“Basil Gildersleeve pointed out, the Civil War was fought over a point of grammar. Shall we say ‘the United States is’ or ‘the United States are’? That is a point worth revisiting.” — Douglas Wilson
The Civil War was not fought over the issue of slavery and there was nothing civil about the aggression of the North. The federal government, formed by the agreement of the states, was employed by some of those states to attack the other states. The United States were divided and their child, the federal government, helped one of its parents attack the other. That is a point well worth revisiting. The states have authority over the federal government the way a parent has authority over a child. The parent owes certain responsibilities to the child, for sure, but obedience is not one of those things. In fact, a parent ought not submit to their child. If they do, they are being a bad parent.
“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.” — The Tenth Amendment to United States Constitution
The States voluntarily gave up certain powers in order to form a more perfect union. You cannot have a union unless everyone is unified on something. You cannot come to an agreement unless everyone agrees on something. That something was the creation of the federal government and those somethings were specified and codified in the constitution. As the tenth amendment points out, anything not specified is assumed to be retained by the states as sovereign or by their people as individuals.
"The religiously orthodox Old South, in contradistinction to the religiously liberal Northeast, stood on its prejudice in favor of a literal reading of the Bible's account of the monogenesis of the human race and rejected scientific racism." — Douglas Wilson, Black and Tan
The North thought some men were beneath them. Evolution had taught them that some men were a different race altogether. They believed that black men were not men, strictly speaking, but nevertheless believed that the monkeys should be better treated. The North was like PETA. It went to war with people over their treatment of animals. In other words, the North was wrong on race and wrong in practice.
The South put some men beneath them. The Bible had taught them that all men had a common origin as the sons of Adam made in the image of God Almighty. They believed that black men were men, but that white men had the right to treat black men differently, which is to say worse, because they were black. The South was prejudicial, but not racist, strictly speaking. However, they were "racist" in that they treated some men like animals even though they believed them to be men. In other words, the South was right on race and wrong in practice.
"So far from evolution lifting us above the idea of enslaving men, it was providing us at least with a logical and potential argument for eating them. In the case of the American negroes, it may be remarked, it does at any rate permit the preliminary course of roasting them. All this materialistic hardening, which replaced the remorse of Jefferson, was part of the growing evolutionary suspicion that savages were not a part of the human race, or rather that there was really no such thing as the human race. The South had begun by agreeing reluctantly to the enslavement of men. The South ended by agreeing equally reluctantly to the emancipation of monkeys." — G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw In America
The War of Northern Aggression was a power grab. It was the federal government convincing one of its parents to wage war with the other for the right to rule the entire home. In the end, the North won custody of the child and the home and leveraged that into a lifetime of subjugation, child support payments and spousal abuse.
"The North needed to repent of one kind of racism and the South needed to repent of another kind." — Douglas Wilson, Black and Tan
The South was forced to set men free, but only after they were forced to call them "monkeys," and to confess that they had kept them in cages. The truth is, however, that they did not consider them to be monkeys and they were not kept in cages. The North said it was not fair for some men to enslave other men, but attempted to solve the discrepancy by suggesting that all men should be slaves of the state. In other words, most men should be the slaves of the men elected to office. This move made monkeys of all men and put childishness in charge of the whole shebang.
Isaiah 3:12
As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.
When mom won, she put her kid in charge and ever since toxic matriarchy and impetuous infantiarchy have held the home hostage through constant tantrums, unending demands, and unmitigated self-interest.
