Rethinking the Declaration of Independence

Federalist No. 34

Federalist No. 50

Federalist No. 58

The Calamity of Appomattox

by H.L. Mencken

[From the American Mercury, Sept., 1930, pp. 29-31]

No American historian, so far as I know, has ever tried to work out the probable consequences if Grant instead of Lee had been on the hot spot at Appamattox. How long would the victorious Confederacy have endured? Could it have surmounted the difficulties inherent in the doctrine of States’ Rights, so often inconvenient and even paralyzing to it during the war? Could it have remedied its plain economic deficiencies, and become a self-sustaining nation? How would it have protected itself against such war heroes as Beauregard and Longstreet, Joe Wheeler and Nathan D. Forrest? And what would have been its relations to the United States, socially, economically, spiritually and politically?

I am inclined, on all these counts, to be optimistic. The chief evils in the Federal victory lay in the fact, from which we still suffer abominably, that it was a victory of what we now call Babbitts over what used to be called gentlemen. I am not arguing here, of course, that the whole Confederate army was composed of gentlemen; on the contrary, it was chiefly made up, like the Federal army, of innocent and unwashed peasants, and not a few of them got into its corps of officers. But the impulse behind it, as everyone knows, was essentially aristocratic, and that aristocratic impulse would have fashioned the Confederacy if the fortunes of war had run the other way. Whatever the defects of the new commonwealth below the Potomac, it would have at least been a commonwealth founded upon a concept of human inequality, and with a superior minority at the helm. It might not have produced any more Washingtons, Madisons, Jeffersons, Calhouns and Randolphs of Roanoke, but it would certainly not have yielded itself to the Heflins, Caraways, Bilbos and Tillmans.

The rise of such bounders was a natural and inevitable consequence of the military disaster. That disaster left the Southern gentry deflated and almost helpless. Thousands of the best young men among them had been killed, and thousands of those who survived came North. They commonly did well in the North, and were good citizens. My own native town of Baltimore was greatly enriched by their immigration, both culturally and materially; if it is less corrupt today than most other large American cities, then the credit belongs largely to Virginians, many of whom arrived with no baggage save good manners and empty bellies. Back home they were sorely missed. First the carpetbaggers ravaged the land, and then it fell into the hands of the native white trash, already so poor that war and Reconstruction could not make them any poorer. When things began to improve they seized whatever was seizable, and their heirs and assigns, now poor no longer, hold it to this day. A raw plutocracy owns and operates the New South, with no challenge save from a proletariat, white and black, that is still three-fourths peasant, and hence too stupid to be dangerous. The aristocracy is almost extinct, at least as a force in government. It may survive in backwaters and on puerile levels, but of the men who run the South today, and represent it at Washington, not 5%, by any Southern standard, are gentlemen.

If the war had gone with the Confederates no such vermin would be in the saddle, nor would there be any sign below the Potomac of their chief contributions to American Kultur—Ku Kluxry, political ecclesiasticism, nigger-baiting, and the more homicidal variety of wowserism. Such things might have arisen in America, but they would not have arisen in the South. The old aristocracy, however degenerate it might have become, would have at least retained sufficient decency to see to that. New Orleans, today, would still be a highly charming and civilized (if perhaps somewhat zymotic) city, with a touch of Paris and another of Port Said. Charleston, which evn now sprouts lady authors, would also sprout political philosophers. The University of Virginia would be what Jefferson intended it to be, and no shouting Methodist would haunt its campus. Richmond would be, not the dull suburb of nothing that it is now, but a beautiful and consoling second-rate capital, comparable to Budapest, Brussels, Stockholm or The Hague. And all of us, with the Middle West pumping its revolting silo juices into the East and West alike, would be making frequent leaps over the Potomac, to drink the sound red wine there and breathe the free air.

My guess is that the two Republics would be getting on pretty amicably. Perhaps they’d have come to terms as early as 1898, and fought the Spanish-American War together. In 1917 the confiding North might have gone out to save the world for democracy, but the South, vaccinated against both Wall Street and the Liberal whim-wham, would have kept aloof—and maybe rolled up a couple of billions of profit from the holy crusade. It would probably be far richer today, independent, than it is with the clutch of the Yankee mortgage-shark still on its collar. It would be getting and using his money just the same, but his toll would be less. As things stand, he not only exploits the South economically; he also pollutes and debases it spiritually. It suffers damnably from low wages, but it suffers even more from the Chamber of Commerce metaphysic.

No doubt the Confederates, victorious, would have abolished slavery by the middle of the 80s. They were headed that way before the war, and the more sagacious of them were all in favor of it. But they were in favor of it on sound economic grounds, and not on the brummagem moral grounds which persuaded the North. The difference here is immense. In human history a moral victory is always a disaster, for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the vanquished. The triumph of sin in 1865 would have stimulated and helped to civilize both sides.

Today the way out looks painful and hazardous. Civilization in the United States survives only in the big cities, and many of them—notably Boston and Philadelphia—seem to be sliding down to the cow country level. No doubt this standardization will go on until a few of the more resolute towns, headed by New York, take to open revolt, and try to break out of the Union. Already, indeed, it is talked of. But it will be hard to accomplish, for the tradition that the Union is indissoluble is now firmly established. If it had been broken in 1865, life would be far pleasanter today for every American of any noticable decency. There are, to be sure, advantages in Union for everyone, but it must be manifest that they are greatest for the worst kinds of people. All the benefit that a New Yorker gets out of Kansas is no more than what he might get out of Saskatchewan, the Argentine pampas, or Siberia. But New York to a Kansan is not only a place where he may get drunk, look at dirty shows and buy bogus antiques; it is also a place where he may enforce his dunghill ideas upon his betters.

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The United States Is Not a Nation!

Eight Nobel Peace Prize laureates have been members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a leading progressive globalist organization that predated the United Nations and has as a prime directive the promotion of world democracy and human rights.  That sounds nice, but the United States is not a member and several member states violate the core principles of the organization.  But, one world government, what George H. W. Bush called the New World Order, has been a primary aim of the progressive movement for generations.  Several other laureates have worked with The Hague Tribunal, the progenitor of the International Court of Justice and “legal” arm of the globalist movement, and many American proponents of the ICJ believe the United States Constitution should be superseded by international law and ICJ decisions.  Progressives rejoice.

The first American to receive the award, Teddy Roosevelt, was better known for his belligerent attitude toward Latin American through the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine than for his actions for peace.  In fact, Roosevelt was a firm proponent of the Spanish-American War and the quest to detach the Philippines and Cuba from Spain.  The Republican Party claimed the war was for “humanity’s sake,” but the resulting Filipino-American War and the general rebuke of American involvement in Cuba should have been a clue that most Cubans and Filipinos did not want to be under the yoke of the United States.

Woodrow Wilson, the next sitting American president to be awarded the prize, publically pledged to keep the United States out of World War I, but privately maneuvered into a position where war was the only option.  His first Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, resigned after he concluded Wilson was being disingenuous about his desire to keep the United States out of the war in Europe.  Wilson claimed American entrance into the conflict was to make the world “safe for democracy,” though his punitive and dictated peace helped spawn World War II twenty years later.  Wilson was ultimately awarded the award for his proposed League of Nations; however, many Americans rightly rejected the League because they believed it would continually involve the United States in wars against “aggression.”  Wilson’s pursuit of “peace” was hardly peaceful.

And the list of American progressive globalists does not end there.  Elihu Root, Charles Dawes (author of the retaliatory Dawes Reparation Plan following World War I), Frank Kellogg, Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler (who admired Benito Mussolini), Cordell Hall (the “Father of the United Nations”), Emily Greene Balch, Ralph Bunche (friend of accused communist spy Alger Hiss), George Marshall (who potentially allowed for the rise of communist China), Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and now Barack Obama fit the bill.  This is not to denigrate all of their particular accomplishments, but simply to make a point.  If the American nominee is not a leftist, he or she has a minimal chance of winning the award or of even being nominated.

Focusing on Obama’s lack of accomplishments misses the big picture.  In essence, who cares?  Progressive globalists have their man in office, and they are not going to let that go to waste.  Even those who support him have admitted the award was politically motivated.  American conservatives should show indifference over the award, not because international peace is not a worthwhile goal, but because the progressive methods of achieving it has long involved the subjugation of American sovereignty to a world government or world court, and both organizations are typically headed by democratic socialists.  Conservatives have no chance of winning.  The best thing to do would be to mock the award, continue the fight against progressive globalism, and say thanks but no thanks to “world peace” that involves a New World Order based on socialism.  Of course, Americans have to repudiate that at home first.

The process of appointing “czars” began in the Franklin Roosevelt administration.  Roosevelt called them “dictators,” but that is simply semantics.  Historically, these individuals have had little impact on the “crisis” they have been appointed to manage, but they are paid out of the treasury, are often unconfirmed by the Congress, and are trusted with, as the name suggests, dictatorial power over their respective department or agency.  The term “czar,” of course, is derived from Julius Caesar, the famous Roman dictator who ultimately destroyed the Roman republic.  That is hardly flattering language, and for most of American history, the name Caesar, tsar, or czar, have been derogatory terms.  In fact, it would be sufficient to say that no president or political leader in the founding period, save for perhaps Alexander Hamilton, wanted to be attached to Caesar’s dubious reputation.  Leave it to the federal government to change that.

Patrick Henry equated Caesar with tyranny during debate over the Stamp Act in 1765: “Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third may profit by their example.”  And Thomas Jefferson considered Caesar a fine example of government through force, nothing more.  Is this what Americans expect from the federal government, force and tyranny?  Where are constitutional restraint, congressional oversight, and the limitation on power?  The founders certainly believed in the necessity of all three, but the federal “czars” typically face very little scrutiny or checks on their authority.

Proponents will argue that some of these individuals have been appointed through the Senate confirmation process.  That is the same Senate that also approves virtually all usurpations of their constitutional authority by the executive branch and has become a rubber stamp for bigger, more expensive and intrusive, unconstitutional government.  Supporters may also contend that a president should have the ability to choose his advisors.  True.  But that is why the president has a cabinet.  George Washington, for example, relied almost solely on his cabinet during his two terms in office and often excluded John Adams, his vice-president, because he was not a cabinet member, much to Adams’ dismay.  As president, Adams called his cabinet heads “masters,” and at times he had very little control over them, but they were hardly “dictators” or “czars.”  And again, they were the heads of constitutional departments.  Modern “czars” are not.

It was not until the Andrew Jackson administration that a president relied heavily on extra-departmental “advisors.”  Jackson’s “Kitchen Cabinet,” a group of political allies and advisors that did include a couple of cabinet members, helped Jackson navigate the executive office, and many of his cabinet appointments were revolving doors.  Those refusing to do his will or the collective will of the “Kitchen Cabinet” were shown the door.  Perhaps that is why a leftist like John Meacham, Newsweek editor and author of American Lion, finds him so enticing.  Jackson, in many ways, personified executive abuse and in that way his administration is a blueprint for the modern presidency.  The Founders would have cringed.

If modern presidents followed their constitutional role diligently, as the five members of the founding generation who held that office did to a great degree, “czars” would be considered an unconscionable abuse of power. Washington wished to avoid any appearance of royalty or of military dictatorship, and his successors, with few exceptions, were willing to let congress direct the legislative agenda of the federal government.  Such has not been the case with the modern imperial presidency.  “Czars” have become an extension of the growth of the federal bureaucracy and the strengthening of the executive branch.

So, what can be done?  Congress could refuse to pay the “czars” or it could legislate them out of existence.  To be sure, the president would fight by claiming “executive privilege” and the case would most certainly end up in court.  But the Constitution would be on the side of Congress.  As it states in Article II, Section II, the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”  “Czars” would fall under this section and should be eliminated by law.  Or, state legislatures could simply refuse to enact their “decrees,” and in essence neutralize and nullify their authority.  Either move would take legislative backbone, something the United States has not seen in decades.

Thus, Van Jones can come or go, but his removal is a very small victory in a full-scale political and ideological war.  Until Congress or the states stand up to executive authority, the president will appoint more “czars”—by the way, George W. Bush had 35—and the government will continue to devolve into a centralized despotism.  Celebrate the victory, but don’t rest on your laurels.  Now, what about the other 31, and while we’re at it, what about the Constitution, Mr. President?

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