Maine Falls

And Haley Trips

Nikki Haley, in a northern, pro-Union state, was cornered on the Civil War and capsized as she apparently thought she was in a former Confederate state as the news is reporting.

Argue as people will, but the Civil War was not caused by slavery. Yes, slavery was the moral issue of the day. Yes, many abolitionists supported and joined in fighting against the Confederacy. Yet, this was not the cause. Only 7 out of 15 states seceded initially and of those, only four mentioned slavery.

I am not going to bash President Lincoln in this essay. He faced a nightmare scenario. Florida had been part of Spain. Louisiana was once part of France. Texas had been part of Mexico. And California had actually been discovered by Russia and has a Russian bear on their flag. With many of these States declaring they would leave the Union, Lincoln feared the United States would dissolve into a dozen fiefdoms constantly engaged in battle over borders, just like Europe. The fear of unending war, not slavery, is what motivated Lincoln to act.

Academics ignore the importance of the Nullification Crisis, the impact of Henry Clay’s economic plan called the American System, the 1860 Republican Party platform as well as John C. Fremont’s losing presidential race in 1856, the fact Lincoln was not even on the ballot in 10 states in 1860, and there were 4 candidates for President in 1860.

Lincoln deserves great respect for preserving the Union, but ending slavery was an accident for which he had no plans. Because of his actions, hundreds of thousands of former slaves would die (https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/sick-from-freedom-african-american-illness-and-suffering-during-the-civil-war-and-reconstruction_jim-downs/8905332/).

To add to the problem, the Nullification Crisis predicted secession; Henry Clay and others brokered a compromise in Congress that averted a physical showdown between federal troops and the state of South Carolina. After the deal was struck, Jackson wrote to the Rev. A.J. Crawford in May 1833 that the tariff issue was a “pretext” and that the goals of the nullifiers were “disunion and southern confederacy” and “the next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question." (https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/andrew-jacksons-conflicted-history-on-north-south-relations).

Today, Yankee colonization is taking place in removing Confederate monuments but the progressives cheer it on.

But why argue ancient history? The States were supposed to appoint Electors to the Electoral College and they were in charge of selecting a president. But the political parties wanted ballots to support down-ballot candidates and the public wanted their say in who led the country. The Presidency was supposed to be an administrative office merely carrying out what Congress legislated, but it has become far more powerful.

The results have been primaries which are obviously beauty pageants. Now Maine, following Colorado, has removed Donald Trump from the ballot.  The United States no longer has the high ground on Democracy or a Republic when a candidate can be banned from the ballot without major backlash.

So what should Republicans do?  Go back to caucuses.  Do not rely on the courts to solve the problem. Go back to tradition. Select the candidate by caucus.  What can the haters do but to shut down a caucus by violence? And would not violence show who really is the fascist? Perhaps they will argue a caucus is white supremacy as it sounds too similar to Caucasian.