Forwarded from Old North State
Walter Washington Williams was a forager for Hood's Brigade and at the time of this photo was presumed to be the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War.
In this photo the local American legion band came by to serenade him on his death bed and gave him a cigar
In this photo the local American legion band came by to serenade him on his death bed and gave him a cigar
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“On the part of the North, the war was carried on, not to liberate the slaves, but by a government that had always perverted and violated the Constitution, to keep the slaves in bondage and was still willing to do so, if the slaveholders could be thereby induced to stay in the Union.
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this:
That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.
No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self evidently false than this or more self evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it be really established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle - but only in degree - between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.
Previous to the war, there were some grounds for saying that- in theory, at least, if not in practice - our government was a free one; that it rested on consent. But nothing of that kind can be said now, if the principle on which the war was carried on by the North, is irrevocably established.
If that principle be not the principle of the Constitution, the facts should be known. If it be the principle of the Constitution, the Constitution itself should be at once overthrown.”
Introductory of the essay “No Treason” by Lysander Spooner (1867)
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this:
That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.
No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self evidently false than this or more self evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it be really established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle - but only in degree - between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.
Previous to the war, there were some grounds for saying that- in theory, at least, if not in practice - our government was a free one; that it rested on consent. But nothing of that kind can be said now, if the principle on which the war was carried on by the North, is irrevocably established.
If that principle be not the principle of the Constitution, the facts should be known. If it be the principle of the Constitution, the Constitution itself should be at once overthrown.”
Introductory of the essay “No Treason” by Lysander Spooner (1867)
This is the hard truth that few in the Country are honest enough to accept
That regardless of the outcome of the War for Southern Independence; it rendered the concept of our government, founded on consent of the governed, illegitimate.
Y’all think of this, every time you see a Southerner waving an American flag and talking about “freedom” and “liberty” he is a demoralized, defeated person who has encompassed the Stockholm syndrome like schizophrenia of liking the conquering Government his ancestors once fought and died to be free from.