In 1845, Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, lay dying at The Hermitage in Nashville, Tennessee.
Jackson had spent his adult life defending the infant United States. He had fought the Indians and British during the War of 1812, capping his career as a general with his triumph at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.
As President, he had faced down would-be “nullifiers”–those Southern politicians who claimed states had the right to ignore federal laws they disliked.
Andrew Jackson
But now his worn, disease-racked body was fast reaching the limits of its endurance. Knowing that death was closing in, Jackson often took stock of his lifetime of achievements–and failures.
One day, he asked one of his doctors what act of his administration would be most severely condemned by future generations.
“Perhaps the removal of the bank deposits,” said the doctor–referring to Jackson’s withdrawal of U.S. Government monies from the first Bank of the United States.
That act had destroyed the bank, which Jackson had believed was a source of political corruption.
“Oh, no!” said Jackson.
“Then maybe the specie circular,” said the doctor. He was referring to an 1836 executive order Jackson had issued, requiring payment for government land to be in gold and silver.
“Not at all!” said Jackson.
Then, his eyes blazing, Jackson raged: “I can tell you. Posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act in my life!”
Historians have not condemned Jackson for this. But perhaps he was right-–and perhaps he should have hanged Calhoun.
It might have prevented the Civil War-–or at least delayed its coming.
John C. Calhoun had once been Vice President under Jackson and later a United States Senator from South Carolina. His fiery rhetoric and radical theories of “nullification” played a major part in bringing on the Civil War (1861-1865).
Calhoun was an outspoken proponent of slavery, which he declared to be a “positive good” rather than a “necessary evil.” He supported states’ rights and nullification–under which states could declare null and void federal laws which they deemed unconstitutional.
Over time, Southern states’ threats of “nullification” turned to those of “secession” from the Union.
Jackson died in 1845-–16 years before the Civil War erupted. The resulting carnage destroyed as many as 620,000 lives. More Americans died in the war than have been killed in all the major wars fought by the United States since.
When it ended, America was reinvented as a new, unified nation–-and one where slavery was now banned by the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Equally important, the Federal Government had now set a precedent for using overwhelming military power to force states to remain in the Union.
Except for die-hard secessionists, Americans overwhelmingly agreed, from 1865 on, that the Union was sacred and unbreakable. Until, that is, the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama–the country’s first black President.
Then, suddenly, secession–treason–became fashionable again, not only among many Southerners but even among so-called “mainstream” Republicans.
To date, sovereignty resolutions have been introduced in 58 state legislatures, and have passed in nine–Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oaklahoma, Louisiana and Tennessee.
“Sovereignty” means supreme, independent authority over a territory–authority heretofore accepted as residing with the federal government.
For more than 20 years, Cliven Bundy, a Nevada cattle rancher, has refused to pay fees for grazing cattle on public lands, some 80 miles north of Las Vegas.
The Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) says Bundy now owes close to $1 million. He says his family has used the land since the 1870s and doesn’t recognize the federal government’s jurisdiction.
In 2013, a federal judge ordered Bundy to remove his livestock.
Bundy ignored the order, and was in fact even quoted as saying; “I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing.”
In early April, 2014, BLM agents rounded up more than 400 of his cattle.
Over the weekend of April 12-13, armed militia members and states’ right protesters showed up to challenge the move.
Rather than risk violence, the BLM did an about-face and released the cattle.
While Right-wingers hail this as a victory for “states’ rights,” the truth is considerably different.
Bundy’s refusal to recognize the federal government’s jurisdiction amounts to: “I will recognize–and obey–only those laws that I happen to agree with.”
Abraham Lincoln dedicated his Presidency–and sacrificed his life–to ensure the preservation of a truly United States.
And Robert E. Lee—the defeated South’s greatest general—spent the last five years of his life trying to put the Civil War behind him and persuade his fellow Southerners to accept their place in the Union.
But Cliven Bundy and other Right-wing champions of treason are working hard to destroy that union–and unleash a second Civil War.
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A REMEDY FOR TREASON: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 25, 2014 at 12:07 amScotland’s failed vote to withdraw from the United Kingdom has stirred fresh hopes in millions of Americans who want to see their states leave the Union.
Almost a quarter of Americans would like to see their states secede from the Union, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The poll–of 8,952 respondents from August 23 to September 16–found:
Secessionist sentiment is highest among Republicans and those who live in rural Western states. Democrats and Northerners take a far dimmer view.
Some of those polled blamed Washington gridlock for wanting to see their states go their own way.
Residents in more than 40 states have filed secession petitions to the Obama administration’s “We the People” program, which is featured on the White House website.
States whose residents have filed secession petitions include:
Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington (state), West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
“I don’t think it makes a whole lot of difference anymore which political party is running things. Nothing gets done,” said Roy Gustafson, 61, of Camden, South Carolina, who lives on disability payments. “The state would be better off handling things on its own.”
But by far the biggest reason for the rage to secede: Thousands–if not millions–of Americans can’t stomach the thought of a moderately-liberal black man winning a second term as President.
Texas GOP official Peter Morrison, treasurer of the Hardin County Republican party, recently called for an “amicable divorce” of Texas from the United States.
“Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government?” he wrote in an Op-Ed in a Tea Party newsletter.
The Texas petition assails the federal government’s “neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending.”
And it argues that “it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.”
So far, more than 84,000 people have signed the Texas petition and that number is going up.
And in a post on his Facebook page which has now been removed, Morrison wrote: “We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity.
“But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity.”
Evoking the history of Confederate soldiers who refused to surrender after Gettysburg, Morrison, 33, called for Texans to fight “in hopes that Providence might shine upon our cause.”
Confederate flag
Morrison is particularly angry at Asian-Americans and Hispanics who backed Obama, accusing them of voting on an “ethnic basis.”
“‘They’ re-elected Obama,” Morrison wrote. “He is their president.”
Petitions to strip citizenship from–and then deport–those signing petitions to secede have also been filed with the White House website.
President Obama would do well to review how Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh President from 1829 to 1837, reacted to threats of secession.
Andrew Jackson
In 1830, South Carolina was threatening to secede from the Union. A South Carolina Congressman who was returning home visited Jackson and asked: “Do you have a message you want me to give to your friends in the state?”
Jackson questioned him about the recent mass meetings in Charleston.
The friend warned him that South Carolina’s fire-eaters believed “the Army and Navy aren’t big enough to collect a penny” of Federal duties.
“Do they realize what their words mean?” asked Jackson.
“I’m afraid they do, General.”
“Then tell them from me that they can talk and write resolutions and print threats to their hearts’ content.
“But if one drop of blood is shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hands on engaged in such treasonable conduct, from the first tree I can reach.”
News of Jackson’s threat quickly spread throughout Washington, D.C.
Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina told his fellow Senator, Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri, that he couldn’t believe that Jackson would send an army to invade a sovereign state.
Benton replied: “I tell you, Hayne, when Jackson starts talking about hanging, they can begin to look for the ropes.”
Jackson later issued a proclamation to the people of South Carolina and threatened to hang Hayne’s successor, Senator John C. Calhoun. He also warned that he would himself lead an army into the state to enforce Federal law.
The treasonous rumblings stopped–for the moment.
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