"I don't give a rat's nest what the underlying causes of the war were, the bottom line is the North was fighting to force the South back into the union and the South was fighting to prevent that from happening." Patricio Bridges

Students lose Confederate-flag purse case in 5th Circuit
By David L. Hudson Jr.

Texas public high school officials did not violate the First Amendment by prohibiting two female students from carrying purses featuring images of the Confederate flag to school, a federal appeals court panel has ruled....more

World Powers urged to organize referendum on Balochistan by Pakistan Christian Post

Texas-sized Balochistan was annexed illegally by Pakistan in March 1948. At the time, the Baloch bicameral parliament Diwan-i-A'am and Diwan-i-Khas had both unanimously voted for an independent Balochistan....more

What Can We Do About the American Empire?
by Thomas H. Naylor

In recent years the United States of America has evolved into the largest, wealthiest, most powerful, most materialistic, empire of all times. The question is, “What can be done about it, if anything?” We shall examine six possible responses to the American Empire....more

Black Confederate Facts
by Scott K. Williams

Black Confederates Why haven’t we heard more about them? National Park Service historian, Ed Bearrs, stated, “I don’t want to call it a conspiracy to ignore the role of Blacks both above and below the Mason-Dixon line, but it was definitely a tendency that began around....more

Secession Myths
by Steve Urban

The entire question of secession was settled during the Civil War....more

Scottish National Party Sets Out Vision
By David Maddox

The first document outlining how an independent Scotland would conduct its foreign affairs has been unveiled by the SNP.
At a ceremony in Brussels, Scottish external affairs minister Mike Russell said Scots could have a "dual citizenship" arrangement with the rest of the UK....more

Why is the Left making such an effort to discredit Texas Nationalists?
by Dave Mundy

You know, given the fact that so many liberals consider the Texas Nationalist Movement to be a “tiny minority” of Texans and its cause to be “unbelievable,” you have to wonder why the Radical Left in this country is trotting out all the big guns in an attempt to discredit them....more

Is Secession Treason?

General Robert E. Lee said to Albert Bledsoe these important words: "You have a great work to do; we all look to you for our vindication"....more

The Confederate Flag, Should We Get Rid Of It?
by J. J. Johnson

A different perspective on the Confederate flag written by a courageous black man of honor and truth....more

The First To Act

The doctrine of state's rights, the legality of secession, and the institution of black slavery had been issues of debate in the United States for decades before the election of Lincoln brought on the secession of the Southern states....more

Oklahoma Rebellion

One of the unappreciated casualties of the War of 1861, erroneously called a Civil War, was its contribution to the erosion of constitutional guarantees of state sovereignty. It settled the issue of secession, making it possible for the federal government to increasingly run roughshod over Ninth and 10th Amendment guarantees....more

Parting Company
By Walter Williams

Texas Gov. Rick Perry rattled cages when he suggested that Texans might at some point become so disgusted with Washington's gross violation of the U.S. Constitution that they would want to secede from the union. Political hustlers, their media allies and others, who have little understanding, are calling his remarks treasonous. Let's look at it....more

How Is America Going To End, who's most likely to secede?
By Josh Levin

In the American end times, our government will take one of two forms. One possibility is that federalism will give way to an all-powerful central government. (In yesterday's global-warming thought experiment, this was the climate strongman scenario.) The other option is decentralization—in the absence of a unifying national interest, the United States of America will fragment and be supplanted by regional governance....more

Blacks Who Fought For the South
by Walter Williams

Most historical accounts portray Southern blacks as anxiously awaiting President Abraham Lincoln's "liberty-dispensing troops" marching south in the War Between the States. But there's more to the story; let's look at it....more

War Crimes Against Southern Civilians
by Walter Brian Cisco

Book Review
"...blows the lid off the conspiracy of silence about the violent, mass-murdering origins of the American Leviathan state..." Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Book Description
The sobering and brutal consequences of the Civil War off the battlefield are revealed in this examination of atrocities committed against civilians. Rationale for the Union's "hard war" and the political ramifications of such a war set the foundation for Walter Cisco's enlightening research.... more

The Return of States' Rights?
by Jay Ambrose

President Obama is expanding federal powers left and right, eyeing yet other enlargements and still more billions in spending, and it shouldn't strike anyone as utterly senseless that Gov. Rick Perry of Texas should say enough, stop, quit it.

He did so by means of giving his support to a resolution affirming states' rights and similar in spirit to resolutions that were written more than 200 years ago by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and adopted by Kentucky and Virginia.

Those two founders were upset by the Alien and Sedition Acts enacted during the administration of President John Adams with the pretense of protecting America from her enemies but actually aiming to stifle criticism at home. Those laws just won't wash, Jefferson and Madison said, explaining that they far exceeded the federal government's powers as enumerated in the Constitution.

States, they said, had the right to void these laws, but most states themselves didn't want to bother with anything that might threaten the union, and, in truth, they had a point. The most extreme assertion of states' rights came with the secession of Southern states fearful of what might happen to the institution of slavery after the election of Abraham Lincoln, and what ensued, of course, was the Civil War.

Even after that awful, bloody conflict, the South used -- the better word is "misused" -- the legal principles of dual sovereignty and limitations on federal power to oppress blacks, thereby giving states' rights a bad name. It does not follow, however, that we suddenly had a Constitution that told the federal government it was all powerful and could do anything it darned well wanted to do, no matter how inconsistent with liberty or the rule of law.

Just as the idea of states' rights could be abused, it is an abuse of some of this nation's highest, most important ideals to treat certain fundamental portions of the Constitution as if they just weren't there. Something very close to that has happened to the limits the document places on federal authority. The chief instruments used to rationalize the abuse have been the Commerce Clause, established to facilitate trade between the states, and the Necessary and Proper Clause, which said Congress may make laws needed to execute its stated powers.

Time and again the government has justified almost anything it does by saying, you know, this is somehow related to interstate commerce in some distant fashion or the other, especially since the New Deal. When the Supreme Court blocked a law that pretended to have something to do with commerce when it didn't, President Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the court with a bunch of new justices, and, right away, the sitting justices pretty much said OK to whatever adventure he came up with.

So now we have a president who seems in some ways to be as ambitious as FDR was, and as constitutionally. And we have tea parties all over the union and states' rights resolutions being brought up in places such as New Hampshire and Texas, where Gov. Perry is quoted as having said, "I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens and its interference with the affairs of our state."

Citing the 10th Amendment, which says powers not delegated to the United States (federal government) by the Constitution are reserved to the states and the people, the governor is looking for repeal or prohibition of laws that have gone too far. His stance and the resolution are rhetorically useful, I think, but what I'd like to see is for the Supreme Court once more to start edging toward more states' rights in varied cases as it was doing under Chief Justice William Rehnquist for a period, an approach that seems to me both plausible and prudent as well as badly needed.

Secession fever

Secession fever is apparently sweeping through the Conservative World, and it’s getting closer to the Carolinas. Boy, talk about your swine flu! First, a poll a couple of weeks ago, taken after Texas Gov. Rick Perry broached the subject at a Tea Party, revealed that the GOP in Texas is evenly divided over whether the Lone Star state should secede from the United States. Now, a new poll from Research 2000 shows that 43 percent of Republicans in Georgia say their state would be better off as an independent nation than as a part of the United States.

Secession talk far from extreme
by Bob Barr

Although he later downplayed his remark, Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s use of the “S” word — secession — during one of the April 15 tea parties has focused attention on the growing gulf between the dramatic, unprecedented growth in the federal government’s power and spending, and efforts by individual states to maintain independent authority.
Any reference, however vague, to the notion that one of the 50 states might actually consider cutting the ties between it and Washington evokes howls of derision from the political establishment.

But the growing grass-roots sentiment that dramatic action is necessary to restore a semblance of balanced federalism in the country makes it likely such discussion will increase.

The fact that Perry also noted that some military veterans in the crowd at Austin might be “right-wing extremists” also reflected the growing chasm between government and citizens opposed to runaway federal spending and power.

The governor’s reference, echoed in other tea parties last week, was based on the fact that federal and state government law enforcement Web sites and publications characterize grass-roots organizations concerned about gun control, nationalization, unemployment, loss of civil liberties and excessive government spending, as “right-wing extremists” and “militants.”

That people would be viewed by our government as a possible threat because they express concern for the loss of freedom and our growing economic problems is itself so bizarre that references to secession are unsurprising.

Placing Perry’s remarks in the context of his position the previous day in support of a Texas state House resolution reaffirming support for the 10th Amendment strengthens the reasonableness of his position. On April 14, Perry expressed his “unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the 10th Amendment.”

He also noted that he and “millions of Texans are tired of Washington, D.C., trying to come down here and tell us how to run Texas.” Are such views “extreme”? Do they not, rather, reflect mainstream and historically accurate sentiments? After all, is not the resolution Perry supported simply a reaffirmation of the very words of and the philosophy underlying the 10th Amendment?

Much of the media, in addition to characterizing Perry’s comments as “reckless” (the words of one Texas newspaper), also have attempted to paint such views as economically irresponsible. This view is premised on the “loss” of federal funds that would befall Texas or any other state that might sever ties to Washington. In fact, many of the 50 states send more in tax dollars to Washington than the states and its citizens receive from the feds — making secession actually not that bad a business deal (Texas about breaks even).

In fact, the sky likely would not fall if some serious moves were made to break the stranglehold the federal government now maintains on virtually every aspect of state and local governments. There are, in fact, some examples starting to surface. The Real-ID program, with its mandate of a national identification card, has been brought largely to a standstill because of state opposition.

And at least a few states — Texas and South Carolina among them — are refusing President Barack Obama’s “stimulus monies” because of the strings attached.

Who knows? If Texas were to secede, the state might enjoy a significant inward migration of independent-minded citizens from other states, and precipitate a real boom in its economy.

Regardless, simply musing about such things, as did the Texas governor, is neither subversive nor pointless. The threat of secession is the only stick that states can use to keep the federal government from becoming totally tyrannical.

Walter Williams wrote in a recent column that Americans fed up with the way the government and American society is heading should simply move to a couple of adjourning States like Texas and Louisiana and take over the State governments by lawful means through the ballot box. When the citizens have a majority there they simply declare a Declaration of Independence and leave the Union. I have always thought that this could be accomplished bloodlessly and on friendly terms just as Dr. Williams wrote. I also think that the socialist/fascists and their fellow travelers and other useful idiots would secretly welcome this to get rid of all the troublemakers who stand in the way of their dream to create a new and better communistic society.