by Donald Jeffries, I Protest:
The sad American track record
When British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19, 1781, it represented the high point in American History. We reached our peak at the very beginning of our existence as an independent nation. We successfully seceded from British rule. We won.
Things ran pretty smoothly under the Articles of Confederation. It gave the central government as few powers as any document possibly could. Shays’ Rebellion in 1786 revealed the ugly underbelly from the War of Independence. Those forlorn soldiers weren’t properly paid, or properly treated.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
In Massachusetts, an uprising fueled by increased taxation led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays, was eventually defeated by the state militia. The rebellion helped pave the way for the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which would radically transform the new nation’s federal government. Daniel Shays, perhaps the first American populist, and the people lost.
I defend the Constitution a lot. Because they included the Bill of Rights, and structured it around the checks and balances of three separate but equal branches of the federal government, it looked really good on paper. The Whiskey Rebellion that began in 1791, led by veterans of the War of Independence, thought they were fighting for the anti-tax ideals that sparked the revolution. It must have been especially disillusioning when President George Washington, who led the Revolutionary troops, used the new powers of the Constitution to crush the rebellion, leading military troops himself at one point. The people, and the spirit of Independence, lost.
During Washington’s administration, two factions emerged. One was led by Alexander Hamilton, who supported a more powerful central government, and the other by Thomas Jefferson, who thought that government was best that governed the least. Hamilton and company wanted the federal government to assume the debt from the Revolutionary War, and pushed for a National Bank. Jefferson thought the states should charter their own banks. Hamilton persuaded Washington, and both debt and a National Bank became a reality. Some 230 years later, Hamilton has become a revered Black Broadway star, and Jefferson is a despised “racist.” The people lost.
Thomas Jefferson fought the good fight on many counts, without much success. John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, first shattered the checks and balances between the three branches by instituting “Judicial Review,” whereby the Supreme Court could overturn legislation by “interpreting” whether it was constitutional. Jefferson recognized how dangerous this was, and strongly opposed it, on the grounds that it would give the Judiciary greater powers than the Legislative and Executive branches. “Judicial Review” became ingrained in the system. Both the Left and Right support it wholeheartedly. Jefferson, and the people lost.
President James K. Polk was the first executive to overstep his constitutional boundaries. The first ten presidents had restrained from doing so for the most part. Polk launched an aggressive war against Mexico, taking over a great deal of land in the process. U.S. troops committed the kinds of atrocities that have become all too familiar to us. Ironically, one of those bitterly opposing Polk’s war of aggression was then Congressman Abraham Lincoln. “Manifest Destiny,” or the notion that America was destined, by God, to expand its borders. Polk paved the way for Lincoln to become the first imperial president. Once again, the people lost.
When the original seven southern states began seceding from the Union in December, 1860, they appeared to have every right to do so. After all, the American colonies had seceded from British rule, and built their War of Independence on the principle that all people have a right to consent to those who govern them. Clearly, the Confederate states no longer consented by 1860. Abraham Lincoln figuratively raped the non- consenting states with a “Total War” strategy the world had never seen before. Nearly a million Americans would die senselessly. The Union forever became non-voluntary. The people utterly and unequivocally lost.
Read More @ donaldjeffries.substack.com
