National, or Federal?

Colonel Stuart, if I had my way, we would show no quarter to the enemy … the black flag, sir. If the North triumphs it is not alone the destruction of our property; it is the prelude to anarchy, infidelity, the ultimate loss of free and responsible government on this continent; it is the triumph of commerce, banks, factories. We should meet the federal invader on the outer verge of just and right defense and raise at once the black flag; no quarter to the violators of our homes and firesides!

Readers familiar with the monologue in my chosen epigraph to head this article, will at once recognize it from a scene early in the 2003 movie, Gods and Generals. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, it has been three years at least since I last read Dr. Dabney’s Stonewall Jackson biography. As such, and unlike with a scene that comes later in the same movie, I do not recall, in this specific case, whether the contents of General Jackson’s monologue above-quoted is a word-for-word rendition extracted from Dabney’s book or not. Whether it is or isn’t is of no significance to what I’ve written below and you’re about to read in any case. I trust I needn’t explain to this intelligent readership the purpose of including a relevant epigraph to head the lengthy essay which follows, once you’ve taken time to read the meat of its contents, that is.

When William James famously noted the absurdity that is human gullibility, he merely demonstrated that he’d managed to put his finger on a problem others (Jefferson, et al) had noticed long before him. Namely, that gullible people (whose name is Legion, for they are many) absurdly believe a thing based on the number of times they’ve heard or read it repeated. A conscientious writer and keen observer of the “human scene” once noted that his “new watch word is responsibility,” since he had recently discovered that readers of his scribblings tended to believe a thing he had written must be true, otherwise, to their minds, he’d have never bothered to write it down in the first place. Your individual experiences in this vein might be somewhat similar to mine, in that I, as one who speaks only for himself and no other, can certainly relate to the dilemma our conscientious writer just mentioned faced upon that realization or epiphany of sorts.

A good friend and I were once in a conversation with a third person – a conversation in which my friend essentially (and uncharacteristically) libeled a fourth person whose name had come up during the three-way exchange in the fourth man’s absence. When I strongly objected to what amounted to my friend’s practical libel against the absent person in question, he retorted in his own defense that, “it was in the papers; you don’t believe the papers?!” To which I simply and calmly replied, “No, not necessarily. Do you? If the papers print that you are a thief, a murderer, and a wife beater to boot, am I to automatically believe those accusations against you to be true because they were printed ‘in the papers’?”

My friend in question was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, obviously; but, by the same token, he wasn’t the dullest one either. He understood what I was getting about no sooner than I’d said it, and just as quickly admitted his mistake and stood down. Personal anecdotes of the sort could certainly be multiplied, but you get the point, and I digress.

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One of the problems I discovered about modern Americans a long time ago is that they/we love a good political slogan. We, in fact, cannot seem to get enough of them. As such they/we tend to be very open and vulnerable to political sloganeering. The explanation for our individual and collective vulnerability on point isn’t at all complicated or difficult to understand – a good “pithy” political slogan circumvents the thinking and reasoning process; it gives the appearance of simplifying a complex principle that it takes serious study and thought to understand the depth of in truth. It’s easier to not study than it is to study, and to not think than it is to think, to put it in simple terms. Besides, most people who care enough to even try to understand governmental things are pressed for time as it is, without trying to squeeze study time into their busy schedules to boot. So, there ya go. And if, therefore, a given political slogan is repeated often enough, they’ll/we’ll eventually (and absurdly) begin to believe it and to parrot it ourselves, the truthfulness or falsehood of the slogan(s) in question notwithstanding. Why do you think it is that our intrepid leaders are always yapping about “our democracy,” and the like?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Democracy for which it stands,..

Wait! What?!

Two such oft-repeated slogans I complained about incessantly for years (for all the good it did me) state respectively that (1) Federal law trumps State law; and (2) Immigration is a Federal issue. And as I also used to constantly point out, these two slogans are half-truths at best, and a half-truth is as good as a full blown lie. By way of explanation of what I just wrote, I personally believe that when Holy Writ enjoins against bearing false witness, knowingly passing half-truths off as “the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God” certainly falls well within the scope of that injunction. I’ll gladly eat some crow and humbly stand corrected if you can prove me wrong on the point. But you’d be better served in any case to narrow your focus and attack on the actual weak point of my argument as above-stated. Which is to say, that point at which I dogmatically declare the slogans in question to be half-truths.

Those two slogans might be half-truths in theory presuming obedience to the principles contained in the original Constitution, but we haven’t obeyed the principles of the original Constitution since 1861 at the very latest. You “get that,” right? For those of you who have never come to the realization, or have a hard time accepting it for whatever reason, I’m not going to beat around the bush any longer in this essay. The NEWSFLASH! you’d do well to come to terms with is that “Federal law,” so called, does in fact trump State law whenever the two conflict, and Immigration is indeed a “federal” issue. That is the reality of the world we all live in, like it or not. The reason for this is that the federal principle that was originally such an integral part of the Constitution, was overthrown by the Union when the South lost the WBTS. That, you see, was the ominous eventuality Gen. Jackson was prophetically alluding to in that quotation I posted as this article’s epigraph.

I’ve written about this a number of times over the years, but most recently a little over three years ago at my kids’ private blog. In that article (my article), I linked back to another article published in the same month and year (December, 2018) by a “conservative” writer whose article in question praised President Johnson’s amnesty proclamation of 1868. Our writer so misunderstood the terms of Johnson’s proclamation that he, in his ignorance of the subject and subject matter, inserted an “[e.g. federal]” next to the original proclamation’s use of the word “National” to describe the government ex-Confederates would be inspired thereby to regain their former respect for and attachment to. To wit:

In his Christmas Day Proclamation, Johnson said his action would “renew and fully restore confidence and fraternal feeling among the whole, and their respect for and attachment to the national [e.g., federal] government, designed by its patriotic founders for the general good.”

Now, besides the comparatively insignificant fact that our author’s “[e.g.]” is incorrect (should have been [i.e.], but nevertheless), his vastly more important and more fundamental mistake in the article was in working under the false presumption that President Johnson and Confederates alike conflated the meaning of the two terms (National and Federal) in the same way we moderns conflate those terms in our generations. Be assured that is far from the truth of the matter; that Pres. Johnson and leading Confederates both understood the difference in the respective meanings and implications of the two terms; that, moreover, the writer of that proclamation knew exactly what he was saying and what he was not saying when he chose the word “National” to describe the Washington government he was alluding to in that line. He certainly did not mean “Federal” when he wrote “National,” as though he believed the two terms meant precisely the same thing and were therefore perfectly interchangeable without the slightest change of meaning. No one is authorized to project his own misconceptions onto another. In other words, just because Andrew Glass thinks the two terms are perfectly interchangeable does not mean that Senator Seward and the former Confederates thought so.

Hopefully, you’re beginning to understand more clearly now why it is that, between the two sides in that bloody conflict most moderns wrongly refer to as the “Civil War,” the true patriots and defenders of the Constitution and its “blended” form of government were in fact the Confederates. To help us gain an even clearer understanding of the point at issue, and to clear your mind of the thought that I’m just talking out my hindparts, let us consult he who we affectionately refer to as the “Father of the Constitution” on the matter.

Mr. Madison wrote (Federalist no. 39):

[…]The idea of a national government involves in it, not only an authority over the individual citizens, but an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things, so far as they are objects of lawful government. Among a people consolidated into one nation, this supremacy is completely vested in the national legislature. Among communities united for particular purposes, it is vested partly in the general and partly in the municipal legislatures. In the former case, all local authorities are subordinate to the supreme; and may be controlled, directed, or abolished by it at pleasure. In the latter, the local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within their respective spheres, to the general authority, than the general authority is subject to them, within its own sphere.

Got that? A national government has absolute authority over its citizens, and an “indefinite supremacy over all persons and things” within its boundless jurisdiction; under a national government all local authorities are subordinate to, and may at will be dissolved or abolished by, the supreme or central government. The mere fact that State and Local governments exist is no indication they’re not under Washington’s all-powerful thumb, nor that they are not subject to its whims within their own jurisdictions whenever it decides to “occupy a field and intend a complete ouster.” And it (what you call the “federal government”) can decide to do that at any time; literally on a whim. That it doesn’t do this all the time and with every single issue that comes up has nothing whatever to do with the tenth amendment or anything else in the Constitution. Mr. Madison’s point above is not that such a government will necessarily control, direct or abolish the subordinate authorities at will, but that it can do any or all of the above at will.

You think you’re “free” and enjoy “unalienable rights?” Moreover, you think the tenth amendment is our saving grace? Ha! Time to get a grip and to come to terms with the way things really are, as opposed to the way they once were, and the way you and I would like for them to be again.

As previously stated, President Johnson understood very well the difference between a national government and a federal one. Moreover, he also understood that the Confederates to whom he was unconditionally granting amnesty in his 1868 Christmas Day Proclamation perfectly understood the distinction as well. He would never have used the word “federal” to describe the government he was alluding to in that sentence. Again, ex-Confederates’ respect for and attachment to the federal government – so long as it retained the federal principle and remained a truly federal government – was never in question, and he knew it; what was at issue was their failure to embrace (and to kiss their chains) the newly organized, vastly more powerful and unaccountable national authority devoid of the federal principle to hold it in check. In short, and as I iterated in a related entry at my kids’ private blog aforementioned, the writer of that proclamation chose the wording of that line very carefully and very wisely.

Further consulting Mr. Madison on the matter, we read:

In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a NATIONAL one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.

Indeed. See also Federalist no.s 45 & 46 in this connection. But that was then, and this is now. By “the proposed government,” Madison is of course referring to the “blended” (both National and Federal) Balanced Constitutional Government the Founders mutually agreed to at the Constitutional Convention, and that the several States later ratified under certain preconditions. Namely, and in short, that the backbone of free and responsible government on this continent – the federal principle – remain forever inviolable, with secession the just and lawful remedy should that agreement be irreparably broken.

Beyond that, recall that the Article VI supremacy clause declares that, ‘This Constitution, and all laws which shall hereafter be made under authority of the United States … shall be the Supreme Law of the Land.’?

Not hardly! The supremacy clause declares that only laws made pursuant to the Constitution (Federalist no. 33)[*] – which originally established a Federal (as opposed to a national) Representative Republic – are the supreme law of the land. None other needed apply so long as that “greater caution” was observed and adhered to by the national government.

The open violation thereof by the North, and the absolute certainty that its violation would continue and only get worse and more blatant, dear reader, is precisely the reason our honorable and gallant Southern forbears seceded from the Union; and, moreover, the Yankees knew it; the Northern states wanted to, and intended to, overthrow the federal principle and fill the vacuum left in its absence with an all-powerful national government possessing “indefinite supremacy over all persons and things” (including such things as State and Local governments, etc.), and thereby destroy the Constitution as such.

This objective they ultimately accomplished in spades; it is just sad that “conservatives” in modern America think the federal principle is still alive and well, and a viable Constitutional tool for keeping the government in check, or for otherwise bringing it back in line once it has “exceeded the bounds of its authority.” Nothing could possibly be farther from the truth because, as Mr. Madison made perfectly plain in his paper quoted above, the all-powerful federal national government cannot possibly “exceed the [limitless] bounds of its authority,” conservative and libertarian wailing and gnashing of teeth loudly proclaiming the contrary notwithstanding.

The worst part of all of this is that it is as plain as the nose on one’s face, and yet those of us who defend the honor and integrity of our gallant Southern forbears and their loyalty to the Constitution and the union of federated states that instrument originally created, cannot be left alone and in peace to lick the wounds of so great a loss as, to borrow once more from General Jackson’s statements in my epigraph, “free and responsible government on this continent.” Instead, we are incessantly subjected to insults and libels and unhinged attacks declaring us to align ourselves with “treason” and “traitors,” and therefore to be worthy of brutality and death. Talk about projecting and the pot calling the kettle black!

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[*] “But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.” -Madison, Federalist no. 33 [Tell that to the POTUS, the SCOTUS, and the U.S. Congress, sir; they seem not to have gotten that memo.]