Our Fathers Did no Such Thing [EXCERPT]

This post is an excerpt (Chapter One) of Nonsense on Sense: The Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Imaginary Nation (Shotwell Publishing, 2024)

‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation…’ (from Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” emphasis added)


AS MUCH AS LINCOLN may have wished it to be the case, no new nation was brought forth on the American continent ‘four score and seven years’ before his speech.


In 1776, thirteen English colonies, with thirteen different governing bodies (out of 20 English colonies on the continent and in the Caribbean), collectively declared the reasons why they thought it necessary to sever their ties, that is, to secede from their mother country.


They were ‘held together’ by common practical interest, nothing more. It was mutually beneficial to unite for the purposes of defence against an aggressor that meant to subjugate and deny them the rights, privileges, and representation in their own assemblies of governance to which they had come to enjoy over the course of many, many years. The colonists were not inventing something new; they were protecting something old, namely, self-government and their inherited rights as Englishmen which was being threatened by the English Parliament and allowed by the only sovereign they recognised, namely, King George III. Anyone who says that America was founded on anything other than this, an idea, or ‘proposition,’ for example, has missed the entire essence of the War for American Independence.

The Continental Congress

Separation was not the colonists’ first choice, it was reconciliation. Prior to 1776 the colonists sent remonstrances to the King and made every effort to bring to heel, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, the

…unwarrantable encroaches and usurpations, attempted to be made by the legislature of one part of the empire, upon those rights which God and the laws have given equally and independently to all….

In other words, for the King to interpose on the behalf of the British American subjects, against the unprecedented machinations of the British Parliament (in which they had no representation). Jefferson’s tone, while firm, still held out the hope of reconciliation, not division:

This, sire, is our last, our determined resolution; and that you will be pleased to interpose with that efficacy which your earnest endeavours may insure to procure redress of these great grievances, to quiet the minds of your subjects in British America, against any apprehensions of future encroachment, to establish fraternal love and harmony throughout the whole empire, and that these may continue to the latest ages of time, is the fervent prayer of all British America

This was not the first time British America appealed to their king. It had been an ongoing affair, beginning (as far as I can tell) with a series of remonstrances and resolutions by individual colonies in the 1760s in response to the Sugar, Currency, and Stamp Acts,13 that eventually led to the First Continental Congress (1774), a representative body of the various colonies that gathered to determine what course of action they should take to collectively respond to these acts of usurpation by Parliament which had become intolerable to them.


Why?

Since the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 (no, my dear friends, it was not Plymouth, Massachusetts—that occurred in 1620), and in each successive settlement, the colonists had enjoyed, by royal charter, the same privileges and inherited rights they would have enjoyed if they had remained in the mother country:​

All persons, being English subjects and inhabiting the colonies, and every of their children born therein, were declared to have and possess all liberties, franchises, and immunities, within any other dominion of the crown, to all intents and purposes, as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England, or any other dominion of the crown.

The first Continental Congress adopted what was then called the Continental Association or Articles of Association to collectively deal with the issues they faced. This association could hardly be said to be the preamble to the creation of a nation, although Lincoln certainly thought so, as evidenced in his first inaugural address. While it is outside of the scope of this work to enumerate their grievances and responses taken up by the First Continental Congress, it is interesting to note that their adoption of the ‘non-importation, non-consumption, non-exportation’ of British goods—what we would call a boycott—opened with a pledge of loyalty to the King.


I’m not trying to belabour the point (or am I?), but this was a mere association of loyal subjects, each representing the interest of their own communities, attempting to persuade the King to secure their collective rights which each colony had enjoyed under their separate and distinct Royal Colonial Charters and the English Constitution. They figured collective bargaining had a better chance of success and went with it. There is nothing revolutionary about this. The King wasn’t following the laws and they wanted to persuade him to do so.


By the time the Congress of Colonies (AKA, the Second Continental Congress) met again in May of 1775, the cold war of words had become a hot war of men and arms—the Battles of Lexington and Concord—along with other violent altercations of various sizes—having already soiled the ground with blood. Still, even when independence seemed, and indeed turned out to be, the only way forward, the Congress still sought a peaceful resolution to the strife as evidenced by the Olive Branch Petition of July 8, 1775.


These are not the acts of men trying to establish a ‘new nation.’ Even The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America—what is now referred to as simply ‘The Declaration of Independence’ (for some reason)—does not hint at any desire or intention to create a new nation, only—given the ongoing outrages by King and Parliament, which were enumerated in detail in the document itself—that ‘these United Colonies [plural] are, and of Right, ought to be Free and Independent States [plural],’ together with all the powers associated therewith. By declaring themselves to be States they were not saying they were like Mississippi, Vermont, or North Carolina in the way that we have come to ‘use’ the word ‘State,’ but more like, France, Germany, and even Great Britian.



[Let that sink in for a moment… It’s important to understand how they saw themselves.]

As we all know, this collective bargaining did not work. In fact, things got worse as time progressed.


Can the United States be one thing—a nation born in 1776—if the document to which Lincoln refers in his Address as the document that marks the birth of his imaginary nation says in its very title that there are Thirteen united States of America?

This question, of course, is rhetorical.

The meaning and implication should be plain to any honest mind even slightly familiar with this time period and the documents and actions (either by individual colonies, or collectively in the colonial/ continental congresses) which preceded this joint declaration to the world which explains and justifies their act of secession from their mother country.

​I make no claim here to have given a comprehensive account of the events leading to the joint Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, to which Lincoln points to as the birth of his imaginary nation, only enough to show that there was no intention of creating a nation, nor did there exist any American Nation in 1776.

The First American Constitution

As I have already shown, there was no formal agreement binding those 13 colonies together in 1776. It may be characterised—at best—as a loosely constructed alliance between interested parties. It was The Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia of 1777—the first American Constitution—which did formalise the nature of their association—but would not be ratified by all of the participating colonies, now independent States, until 1781. But since that document expressly declared that each State retained (not gained) its ‘sovereignty, freedom, and independence,’ one would be hard-pressed to call this voluntary union of States a ‘nation.’


Just as there was no nation in 1776, there was no nation created by the First American Constitution, AKA, The Articles of Confederation, when fully ratified by the several States in 1781.


Sadly, the Articles of Confederation—the document birthed in the American War for Independence—is all but lost to American consciousness. If one were only exposed to a college level survey of American History, they would come away believing that there was a Declaration of Independence, followed by a ‘revolutionary’ war, and concluded by the quick adoption and ratification of what is commonly referred to as the U.S. Constitution.

The Articles, if mentioned at all, are usually portrayed as a weak and unworkable document that brighter minds had the good sense to toss on the garbage heap to create a ‘more perfect union.’

But was it?

The Articles of Confederation was the Constitution of the 13 United States. It was the terms on which and with which the former colonies would associate and cooperate with one another as a collection or union of States (think countries) and to which every State, in their sovereign capacity freely ratified. The word ‘united’ is lower case throughout the Articles because it was a descriptive term, not a title as such, except in Article I.


This was a fact that no one at the time disputed—a fact that was still understood by most Americans, even after the adoption of the Second Constitution of 1787.

This was not a myth dreamed up by States’ Rights ‘schemers’ like John C. Calhoun to protect ‘the slave power’ as many of us were taught and a majority of us—with scant exception—have come to believe. It was a well-known, commonly accepted, and well documented fact: the States made the union; the union was a creature of the States, and as such, the union was not sovereign in and of itself. It was established for specific and enumerated purposes on behalf of the States and only those purposes. That’s it!


The Articles provided 1 vote to every State, and it took a unanimous vote to amend it, not a mere majority or super majority, it took ALL OF THEM as co-equal members of a community of sovereign States—what they called a ‘league of friendship’ which was to be perpetual.

States Rights were not, in the parlance of our betters, some form of neo-Confederate revisionism, they were (and still are) the foundation, indeed the bedrock, on which the Union—in whatever form it took, whether under the First American Constitution or the Second American Constitution—squarely and solidly rests.

There is no ‘compact theory,’ that stands in contradistinction to the ‘nationalist theory,’ both of which may be said to be equally plausible. The nature of both governing documents were as compacts between sovereign societies (referred to as States). Anyone who defends the ‘nationalist theory’ has to go around their ass to get to their elbow to spin it in any other way.

This false rendering of plain history and documented facts could only be rendered ‘true’ (politically true, or ‘politically correct’) by bullets, bombs, and bayonets, that is, total war as well as by the skillful silencing of dissenting voices wherever they could be reached so that only one version of American history—the nationalist version—would be left.


This was done by Lincoln and the Republican Party with the hope, one assumes, that what really happened could be driven from the collective memory after a sufficient amount of time and conditioning. Can I prove that this was Lincoln’s actual intention? No. But I can make the argument that he was less than honest (i.e., a liar) and knew that his telling of the birth of the American nation had nothing to do with reality.

Perhaps he thought the Union of 1787 should have been a national and not a federal style of government, but that was not the kind of government with which he was participating as president—poorly, I might add.

​The consequence of all this, in our own time, is the inability of otherwise normal and rational thinking people to see what is right in front of them—that there was no nation and that there is no nation—at least not one legally established and freely chosen by the people of the several States as had been done under both Constitutions.

The Second American Constitution

The Constitution for the United States—better described as the Second American Constitution for our purposes—which terminated the constitutional compact created by the Articles of Confederation—would not go into effect until the summer of 1788 (a dozen years from 1776), when 11 of the 13 States ratified it and made the document binding, but only on those States so ratifying.


If this created a nation—one and indivisible—as we are told ad nauseum through post-bellum nationalist history books, the so-called pledge of allegiance, and other means of perpetuating the ‘Proposition Nation’ myth, the sovereign States that pre-existed this new political arrangement were ignorant of this crucial detail and would not have ratified it if they thought that it did.


The creation of these documents is a curious one and the differences between the two American constitutions are striking (See Appendix C).

The gathering was billed as a convention to remedy the alleged defects of the Articles of Confederation, indeed, the credentials of each delegate representing their particular State only provided the authority to propose amendments to the existing constitution, NOT to create a new one.

Here are a few examples, including some smaller fragments so as to establish this was not an isolated position, but one universally held amongst and between the States of the Federated Union:

… Resolved, that the Hon. Robert Yates, John Lessing, John Lansing, Jun., and Alexander Hamilton, Esqrs., be, and they are hereby, declared duly nominated and appointed delegates, on the part of this state, to meet such delegates as may be appointed on the part of the other states, respectively, on the second Monday in May next, at Philadelphia, for the sole and expressed purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation … [to] render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union… (Emphasis added) --State of New York


… Be it therefore by the Commonwealth of Virginia, that seven commissioners be appointed… to join with them [Delegates from the participating States] in devising and discussing all such alterations and further provisions as may be necessary to render the Federal Constitution [The Articles] adequate to the exigencies of the Union… --Commonwealth of Virginia (Emphasis added)


… [A]re hereby appointed from this state to meet in the Convention of the deputies of other states… and join with them in devising, deliberating on, and discussing, such alterations and further provisions as may be necessary to render the Federal Constitution [The Articles] adequate to the exigencies of the Union … provided that such alterations or further provisions, or any of them, do not extend to the part of the 5th article of the Confederation of the said states… --Delaware State (Emphasis added)


… [T]o join with such deputies (they being duly authorized and empowered) in devising, all such alterations, clauses, articles, and provisions, as may be thought necessary to render the Federal Constitution [The Articles] entirely adequate to the actual situation and future good government of the confederated states … --State of South Carolina (Emphasis added)


… [F]or the purpose of revising the Federal Constitution [Again (Sigh!), The Articles] … to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union … --State of Maryland (Emphasis added)


… [F]or the purpose of revising the Federal Constitution… [No need to say it again. I’m sure it’s aggravating!] (Emphasis added)  --The State of North Carolina

The fact that The Articles of Confederation WAS THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION (and was referred to as such) when some of the delegates trotted off to Philadelphia to do away with it.


This fact may just be an important detail in the understanding of how things actually happened.

I have not had one person so far accurately answer the following question: How many constitutions has the United States had since the American War for Independence?

‘One,’ is the only answer I have gotten so far—and not from people off the streets, but many well-informed people of my acquaintance!

Up until my research for this book, I would have answered the same!

Surprise! There are two!

This should be common knowledge, but it is not.

Why isn’t it?

Why didn’t I know that there was a constitution preceding the only constitution I ever knew to exist?

Why are the Articles referred to as an ‘agreement,’ ‘governing document,’ or some equally descriptive term that obfuscates The Articles’ true character in the relevant literature?

The people and their representative bodies called the Articles the ‘Federal Constitution,’ or ‘Federated Constitution’—why not use that?

Has no one in academia—or elsewhere—picked-up a primary source document or is something else at play?

It’s unbelievable, I know, but we really need to get back on track.

Sorry for the rant.

Let’s continue, shall we?​

Almost as soon as the doors were shut, the curtains drawn, and a pact of secrecy was made between the participants, the Articles were ‘determined’ to be beyond repair and a new constitution would be constructed and presented to the States. New constitutions such as the Virginia Plan—an outline for a NATIONAL GOVERNMENT—were put forth immediately and with aforethought, having been prepared by Madison. This ‘founding father’ also had the Virginia delegation arrive days earlier to jockey for position. The Virginians even brought General George Washington to preside for good measure! (I mean, who would or could—given his legendary status and sterling reputation—oppose anything in which General Washington was involved, right?)


These actions can only be interpreted, in my simple way of thinking, that they never intended to amend (or attempt to amend) the Federal Constitution or Articles—the only thing they had the authority to do.


While this might not rise to the charge of treason against the States these men represented (or does it?), it comes about as close to treason as you can get without finding yourself taking a long walk on a short rope, if you know what I mean (treason being a hangin’ offence in those days…).

Troubling Implications

I have to stop and wonder at the larger issues here—things that don’t jive with what I thought I knew (i.e., what I was taught and believed to be true until I was well into my 30s). This is difficult for me to do, dear readers, given the reverence given by many, if not most hard-working, God fearing, decent Americans to these ‘framers’ of ‘THE’ constitution and the document itself—BUT these ‘framers,’ or a not insignificant number of them, colluded, with aforethought, to overthrow the existing political order, that is, to overthrow the Federal Constitution of 1781, and thus the ‘freedom, sovereignty, and independence’ of the States they could convince to adopt the document of this bloodless coup d’état. (I know, it really sounds ‘blasphemous’ when you put it that way, but an examination of the documents now available leaves little room for doubt, at least for me…).


Here’s the rub: These supposed patriotic men did not only fail to amend the Federal Constitution as they were authorised to do, but they never even tried—indeed, never intended to try! Instead, they came shufflin’ to Philly with pre-written outlines of new constitutions they hoped to push through on their own initiative and own volition—the Virginia plan, for example—even though:


1. No one asked them to do so (in fact the opposite being the case, as we have seen above)
2. They did so with aforethought, purposefully disregarding the instructions of their very own government—their Country, that is, their State…


In other words, they just decided that they knew better. Who does this kind of thing? Imagine something like this happening today—and it certainly could be done. Even if their intentions were good and their hearts were in the right place. Even if they thought they were ‘saving the Union or some other ‘righteous’ cause, this ain’t right.


Their actions were in direct violation of their commissions. In saying this, do not let it be understood that I am somehow against the Constitution of 1787 as ratified. I think it could have made a very fine country if it had not been continuously violated by ‘the government’ created by the instrument (it’s not even reformable—almost nothing it does is legal, which is just another way of saying Constitutional).


I’m not trying to belabour the point (or am I?), but the whole affair does not pass the sniff test, in fact, it stinks! One of America’s most beloved patriots thought the very same thing—and he was chosen by Virginia to be a delegate to the Philadelphia convention. Patrick ‘Give me Liberty or give me Death’ Henry, was reported to have said that he ‘smelled a rat’ and refused to attend. 


It would be DECADES before any journal of an attending member was published, or the details of the States’ ratifying conventions were collected and made available in a multi-volume collection. But by then, the damage was done and almost beyond repair. This occurred in large part by the actions of the ‘supreme’ court and Joseph Story’s three volume nationalist interpretation of America’s Founding, its constitution, and its laws--Commentaries on the constitution of the United States: with a preliminary review of the constitutional history of the colonies and states before the adoption of the constitution (1833). (But that is a story for another day, get it?).


Who knew, before the journals of Robert Yates or James Madison, were published (decades after the ratification of the Second American Constitution) that supposed luminaries such as Alexander Hamilton—whose machinations in post-ratification America were cut short by Aaron Burr in a duel—took a monarchical view of what the form of government should be under the ‘new constitution.’ Among other things, he wanted an executive who would serve a lifetime tenure, for States to be mere ‘election districts’ of this government, governors of each State to be appointed by the executive, veto power over State laws, along with other abominations you are free to look up. Knowing now, what they did not know then, Hamilton’s essays in the Federalist seem (and I’d say are) wiggly and disingenuous. Same for Madison, in my humble and unsophisticated reading of the available material, although to a lesser degree.


Why else promote the government neither really wanted and Hamilton completely despised?


As an aside, I would be suspicious if, in our own time, instead of offering amendments to the current constitution to remedy a certain ‘problem,’ our ‘leaders’ (after a closed door and secretive meeting) determined ‘we’ would be better off with an entirely new constitution that gives ‘them’ a few more enumerated powers.


I assume most of you would be suspicious as well, knowing human beings to be what they are and politicians, a sub-species of human beings (as history and recent memory seem to suggest) are likely to do if you ‘give them an inch’ even if they promise—in writing, no less—not to ‘take a yard.’


If such a thing were accomplished, as it was in 1787-1788, that inch given would become a yard, then a mile, until it eventually (in our own day) would become a world-wide empire with a standing army and hundreds of military installations in 80 countries across the world.


Do you think ‘we,’ in this ‘enlightened age,’ would quickly adopt a new constitution? I would not be comfortable with that, especially if ‘our’ current crop of leaders were involved with it in any way, shape, or form.


Yet this is exactly what was being asked of the States when they were presented with the Second American Constitution.


How’d that work out for us?


The whole gathering at Philadelphia in 1787 was b.s. from the get-go, and even though the States did eventually pass the proposed constitution, making it the law of the land, it did not create a national government, although the so-called Federalists (who were actually somewhere on the spectrum between centralisers and monarchists, something no one outside of this ‘secret circle’ knew at the time of ratification) did their best to create a national or strongly centralised government in Philadelphia.


Of course, after the ratification of the requisite number of States, many of these ‘founding fathers,’ particularly those who called themselves Federalists, went to work loading-up the federal court with those of their ilk, invading States without their consent (Whisky Rebellion), chartering a bank (which was rejected at the convention and is, therefore, not among the delegated powers presented to the States), and during the Adams administration, the Alien and Sedition Act, which forbade criticism of the government (a clear violation of the first amendment) just to name a few—ALL illegal under their own description of what the document did and did not do (but that is a story for another day).


I find it interesting, especially with regards to Lincoln’s false rendering of history at Gettysburg, that neither the word ‘perpetual’ nor ‘nation,’ nor ‘national,’ nor any other phrase that suggests that America was anything other than a confederation or union of sovereign States, appear in the constitution Lincoln swore as president to defend, although there was nothing to prevent the ‘framers’ from using this characterisation or carrying over the perpetuity clause. (This will be more fully examined in another chapter.)

Moving On

The new constitution was hotly debated in many States and a few passed it by rather thin margins—some only with the assurance that a ‘Bill of Rights’ would be added to the document upon the first gathering of the new government.


Why?

Were they afraid that their States would infringe on their personal ‘rights’?

Uh, hell no!

They already had these rights, and these rights were protected by tradition and their own constitutions.

Rather, knowing that to ‘give an inch’ is to risk ‘losing a yard’ (or more), they wanted to bind the new government down and forbid them from meddling in the fundamental rights they fought to preserve in their war for independence.

The keystone of the Bill of Rights—the one that made all the other amendments and the constitution itself a document that provided only for enumerated and expressly delegated powers was the 10th amendment which explicitly and unequivocally states that

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.

Next time someone says that they have some constitutional right or other, tell them that the Constitution of 1787, as ratified, HAD NO AMENDMENTS or BILL OF RIGHTS. There is no such a thing as a First Amendment Right to Free Speech, for example. The first amendment was added to keep CONGRESS away from censorship or other means of suppressing language (and certainly not to enforce it or define it). If you read through the Articles and other documents mentioned herein, you will be better able to understand who these people were and what they did (or did not) agree to. If you have a right, dear reader, it didn’t come from an amendment to that constitution.

I know this is shocking, given the way we talk of various kinds of rights said to derive their legitimacy because a constitution was amended. (God, help us!)

Those opposed to the ratification of this new constitution were largely responsible for insuring the adoption and passage of the Bill of Rights. These patriots were called ‘Anti-Federalist’ by the Federalists (although they were, in fact, the real federalists and called themselves ‘republicans’).

These amendments were added as an assurance that the Federal Government would have nothing whatsoever to say about the establishment of religion, exercise of free speech, freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, etc. It was taken, explicitly taken, entirely from their jurisdiction. Every single last one of them. That was the whole point of putting them there!

Those were, and legally remain, in the hands of the States and the States alone regardless of what the Oracles on the ‘Supreme’ court in the District of Criminals (DC) might happen to divine from their reading of the tea leaves or the Ouija board they keep on hand for interpreting ‘Constitutional Law’ (which everyone knows is rooted in case law, partisan politics, and a lot of b.s. they just made-up on the fly, depending on who was in power and which way the wind was blowing).

Like most of American history and jurisprudence, things are the mirror opposite of what they appear and purport to be.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Regardless, it can be said without equivocation and with ample documentary evidence—from the journals of the participants of the ‘Constitutional Convention’ in 1787, to the printed defences of or opposition to the document, to the actual ratification debates in the several States—that the States acceded to a Federal and not a national model of government. Even James Madison, the ‘father’ of THE constitution, makes this clear in the popular, but in most cases irrelevant, collection of essays called The Federalist.

Maybe that’s not what some of the ‘framers’ wanted, but that’s what the people approved through their representatives in the State conventions—the only place legitimacy resides in a federated republic of republics.


Of course, none of the States were obliged to ratify the new constitution and could have rejected it had they wanted to, but as it turned out—for better or for worse—they did, although some States took longer to do so than others.

They were most certainly not part of a nation dedicated to a proposition created in 1776 (or any other date) and from which there was no escape—never ever—regardless of the reason.

Who would sign up, dear reader, for such a horror without a gun in their mouth or bayonet at their breast?

Even a Marital union—which is perpetual by its very nature (i.e., a lifetime commitment based on a series of vows or promises)—ceases to be perpetual in the case of abuse, abandonment, or infidelity. What some folks are now calling—a ‘national divorce’—was certainly appropriate (and legal) in the 1860s and may even be more desirable and justifiable today.

The USS Titanic is sinking, and no one has even considered the 50 lifeboats currently available—but in poor shape after decades and decades of neglect and abuse—to break free. I can think of no reason to go down with the ship if there is an alternative way forward.

Conclusion

Given the foregoing, we are led to the obvious and irrefutable conclusion (and this is the point of all that mess above) that since there was no nation in 1776, 1781 or 1788, there was no ‘nation’ when Lincoln’s speech was delivered in 1863 (or today, for that matter, at least not legally).


There certainly had been a voluntary union of States created by the Second American Constitution, but by 1861 this political arrangement—like the union created by the Articles of Confederation (which explicitly states that it was ‘perpetual’)--had been terminated by the solemn conventions of no less than eleven sovereign States in the South—some of these conventions were illegally broken-up by the ‘national authority.’

The only thing that had occurred ‘four score and seven years’ before Lincoln’s address was that thirteen independent political societies formally and publicly declared their reasons for seceding from a government that they viewed as hostile to their inherited way of life and traditionally recognised rights.

Nothing more.

The story told by Lincoln regarding ‘the birth of a nation’ was false then and it is false now.

I know some of you are trying to find a way around this, but ask yourself why you are compelled to do so.

Just take a deep breath and let’s do some more exploring… There’s nothing to lose other than a false understanding of historical events which can only make things worse (as more falsehoods are piled on this particular falsehood).

Sorry! One more thing:​

What About the New States?

In case you are tempted to say that maybe the 13 original States that ratified the Constitution, thereby creating a new federal government, might have a case for pursuing a form of government outside the old Union, but the newer States (14-50), as a creation of Congress, certainly do/did not… Let me stop you there!


Congress did not and does not now have the authority to create a State; they can only admit an existing State into the Union.

States are created by the sovereign act of the people in a given territory by the adoption of a constitution. Once they apply for and receive admittance into the American Union, the State or States so applying are on ‘an equal footing with all the original States in every respect whatsoever…’

Every reserved right belonging to the original thirteen States in ratification of the Second American Constitution is theirs as well—no exceptions given.

If they are on an equal footing with all the original States and if any of those States reserved the right to leave the union in their ratification document upon adopting the Second American Constitution (such as was explicitly done by Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island), they have, by implication, that same reserved right.


Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina explains the principles at work here:

Ours is a Federal Republic—a Union of States. Michigan is a State; a State in the course of admission, and differing only from the others States in their federal relation. She is declared to be a State in the most solemn manner by your own act. She can come into the Union only as a State; and by her voluntary assent, given by the people of the State in convention, called by the constituted authority of the State…. The relation of the citizen to the Government is through the States. They are subject to its authority and laws only because the State has assented that they should be.

The original 13, and newer States, such as Michigan, are under the authority of the general government in only certain enumerated cases, because the people of the States, through their representatives and by their own authority, chose to be.



In what way did this choice suggest that they gave up the right to voluntarily leave the Union if they perceived it to be a threat to their liberties and reserved rights?

They didn’t.

They didn’t have to.

The original 13 States (each new State being on equal footing with them) were the ones who voluntarily made the Federal Union and, thus, could reverse or rescind their membership with the very same authority. The States made the Federal Government, the Federal Government did not make the States.

The confusion about the nature of the States and their relationship to the federal government came about when unscrupulous people, like Abraham Lincoln (and others), argued that these United States had a national form of government (which is total b.s., as we have seen), although we have been forced to live in this world of falsehood where it is difficult, if not impossible in many cases, to mentally escape.


Over one hundred and fifty years of myth making has made most of us unwilling (including myself for a long time) to take a second look at this deal which does not seem to be beneficial to anyone unconnected with Washington and/or those who do its bidding.

Perhaps too much is at stake.

Perhaps we are too comfortable.

Maybe we don’t want to say anything about the way we are being treated.

Maybe we are scared.

All I know is this: there was a time in this country when there was a people that said, ‘ENOUGH!’ and every time the usual suspects (left and right) removes or allows to be removed, a Confederate flag, plaque, monument, or some other reminder of the true constitutionalist who valiantly and bravely stood against the anti-constitutional usurpers in Washington, the harder it will be to set the record straight. These were the same States that created or voluntarily joined the Union whether under the First and/or Second American Constitution.

Who had the authority to tell them that they couldn’t leave?

There is no such authority.

The creature cannot command the creator—even if they think that they can or should. Their existence depends 100% on the actions taken by the States comprising the Union.

You may disagree with the Southern States’ reasons for leaving.

You may think that they would have been safer and happier in the old Union if they ‘got with the programme.’

You may even think their reasons for withdrawing their membership from that union were wrong, immoral, or even repulsive, but that call is not yours and it wasn’t Lincoln’s either.

That determination belongs to the people of the States acting in their sovereign capacity ALONE, just as it was with the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of 1787, and the termination of association between the Union known as the United States and most of the Southern States. Each State acting on their own volition manifested through a solemn convention of the people—the only way this kind of thing can be done.

Maybe it doesn’t matter, after all these years, that we have been living a lie. I mean, what are they (the usurpers) going to do? Spy on us? Devalue the currency through spending money they don’t have? Rule that a marriage is something other than what it is? Send their subjects to die in foreign lands for the business interests of our overlords and their friends around the world? Start wars without declaration? Stop a legitimate candidate running for president by tying him up in the courts? Allowing untold millions of criminal invaders to cross our borders without impunity and paying them to stay? Cheering on thugs as they burn down cities? (I could do this all day, but let this suffice for the time being.)

Naw! They’d never do that!

I’m pretty damn sure it matters and ‘things’ can never be properly addressed, much less fixed unless we face what brought us to this horror.​