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T Lee Horne III

Male. Lives in Pensacola, Florida, United States. Is single.

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I retired when I turned 50 years old. I am working again at 72 years old.

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CSA II: The New Confederate States of America

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T Lee Horne III

April 18, 2026 7:29 am

Chet McAteer · 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 · 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.

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