: no powers regarding education were given to the federal government.”

(The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater, Victor Publishing Company, 1960, pp. 31-34)

A Toast to Our Federal Union

Some twenty-nine years before Abraham Lincoln threatened a State with invasion, the militaristic President Andrew Jackson flatly denied that a State within the federation could challenge laws it considered unconstitutional. Jackson believed all States to be permanently under the 1789 constitution with no right to withdraw, which surprised Rhode Island, New York and Virginia as all three had explicitly reserved this in their ratifications. All other States considered the 10^th Amendment as a clear warning to the federal agent.

Though Jackson was not the first military man elected president, his experience as a field commander with little if any civilian supervision gave him wide latitude in his decisions. His April 1818 capture and hanging of two British envoys in Florida brought him severe condemnation from Congress, which chose not to censure the popular general.

A Toast to Our Federal Union

“Toastmaster Roane introduced the President of the United States. Old Hickory stood, waiting for the cheers to subside. The President fixed his glance upon Vice President John C. Calhoun, toasting to, “Our Union: it must be Preserved.” He raised his glass, a signal that the toast was to be drunk standing.

Hayne rushed up to Jackson. Would the President consent to the insertion of one word in his toast before the text was given to the newspapers? What was the word? Asked Jackson. It was “Federal,” making the toast read, “our Federal Union.” Jackson agreed and, like many another historic epigram, the toast went forth amended to the world.

The Vice President arose slowly. “May we all remember that [the Union] can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union.”

(The Life of Andrew Jackson. Chapter XXX, Marquis James. Bobbs Merrill Company, 1938, pg. 539-540)

Mankind’s War Fetish

English author and commentator H.G. Wells began writing newspaper articles in August 1914 commenting upon what was to be termed the “World War”; the articles would become assembled in a book entitled The War That Will End War. Arguing that the Central Powers led by Germany and Italy commenced the war, he saw that only the destruction of German militarism could end the conflagration.

American intervention – pursued by a president who was elected on a promise of keeping us out of the war – was decisive as cash advances to Britain, France and Russia amounting to some $9.6 billion stoked the fires. Postwar, America became the world’s banker with net foreign assets of around $11 billion by the end of 1919.

In 1918, Germany was defeated, its Kaiser banished, and punitive peace terms burdened the German people. Predictably, a nationalist arose within Germany who rebuilt his country’s military and ironically with French assistance through the Czech’s Skoda Works. Only twenty years after the Versailles Treaty, it was back to war. What is called World War Two – more accurately called the second half of the World War – led to an estimated 56 million military and civilian deaths, and an additional 38 million dead from war-related disease and famine.

Below, author Emil Ludwig cites the costs of the war to end war.

Mankind’s War Fetish

“The World War, which was on the verge of breaking out in the very first opening years of the opening century, is the great liquidation of debts created in the previous era and we desire and demand that it be associated with the nineteenth century. The second Hague Conference of 1907 was only a farce. During the weeks for which the third meeting was set in the summer of 1915, oratory could no longer be heard in The Hague due to the nearby thundering of cannon in Europe.

The cost of armament during the years from 1910 to 1914 amounted to 1.8 billions of dollars for Austria and Germany together and 2.4 billions for France and Russia – more than 4 billion. Yet these were small sums compared with those piled up by the War. On land and sea and in the air, 12,990,570 soldiers were killed in the World War. The war cost the combined combatants 250,000,000 billions of dollars – half of their combined national wealth. Thus, within four years, for no reason and without any essential consequences, Europe had sent up in smoke half of all it had gathered together during the preceding centuries. How should we characterize an act of this kind on the part of a large bank or a powerful family?

In so far as the victorious powers are concerned, France was a creditor nation to the extent of 30 billions before the war and a debtor to the extent of 31 billions afterward. During the struggle, the French national wealth decreased by a third; that of England by one fourth. Even the United States government had to expend during two years more than it had laid out in the course of over a century; and if in spite of this fact it remains today the creditor of the world, the reason is not participation in the second half of the war but rather abstention during the war’s first half. The smaller countries which remained neutral are in a relatively better position than any of the imperialist states.

With the exception of America, all the warring countries lost millions of men and billions of money; and any territory gained in the process at the expense of the conquered peoples is of intrinsic worth only in the case of new states established at the end.

Even the single positive result of the World War – the destruction of four realms anachronistically ruled by emperors, and the creation of eleven republics – was therefore purchased at a price which, in civil life, only an insane person would pay.”

“We punish an individual guilty of assault or murder, but the massacre of a people is considered a glorious deed.” Seneca

“Standing armies should in time cease to be, for they constitute a perennial threat of war to other states . . .” Immanuel Kant

(Whither Mankind: A Panorama of Modern Civilization. Charles A. Beard, editor. Longmans, Green & Company, 1928, pp. 178-179)

Lincoln Chooses War

“The interval of eighty days between [Sumter] and the assembling of Congress gave Lincoln a virtual monopoly on emergency powers. Between his attempt to reinforce and resupply Fort Sumter – the latter odd since its garrison obtained food from Charleston markets – and the meeting of Congress in July, Lincoln had a virtual monopoly on assuming claimed “emergency powers.” After several States solemnly withdrew from the 1789 Constitution, Lincoln declared an “insurrection” to exist in seven States and called forth 75,000 militia to suppress this claim. On April 19, 1861, Lincoln proclaimed a naval blockade – an act of war – of all States bordering the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, including North Carolina which remained within the Union at that time. In his July 1861 message to Congress, Lincoln explained his clearly unconstitutional actions while asserting that “this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic or democracy . . . can . . . maintain its territory against its own domestic foes.” It is clear that he was not familiar with Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, for “waging war against Them [the States] or aiding and abetting their enemies.”

Lincoln Chooses War

“. . . the South considered secession a peaceable act, while according to the [Northern] point of view such secession was null and required a defensive attitude on the part of the federal government with a readiness to strike in retaliation for any act of resistance to the national authority. This drifting policy, accompanied by conditions in the social mind which can only be described as pathological, had led to the Sumter crisis; and war was upon the country with each side protesting that its actions were purely defensive, and that the opponent was the aggressor.

Lincoln took many other war measures. He issued two proclamations of blockade . . . He decreed an expansion of the regular army on his own authority [with] a further call on May 3^rd for recruits to the regular army beyond the total authorized by law. Increasing the regular army is a congressional function, with Sen. John Sherman stating that “I never met anyone who claimed that the President could, by proclamation, increase the regular army.”

Lincoln’s message to Congress on July 4^th, 1861, stated: “These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand and public necessity; trusting . . . that Congress would readily ratify them.” In a word, the whole machinery of war was set in motion by Lincoln, with all that this meant in terms of federal effort, departmental activity, State action and private enterprise.”

(The Civil War and Reconstruction. James G. Randall. D.C. Heath & Company. 1937, pp. 360-366)

Father of the Revolution – Samuel Adams

As described below, New England political agitation brought about the avoidable secession from England and war; the same occurred some 80 years later “as Massachusetts agitators and men of letters had done their best to see that there should be thousands, and tens of thousands” joining them in denouncing their union with the South. The uncompromising Puritan moral crusade against the very African slavery which ironically enriched their own section, would now be put to work to destroy the 1789 union. The agitation pushed the hand of Lincoln in April 1861 to confront now-independent South Carolina over the question of tariff revenue – which predictably resulted in gunfire and war. Those defending their State were denounced in the north as “rebels” intent upon destroying the union.

Father of the Revolution – Samuel Adams

“It is a great mistake to think of public opinion as united in the colonies and as gradually rising against British tyranny. Public opinion was never wholly united and seldom rises to a pitch of passion without being influenced – in other words, without the use of propaganda. The Great War [of 1914-1918] taught that to those who did not know it already.

From the first, [John] Adams and those working with him had realized the necessity of democratic slogans in the creation of a state of mind. [He] at once struck out boldly to inflame the passions of the crowd by threatening that it was to be reduced to the “miserable state of tributary slaves,” contrasting its freedom and moral virtue with the tyranny and moral degradation of England. He proclaimed that the mother country was bent on bringing her colonies to a condition of “slavery, poverty and misery,” and on causing their utter ruin, and dinned into the ears of the people the words “slavery and tyranny” until they assumed a reality from mere reiteration.

His political philosophy was eagerly lapped up by a populace smarting under hard times and resentful of colonial even more than imperial conditions of the moment. The establishment of government by free consent of all had become imbedded in the mind of the average man, as an essential part of the American dream. Adams himself had seen the vision but had glimpsed it with the narrowness and bitterness with which the more bigoted Puritans had seen the vision of an unloving and revengeful Hebrew Jehovah.

Such talk as this could only make England fearful of how far the people might try to put such precepts into practice. The upper classes of the colonies also began to be uneasy. Up to 1770, when their own grievances were redressed, they might allow such ideas to be disseminated, considering themselves in control of the situation, but after that it became clear that they were losing control . . . [as] Sam Adams and the lesser radicals worked harder than ever to keep public opinion inflamed.

With the upper classes [becoming] lukewarm or hostile to his continued propaganda [despite] the obnoxious legislation repealed or modified, [Sam Adams] had to trust to generalizations and emotional appeal.

A good example of his use of the latter was the affair called the “Boston Massacre.” As part of the general imperial policy following the [French and Indian] war, the British government had stationed some regiments in Boston. They were under good officers and good discipline, and there was no more reason why they should have made trouble there, than in any provincial garrison town of England. Sam Adams, however, was continually stirring up the public mind against them; John Adams reported finding Sam one Sunday night ‘preparing for the next day’s newspaper – a curious employment, cooking up paragraphs, articles and [incidents], working the political engine.’

Finally, one March evening, as a result of more than usual provocation given by taunting boys to soldiers on duty, an unfortunate clash occurred. There was confusion, a rioter’s shout to fire” was mistaken for an officer’s command, and several citizens were killed. The officer surrendered to civilian authorities, was tried, defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., and acquitted.

But Samuel Adams at once saw the value of the incident. Every emotion of the mob was played upon. The affair was termed a “massacre,” and in the annual speeches given for a number of years to commemorate its anniversary the boys and men who had taken part in the mobbing were described as martyrs to liberty and the soldiers as “bloody butchers.”

(The Epic of America. James Truslow Adams. Little, Brown and Company. 1932, pp. 83-84).

The Fate of Hereditary Monarchs

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the following the right of kings to rule the world was regarded by nearly the entire human race as a divine right from the Creator of the universe. His populist views were looked upon in Europe with much dread and hostility, though it became clear to Jefferson in later life that political factions and the democratic urge would upend his experiment in government.

The Fate of Hereditary Monarchs

“While I was in Europe, I often amused myself with contemplating the character of the then-reigning sovereigns of Europe. Louis XVI was a fool of my own knowledge, and despite of the answers made for him at his trial. The king of Spain was also a fool, as was the king of Naples. They passed their lives in hunting and dispatched two couriers a week some one thousand miles to inform one another what game they killed in the preceding days. All were Bourbons.

The queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature, and so was the king of Denmark. I hear their sons, as regents, really exercised the powers of government. The king of Prussia, successor to Frederick the Great, was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of Sweden and Joseph of Austria were really crazy, and George of England, as you know, was in a straight waistcoat. There remained, then, none but old Catherine of Russia, who we have learned of late to have lost her common sense.

In this state Bonaparte found Europe, and it was in this state its rulers lost all with barely a struggle. These rulers had become without minds and therefore powerless, and so will every hereditary monarch be after a few generations.”

(Forty Years of Oratory, Daniel W. Voorhees Lectures, Addresses and Speeches. Vol. 1. Harriet C. Voorhees. Bowen-Merrill Company, 1898, pg. 70)

“It’s What People Believe Happened That Counts”

The following is an introductory paragraph from the June 2021 Chronicles magazine article by Roger D. McGrath identifying the source of many misunderstood events in history. Too often the culprit is poorly researched government or media-generated reports – or simply propaganda – that soon become “history.” This is followed by teachers who pass this on to their students.

“It’s What People Believe Happened That Counts”

“Arguing with my liberal high school teacher did not endear me to him. It got worse when a day or two after one of these class disagreements I brought to class material demonstrating the teacher had been feeding us a false narrative. The teacher was not doing so intentionally but simply out of ignorance, having accepted a narrative generated by leftists in academe.

However, it soon became evident to me that my liberal teachers were quick to accept a leftist narrative not only because it came from university professors – the putative intelligentsia – but because it made America look bad.

The problem worsened in college. Nonetheless, in those days there still existed a substantial minority of conservative professors. I recall discussing with a conservative history professor a topic of great interest to me. He told me I was right about a particular sequence of events, but then added, “Remember, it is not what actually happened that matters – it’s what people believe happened that counts.”

(The Deliberate Infection Myth of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Roger D. McGrath. Chronicles Magazine, June 2021, pp. 44-45)

Washington’s Confederate Republic

In the judgement of George Washington, the government of the US was in form and nature a “Confederated, or Federal Republic” and all States within were small republics themselves. Further, the federal agent of the States was not a “republic,” but only the assigned agent of these individual republics. Montesquieu affirmed that in a confederation, the States do not forfeit or part with their individual sovereignty. Philosopher and diplomat Emmerich de Vattel asserted as well that “several sovereign and independent States may unite themselves together by a perpetual Confederacy without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect State, and together constitute a federation.

Abraham Lincoln ended this original intent of the Founders in 1861 with his war upon States wishing to voluntarily depart the 1789 agreement. Alexander H. Stephens wrote postwar that the 1861-1865 conflict was the result of Lincoln’s abuse of powers and forced national consolidation.

Washington’s Confederate Republic

“In the popular mind in the post-Revolution time, those representing the citizens of the States at large, each acting for themselves in their sovereign capacities.

“[The various] demonstrations, devices, mottoes and symbols, clearly showed how the great mass of people, in all the States, understood the new Constitution. It was nothing but a more perfect bond of union between the States. “Federal” was the watchword of the day in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond and Charleston. It was the grand symbolized idea throughout the whole length and breadth of the land. There can be no doubt that the people thought they were adopting a Federal Constitution – forming a federated union.

Now then, what is the meaning of this word “federal,” which entered so deeply into the thoughts, hearts and understandings of the people of that day?

Dr. Johnson, the highest authority of that day, in his Dictionary, thus defines the word: Federal – (Foedus, Lat.) relating to a League or Contract. Federate, he defines (Federatus, Lat.) leagued, joined in a Confederacy. The great American lexicographer Noah Webster, says of this word “Federal,” that it is derived from the Latin word “Foedus” which means a League. A League he defines to be “an Alliance or Confederacy between Princes or States for their mutual aid or defense.” And in defining the meaning of the word “Federal,” he uses this language: “Consisting of a Compact between States or Nations; founded on alliance by contract of mutual agreement; as, a Federal Government, such as that of the United States.”

Federal, from its very origin and derivation, therefore, has no meaning and can have none, disassociated from a Compact or Agreement of some sort, and it is seldom ever used to qualify any Compacts or Agreements except those between States or Nations. So that Federal and Confederate mean substantially the same thing.

Washington, in one of his letters which I have just read, spoke of the new Government as “a Confederacy.” In another, to Sir Edward Newenham, dated the 20^th of July, 1788, he speaks of the new Government then ratified by enough States to carry it into effect as a “Confederated Government.” In . . . 1789 he expressed his conviction that “his happiness . . . that “the Senate would at all times cooperate in every measure which may tend to promote the welfare of “this Confederated Republic.” These are the terms by which he characterized “the union” after the present Constitution was formed and after it was in operation. There is no difference between the words Federal and Confederated as thus used and applied. We see that Washington used them both, at different times, to signify the same thing, that is, the Union of the American States under the Constitution.”

(A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, Alexander H. Stephens. Sprinkle Publications, 1994 (Original: S.A. George, Printers, 1868), pp. 167-170)

Lincoln’s Great Blunder

The political development of the United States has passed through three stages since independence from England. The stages are characterized as those of the First Republic (1776-1789); the Second Republic (1789-1861); and the Third Republic (since 1861).

Lincoln’s Great Blunder

“Former-President John Tyler wrote his wife the day after Virginia’s withdrawal from the 1789 Constitution.

“The die is cast and Virginia’s future is in the hands of the god of battle.” The contest will be one full of peril, but “there is a spirit abroad in Virginia which cannot be crushed until the life of the last man is trampled out. The numbers opposed to us are immense; but twelve thousand Grecians conquered the whole power of Xerxes [Darius] at Marathon, and our fathers, a mere handful, overcame the enormous power of Great Britain. Do, dearest, live as frugally as possible in the household, – trying times are before us.”

Tyler regarded the conflict between the North and the South as a great blunder, the chief blame for which must be laid at the door of Lincoln. For by reinforcing Fort Sumter, he had brought on a clash which could have been avoided. Lincoln had made the terrible mistake of “having weighed in the scales the value of a mere local fort against the value of the Union itself.” He even accused the new president of acting not from patriotic motives but from a desire to consolidate behind him his faction of the Republican party.

The South, he implied, was justified in its attack on Fort Sumter. “If the Confederate States have their own flag, is anyone so stupid as to suppose that they will suffer the flag of England or France or of the northern States to float over the ramparts in place of their own?

As Tyler believed in the sovereignty of the States, he considered that under existing circumstances secession was legal and coercion revolutionary. The breakup of the union was not caused by the secession of the South but by the nullification practiced by the North. The latter section’s disregard of the fugitive slave law, its rejection of decision of the United States Supreme Court, and the commission of other unconstitutional acts had really destroyed the union of 1789. If there was any rebellion involved in this dissolution of the partnership, the “rebels” were not the Southerners, but the Northerners.

For the former had been true to the principles of the Constitution and the latter had violated them. The North had thus pulled down the house and the South had only left its ruins.”

(John Tyler: Champion of the Old South. Oliver Perry Chitwood. American Political Biography Press. 1939, pp. 455-456)

Wartime Ways

The American military of 1860 was one still restricted by the view that a standing army was a threat to peace and liberty. Sensing danger after the John Brown violence at Harpers Ferry, Americans in the South formed local militia units and Safety Committees reminiscent of those in 1776 days. Lincoln’s seizure of power after Fort Sumter was enabled by a recessed Congress which would not convene until July; the demonstrated threat of anyone opposing his will; and Republican governors who provided him with troops.

Indeed, the matters of national versus State powers WERE studied in law schools and universities and West Point – the federal agent was left intentionally weak by the Founders who feared a strong central authority which would threaten and overpower the States.

Lincoln had no “war powers” as commander in chief as Congress had not declared war as required by the US Constitution. Additionally, and as the latter stipulated in Article III, Section 3, treason was waging war against “Them,” the States. This was the Framers way of dealing with possible civil war in the future, and those responsible sharing the fate of John Brown.

The following excerpt ignores the hidden economic and political machinations for war against the American South in 1861, and naively claims that northern officials in 1861 were forced to meet the South’s departure with novel ideas. The answers were found in the Constitution.

Wartime Ways

“Almost totally civilian in habits and local orientation, American were simply unready for the spectacle of “national” soldiers – even hastily uniformed neighbors – performing police functions. From the days after [Fort] Sumter all through 1861, arrests of civilians by soldiers and suspension of the revered though little understood privilege of habeas corpus were the most visible evidence of war.

Unrestrained journalism, unfettered communications, and unsubdued opposition politics attended to the “arbitrary arrests” and the “prisoners of state,” and their incarcerations in “American Bastilles.” There, military commissions pronounced ferocious penalties under the unknown and therefore doubly worrisome tenets of martial law.

Debate shifted to the habeas corpus suspensions, to the scope of “war powers” and of the commander-in-chief functions, the basic question of whether what was going on was a war between nations or a civil war, to altering configurations of national-State relationships, to the applicability of the Bill of Rights to wartime ways, and to the role of the national and State’s judiciaries in supplying answers to war-born uncertainties.

A hundred years ago, these matters were unstudied in law schools, ignored in universities, and unknown in West Point’s curriculum. Among government officials, ignorance about them was all but complete. Legal literature on such themes was inadequate if not irrelevant. After Sumter, persons who sought guidance on internal security matters found themselves in an everyman’s-land of assumptions, conjectures and surmises. Precise questions did not exist, much less answers. It was all novel and startling.”

(A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution. Harold M. Hyman. Houghton Mifflin Company. 1975, pp. 65-66)