A Monarchy in Everything But Name

That Southern State governors and legislatures did not authorize federal troops to enter their sovereign borders is true, and of the ensuing war begun by Lincoln, the author below writes that "never was there such a medley of tragedy and farce, murder and mockery . . . and the most ridiculous government follies."  The source of this passage is available in reprint form from www.confederatereprint.com)

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission

"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"

www.ncwbts150.com

"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

A Monarchy in Everything But Name

The War Debt is Unconstitutional:

"By what authority did [President Lincoln] destroy State government?

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature, from domestic violence."  United States Constitution, Article IV, Sec. 4.

What Governor of what State applied to the President to protect them from domestic violence? On the contrary, the President asked the Governors of Tennessee, Virginia, Missouri, and Kentucky, to do this, they indignantly declined the work of butchery proposed; the President had no right to invade any State.

There was no domestic violence; the operation of law was unclogged until the President commenced the work of disintegration.  There were no changes made in the State laws and State constitutions, which were not made in conformity with the organic laws.

By what authority did the President imprison the Legislature of Maryland?  Incarcerate Judges of the several States of the Union?

"The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit of law or equity, commenced or to be prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State or by subjects of a foreign power."  Amendment XI to the Constitution.

How much less the right to wage war against a State. What may not be done peacefully, may not be forcibly done. Judgment always preceded execution. A war levied against a State is unconstitutional. A debt contracted for such purpose is likewise unconstitutional. No such war could grow out of the Constitution, nor the debt be of valid obligation.

The people are not bound by the Constitution to pay this debt, because it was entirely unauthorized by the Constitution. It was created in violation of the Constitution, for the purpose of overthrowing the Constitution.

The war was waged in violation of the theory of our government . . . to destroy the republican system. In its stead was a monarchy in everything but the name, in which the President was guarded in the style of the Czar and Sultan, with all the brutality of the one and the pomp of the other; with all of the trappings of monarchy and the violence and the violence of despotism.

With the overthrow of our system . . . and the adoption of the imperial style and military guard, the most intimate friend of Washington, Jefferson or Monroe, would have entirely failed to recognize the old an familiar forms that gave us characteristic distinction everywhere."

(Crimes of the Civil War, Judge Henry Clay Dean, Innes & Company, 1868, pp. 206-207)