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As to the democratic nature of the Confederate government, it was organized around the limited government principles of Thomas Jefferson, as opposed to the big government Hamiltonian principles of the Lincoln government. Sir Winston Churchill wrote that this friction between Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian principles was the main cause of secession and the War Between the States.

A post-war letter from the great British political philosopher Lord Acton (best known for his famous quote that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely") to Robert E. Lee, Acton set out his views on the Confederate Constitution and government:

"Without presuming to decide the purely legal question [on the legality of secession], on which it seems evident to me from Madison’s and Hamilton’s papers that the Fathers of the Constitution were not agreed, I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. The institutions of your Republic [the United States] have not exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating influence which ought to have belonged to them, by reason of those defects and abuses of principle which the Confederate Constitution was expressly and wisely calculated to remedy. I believed that the example of that great Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers and disorders of Republics. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo."

Commented: Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 @ 1:40 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Great analysis. The north's war crimes in the War Between the States against Southern civilians, in clear violation of both the existing Common Law of War and of the Geneva Convention of 1863, were not a lot different that Russian behavior in Ukraine. Sherman and Sheridan, in particular should have been indicted as war criminals, and Lincoln condoned their actions.

Commented: Wednesday, May 25th, 2022 @ 7:58 am By: John Steed

Great post Hood, all true as usual; however, if I could just interject this one additional truth: These Republican interlopers, who tend to coalesce around politicians of the inconsistent variety, also sought to marginalize me and my constituents ... possibly since I am far different than what they are use to supporting, or what they consider their nominal norm of what passes as a Republican.

I see this continual split, a chasm that divides us ever deeper, will never be closed, or the scar tissue dissolved until the principled Conservative wing of the Republican Party is insured that the Nominal Republican wing is removed from positions of total authority, which has far too long been the case here in Beaufort County.

It is that simple of a fix: Either one is serious about forming a team that can move as a cohesive Conservative unit of principled ideals, brimming with integrity, or they are just doing the usual lip-service-dance of fanciful fools, who will stand for nothing and will far too often fall for the lowest common denominator as the mean of their political momentum driving headlong toward a big bowl brimming full of immeasurable nothing.

Commented: Tuesday, May 24th, 2022 @ 11:39 pm By: Stan Deatherage