How Secession was Legal. The LAST word!

You've never been told the real reason secession is lawful, so I will tell you now. You were never taught this in school, but it was taught before 1861. Thomas Jefferson even mentions that it is legal and may be needed. It takes a QUORUM of a simple majority to hold a session of Congress. HOWEVER read the following: Adjournment of Congress sine die a Latin term meaning “without [fixed] day”; No day is set for reconvening.

Seven southern nation States of America walked out of the Second Session of the Thirty-sixth Congress on March 27, 1861.

In so doing, the Constitutional due process quorum necessary for Congress to vote was (temporarily) lost and Congress was adjourned sine die, or "without day." To some, this meant that there was no lawful quorum to set a specific day and time to reconvene. Some say that according to Robert's Rules of Order, Congress automatically dissolved because there are no
provisions within the Constitution allowing the passage of any Congressional vote without a quorum of the States. Keep in mind that Robert's Rules of Order was created and published by Henry Martyn Robert who was born in South Carolina in 1837.

He sold a half million copies of his rules by 1914. Those rules were not made a part of the Constitution or any Amendment to the Constitution. According to The Constitution, Congress was only required to meet at least once in every year on a specific date unless changed by law and a smaller number may adjourn from day to day. Therefore, because there were no other provisions, dissolution does not take place unless "the people", the creators thereof, or the posterity thereof, the sovereigns of the states, say so.

This is why you read newspapers in 1861 stating, "The Union Is Dissolved!". Note this is COMPLETELY legal Constitutionally because there is NOTHING in the US Constitution forcing any state to send it any Congressional Delegation. This also proves that it was the States which had the power to dictate to the Federal Government who was in overall control of the government.

Now I ask, if there is nothing forcing a state to send a delegation to Congress, who can force them? And I ask; By purposely not sending members to a Federal Congress; Doesn't that mean a state is exercizing its' sovereignty and may be showing that it has no intention of further participation in the Federal Government? And who is to tell them they can't do this? (The 9th and 10th Amendments SPECIFICALLY states that ALL rights NOT SPECIFICALLY delegated to the US Federal Government is retained by the States and the People! If it's not listed under the US Constitution and made into law, it is the RIGHT of the State and the People! Now I ask again; Who RETAINS the Right to send people to Congress and who has the right to force them to participate in a Federal Government?)

It was Lincoln who *unconstitutionally* called for Congress to reconvene in July 1861, after he had accomplished his task against South Carolina. See *Casus Belli*(Causing an act for war.) All acts leading to the war came from Lincoln himself, and he permanently broke the US Constitution in doing so. He said so himself by stating, "In saving the union I have destroyed the Republic." You are now seeing the final results of this breaking of the US Constitution, this treason committed by Lincoln in your government today. I will never support, much less fight for such tyranny!

Michael-- Deo Vindicabamur

Continued:

OK Then; Ya'll liked what'ya read; yes? Well, we're gonna drive the finishing nails in the coffin of the EMPIRE usa! I'm gonna piece together the rest of the story for you... After this, if you study it and do your part, you'll never be defeated in such debates again, NEVER!

From the original post above I continue.

Do NOT let anyone bring slavery OR tariffs or any other issue into the the secession debates. If you do you'll only be justifying a cause for them to debate and argue with you over. There is NO cause to debate as it is a State's Right to secede, and for NO reason if they so desire! Not only that slavery was Constitutionally legal, plus reading Lincoln's 1st Inaugural Address, Lincoln himself claims slavery is NOT the issue, while being denied collecting tariffs and taxes was a reason for war.

Your opponent will claim states listed slavery as a reason for secession and *some* did in fact list such. However that is a moot and void point as it was Constitutionally a State's Right to have slaves as well as ONLY a choice for any State to state ANY reason for secession for NONE was legally needed!

HOWEVER 4 States known as the BACKBONE of the Confederacy did NOT secede over slavery or tariffs. Matter of fact they had already voted just weeks before to remain in the union. But something changed all this. Few people seems to have any idea what it was, so I'm gonna tell'ya!

Those 4 states of NC, VA, TN and AR seceded because after Lincoln "provoked"

South Carolina into firing on Fort Sumter (Remember Casus Belli and read the conspiracy correspondence between Lincoln and a Capt. G V Foxx http://www.familytales.org/dbDisplay.php?id=ltr_abl7020 shows it was planned.)

Lincoln used this excuse to attack South Carolina and called for the states still in the union to furnish men for the federal army. Those states refused to send men and said it was none of their business what SC did as the US government should have left those federal properties. Note: Lincoln also broke a verbal treaty with South Carolina by provoking CS to fire on Sumter (again Casus Belli) because Lincoln secretly sent men and provisions to the fort against the treaty.

The treaty can be proven by the fact of the telegram Lincoln sent SC Gov Pickens. Lincoln simply told Gov Pickens he would be reinforcing Fort Sumter regardless to anything said previous and that it was up to SC to decide to allow it peacefully or use force to try and stop it.

But this is not all of the story of why those 4 states seceded. Lincoln notified VA and NC that federal troops/armies would be crossing their states and requisitioning supplies on their way to attack SC. Both states flatly refused to allow such to happen. (Note that the states of NC and VA had voted just a few weeks previous on the bill of secession and both states had voted to remain in the union.)

Lincoln's response to those states was, if you don't allow what I want, then I consider you in rebellion against the US Government.

Within 2-3 weeks of this all four states had voted to secede, with NC and VA holding their second referendum on secession, with it passing by large numbers this time.

Anyone tell me; What did this have to do with tariffs, taxes or slavery? It did have to do with State's Rights as did the other issues concerning slavery, tariffs, taxes and secession.

Here is an article that was in the New York Times concerning the state of North Carolina and it seceding.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/the-death-knell-of-slavery/

The condemnations adds up against the Federals. First Lincoln plans a secret provocation (Casus Belli) in forcing South Carolina to attack Fort Sumter. Then he illegally and unconstitutionally calls for states to send men, supplies and furnish them the land to march across in attacking another state. After this Lincoln nullifies the writ of Habeas Corpus, imprisons people without due process, takes over railroads, shuts down newspapers and other unconstitutional acts. Finally Lincoln calls Congress to session illegally in order to claim he done the best he could and read the US Constitution the way *he* thought it should be read in dealing with the seceding states AND the firing on Fort Sumter which HE, Lincoln masterminded.

Michael-Deo Vindicabamur
mike360000@yahoo.com

Jefferson Davis still remembered in Dixie

By Calvin E. Johnson, Jr., Speaker, Writer of short stories, Author of book “When America stood for God, Family and Country” and Chairman of the National and Georgia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans Confederate History and Heritage Month committee. http://www.facebook.com/ConfederateHeritageMonth

When was the last time you visited Stone Mountain Park with the world famous carving of legendary Americans: Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson or beautiful Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia where Jefferson Davis is buried?

The Jefferson Davis Presidential Library will be officially dedicated on his birthday Monday, June 3, 2013 at “Beauvoir” Davis’ last home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Biloxi. Read more at: http://www.beauvoir.org/events/index.html

You have probably heard about or seen the movie “Lincoln” which was produced and Directed by famed film Director Steven Spielberg in 2012. The movie has been called superb and did have an excellent cast that included veteran actors Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field.

Hollywood has produced movies about Abraham Lincoln, some good, some bad and others forgettable like “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” but I do not remember any made about the life and times of Jefferson Davis. Polls reflect the Southern people’s equal admiration for Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln but….

During these “political correct” times Southerners are often depicted on TV and in the movies as backward and dumb. The truth is that the South is the birth place of many intelligent, well-spoken and patriotic people like that of Jefferson Davis who was a great orator and there was standing room only on the floors of the United States Senate when he delivered his February 9, 1861 resignation speech as Mississippi Senator.

Mr. Spielberg, would you direct and produce a movie about Jefferson Davis who like Lincoln was born in the State of Kentucky?

The time is long overdue for school teachers throughout this nation to teach not only the historical facts about Abraham Lincoln, but also those about Jefferson Davis.

Jefferson Davis like many Southerners was against secession but recognized the sovereignty of each state of the Union and their Constitutional right to secede.

Jefferson Finis Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian County, Kentucky. Davis who would become the first and only President of the Confederate States of America. He was a strong Unionist and a strong defender of the United States Constitution.

Here are a few of his many accomplishments:

Graduate of West Point Military Academy
Fought valiantly in the War with Mexico
United States Senator
Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce
First to suggest the transcontinental railroad to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
First to suggest the Panama Canal Zone
Suggested the purchase of Cuba
Appointed Robert E. Lee Superintendent of West Point Military Academy
Jefferson Davis' last marriage was a good one to Varina, who gave her husband four sons and two daughters (Billy, Joseph, Jefferson, Samuel, Margaret and Winnie). Joseph was killed by an accidental fall at the Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia in 1864, Samuel died at age 2 and an abused black child named Jim Limber was virtually adopted as a member of the Davis family.

In 1865, Jim was forcibly removed by Union soldiers and never seen again. It is said that the Davis children were crying at the scene and poor Jim was kicking and not making it easy for his abductors. After the War Between the States, Jefferson Davis tried to locate the whereabouts of Jim Limber, but was not successful.

The funeral for Jefferson Davis was attended by thousands of mourners. Milo Cooper, a former servant, traveled all the way from Florida to pay his last respects. It is written that, upon entering Davis' sick room, Cooper burst into tears and threw himself on his knees in prayer that God would spare the life of his old master and bless Davis family. Davis is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

The Jefferson Davis Monument State Historic Site is a Kentucky State Park preserving the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America. It is located in Fairview, Kentucky, in Todd County.

God bless America’s Heroes of yesterday and today!

ANNUAL CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL DAY CEREMONY

SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2013, 10:30 A.M.
LOUDON PARK CEMETERY 3800 BLOCK FREDERICK Rd.
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL DAY is celebrated in Maryland each year on the first weekend in June nearest to the birthday of President Jefferson Davis, Once again this year the Colonel Harry W. Gilmor Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has the honor of assisting the Maryland Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in planning and presenting the CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL DAY ceremony at Loudon Park Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland.

The purpose of the ceremony is to honor the thousands of soldiers who served the Confederacy during the War Between the States. Over 600 Confederate soldiers are buried at Loudon Park including Colonel Harry W. Gilmor, General Bradley T. Johnson, and Colonel James R. Herbert. Almost all of the states that gave troops to the Cause of Southern Independence are represented by the honored dead at Loudon Park.

We would like to cordially invite you and all the members and friends of your organization to participate in this important annual ceremony. The event can only be successful with your help. CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL DAY will be held on SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2013 at 10:30 A.M. Loudon Park Cemetery is located at the 3800 block Frederick Rd.. in southwest Baltimore. This is about three to four mile east of Exit 13 of the Baltimore beltway, Rt. 695. We would like to have all military units meet at Confederate Hill between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

The tentative program includes:

* March on of troops

* Invocation by UDC Chaplain

* Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag

* Salute to the Confederate flag

* Introduction and welcoming remarks by SCV, MOSB, and UDC representatives.

* Presentation of memorial wreaths and floral tributes by various patriotic organizations and military units. Please let me know if you plan to bring a wreath.

* Dedication of Adopt a Confederate grave markers. 43 new markers will be dedicated.

* Rifle salute

* Benediction

* Refreshments

THE UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY WILL PROVIDE REFRESHMENTS; LEMONADE, COOKIES, ETC. FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS AND SPECTATORS FOLLOWING THE CEREMONY. BRING YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

* Military units, please bring ALL your colors, your drummers and fifers, if any, and as many men as you can muster. Please consider dressing as you would for a parade, not field duty. We ask that reenactors under 16 years of age not carry muskets or edged weapons.

* If you have contacts in other Confederate reenactment units, please invite them or ask them to call us for details.

* All groups, military or civilian are encouraged to bring wreaths or floral tributes to be placed at the Stonewall Jackson Monument in memory of our Confederate patriots.

* If you have contacts in the PRESS, invite them to attend.

For additional details call Elliott Cummings 410-296-9235. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Sincerely,

G. Elliott Cummings
Adjutant
Col. Harry W. Gilmor Camp #1388, SCV
basilduke@comcast.net

Va Flaggers Update: Robert E Lee Memorial Bridge Signs

It is often misunderstood that all we do as Flaggers is stand out in public “waving” a Confederate Battle Flag. Although there are many times that we do forward the colors (whether it be in protest of a heritage violation, or in honor of our ancestors at a Memorial Service or event), a large part of the work we do is behind the scenes. The story of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Bridge signs here in Richmond is one example of such work.

Several months ago, Va Flagger Grayson Jennings noticed that the signs designating the memorial were missing from the bridge. He recalled that during construction 5-6 years ago, the signs had disappeared, and then re appeared after some inquiry, only to (apparently) disappear again.

His first request to VDOT was answered with the information that “The Lee Bridge across the James River in Richmond, while constructed by VDOT in the late 1980’s, was turned over to the City of Richmond for operation and maintenance upon completion. Any signing for that bridge is the responsibility of the City to keep up. VDOT would have no involvement in the replacement of signs designating the Lee Bridge.” It was suggested we contact the City Public Works Department.

The Richmond Public Works Department responded that they did not realize the signs were missing and would check into it. After many follow up communications, we received word on March 26th that new signs had been fabricated, and that we should look for them to be installed in approx. 2 weeks.

This was followed with a few more follow up emails and periodic drive-by sign checks. Finally, on Tuesday, May 21st, we were THRILLED to drive up to the bridge and find that the SIGNS HAD BEEN INSTALLED!!! Four signs now mark the bridge and are a visible reminder each day, to thousands of motorists, of the man for whom the bridge is named.

We share this story to encourage everyone to keep your eyes and ears open for these kinds of “quiet” heritage violations, which happen every day across the United States. Take time to find the appropriate people to contact and “keep the skeer on” (in this case, weekly, polite email inquiries) until they follow through, and the honor due our Confederate heroes is restored!

In this case, victory was won without a single flag being waved, and we never even got to try out our new slogan… “RETURN the signs! RESTORE the honor!”

Special thanks to Grayson for his diligence, and to the folks at the Richmond Public Works for stepping up and making this right.

Susan Hathaway
Va Flaggers

*Check out our new blog and follow us here.

Attorney General Investigation of Carnton Plantation and the Carter House

Sons of Confederate Veterans demand resignation of prominent board member

The Sons of Confederate Veterans announced today that they have confirmed an ongoing investigation by the Tennessee Attorney General's office into historic nonprofit properties in Franklin, Tennessee. The properties and associations under investigation are Carnton Plantation and the state-owned Carter House, both managed by the Battle of Franklin Trust.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans and other interested parties had asked the state to look into allegations of mismanagement at these properties, and the SCV had hoped that any investigation might quietly take place, so as to minimize any further negative publicity into these historic properties. Sadly, the SCV has been provided with a widely circulated email from a prominent board member - Robert Hicks, author of Widow of the South - that seems to be a thinly veiled threat against any board member who might cooperate with the Attorney General's investigation. Mr. Hicks further calls the SCV "scum" and "losers" for helping to raise the questions that the state is now investigating.

Gene Hogan, National Heritage Chairman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, stated, "While the SCV might dismiss the defamatory remarks aimed toward ourselves, we cannot ignore the context in which the remarks were apparently made, sounding so much as a warning to anyone who might question the management and financial questions swirling about these public benefit corporations." Hogan continued, "Tennesseans have a right to know that their historic properties are being properly managed, and their funds properly accounted for, and the Attorney General has a right to any information that might shed light on any alleged impropriety. Because Robert Hicks' main goal seems to be in keeping the Attorney General from finding a "smoking gun", the SCV requests that Mr. Hicks immediately resign from any boards affiliated with Carnton Plantation, the Carter House, or Battle of Franklin Trust. If he refuses to resign, we call upon the respective boards to demand his departure, the public good requiring it."

Mr. Hogan further stated, "Also, we call upon Marianne Schroer - wife of TDOT Commissioner John Schroer - to personally speak to the media regarding these allegations. We believe that nonprofit funds should be spent on historic preservation, rather than on highly paid consultants and lawyers speaking on her behalf."

The Sons of Confederate Veterans is an international organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers and the nation's largest military history and genealogy society, and a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. Formed in 1896, the SCV owns, operates, and manages many historic properties, including Winstead Hill Memorial Park in Franklin, the General N.B. Forrest Home in Chapel Hill, and Beauvoir - the last home of Jefferson Davis and the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, both in Biloxi, Mississippi. Its headquarters are in Columbia, Tennessee, at historic Elm Springs.

_________________________

Following are the complete remarks of board member Robert Hicks upon learning that the Attorney General had launched an investigation. Mr. Hicks is a longtime member of the board(s) and is author of the book entitled Widow of the South. His email:

Eric,

The consolation prize in all this is that there is nothing that will prove to be a smoking gun in any of it. Oh, it will cost thousands of dollars and many man-hours to put it all together. Both money and time that is paid for by visitors to the sites who, themselves, have spent their own hard-earned money to visit these sites.

But I don't believe that the dark forces behind this complaint to the AG care. They simply want to cause trouble, confusion and chaos. They are wolves in sheep's clothing who give lip service to our values - Southern values - but who are the antithesis of Southern values. When you threw your lot in to live here in the South, I bet you wanted to appropriate the highest of our values, not from the scum. You won't find anything honorable or noble with these folks.

The good news is that they will fail and eventually fall on their faces. They will huddle in their dens and rage, fantasizing and pretending they will win. But in the end they are nothing more than losers to a man, if you can call them men.

Be of good cheer on this Good Friday. Know that others have suffered far greater than we ever will and know that through His triumph we have triumphed. He is Risen, Indeed.

Happy Easter,

r.
Robert Hicks
robthicks@aol.com

-----------------

"If you would like to express your concerns, we suggest you contact Marianne Schroer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Battle of Franklin Trust. In addition to your own comments, demand that Robert Hicks be dismissed from the Board of Directors, and that she herself should resign.

Marianne Schroer: schroer.marianne@gmail.com
Copy your message to: info@battleoffranklintrust.org

TENNESSEE PASSES HERITAGE PROTECTION ACT

The N. B. Forrest Camp 215 of Memphis, and the Tennessee Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans are pleased to announce the passage of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has recently signed into law the Heritage Protection Act. This law, which applies to the entire state and all cities, prohibits the renaming, removal, or relocating of any military monument or item, such as a statue or flag display, or park, and includes streets and school names, or any other item so honoring a military unit or person. It is effective as of April 1, 2013, and applies to any military item from the French and Indian War through the Mid-East wars, and all US wars in between, including the War Between the States.

This legislation, the basic text of which was written by Lee Millar, SCV Chief of Protocol and Lt Cdr of the Tennessee Division, was introduced to the Legislature by Tenn Div Cdr Mike Beck to the Senate and Millar to the House, and was passed overwhelmingly by both the House and the Senate by a combined vote of 95-25. Thanks also to those many compatriots who wrote in to their senators and representatives in support.

This law will assist in the Memphis issue with the Nathan Bedford Forrest Park anti-renaming campaign, and will clearly hereafter protect the Forrest Statue, as well as the Jefferson Davis Statute, and the SCV Confederate cannons in Confederate Park. It will also protect scores of other Confederate and War For Southern Independence sites throughout Tennessee.

The new law is one of the greatest documents in modern history for the protection and preservation of this state's and nation's military history and heritage. It is hoped that other states will now take up the initiative.

Can states assert their original rights and the law of self-preservation?

By Ken Bachand

All serious students of American history should be acquainted with the Alien and Sedition Acts passed during the John Adams administration and the Kentucky and Vuirginia Resolutions that were passed in response. But most do not know that James Madison, author of the Virginia Resolutions, later redefined them in favor of the supremacy of the central government. Take special note of the underlined parts of the last paragraph of the excerpt below and consider how well Madison’s solutions for solving such issues have worked in just the last twenty years.
_______________

In his Kentucky Resolutions, drafted in secret, Jefferson, then the vice president, explained that the federal union was a compact among states which had delegated only "certain definite powers" to the national government, reserving all other powers to themselves. Thus, Jefferson argued that if any acts of the federal government went beyond the powers that had been delegated to it, every state had the right "to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power." Since Congress had trampled upon the Constitution, Jefferson considered it crucial to reestablish a "rampart" to protect the minority "against the passions and the powers of a majority."

Madison's Virginia Resolutions were slightly more moderate in tone than Jefferson's. Like Jefferson, Madison portrayed the union as a "compact to which the states are parties" and issued an impassioned warning against federal legislation that represented a deliberate and dangerous exercise of power not granted to the national government by the Constitution. But, instead of using Jefferson's belligerent scare word "nullification," Madison used the blander verb "interpose," asserting that states were "in duty bound to interpose for arresting the progress" of unconstitutional legislation.

In truth, Jefferson and Madison were less interested in offering a new theory of nullification or in asserting state sovereignty than in protecting the integrity of the First Amendment. Madison excoriated the Sedition Act's violation of First Amendment rights of conscience and freedom of the press as well as the "right of freely examining public characters and measures." The results of the intimidating Sedition Act, he had warned, would be citizens' withdrawal from public life and the ensuing "deadly lethargy" that always characterizes despotic regimes.

But Jefferson had ventured farther into dangerous territory, arguing that any additional unconstitutional assumptions of power and violations of rights would "necessarily drive these States into revolution and blood." Freedom of the mind, he believed, mattered even more than constitutional government and union. If called to defend that freedom, Jefferson wrote to a friend in 1799, "every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom."

In the end, how critical a role did the resolutions play? Not only had the Kentucky legislature deleted Jefferson's references to nullification in the final version of the resolutions that they approved, no other states joined Virginia and Kentucky in their protest. On the contrary, ten state legislatures censured Kentucky and Virginia. And even the then-governor of Virginia, James Monroe, never sought to prevent the enforcement of the Sedition Act.

And yet some southerners would never forget the principles embedded in those resolutions. Far from disappearing, they became the impassioned rallying cry of the states' rights movement, reawakened and mobilized by John Calhoun. Terms like "nullification," "interposition," and "state sovereignty" would become the mantra of states' rights proponents.

Guilt-stricken that he had provided the foundational arguments for Calhoun's states' rights doctrine—a theory that threatened the very survival of the Constitution and the nation—Madison, during the last years of his life, would painstakingly strive to argue the resolutions away and to underscore their benign intentions.

Anxious to exculpate himself of the taint of the states' rights ideology, Madison presented his own explication of the Virginia Resolutions, presenting a panoply of sensible thoughts. He pointed out that the utterly banal—and constitutional—matter of a protective tariff on imported woolen goods paled in importance next to the government's unconstitutional violation of the Bill of Rights. He insisted that he believed fervently in a perpetual union and had never intended to suggest that the minority could overrule the majority or that states could withdraw from the union. The Virginia Resolutions had referred only to the rights of the states in the plural to nullify federal laws and not, as Calhoun contended, to the right of a single state to nullify a law; and the verb "interpose" was meant only to suggest an appeal to public opinion, not resistance. It could even be argued that the immediate goal of the resolutions was to empower the majority of Americans in the next election by inspiring them to overthrow the Federalists in 1800. In that electoral campaign, the resolutions indeed proved supremely effective, for they played a vital role in galvanizing public opinion on behalf of Thomas Jefferson, who defeated Federalist John Adams.

Still, Madison's efforts in the early 1830s to deny that the resolutions had made the case for states' rights came too late. By then, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions already symbolized a potent strain of southern thought that would be used to buttress Calhoun's doctrine of nullification—and more The ideas that Madison and Jefferson had expressed in 1798, intentionally or not, had ignited a fire that would be impossible to quench.

Despite Madison's attempt to dilute the import and the repercussions of his resolutions, Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina would thank him in early 1830 for the contribution that his Virginia Resolutions had made to the nullification cause. It was unfortunate that the resolutions of 1798 had been forgotten by so many citizens, Hayne told Madison, for the result of that forgetfulness was "the alarming assumptions of power on the part of the federal government." Now, nothing could save southerners, the South Carolinian wrote, "from consolidation and its inevitable consequences, the separation of the States, but the restoration of the principles of '98."

But Madison longed only to affirm his nationalist credentials. Though his defense of tariffs had already provoked opposition, at the risk of inciting still more attacks on himself, he responded to Hayne's letter of praise with a long and scholarly denunciation of nullification, published in 1830 for all to read in the North American Review.

The Constitution, Madison argued in his essay, could not be "altered or annulled at the will of the individual states." With twenty-four states already in the Union, a multiplicity of independent decisions was untenable; indeed, the vital principle could only be uniform laws for all. Nullification would simply overturn the fundamental principle of free government—majority rule—with the ultimate effect of overturning the government itself.

Madison did not deny that egregious legislation—like the Alien and Sedition Acts—might be passed. But the most effective means for opposing such intolerable legislation, he now argued, was not nullification, but rather a variety of constitutional remedies: the influence of senators and representatives in Congress; the power of the Supreme Court to determine the parameters of state and national authority; the responsibility of the president to the people; the liability of the executive and the judiciary to impeachment; and, finally, the ballot box. Indeed, he reminded his readers that, in the first presidential election following the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson had triumphed, and that the new president, a champion of freedom of speech and the press, had let the Sedition Act expire. Failing the ballot box, there was still another option available to the states: a constitutional amendment. Only if every constitutional resort collapsed, then and only then, he allowed, could states assert "their original rights and the law of self-preservation."

(Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, and the Decline of Virginia, Susan Dunn, Basic Books, 2007, pp. 179–183)

Keep Stone Mountain carving a Confederate Memorial

By Calvin E. Johnson, Jr.
cjohnson1861@bellsouth.net

A young man asked me why do they want to change the carving at Stone Mountain Park?

The question should also be why do some people continue to try erasing history? There is a petition drive to change the beautiful historic carving at Stone Mountain Memorial Park near Atlanta, Georgia? See link below of news story from 11 Alive of Atlanta, Georgia including their interview with me. A special thank you to Mr. Dan Coleman who participated in the debate that followed.

http://www.11alive.com/news/article/290674/3/Petition-wants-Stone-Mt-Confederate-carving-removed

Read what I said including, “Like previous campaigns criticizing other Confederate Memorials, he sees the petition to remove the carving of Jefferson, Lee and Jackson as an attack on the truth.”

A on line poll currently shows 95 percent of the people want to keep the Stone Mountain Carving of our heroes Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as it is.

Let me caution you with this poll that we also won most of the polls for the 1956 Georgia “Soldier’s Memorial flag” our official State flag of Georgia conceived by Judge John Sammons Bells that was unceremoniously taken down in 2001. They did not listen to the people of Georgia back then.

Mississippian’s however were allowed to vote on their 1890s State flag, that also includes the Confederate Battle flag in the design, and they chose to keep it. Georgian’s were allowed to vote on a State flag but their 1956 flag with the Confederate flag it its design, was excluded in the vote. Democracy was at work in Mississippi but not Georgia.

Stone Mountain has been filmed many times including in the 1954 movie “A Man called Peter” starring Richard Todd as Reverend Peter Marshall and Jean Peters as his wife.

Take the time to learn about the South’s President Jefferson Davis, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Stonewall Jackson who died 150 years ago on May 10, 1863 and share with your family.

Jefferson and wife Varina Davis adopted a Black child, Jim Limber Davis, in February 1864 and.

Booker T. Washington, America’s great Black-American Educator wrote in 1910, 'The first white people in America, certainly the first in the South to exhibit their interest in the reaching of the Negro and saving his soul through the medium of the Sunday-school were Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson."

Let’s not erase history!

Read more about Confederate History and Heritage Month at: https://www.facebook.com/ConfederateHeritageMonth

Calvin E. Johnson, Jr. is a Speaker, Writer of short stories, Author of book “When America stood for God, Family and Country” and Chairman of the National and Georgia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans Confederate History and Heritage Month committee. http://www.facebook.com/ConfederateHeritageMonth