Tell the left-wingers it’s hands off
To the Editor:
It has been refreshing to see so many on the political left protesting tariffs recently.
For anyone who is not aware, it is well documented that tariffs, not slavery, were the primary reason for the Southern States to secede in the 1860s.
The centralized federal government was usurping the 9th and 10th amendments by overtaxing goods imported and exported from southern ports while using that revenue to only benefit special interest in the northern atates.
Abraham Lincoln, in response to the suggestion by the Virginian Commissioners to abandon the customhouse of Fort Sumter, even said, “If I do that, what would become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once!”
Housekeeping is a euphemism for federal spending, in other words, taxing consumers to subsidize special interests, or what we would call corporate welfare today. Crony capitalism was blatantly unconstitutional and the southern states had every right to leave a voluntary union in the same fashion as the 13 colonies desiring to secede from a centralized British empire.
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Lincoln also was quoted in 1848 supporting secession: “Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”
He was merely expressing the near-universally held Jeffersonian principle that sovereign States held more authority than the federal government in a voluntary union. Lincoln and his radical Republican Party proceeded to unilaterally destroy the Constitution on multiple levels, yet all of this real American history is forgotten to an uninformed society. So, thank you to the recent protesters for keeping the liberty spirit of our Confederate ancestors alive.
In the meantime, I agree with hands off my tax dollars, which were not intended for pet projects and the corrupt, virtue-signaling socialists who spew social engineering garbage non-stop. The U.S. Treasury is not a slush fund and a money laundering operation for left-wing non-government organizations to make politicians rich.
Also, hands off my children at school. They are not there to be indoctrinated into Marxist ideologies. Hands off our free speech rights. For years, leftists have used the process of cancelling people who simply wanted to express their own ideas. No reasonable person believes free speech can only be allowed if it agrees with leftist's distorted views.
Finally, hands off the American family. The Democratic Party has done everything possible to destabilize the concept of families because they believe that our ultimate allegiance should be to the government. All of these ideas have been tried in the past and failed miserably, but keep protesting to show your true colors.
Jeff Rockwell
Macon County
