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"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandela

July 4th and America’s History of Secession

by Carole Hornsby Haynes      July 3, 2022 

The American flag waves proudly across America as we celebrate the July 4, 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence of the 13 American colonies from Great Britain. The document listed 27 reasons why the colonists declared independence. 

Those who know unrevised Southern history will see parallels in secession from England, secession of the South from the United States, and the current secession movement among red and blue states.

The Second Secession 

Just as the American colonists had a long train of “repeated injuries and usurpations” by the tyrannical King George III, so did the South have deep grievances about their treatment by the North and central government. 

The U.S. government perpetrated atrocities against the South of magnitude and quantity unparalleled in American history, acts the government desperately wanted to hid beneath whitewash. Northern liberals who were in full sympathy with the nationalist aims and actions of the federal government applied that whitewash. 

Until the first half of the 20th century Southern historians were unable to write the truth because of the Northern iron grip and the threat that the South would be invaded again. Those Southerners’ work was written from legitimate primary sources and show a very different picture of the relations between the North and South since the early 1830s. 

The distorted history about the War for Southern Independence and Reconstruction -- the “Lost Cause” -- has been a powerful weapon for socialists to use as justification for hatred, violence, chaos, destruction of property, and outright murder to create open revolution and takeover. 

Since the 1960s the historical myths about the war have been used aggressively by the progressive media, academics, and politicians to promote the war as a “moral crusade” against slavery. The following quotes from people of the Civil War era show a different view. 

“It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all that our enemies are fighting for.  It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.” -- Gen. Patrick Cleburne C.S.A. Jan. 2, 1864. (emphasis added) 

“The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug disguised to conceal its desire for economic control of the United States.” -- Charles Dickens, English author (emphasis added) 

“The contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces.” – London Times, November 7, 1861 (emphasis added) 

The fact is that the North was just as intertwined with slavery as the South. The agrarian South had no ships. It was Northern ships that sailed out to buy African slaves from other black Africans – for settlement in both the North and South. 

The tariff – not slavery – was a major cause of the sectional conflict. Protectionist tariffs are generally harmful for economic growth and are a political means of redistributing regional and commercial wealth. Ninety-five (95) percent of the U.S. government’s revenue came from import tariffs. The South paid 83 percent of that revenue yet received only 25 percent of the benefit. Eighty (80) percent of the tax revenue was spent on Northern public works and industrial subsidies. 

The 1860 Republican Platform and Lincoln’s presidential campaign supported the Morrill Tariff which was passed two days before his inauguration. The tariff would increase from 15 percent in 1860 to 47 percent within three years. The Morrill Tariff would enormously benefit Northern manufacturers but would have a devastating effect on Southern states in terms of agriculture costs, export revenues and profits. 

If the North lost access to this import revenue, the effect on the Northern economy would be devastating. Because the Northern economy was dependent upon manufacturing for the South and shipping Southern cotton, loss of that would be devastating. 

“The North cut off from Southern cotton, rice, tobacco, and other products would lose three fourths of her commerce, and a very large proportion of her manufactures. And thus those great fountains of finance would sink very low. . . . Would the North in such a condition as that declare war against the South?” -- Gen. Henry L. Benning (Georgia Supreme Court Justice prior to war, Fort Benning named for him) 

General Benning pinpointed the issue. The North would never tolerate being treated the way they treated the South. So why should Southerners put up with the Northern rape of their economy?  They had declared their independence from Great Britain and they did not intend to swap one tyrannical government for another. The London Times in 1861 clearly saw the parallel between independence from Great Britain and Southern independence – secession – from the U.S. 

With the election of Lincoln and passage of the new Morrill Tariff, Southern leaders in South Carolina and the Gulf States began calling for secession in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. In his first Inaugural Address, Lincoln swore to enforce the tariff in the seceded states because the Northern economy could not withstand the loss of import duties. He needed to gain control control of Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor to collect his tariffs so he sent federal 75,000 troops to unconstitutionally invade the state. 

The New Secession Movement 

With the American government becoming increasingly tyrannical and abusive, it’s no surprise that a large percentage of the America public favor a third secession with blue and red states going their own ways to form separate countries. 

In everything from tax policy to travel to contracting rules, a secession movement within the states has been building for years. There is a continued increase of state and local officials enacting laws and policies that ban travel and restrict commerce with other American locations with governments they don’t like. For example, the overturn of Roe v. Wade is seeing discrimination of blue states against red states that have or plan to enact bans against abortion. 

Secession is far more complicated than it appears. Secession of a state would affect our own economy. The vastness of the free trade area that is America has been a critical force in forging its dynamic, building of its economic might. 

For other nations, the U.S. is the only superpower against assertive authoritarian power, with China and Russia being foremost. 

David Reaboi with Claremont Institute explains that within America today, there are two radically different views of justice and the proper role of state in its interactions with its citizens. He questions what force would reunite us and what force would keep us from coming apart. 

Today, with our long train of “repeated injuries and usurpations” by the tyrannical federal government, the words of the Declaration of Independence become even more relevant. 

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” 

Are Americans willing to live under a communist government as we now have or are we willing to fight for our freedom once more and establish the type of government our forefathers sought? 

 

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