Today is the day that the American Civil War started back in 1861. By 1863, the Army of the Confederate States of America had had a few significant victories, and were roaming beyond the Mason-Dixon Line, looking for a fight that would send the Army of the Potomac home for good and leave them to their private business, which included owning slaves.
They got their wish on July 1, 1863, when they ran into Union troops north of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle went on for three days, with the CSA gaining the upper hand on day one. On day two, the Union line began to gel and hold. On day three, the CSA was hanging on, but just barely. They decided to begin a full-frontal assault by shelling Union lines for two hours, then they sent the infantry to march across a field that was around a mile wide to take the well-reinforced Union line. The march across the field, known as Pickett's Charge, was a failure and it ended the battle, sending the Confederates into a retreat. Then on the night of July 4, the Confederates left town under the cover of darkness and a steady rain. They never truly had the upper hand again in the fight, and by April 14, 1865, they surrendered, ending the Civil War.
It seems absurd to me that the Confederacy would take the fight to the U.S. Army. Why wouldn't they just stand at the Mason-Dixon Line and defend it? I could never understand that. Perhaps I'm missing some key information about the mind-set of a Southerner.
Or maybe I'm not looking far enough back into history. This all began with the "founding fathers" who considered African Slaves to be 3/5 human. Yes, this is where it started, I think. As 3/5 of a human, you are considered live stock and not a person, but property to be cared for, fed, housed, and traded in any manner as tender in a business deal.
Treating humans like this is government-sanctioned sociopathy...you de-humanize someone by making them an "it," a thing.
I can see how slavery would have to end if you took the Bill of Rights as the gospel for all men. But what about women? Oh yeah, women were sort of half humans, too, (white women were maybe 4/5 human) because our judgment could not be trusted upon to cast a vote, own property, or anything that might elevate a woman as an equal to a man. So what about these documents that are the cornerstone of our government?
Have these documents we hold sacred, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, always been fluid, negotiable? Because now I, as a woman, can vote and run a business and own land without anyone giving it a second thought, and the same is now true for Africans who came here as slaves. Clearly, the founding fathers didn't plan for these contingencies, and I came to the conclusion that this was why the Confederacy formed in 1861. Now I better understand the Southern mind of the 1860s.
The Southern states that relied on slavery for their economic well-being were convinced that they were carrying on the ideals of the original Revolutionary War that founded our country. They were certain that God and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were really on their side, because they would have agreed that a Negro couldn't have rights. States were in charge of their own futures, and how they would be run, with minimal control from the federal government. In fact, during the war, most southerners called the Civil War the "Second American Revolution."
It seems strange to look back on this now, after growing up in a very "federal" USA, where the state's rights are sublimated to the federal government's demands. Personally, I wish the federal government would stay out of a lot of businesses, like (as an example) Major League Baseball, and stop with the corporate welfare, and keep out of education of children (states can, and mostly do, handle the education of their children just fine). Or the Federal Reserve Banking system. What the hell is that? Whatever it is, it is clearly not working very well right now. FEMA? They want total control over any and all disasters, and that means they can turn Wal-Mart trucks away at their controlled check-points (Katrina, anyone?), even when Wal-Mart has a better system in place, and resources available to donate. They also mandate that private citizens armed to protect themselves after said disaster should hand over their firearms. That is just plain wrong, because God knows criminals won't be handing over their firearms and the police won't be there to protect you from them.
The longer I sit here and think about it, the more I realize that the Federal Government is in all kinds of places and business now than it has ever been before, even more than during The Civil War, and it is extremely threatening. Don't people want to take control of their own lives, their own destinies? Or is it easier to just go along?
A precedent for fluidity of our core governing documents has been set. That African American people are free in this country is evidence of that. And if The Civil War set that precedent, it would have also set one ending the states' control of their own destinies and economies.
The die is cast.
It had its beginning on July 3, 1863, when the Confederate Army chose to walk across that field at Gettysburg. On July 4, 1863, the Second American Revolution ended and a new America was born. This country that we know as our America is not at all what the founding fathers thought America would be. For me and for African Americans, that's a great thing. But for the country as a whole, the over-reaching bureaucracy that is now the federal government is a red-tape nightmare of bloat, loaded with unnecessary programs, welfare of all kinds, taxation that is nigh usury, and too much involvement in local issues.
So what now? How can the USA be a better country? What are our ideals, our core values? How can we recapture them, and remain true to the vision of the founding fathers, if not the letter of their words?
In Lincoln's famous speech at Gettysburg following the 1863 battle, he worried that the country may fly apart, disintegrating under the weight of the violence of the war:
...we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
This country may yet disintegrate, but now from the weight of its own bloat, the debt of the current war, and by denying its citizens their voice with a mind-numbing bureaucracy and a congress that keeps its constituency at arm's length while drawing in the money and influence from military industrial complex lobbyists and giant corporations. This isn't what the founding fathers envisioned, either.
Our vote is ever the next "American Revolution." That's why we have that right. Don't neglect it, and don't negotiate it. Always vote from your gut, for who you think is the person best suited for the job of representing you. This, thankfully, is what the founding fathers envisioned that is true and is still working. I hope.
