Brion McClanahan Speculates on the Future

March 1, 1781

FPR: Liberty or Empire? Reconsidering the Articles of Confederation by Alexander Salter

In general, the pro-centralization party was dismayed at the democratic and egalitarian consequences of the Revolution. Too many plebeians were getting elected to state legislatures. Instead of a decentralized, democratic federation, the centralizers wanted a quasi-aristocratic “empire of liberty,” led by wealthy men of leisure, authorized to build a state that would rival the empires of Europe. The Constitution, in comparison to the Articles, grants the central government extensive powers to impose taxes, micromanage trade, raise an army and a navy, and otherwise undertake the activities expected of a late-18th century nation aspiring to international greatness.

Viewed this way, the Constitution was an attempt by conservatives to create a fiscal-military state. Our civic religion trumpets the Constitution as a triumph of freedom. In reality, as historian Sheldon Richman argues, “it was a counter-revolution, in many ways a reversal of the radical achievement represented by America’s break with the British Empire.”

Family went to see Hamilton last night.


History on the Net: #100: Alexander Hamilton’s Broadway Musical is Great, but Brion McClanahan Thinks He Screwed Up America

State Sovereignty

The Imaginative Conservative: The Articles of Confederation and State Sovereignty by Nathan Coleman

Two Promising Articles from The Imaginative Conservative

The Articles of Confederation and State Sovereignty by Nathan Coleman

The Revolutionary Conservatism of Jefferson & Small Republics by Arthur J. Versluis

'How About Confederation Day?'

William Watkins

The Death of Jeffersonianism

“His Accidency:” The Indispensable John Tyler by Dave Benner

and Lest We Forget Southern History by R.E. Smith, Jr.

What's a Southron to do?

CHT: The Southern Project: Restoring the Old or Ushering in the New

Anti-Federalists, Federalists, and State Sovereignty by Joe Wolverton II

It should be well understood that federalist and anti-federalist alike favored limited government that acted according to the will of the people. The difference between these parties (although they would not have described themselves as partisans) was one of degree: The federalist favored a stronger, more dynamic national government while the anti-federalists desired a union where the states would be the dominant force in the federal configuration. Curiously, these differences became more marked in the years that followed the ratification of the Constitution and the resulting fissure that appeared eventually ripped the fabric of the union in two pieces: North and South.

But what did the states want? A national government or a federal government?

Perpetual Union in the Articles of Confederation

In a certain magazine devoted to the "Civil War," a reader writes to tell us that it is obvious that secession is illegal, because in the Articles of Confederation it is stated that the states seek perpetual union. (An argument that Lincoln himself resorted to.) But is it so obvious?

Is this wording just an instance of wishful thinking, with no legal ramififaction or mandate on the part of the Federal government to prevent secession? What happened with the ratification of the Constitution? Arguably, it was secession, as the states withdrew and ratified a new constitution.

AN ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LEGAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST SECESSION by Jim Ostroski
The Constitutional Right of Secession by James Spence
The Legality of Secession
Secession - A Peculiar Concept by Scott T. Whiteman, Esq.
A discussion on FB
A Southern View of History - The War for Southern Independence, Part 1
The Legality of Secession
The Right of States to Secede, New York Daily News, November 16, 1860

A yankee sees secession as traitorous: How the South rationalizes secession.