“But I would suggest that a fella can believe with perfect sincerity — even without succumbing to libertarian panic — that liberty and security are complementary, not mutually exclusive. The proverbial ‘challenge in the coming debate,’ or at least one of them, is to re-insert that idea back on the table when the Wise Men decide which Founding Principle to ignore next.”
– Matt Welch

(link via Jim Henley)

A friend of mine recently emailed me because a guy at his work, a diehard Southerner, keeps insisting to him that the Civil War was not about slavery at all–that the Southern States simply wanted to preserve their State’s Rights against “Federal Tyranny.” My friend, having some knowledge of history, insists that the immediate cause of the Civil War was the Confederacy’s desire to continue practicing slavery. So he asked me if I had access to any documents that would help him out in proving the guy at work wrong.

Well, first things first. Yes–the Civil War was about slavery. For a great overview of the topic, I’d suggest the book Lies My Teacher Told Me. But here’s a couple of brief quotes, from primary sources, that should help seal the deal.

Here’s one from South Carolina’s Declaration of Secession:

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

I think that pretty well spells out that South Carolina was seceding in order to preserve the institution of slavery, don’t you?

Now here’s one from Mississippi’s Declaration of Secession.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Does a comment even need to be made here?

Okay, let’s just do one more. This is from Georgia’s Declaration of Secession.

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.

These three snippets from the Secession Declarations are pretty representative of the reasons put forth by the Southern States for Secession. But if you still need convincing, well, here’s a snippet from a speech given by Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, as to the superiority of the Confederate Constitution.

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other —though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution—African slavery as it exists amongst us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

If that doesn’t convince a person, then they simply cannot be convinced.

Stephen Green, of VodkaPundit fame, has just been introduced to his first child.

Congratulations, Steve!

“Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.”
– Henry Kissinger

Via Unpartisan.com:

At issue is “birthright citizenship” — provided for since the Constitution’s 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.

Section 1 of that amendment, drafted with freed slaves in mind, says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

[...] “Most Americans feel it doesn’t make any sense for people to come into the country illegally, give birth and have a new U.S. citizen,” said Ira Mehlman of the Federation of American Immigration Reform, which backs Deal’s proposal. “But the advocates for illegal immigrants will make a fuss; they’ll claim you’re punishing the children, and I suspect the leadership doesn’t want to deal with that.”

[...] Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said some Western European nations with different policies have suffered problems.

“Look at Germany — the children of guest workers are not citizens,” he said. “That creates enormous social and racial tensions. That’s the opposite of where we want to go.”

Guttentag also said the federal courts would probably strike down any measure that challenged the 14th Amendment’s citizenship guarantees.

“It’s a far-fetched, fundamentally misguided and unconstitutional proposal,” he said.

(emphasis added)

I miss the conservatives who cared about what the Constitution said more than what some misguided Georgian thinks it meant 140 years ago.

“Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself.”
– Francis C. Farley

“Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we’ll be seeing six or seven.”
– W.C. Fields

“The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying is good for business and good for the country’s economy; but, more importantly in this context, it stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decoration put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only ‘commercial greed’ could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.”
– Ayn Rand

“The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: ‘Merry Christmas’—not ‘Weep and Repent.’ And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance.”
– Ayn Rand

“Yes, of course. A national holiday, in this country, cannot have an exclusively religious meaning. The secular meaning of the Christmas holiday is wider than the tenets of any particular religion: it is good will toward men—a frame of mind which is not the exclusive property (though it is supposed to be part, but is a largely unobserved part) of the Christian religion.”
– Ayn Rand