Jefferson Davis - His Worst Fears Came True | Eastern NC Now

by Diane Rufino


    Jefferson Davis' worse fears came true. The big government of Abraham Lincoln, the greatest tyrant our country has ever known, has co-opted and crafted the "great lie" of why our country fought the Civil War. The victor always has the benefit of telling the story and demonizing the vanquished.

    Just to be clear, the very name "Civil War' is patently incorrect to describe the struggle. First of all, a "civil war" is two groups fighting to take control of the government. One group wants to take the other's place. The South had no desire to destroy, overthrow, replace, possess, or even transform the federal government. It merely wanted to escape it and sever its political bonds with it - exactly as the Colonies did with Great Britain.

    Second of all, sovereign states cannot engage in a "civil" war. Sovereign states engage in a traditional, all-out war. The Southern states took all proper legal steps to break its bonds with the United States and establish a new sovereign nation - The Confederate States of America. The Confederacy was pronounced "sovereign" by the British Government, by other foreign nations, and by and through their own documents. No state ever surrendered sovereignty in signing the US Constitution. Just as the states acceded to the Constitution, they retained the equal yet opposite right to secede from it.

    It is untruthful and disingenuous for the federal government to deny the Confederacy its sovereign status and its sovereign rights, especially since there was strong language reminding the government of such both in the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution (Tenth Amendment), and also strong language to the same in the debates of the several State Ratifying Conventions.

    Just as the Tea Party has helped make it fashionable to read the Constitution and become re-acquainted with our founding and other historical documents, perhaps a similar movement will take hold to educate America on the real reasons for the conflict that divided our nation, needlessly killed nearly a million of our American sons, and gave us this leviathan of a government that we have.