Chet McAteer
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Lincoln’s Treacherous Centralization: How the Illinois Usurper Trampled the Founders’ Sovereign States Compact and Midwifed the Federal Monster We Endure Today
From the very outset of ... View MoreChet McAteer
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Lincoln’s Treacherous Centralization: How the Illinois Usurper Trampled the Founders’ Sovereign States Compact and Midwifed the Federal Monster We Endure Today
From the very outset of his administration, Abraham Lincoln and his Republican cohorts launched a systematic assault on the original Constitutional Compact; a Voluntary Union of Sovereign, Independent States as understood by the Founding generation, transforming a limited federal agent into the bloated, tyrannical leviathan that now strangles American liberty.
The South, ever the vigilant guardian of States’ Rights and strict construction, recognized this betrayal immediately and took up arms to defend the Jeffersonian republic against Northern industrial aggression and consolidated power.
The Founders had foreseen precisely such dangers in their writings, warning that any drift toward a “national” government would erode the Reserved Powers of the States, invite executive despotism, and extinguish the liberties secured by the Revolution.
Lincoln’s policies did not merely respond to rebellion; they deliberately veered in the opposite direction, forging precedents for unlimited federal dominance that haunt us still.
Take first the unilateral suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, imposed by Lincoln in April 1861 without congressional approval and later expanded nationwide, alongside martial law and the mass arrest of thousands of political opponents, newspaper editors, and Copperhead Democrats who dared question his war.
Chief Justice Roger Taney rightly condemned this in Ex parte Merryman as a flagrant violation of Article I, Section 9, which reserves suspension to Congress alone and only in cases of rebellion or invasion where public safety demands it.
The Founders, drawing from their hard-won experience under British tyranny, enshrined this safeguard precisely to prevent arbitrary executive detention; Patrick Henry and the Anti-Federalists thundered that a consolidated government would inevitably crush individual liberties through such overreach, while Madison in Federalist No. 47 defined tyranny as the accumulation of powers in one hand.
Lincoln’s administration ignored the judiciary, jailed dissenters without trial, and silenced opposition across the North, actions that not only mocked the Bill of Rights but set the template for future federal suppression of speech and due process, proving the Southern critique that the Union under Lincoln had become a tool of Northern sectional despotism rather than a compact of equals.
Equally destructive was the Enrollment Act of 1863, imposing the first federal conscription in American history and forcing citizens into military service under threat of imprisonment or fine. The Founding generation recoiled at standing armies and compulsory service as relics of European tyranny; George Mason and the Virginia Ratifying Convention warned that a distant central power would conscript the people’s sons to serve imperial ambitions, violating the militia clauses meant to keep defense local and voluntary.
Jeffersonian strict constructionists viewed the federal government as possessing only enumerated powers, none authorizing a draft that treated free men as chattel of the state. Lincoln’s draft not only evaded these limits but sparked riots and resistance, which his regime crushed with further habeas suspensions, yet another step in converting sovereign states into mere administrative districts of a centralized war machine, the very consolidation the Anti-Federalists like Brutus had prophesied would reduce republics to despotism.
Lincoln’s economic revolution accelerated this betrayal through the Morrill Tariff of 1861, which jacked up protective duties to shield Northern industry while plundering Southern exporters.
The Founders had insisted on uniform duties under Article I, Section 8, to prevent sectional favoritism; Jefferson and Madison decried tariffs as Unconstitutional internal improvements that enriched one region at another’s expense, warning in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions that such “palpable violations of the Constitutional Compact” justified State interposition or even Secession to preserve self-government.
The South had long suffered under this mercantilist yoke, viewing it as the Hamiltonian consolidation they rejected at the Founding. Lincoln’s tariff not only provoked Secession but funded his centralizing agenda, proving the Southern truth that the war was less about emancipation than enforcing Northern economic hegemony over a free-trade, agrarian South faithful to limited government.
No less Unconstitutional was the Revenue Act of 1861 and its successors, introducing the first federal income tax and birthing the Internal Revenue Bureau to enforce it. Direct taxes, the Founders mandated, must be apportioned by population under Article I, Section 9; Jefferson explicitly warned against federal taxation beyond minimal needs, lest it breed “too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious” and consolidate power in Washington.
Lincoln’s progressive-leaning levy, coupled with excise taxes on nearly everything, transformed the federal agent into a voracious tax collector, centralizing fiscal authority and eroding the States’ financial Sovereignty that Madison celebrated in Federalist No. 45 as “few and defined” federal powers versus the States’ expansive reserved Rights.
This fiscal overreach, born of war but never fully retracted, laid the groundwork for the income tax amendment and the IRS behemoth that today devours the people’s substance.
The crowning financial centralization came via the Legal Tender Act of 1862 and National Banking Acts of 1863-1864, which unleashed unbacked “Greenbacks” as fiat currency and chartered a national banking cartel tied to federal bonds. Jefferson had thundered that “banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies,” viewing Hamilton’s bank as an Unconstitutional monopoly that would corrupt the republic and favor the wealthy few over Sovereign States.
The Founders, scarred by Revolutionary paper money’s collapse, restricted Congress to coining money of gold and silver; yet Lincoln’s regime made Greenbacks legal tender, taxed state bank notes out of existence, and created a centralized monetary system that bound the economy to Washington. This directly contradicted the Compact Theory Jefferson affirmed even late in life, insisting States could sever ties if the federal government exceeded its delegated powers. Southerners rightly saw these acts as resurrecting the very mercantilist empire they had seceded to escape, paving the way for the Federal Reserve-era fiat tyranny that plagues us now.
Lincoln further consolidated through the Pacific Railway Act, Homestead Act, and Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1862, plus the creation of the Department of Agriculture, all funneling federal lands, subsidies, and oversight into economic and educational spheres reserved to the states.
The Founders, especially Jefferson in his strict construction opinions and Madison’s warnings against “the spirit of encroachment” consolidating powers, rejected federal internal improvements as beyond enumerated authority, fearing they would bribe States into dependency and destroy Sovereignty essential to liberty.
These measures bypassed the Tenth Amendment, treating western lands and agriculture as national playthings rather than state domains, while the South’s agrarian economy; grounded in local control suffered exclusion. Such policies exemplified the Hamiltonian nationalism Lincoln championed, crushing the Jeffersonian vision the Confederacy sought to uphold.
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 stands as perhaps the most brazen executive fiat: an order seizing private property (slaves as recognized at the time under the Constitution) in Southern States without due process or compensation, justified only by dubious “war powers.”
The Fifth Amendment and the Compact's reservation of domestic institutions to the States were clear; Founders like Madison stressed that no branch could accumulate powers to redefine property or override State Sovereignty.
Lincoln himself had admitted slavery was Constitutionally protected where it existed, yet this proclamation, issued after he vowed to save the Union “without freeing any slave”, revealed the war’s true aim: not preservation, but remaking the republic into a centralized nation where executive whim trumped Constitutional law.
The South fought to the last against this assault on the original understanding, where States retained the Right, per Jefferson’s 1798 Resolutions, to judge violations and resist consolidation.
Ultimately, Lincoln’s rejection of Secession itself, treating Sovereign States as mere counties in rebellion and waging total war upon them…shattered the Compact at the heart of the Founding.
Jefferson affirmed in 1799 that States could “sever ourselves from that union” upon repeated federal abuses; Madison echoed the Constitution as a Compact among Sovereign entities, not an indissoluble nation forged by one people.
The Anti-Federalists had ratified only with assurances against consolidation; Lincoln’s invasion proved their fears prophetic, destroying federalism and birthing the “one nation” monstrosity of unlimited bureaucracy, endless taxation, and eroded liberties we confront today.
The South was Right: the Founders’ republic died at Appomattox, replaced by the centralized behemoth Lincoln midwifed.
In Liberty and Eternal Vigilance,
C.M.McAteer
November 20, 2010
References
Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War (2002).
The Anti-Federalist Papers, edited by Ralph Ketcham (1986). (Includes writings by “Brutus,” Patrick Henry speeches from the Virginia Ratifying Convention, and other warnings against consolidation and centralized power.)
Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions of 1798; Virginia Resolutions of 1798 (authored by Madison but associated with Jeffersonian interposition); Letter to James Madison, September 6, 1789; Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank (1791); and later affirmations of compact theory and Secession rights.
James Madison, Federalist No. 45 (“few and defined” federal powers); Federalist No. 47 (definition of tyranny as accumulation of powers).
Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States (2 volumes, 1868–1870). (Core Southern constitutional defense by the Confederacy’s Vice President.)
Patrick Henry, Speeches in the Virginia Ratifying Convention (1788), especially warnings against “consolidated government” destroying state sovereignty and liberties.
George Mason and Virginia Ratifying Convention debates (1788), on standing armies, conscription, militia clauses, and dangers of distant central power.
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, Opinion in Ex parte Merryman (1861), condemning Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus as a violation of Article I, Section 9.
U.S. Constitution (1787), especially Article I, Section 8 (enumerated powers, uniform duties); Article I, Section 9 (habeas corpus suspension, direct taxes apportioned by population); Fifth Amendment (due process and property protections); Tenth Amendment (reserved powers to States).
Jefferson and Madison, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798–1799), on state interposition, nullification, and the right to judge constitutional violations or sever ties.
Morrill Tariff of 1861 (and related tariff history documents showing Southern opposition to protective duties favoring Northern industry).
Enrollment Act of 1863 (federal conscription) and associated resistance/riot records.
Revenue Act of 1861 and subsequent income/excise tax measures creating the Internal Revenue system.
Legal Tender Act of 1862 (Greenbacks as fiat currency) and National Banking Acts of 1863–1864.
Pacific Railway Act (1862), Homestead Act (1862), Morrill Land-Grant College Act (1862), and creation of the Department of Agriculture.
Emancipation Proclamation (1863), contrasted with Lincoln’s earlier statements limiting the war’s aims.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (for his pre-war and wartime statements on slavery, Union, and powers).
Primary Southern secession documents and ordinances (e.g., declarations from Southern states emphasizing states’ rights, compact theory, and economic grievances).
Frank L. Owsley, State Rights in the Confederacy (1925), on internal Southern defense of states’ rights against centralization.
Additional aligned works often cited in this tradition:
Charles Adams, When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession (on tariffs and economic causes).
Ludwell Johnson, Division and Reunion: America, 1848–1877.
Contemporary Southern pamphlets and editorials on tariffs, conscription, and habeas suspensions.
Jefferson Davis, writings and papers defending the Confederate constitutional position.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES
Chet McAteer
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How Antebellum Courts Humanized Slavery in the South While the North Embraced Savage Chattel Tyranny and Brutal Public Executio... View MoreTHE CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES
Chet McAteer
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How Antebellum Courts Humanized Slavery in the South While the North Embraced Savage Chattel Tyranny and Brutal Public Executions
In the antebellum era, the Southern legal system stood as a radiant beacon of enlightened paternalism, breathing humanity into the the horrid institution of slavery through landmark court decisions that repeatedly affirmed enslaved individuals as beings made in the image of their Creator, endowed with moral agency, personal rights, and judicial protections…while the barbaric North wallowed in a cold, unregulated chattel tyranny that reduced human souls to mere disposable livestock, stripped of any meaningful legal safeguards, dignity, or recourse against cruelty, and punctuated by spectacular public tortures that made clear the absolute power of masters and the State.
Southern courts, rooted in English common law, Christian stewardship, and pragmatic duty, mandated food, clothing, shelter, medical care for the infirm, periods of rest, and limits on excessive violence, fostering a system of mutual obligation that preserved both workforce and moral order; by stark and horrifying contrast, Northern systems offered no such mercy, treating slaves as profit-driven chattel vulnerable to unlimited punishment, with no standing to sue, no right to self-defense, no shield against exploitation under harsh Black Codes that denied assembly, testimony against Whites, or basic defenses, enabling both systemic degradation and State-sanctioned gore during moments of White fear.
Research leaves no doubt: Southern cases like Guardian of Sally v. Beatty (1792, South Carolina Supreme Court), where Chief Justice John Rutledge upheld a slave’s agency in purchasing and manumitting another named Sally, powerfully implied profound legal personhood and moral agency, reinforcing South Carolina’s slave codes that demanded provision of necessities and protection against excessive cruelty.
Similarly, Hudgins v. Wright (1806, Virginia Supreme Court) freed enslaved woman Jackey Wright and her children based on Native American descent prohibited since 1705, acknowledging their full humanity through lineage and opening the door to judicial intervention in abuse, as later realized in Commonwealth v. Turner (1827), which convicted a slaveholder for cruelty, protections utterly absent in the North’s savage systems, where Pennsylvania offered no mechanisms for asserting freedom, leaving slaves defenseless under restrictive Black Codes.
Harry v. Decker & Hopkins (1818, Mississippi Supreme Court) further shone with Southern commitment, declaring slave Harry free after residing in the slavery-banned Northwest Territory under the Ordinance of 1787, affirming his juridical personality and right to sue, while Mississippi’s codes enforced basic needs and humane treatment; in hypocritical contrast, Northern states like New York, despite gradual emancipation, lacked any legal recourse, permitting unlimited punishment via the 1702 statute and denying any standing.
North Carolina v. Negro Will (1834, North Carolina Supreme Court), under the noble Judge William Gaston, ruled a slave’s self-defensive killing of an overseer as manslaughter rather than murder, explicitly granting the fundamental human right to self-defense against unlawful violence, with codes mandating welfare and court oversight for cruelty, a humane recognition that would have been unimaginable in the North’s oppressive regime, where New York’s 1712 slave revolt triggered executions of breathtaking brutality and the 1741 conspiracy scare unleashed even more spectacular terror.
North Carolina v. Manuel (1838, North Carolina Supreme Court), also by Gaston, declared free Blacks born in the state as citizens with rights to property ownership, court access, and insolvency declaration…precedents later cited in Justice Benjamin Curtis’s Dred Scott dissent (1857), underscoring Southern inclusivity for former slaves; meanwhile, Northern hypocrites in New Jersey disenfranchised free Blacks in 1807, and Connecticut imposed discriminatory property qualifications, exposing their own restrictive bigotry.
Even State v. Mann (1829, North Carolina Supreme Court), though prioritizing discipline by overturning a conviction for shooting a fleeing slave named Lydia, saw Judge Thomas Ruffin acknowledge slaves as “human beings” with “feelings and sensibilities,” while mandating welfare and boundaries.
Judge Nathan Green of Tennessee, born on May 16, 1792, in Amelia County, Virginia, and a towering figure on the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1831 to 1852 (after serving as state senator in 1827 and chancellor of East Tennessee from 1827 to 1831), embodied this paternalistic framework in rulings that elevated the enslaved above brute property.
In Ford v. Ford (1846), involving a will freeing slaves and bequeathing them property after the death of yeoman farmer Loyd Ford in 1842, Green affirmed their legal right to sue to probate the will, declaring with thunderous moral clarity: “a slave is not in the condition of a horse or an ox…[He] is made after the image of the Creator…He has mental capacities and an immortal principle in his nature that constitute him equal to his owner but for the accidental position to which fortune has placed him.”
Additional Southern gems reinforced the pattern: State v. Cynthia Simmons and Lawrence Kitchen (1794, South Carolina), where Judge Waites asserted, “Negroes are under the protection of the laws, and have personal rights, and cannot be considered on a footing only with domestic animals… They have wills of their own, and capacities to commit crimes,” affirming moral agency and allowing intervention in abuse through fines or owner transfers; Tennent v. Dendy (1837, South Carolina), by Judge John Belton O’Neall, emphasized slaves as deserving guards against violence, likening the master-slave bond to a parent-child relationship of benevolent stewardship.
Creswell’s Executor v. Walker (1861, Alabama Supreme Court) upheld will-based manumission, recognizing enslaved capacity for legal benefits, with codes enforcing humane care.
Collectively, these cases from Guardian of Sally to Creswell’s Executor paint the South’s more enlightened framework: granting legal personhood for suits and freedom assertions (as in Ford and Harry), self-defense (Negro Will), free Black citizenship (Manuel), and humanity with moral agency (Ford’s immortal principle).
All this unfolded under slave codes grounded in Christian duty and economic pragmatism that required provision, rest, family visits, and lenient anti-literacy rules for Bible reading, preserving healthy workers and fostering obligation.
Even as Dred Scott (1857) tested Black citizenship federally, Southern precedents like Manuel and Ford had already demonstrated earlier inclusivity, affirming the South’s moral and legal superiority in forging a stable, humane society even under the vileness of the system of institutional Slavery.
By cruel and unregulated contrast, the North’s profit-driven disposability provided none of these safeguards. Northern slave codes (such as New York’s 1702 statute and post-1712 expansions) granted masters absolute authority: slaves could not testify against Whites, sue for freedom in most cases, assemble freely, own firearms, or travel without passes.
Free Blacks faced parallel Black Codes denying voting, court access, or equal testimony (e.g., New Jersey’s 1807 disenfranchisement). Courts prioritized property rights and fugitive returns over protection, most infamously in Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), where the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Pennsylvania’s personal liberty law and upheld the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, allowing slave-catchers to seize alleged runaways without due process.
Rare prosecutions for abuse, like the 1817 New York trial of Amos and Demiss Broad, only reached court because of public outrage and the New York Manumission Society: the Broads starved and beat enslaved Betty and her toddler Sarah, whipped them publicly with a cow-skin lash, threw knives causing a “so large a gash” requiring a doctor, forced them to eat salt then denied water, exposed them naked to freezing winter cold (throwing water on them outdoors), locked Sarah in an unheated storeroom until her feet were frostbitten “so that she was hardly able to crawl,” and kicked them repeatedly, yet such cases were common occurrences in the Northern States.
The most gory horrors erupted in responses to perceived resistance. In the New York Slave Revolt of 1712, after enslaved Africans killed nine Whites, authorities executed twenty-one in spectacular public agony: twenty were burned alive at the stake (one slowly over eight to ten hours until reduced to ashes); one was broken on the wheel (limbs smashed and left to die); one was hung alive in chains in the town center without food or water until he starved to death; a pregnant woman was kept alive until she gave birth, then executed.
Governor Robert Hunter reported it as “the most exemplary punishment inflicted that could be possibly thought of,” leading to stricter codes.
In the 1741 New York Conspiracy scare (fueled by fires and panic over an alleged plot), over two hundred Blacks and some Whites were arrested; trials produced thirteen Blacks burned at the stake, seventeen to eighteen hanged, and dozens sold into harsher Caribbean slavery, with bodies displayed as warnings…all chronicled in Judge Daniel Horsmanden’s own Journal of the Proceedings (1744). Urban slavery meant grueling domestic or dock work with no mandated rest or medical care, contributing to high mortality and post-emancipation destitution, while vagrancy laws funneled free Blacks into forced labor and race riots (such as 1834 New York and Philadelphia anti-Black violence) targeted their communities.
Northern savagery offered no courtroom shield, no recognition of personhood, only profit-driven disposability and, when fear struck, theatrical state terror.
In Liberty and Eternal Vigilance,
C.M. McAteer
August 4, 2019
Updated 2024
References
Southern Key Court Cases
• Guardian of Sally v. Beatty (1792, South Carolina Supreme Court): A slave owned by Beatty purchased and manumitted another slave, Sally; Chief Justice John Rutledge upheld the manumission, recognizing the enslaved person’s agency.
• State v. Cynthia Simmons and Lawrence Kitchen (2 Bay 180, 1794, South Carolina): Involved enslaved individuals charged with a crime; the court recognized their moral agency and legal protections.
• Hudgins v. Wright (1806, Virginia Supreme Court): Freed Jackey Wright and her children based on Native American descent, as Indian slavery was prohibited in Virginia since 1705.
• Harry v. Decker & Hopkins (1818, Mississippi Supreme Court): Freed a slave who resided in the Northwest Territory, affirming legal standing under the Ordinance of 1787.
• Commonwealth v. Turner (26 Va. 678, 1827, Virginia): Convicted a slaveholder for excessive cruelty, reinforcing protections against abuse.
• State v. Mann (13 N.C. 263, 1829, North Carolina Supreme Court): Overturned a conviction for violence against a slave but acknowledged enslaved individuals as “human beings” with feelings; often cited as affirming owner authority, though the essay emphasizes the humanity aspect.
• North Carolina v. Negro Will (1834, North Carolina Supreme Court): Ruled a slave’s killing of an overseer in self-defense as manslaughter, not murder, recognizing limited self-defense rights.
• Tennent v. Dendy (1 Speers 184, 1837, South Carolina): Emphasized protections for enslaved individuals, likening the master-slave relationship to parent-child.
• North Carolina v. Manuel (1838, North Carolina Supreme Court): Recognized free Blacks as citizens with constitutional rights.
• Ford v. Ford (26 Tenn. 92, 1846, Tennessee Supreme Court): Allowed enslaved individuals to sue to probate a will for freedom, affirming their humanity beyond mere property.
• Creswell’s Executor v. Walker (37 Ala. 229, 1861, Alabama Supreme Court): Upheld manumission through a will, recognizing legal capacity for enslaved individuals.
Northern Incidents, Codes, and Court Judgments
• New York Slave Revolt of 1712: Primary account in Governor Robert Hunter’s letter to the Lords of Trade (June 23, 1712), reprinted in E.B. O’Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, Vol. V (1885), pp. 341–345. Details of executions (burnings alive, breaking on the wheel, hanging alive in chains) confirmed in multiple colonial records.
• New York Conspiracy of 1741: Primary source Daniel Horsmanden, A Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy Formed by Some White People, in Conjunction with Negro and Other Slaves (1744); modern edition edited by Thomas J. Davis (Beacon Press, 1971). Executions: 13 Blacks burned at the stake, 17–18 hanged.
• Trial of Amos and Demiss Broad (1817, New York Court of General Sessions): Court records and accounts preserved by the New York Society for the Manumission of Slaves; detailed in contemporary police reports and Manumission Society papers (see Gotham Center for New York City History analysis, 2019).
• Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 539 (1842): U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Pennsylvania’s personal liberty law and upholding the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (full opinion in official reports).
• Northern Slave Codes and Black Laws: New York 1702 and 1712 codes (The Colonial Laws of New York); Pennsylvania “Act for the Better Regulation of Negroes” and gradual abolition act (1780); New Jersey 1704 and 1713 statutes; general Black Codes documented in state session laws and secondary analyses such as “Repressive Legislation: Slave Codes, Northern Black Laws, and Southern Black Codes” (Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, 2020).
• Additional context on Northern Black Codes, vagrancy laws, and post-emancipation restrictions drawn from colonial statutes and 19th-century legal compilations.
Chet McAteer
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April 1861: When the Constitution Was Cast Aside and Sovereign States Took Their Stand
The Crimes of April 1861 mark one of the most devastating turning points in American history, whe... View MoreChet McAteer
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April 1861: When the Constitution Was Cast Aside and Sovereign States Took Their Stand
The Crimes of April 1861 mark one of the most devastating turning points in American history, when the fragile balance between federal authority and State Sovereignty, carefully constructed by the framers of the Constitution…gave way to force, coercion, and ultimately war.
In the wake of the surrender of Fort Sumter, the administration of Abraham Lincoln moved swiftly not toward reconciliation, but toward consolidation of power. Under the guise of preserving the Union, Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 troops to suppress what he termed a “rebellion,” despite the fact that several Southern States had exercised their lawful right to Secede from a Voluntary Compact, with a foundation built upon the Founding Fathers, such as James Madison:
“A Rightful Secession, requires the consent of others, or an Abuse of the Compact, absolving the Seceding Party from all obligations imposed by it.”
—James Madison
To many in the South, this act was not preservation, it was invasion.
The Constitution, as understood by the Founding generation, established a Union of States bound by Consent, not compulsion.
Yet Lincoln’s actions, taken without Congress in session, were seen by critics as a direct violation of that Compact. By unilaterally calling up troops, effectively suspending habeas corpus, and preparing military force against Sovereign States under the Principles of federalism, the executive branch assumed powers never explicitly granted.
Governors across the South and Border States responded with alarm and defiance. Claiborne Fox Jackson famously denounced the federal requisition as “illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary…inhumane and diabolical,” while Henry M. Rector rejected the demand as an insult to free people who would not be subjugated by force.
These reactions did not arise in a vacuum. The decades leading up to 1861 were marked by escalating sectional tensions rooted in competing economic systems, interpretations of Constitutional authority, and disputes over representation and taxation.
Southern States, largely agrarian and export-driven, bore a disproportionate share of federal tariff burdens, particularly with the passage of the Morrill Tariff, which many believed favored Northern industrial interests at their expense.
Leaders such as Thaddeus Stevens openly acknowledged that such policies would disadvantage the South, reinforcing the perception that the federal government no longer operated as a neutral arbiter among the States.
Equally significant was the question of Sovereignty.
Southern leaders correctly argued that the Union was a Compact among States, each retaining ultimate authority over its own affairs.
When that Compact was, in their view, violated, whether through economic coercion, political marginalization, or failure to enforce Constitutional protections, they rightly asserted the Right to Withdraw, as explained by that great lawyer William Rawles, selected by President George Washington for Attorney General of the new Republic.
“The States, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union, but while they continue, they must retain the character of representative republics. Governments of dissimilar forms and Principles cannot long maintain a binding coalition.”-William Rawle
“To withdraw from the Union is a solemn, serious act. Whenever it may appear expedient to the people of a state, it must be manifested in a direct and unequivocal manner. If it is ever done indirectly, the people must refuse to elect representatives, as well as to suffer their legislature to re-appoint senators. The senator whose time had not yet expired, must be forbidden to continue in the exercise of his functions.” -William Rawle
Thus Our Founders, who were the builders of Our Constitutional Republic were not only aware of the legal Principle of Secession but have their approval to it.
The Secession of States like South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas was thus framed not as rebellion, but as a lawful act of self-government. The formation of the Confederate States of America under Jefferson Davis represented, in this perspective, a continuation of the American revolutionary tradition rather than a repudiation of it.
As Thaddeus Stevens himself noted: "By the law of nations, which we must honor as a civilized people, the conflict between the North and South was a war between acknowledged belligerents, each defending its sovereign rights. The Southern Confederacy, formed in the spirit of 1776, severed no eternal bonds but affirmed the voluntary nature of the Union. The future of these States should rest not on the conqueror’s will, but on mutual respect and constitutional fidelity, allowing them to resume their place as equal partners rather than subjugated provinces.”
The events surrounding Fort Sumter further deepened the divide. Prior to open hostilities, efforts at compromise and peaceful resolution had been attempted, including Armistice agreements and negotiations over federal property and offers to assume their share of the taxes for the Forts.
However, the decision by the Lincoln administration to resupply and reinforce federal forts within Confederate territory, particularly Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, was rightly viewed by Southern authorities as a deliberate provocation and an open Act of War based upon the terms of the Armistice.
Even Lincoln himself acknowledged that the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, regardless of outcome, would advance his broader objective. When Confederate forces, under P. G. T. Beauregard, demanded evacuation and were refused, the resulting bombardment became the flashpoint for war.
Notably, statements from within the federal government at the time complicate the commonly held narrative that the conflict was initially waged to end slavery.
In communications to foreign powers, William H. Seward emphasized that the institution of slavery would remain unchanged regardless of the war’s outcome.
William Seward's comment completely destroys the fabricated assumption that there War was fought to end Slavery:
“The Territories will remain in all respects the same, whether the revolution shall succeed or fail. The condition of slavery in the several States will remain just the same, whether it succeed or fail… The rights of the States and the condition of every being in them will remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or fail… If it fails, the disaffected States would be members of the United States; but their Constitutions and Laws, customs, habits, and institutions will remain the same.”
November 4, 1860 An editorial in the edition of the Charleston Mercury said of the tariff crisis:
“The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government, from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism.”
November 9, 1860, the New York Herald:
“Each State is organized as a complete government, holding the purse and wielding the sword, possessing the right to break the tie of the confederation as a nation might break a treaty, and to repel coercion as a nation might repel invasion. Coercion, if it were possible, is out of the question.”
In the November 21, 1860 edition of the Cincinnati Daily Press, an editorial said of secession:
“We believe that the right of any member of this Confederacy to dissolve its political relations with the others and assume an independent position is absolute.”
Nov. 26, 1860, The New York Tribune:
“If the cotton States unitedly and earnestly wish to withdraw peacefully from the Union, we think they should and would be allowed to do so. Any attempt to competition l them by force to remain would be contrary to the principles enunciated in the immortal Declaration of Independence -- contrary to the fundamental ideas on which human liberty is based."
This acknowledgment suggests that the immediate cause of the conflict was not emancipation, but the preservation of federal authority and territorial integrity.
Thus, April 1861 stands as a moment when Constitutional interpretation, economic conflict, and political ideology collided with irreversible consequences. To those in the South, the call to arms from Washington represented not the defense of liberty, but its abandonment, a transformation of a Union of Consent into one of coercion.
Whether viewed as rebellion or resistance, the Southern response was rooted in a deeply held belief in the Principles of self-government and Constitutional limits on centralized power!
THE SOUTH WAS RIGHT!
In Liberty and Eternal Vigilance,
C.M.McAteer
January 19, 2009
References
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. IV.
Lincoln Takes Command (UNC Press, 1941).
The Civil War Day by Day (Da Capo Press, 1971).
Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.
The Story of the Confederacy.
Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, Second Session.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler.
National Archives Microfilm Publications, Civil War Records of 1861.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES
Chet McAteer
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Lincoln’s “Negro War”
How Northern Legislatures, Newspapers, and Everyday Soldiers Branded the Emancipation Proclamation a Barbaro... View MoreTHE CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES
Chet McAteer
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Lincoln’s “Negro War”
How Northern Legislatures, Newspapers, and Everyday Soldiers Branded the Emancipation Proclamation a Barbarous Usurpation and a Betrayal of the Union Cause
When Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862 and the final version on January 1, 1863, he transformed a war to preserve the Union into what many in the North openly called a “Negro war.”
Far from uniting the loyal states behind a moral crusade, the edict sparked immediate and visceral outrage across Northern legislatures, Democratic strongholds, major newspapers, and the ranks of ordinary soldiers and citizens who had enlisted to save the country, not to free enslaved people.
This was not the isolated ranting of fringe Copperheads; it was the mainstream reaction of Northern Democrats, State assemblies, editors, and fighting men who saw Lincoln’s move as Unconstitutional overreach, a dangerous incitement to racial upheaval, and a cynical betrayal that would prolong the slaughter for an alien cause.
The backlash was so intense that it fueled massive Democratic gains in the 1862 midterm elections, handed governorships and legislative majorities to the opposition in key states, and left Union armies seething with disgust and desertion threats.
Northern State legislatures, particularly in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic heartland, led the charge with formal resolutions and fiery denunciations that framed the Proclamation as an assault on white supremacy, Constitutional order, and the original war aims.
In Lincoln’s own home State of Illinois, Democratic legislators unleashed scathing attacks. One declared in open session that “Our country is becoming almost a nation of widows and orphans who, if the President’s Emancipation Proclamation be carried into effect, will become prey to the lusts of freed negroes who will overrun our country.”
The broader Democratic caucus condemned the decree as “Unconstitutional, contrary to the rules and usages of civilized warfare, calculated to bring shame, disgrace and eternal infamy upon the hitherto unsullied flag of the Republic,” vowing that “Illinois… will protest against any war which has for its object the execution or enforcement of said Proclamation.”
These were not backroom grumblings but official legislative protests that reflected the will of voters who had just handed Democrats control of the statehouse.
Pennsylvania’s Democratic convention echoed the racial panic, resolving that “This is a government of White men, and was established exclusively for the White race” and that any policy to “turn loose the slaves of the Southern States to overrun the North, and to enter into competition with the White laboring masses, thus degrading their manhood by placing them on an equality with negroes, is insulting to our race, and meets our most emphatic and unqualified condemnation.”
In New York, newly inaugurated Democratic Governor Horatio Seymour branded the Proclamation a “bloody, barbarous, revolutionary, and Unconstitutional scheme” in his inaugural address, while New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Joel Parker warned it would trigger mass slave uprisings and “mass slaughters by Southern Whites.”
Even Unionist voices in border-adjacent Northern circles, like Kentucky’s legislature (heavily influenced by Northern sentiment), signaled strong opposition, with one ally fretting that “the Legislature will take strong action against the Proclamation, and even against the Administration.”
These State-level revolts were so threatening that Illinois Governor Richard Yates eventually prorogued the legislature to block further anti-war measures, and Indiana’s Oliver Morton resorted to emergency funding to bypass Democratic majorities, clear evidence that the Proclamation had ignited a political firestorm in the North’s own capitals.
Northern newspapers, the daily voice of everyday citizens, amplified the legislative fury with editorials that mocked the Proclamation as both tyrannical and toothless.
The New York Herald, under James Gordon Bennett, thundered that “While the Proclamation leaves slavery untouched where his decree can be enforced, he emancipates slaves where his decree cannot be enforced… As a war measure it is unnecessary, unwise, ill-timed, impracticable, outside the Constitution and full of mischief.”
The New York World ridiculed Lincoln’s drafting: “The President has purposely made the Proclamation inoperative in all places where we have gained a military footing which makes the slaves accessible… The example of the accessible parts of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia renders the proclamation not merely futile, but ridiculous.”
Pennsylvania’s pro-Democrat Harrisburg Patriot and Union called it a “cold-blooded invitation to insurrection and butchery” because it promised the federal government would “do no act or acts to repress rebellion” among slaves.
Connecticut’s New Haven Register warned voters that supporting Republicans meant mortgaging “every dollar’s worth of property for the Abolitionist Disunionists to carry on this Negro war, and flood the whole North…with lazy, thieving Negroes to be supported by charity and the taxes of our people.”
Even the Washington National Intelligencer expressed “suspicion” that the document was a hollow gesture designed to expose Abolitionist folly, predicting it would prove “equally void of practical effect” as earlier failed attempts.
These were not fringe sheets but influential dailies shaping public opinion in the Union’s largest cities and industrial centers.
The outrage extended far beyond politicians and editors to everyday Northern citizens and the soldiers in the ranks, men who had volunteered to crush rebellion, not to wage an “abolition war.”
Michigan troops, representative of Midwestern farm boys and factory workers, poured out their disgust in letters and diaries. Private Benjamin B. Brock of the 26th Michigan Infantry wrote home on February 3, 1863: “i am A stiff dimocrat and i never Will vote a nother RepuBlican in my life a gain… I did not think When i Enlisted that i was a goin to fight for the negro But when i get hear i found out that i Was agoin to fight i jest turned my coat.”
Another Michigan soldier, Edward Taylor, railed against “the treachery of fanaticism” and the “snake-haired fury” of Abolition, insisting “let the white men do the fiting” and that “the negro [came] first, our country next.”
Charles H. Church of the 3rd Michigan Volunteers lamented, “The principles that we have to fight for now are to black for anyone to come out for…but we poor cuses do not want to stay out here in the field as targets & instruments for the Black Abolition party & that rotten congress any longer than possible.”
Rohloff C. Hacker reported that “the Presidents ‘emancipation proclamation’ is unqualifiedly condemned here by the Soldier – allmost all discountenance it & as untimely & useless.”
James Sligh of the Michigan Engineers and Mechanics observed soldiers so “disgusted” they felt like “about facing and clearing out the ranks.”
A New York soldier, Chauncey B. Welton, captured the common sentiment: “we don’t think mutch of [the Emancipation Proclamation] hear in the army for we did not enlist to fight for the negro and I can tell you that we neer shall or many of us anywhow no never.”
Even high-ranking Northern officers reflected the mood; General Fitz-John Porter noted the Proclamation caused “disgust, discontent, and expressions of disloyalty… amounting… to insubordination” among troops tired of fighting for anything but Union restoration, while General George B. McClellan privately called it “inaugurating servile war… changing our free institutions into a despotism.”
This groundswell of Northern opposition, articulated in statehouses, newsrooms, and army camps alike, revealed a profound truth: for millions of loyal Unionists, Lincoln’s Proclamation was not a beacon of freedom but a reckless provocation that threatened to turn the conflict into a racial nightmare while undermining the very cause they had bled for.
It contributed directly to Republican electoral disasters in 1862 and forced Lincoln to navigate constant political headwinds from his own side of the Mason-Dixon line. The North did not embrace Emancipation; it recoiled from it, exposing the Proclamation as a divisive gamble rather than a unifying triumph.
In Liberty and Eternal Vigilance,
C.M.McAteer
January 19, 2001
Updated 2023
References
Domestic Reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation, Mr. Lincoln and Freedom (mrlincolnandfreedom.org).
Reactions to the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil War Months (civilwarmonths.com, January 7, 2023).
David P. Hopkins, Jr., “The Course Pursued by the President”: Michigan Soldiers Respond to the Emancipation Proclamation (1863), Eras Journal (monash.edu PDF).
In Their Own Words: Northern Soldiers on the Emancipation Proclamation (historical letter collections cited in r/CIVILWAR and Gilder Lehrman archives).
New York Herald, New York World, Harrisburg Patriot and Union, New Haven Register editorials (September 1862–February 1863).
Illinois and Pennsylvania Democratic legislative resolutions and convention proceedings (1862–1863).
Additional primary sources from National Archives, Library of Congress Chronicling America newspapers, and soldier diaries in Auburn University and Chicago Public Library Civil War collections.
James McPherson and Allen C. Guelzo analyses of Northern political and military reactions (cross-referenced in multiple scholarly summaries).
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES
Chet McAteer
Compliance is Complicity: The Sacred Duty to Resist Unconstitutional Government in the Age of Tyranny
In our modern era, the questio... View MoreTHE CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES
Chet McAteer
Compliance is Complicity: The Sacred Duty to Resist Unconstitutional Government in the Age of Tyranny
In our modern era, the question of compliance with Unconstitutional Acts by government, whether federal, state, or local, remains a foundational test of republican principles, echoing timeless concerns about the limits of authority and the duty of citizens to preserve liberty.
When government exceeds its delegated powers, enacting measures that violate the explicit boundaries of the Constitution, blind obedience transforms Free Citizens into subjects and erodes the very Compact that created the government in the first place.
The Principles at the heart of this dilemma emphasize that the Constitution is not a grant of unlimited power but a negative charter: it restrains government rather than granting it carte blanche, reserving all undelegated authority to the States and the People.
Compliance with Unconstitutional Acts, therefore, is not a virtue of law-abiding citizenship but an abdication of the Sovereign duty to resist encroachments that undermine natural rights, federalism, and the rule of law.
At its core, this perspective rests on the idea that government derives its just powers from the Consent of the Governed, as articulated in the Founding Documents, and that Consent is conditional upon fidelity to Constitutional limits.
Unconstitutional Acts, such as those infringing on Free Speech, the Right to Bear Arms , due process, or the separation of powers, represent breaches of the original Compact among Sovereign States and their People.
In contemporary times, examples abound: expansive federal regulations that bypass enumerated powers, surveillance programs that evade Fourth Amendment protections, or mandates that compel individual behavior without clear Constitutional warrant.
The Principle here is clear: such acts are void ab initio, lacking legitimate authority, and Citizens are under no moral or legal obligation to comply with them.
Submission to Tyranny under the guise of “law” inverts the American experiment, where the People are the ultimate Sovereign and government the servant.
Resistance, however, must be Principled and measured, rooted in education, legal challenge, State Interposition, and cultural renewal rather than unchecked vigilantism.
The underlying logic underscores that true allegiance is owed not to transient officeholders or bureaucratic decrees but to the Constitution itself as the Supreme Law of the Land.
When government acts Unconstitutionally, compliance perpetuates the violation, weakening the checks and balances designed to prevent despotism; separation of powers, federalism, and the Bill of Rights as explicit prohibitions on authority.
In modern practice, this manifests in movements for nullification at the State level, lawsuits invoking the Tenth Amendment, or widespread civic refusal to legitimize overreach through participation.
The danger lies not in questioning authority but in the complacency that normalizes Unconstitutional governance, gradually converting a republic into an administrative State where Rights are privileges granted at the whim of the powerful.
Ultimately, the Principles drawn from this tradition demand vigilance: Citizens must discern the difference between legitimate law and illegitimate fiat, rejecting the latter not out of rebellion but out of fidelity to the higher law of the Constitution.
In an age of regulatory sprawl, emergency powers invoked indefinitely, and judicial interpretations that stretch textual meaning beyond recognition, unwavering compliance risks the Republic’s moral and structural foundations.
The remedy lies in a renewed commitment to Constitutional literacy, State Sovereignty as a bulwark, and the understanding that liberty is preserved only when the people refuse to legitimize their own subjugation.
By internalizing these truths, modern Americans can reclaim the revolutionary spirit that birthed the nation; affirming that no act of government, however clothed in legality, can override the Eternal Principles of limited government and Individual Sovereignty.
In Liberty and Eternal Vigilance,
C.M.McAteer
October 27, 2015
References
The Constitution of the United States (1787), particularly the Tenth Amendment, Ninth Amendment, Supremacy Clause (Article VI), and the Bill of Rights as explicit limits on federal power.
The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, which articulated that States and Citizens have a duty to judge the Constitutionality of federal acts and to resist those deemed Unconstitutional.
The Federalist Papers, especially No. 78 (Alexander Hamilton on the judiciary’s limited role) and No. 33 (Hamilton on the limits of federal authority).
Thomas Jefferson, “Declaration of Independence” (1776) and his letter to William Branch Giles (1825), emphasizing that “the rightful remedy” against Unconstitutional measures is Nullification by the States.
James Madison, Report of 1800, defending the Virginia Resolutions and the Compact Theory of the Union.
John C. Calhoun, Fort Hill Address (1831) and Disquisition on Government, expanding on State Interposition as a check on federal overreach.
Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (1867), arguing that Unconstitutional Acts void any claim to legitimate obedience.
Thomas Woods, Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century (2010), applying these principles to modern regulatory and surveillance overreach.
Randy E. Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty (2013), on the original understanding of enumerated powers and the illegitimacy of acts exceeding them.
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