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Andrew Napolitano

Robert Ringer has long been a personal hero of mine.  He has written several best selling books, the best of which is probably "Looking Out For No. 1."  Now he has a website and interviews prominent conservatives, most recently, Andrew Napolitano.  Napolitano was a Superior Court Judge of New Jersey, is a graduate of Princeton, and has a long a distinguished career as a law professor at Seton Hall.  Now he is a legal analyst for Fox News.

In his interview with Ringer, Napolitano says that secession of states is legal and may be a possible outcome of the increasingly bitter argument between small government conservatives and big government liberals.  He also says that revolution is also possible, though he does not endorse it.  Ringer discusses Napolitano's comments in an article called "Secession is not an Anti-American Option."

Ringer agrees with Napolitano and asks:

Does this mean that Abraham Lincoln was wrong to force the Southern states to stay in the Union? Yes, absolutely. No one has the legal authority to force a group of people whose ancestors helped form an organization to remain in that organization. Forced membership is not freedom; it’s slavery.

Speaking of slavery, we all agree that American slavery was morally wrong in every respect, but slavery was not the issue with Abraham Lincoln. He repeatedly made it clear that he would be willing to continue to allow slavery if that’s what it took to keep the Union together. The Civil War was not about slavery; it was about revenues that would be lost to the federal government if the Southern states were allowed to secede.

South Carolina Sovereignty Flag

The Sesquicentennial has officially begun.  150 years ago today South Carolina seceded from the Union.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

And those powers include the right of secession, recognized by every state when the Constitution was formed, and by key founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson, and taught as a right at West Point before the War for Southern Independence.

Update:  Great minds think alike.  Robert Stacy McCain also rebutted Paul Rahe at this link.
Update 2:  1389 blog weighs in too -- read it at this link.

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaching next year, we are hearing a lot of propaganda from the left about secession and slavery.

Apparently, the New York Times and Charles Johnson (of Little Green Footballs), say the South is "rewriting history" by celebrating the sesquicentennial of Southern secession by not mentioning slavery.  It is obvious what is going on here:  the left wants to politicize history.  They are insisting that the Northern myth of the war continue as the official history of the war between the states, i.e., that the North fought the South to force them to give up slavery over moral grounds and in support of racial equality and freedom for all.  The evil South, however, seceded rather than give up their slaves and therefore, started the Civil War.

Actually, the actual scenario is a bit more complicated than that.  I will go into it a bit more in subsequent posts.  However, the Northern-biased historians and the left want to fix this myth in the minds of the current and future generations, and they insist that any acknowledgement of Confederate or Southern history be indelibly linked to slavery.  You are officially forbidden to mention "Confederate" without also mentioning "slavery."  The same rule, however, does not apply to celebrations of the Fourth of July, where we honor former slave holding secessionists George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, to name but two, who led the fight for American independence.

It is important to state that the right of secession, which did exist and continues to exist, is not dependent upon the 19th century system of slavery.  Nor was the right of secession ended by the Civil War or by a subsequent Supreme Court erroneous edict that secession in unconstitutional.

Secession is indeed constitutional and may become necessary in the near future, if the historic power grab of the Democrats and the left cannot be stopped, and Islamization of Western Civilization continues.  Secession, however, will be a last resort, when all other avenues have failed.

Related Posts:
To Hell With It, Let's Just Secede
A Secession Option for Liberty-Loving Americans, by Walter Williams
Serious Discussions About Secession
Lawrence Auster, of View From the Right, Discusses Secession