Shredding the Constitution to Plunder the South. It'll Happen Again Without #NationalDivorce
LINCOLN’S TYRANNICAL GAMBIT
(The Militant Jeffersonian) - Abraham Lincoln’s July 4, 1861, address to Congress is a document steeped in Constitutional violations and a thinly veiled justification for waging war on the Sovereign Southern States, driven not by a noble quest to preserve the Union but by an insatiable desire to control federal revenue through Southern forts.
From a staunchly Southern and Constitutional perspective, this address reveals Lincoln’s disregard for the principles of federalism, State Sovereignty, and individual liberty enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. His actions and rhetoric expose a calculated effort to centralize power in the federal government, subvert the voluntary Compact of the Union, and provoke conflict to maintain economic dominance over the South, particularly through the collection of tariffs at key Southern ports.
Below, I elaborate on the Constitutional violations embedded in Lincoln’s address and argue that his obsession with retaining control of Southern forts, especially Fort Sumter, was rooted in the federal government’s dependence on Southern revenue, which was the true catalyst for the War Between the States.
Lincoln’s address begins with a flagrant violation of the Constitution’s core principle of federalism by denying the Right of Southern States to Secede.
The Constitution, as a compact among Sovereign States, nowhere prohibits Secession; rather, the Tenth Amendment reserves powers not delegated to the federal government to the States or the People. The Southern States—South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and later others, exercised this reserved power when they adopted Ordinances of Secession, acting through Conventions of their People, the very mechanism by which they ratified the Constitution.
Lincoln’s claim that Secession is “rebellion” and Unconstitutional ignores the historical reality that…