Yankee Aggression
The Confederate States of America have shared the same fate of all conquered peoples in that the victors write their history. This article written by the Confederate Patriots will expose the blatantly aggressive war unleashed upon the Southern States by Yankee imperialists. It will also serve as a bastion against the falsehoods circulated by the so called 'Underground Railroad'.
At the present moment in time some 135 years after the end of the Second War of Independence, there is a great debate going on in Europe as to whether or not sovereign and independent states should give up their sovereignty to a European superstate being created by federalist bureaucrats in Brussels.
Many of us voted to join the Common Market in 1973 because that is just what we envisaged it to be a market without internal tariffs where we could trade with our European partners without having to cross internal borders and pay tariffs. Our common defence being provided by the NATO. We therefore look with some alarm at the supra nanny state being forged in Brussels and more immediately the loss of our national currency.
Let us now cast our minds back to the creation of the US constitution. Prior to the first revolutionary war the states were separate colonies. Separate in the regulation of domestic concerns and in home affairs. However each sustained a common relation to the British Empire. The colonists were fellow subjects, owed allegiance to the same crown, had all the rights, privileges and liabilities of every other British subject. The inhabitants of one colony owed no obedience to the laws, were not under the jurisdiction of any other colony; were under no civil obligation to bear arms or pay taxes, or in any way contribute to the support or defence of another. At this time there was neither alliance or confederacy between the colonies.
When hostilities between Great Britain and these colonies erupted, the colonies, each acting for itself, sent deputies to a general congress where each colony had a single vote. The Congresses of 1774, 1775 and 1776 were not permanent bodies, claimed no sovereignty and had no true government powers. They also seldom assumed to go beyond deliberation, advice and recommendation. Under stress of war they acted as a de facto government. In all acts however reference was made to the colonies, and never to the people, individual or as a nation.Virginia renounced her colonial status on 12th June 1776 and in the same month adopted a constitution as a separate and independent sovereign state. The Declaration of Independence, on the 4th July was an act of Congress declaring absolution of the colonies from allegiance to the crown and government of Great Britain and they were 'free and independent States'. Members of Congress acted in the name of their independent colonies and not any otherThe Republicans in 1856 and 1860 affirmed the principles of the Declaration of Independence as an authoritative document defining political rights of the States, when in truth and fact, its main and almost sole object was to declare and justify the separation from, and the independence of, the British Crown. Ceasing to be dependent communities involved no change in relations with one another beyond what was necessarily incident to separation from the Mother country. The Declaration of Independence was not a form of government, not an enumeration of popular rights, not a compact between States, but was recognised in its fullest demands when, in 1782, Great Britain acknowledged New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, Georgia and other colonies to be 'free and sovereign independent States.
The Declaration of Independence was superceded by the Articles of Confederation. These articles declare that 'each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.' There can be no mistake here as to the reservation of entire freedom, entire independence, entire sovereignty. These were retained by each state without qualification or limitation, and the word 'retains' is the clearest assertion that these un surrendered prerogatives were possessed under the government then existing.
So when a great crisis occurred in 1860 when a number of the independent States lost confidence in Congress, they were quite entitled legally and constitutionally to re-affirm their independent status and to return to a state of unilateral self government. Mindful of public opinion however, each seceding state put the matter of their relationships to the other federal states to the popular vote whereupon secession was overwhelmingly carried.Because of the aggressive stance of Northern States, it became necessary for defence purposes to form a second revolutionary Congress and a common government to become 'The Confederate States of America.'
The resultant war carried out by the Northern or so called 'United States of America' was therefore a blatantly aggressive war carried out against the Southern Confederation in order to force them to submit to the will of a supra centralist state that they were forging in Washington. Confederate policy in 1860 was geared towards being left in peace by their larger neighbours. Their discourse was conciliatory and they had no expansionist designs on the North.
The war of Yankee aggression resulted in the death of millions of Americans of all nationalities and the destruction of billions of dollars of state and private property. Like many wars of naked aggression a cause has been found to justify it the abolition of slavery.This is too complicated a subject to enter into here suffice to say it is a red herring. Students of the slave trade will know that Great Britain stood alone for many years, without American support, against the evils of the international slave trade and that eventually the use of slavery in the south would have withered away within around 20 years or so through international opprobrium and new agricultural techniques.
Diplomacy and sanction would have been as mighty a tool then as it now. For example whilst most of us abhorred apartheid in South Africa (incidentally another former colony!) we would not have supported military intervention and an invasion of South Africa to bring about basic human right. The cost in life being considered too high a price to payNo my friend, whilst we are not denigrating the current United States of America, we can honestly say that in re-enacting terms we are fighting on the side of the righteous, protecting of hearth and home from the Yankee aggressors.
States Rights forever. Edmund Ruffin forever !
Confederate Patriots.
(names and units supplied.)
The above article appeared in the ACWS Newsletter, December 2000