I have a new favorite song. I discovered it during the promotional build-up to the annual football contest between two worthy academic institutions: The University of Michigan and The Ohio State University. I don’t know whether the song has a title, but it is sung to the tune of “ The Old Grey Mare” (she ain’t what she used to be ):
“ I can’t stand the whole state of Michigan;
the whole state of Michigan, the whole
state of Michigan. I can’t stand the whole
state of Michigan; I’m from O-HI-O.”
I love this song: it portrays for me both the fact that the game of life is inherently competitive and that we Americans generally try to temper that competition with fair play and humor.
I have recently begun to hum this tune to myself while substituting the words “ federal government “ for “state of Michigan.” I am not from O-HI-O.
The bedrock of our country, The Declaration of Independence, proclaimed our God-given natural right to secede and form a new country. One year later, in 1777, the states’ delegates in Congress ratified the “Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union” which, among other imperfections, nullified the right to secede. ( Art. XIII). Fortunately, by ratifying the Constitution in 1788, the drafters thereof acknowledged that no piece of paper could foreclose the God-given natural right to secede; the rule of law is operative only in the absence of mass disobedience. As respects so many other issues, the Constitution neither acknowledges nor denies a right of secession —it is merely silent.
Unfortunately, when the Constitution is silent, ambiguous or disregarded, the practitioners of politics attempt to take control. As you have observed, politicians are engaged in business for themselves-any concurrence between a politician’s goals and our country’s well-being is purely coincidental.
Competition is the driving force in the game of life. There was a time, between 1845and 1861, when the federal government was up for grabs. By 1850, the nation had in fact, if not law, split North and South: the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and the Congress, by their actions presaged the split. In 1860, the split was confirmed when Lincoln was elected by only 40% of the votes, all from the North. The Confederate States of America (CSA), with its own constitution patterned after ours, would have become the worthy competitor which our country needed to become its best self. Unfortunately, Lincoln, a classic politician, could not accept this result, so he goaded the Southern politicians from the 7 secessionist deep-south states into firing the first shot; the calamity, known euphemistically as the Civil War, followed. You can look it up—all of it.
What might have been, if the politician Lincoln had instead simply wished the 7 bon voyage? The USA, freed from its post-revolutionary bargain with the slave states, might have jettisoned slavery constitutionally; immediately purchased Alaska from Russia; and absorbed British North America. The CSA, seeking to expand, might have saved Mexico from itself and, under economic and psychological pressure, emancipated its slaves voluntarily. Alas, we’ll never know.
What are we to do with our federal government now? As a practical matter, secession is not a viable option. The “civil” war produced as many as 850,000 deaths; a comparable embarrassment today might cause 8,500,000 deaths, the only benefit of which might be to reduce our fear of COVID-19 and its progeny. Nevertheless, our federal government, with its demagogues and unaccountable bureaucracy, needs to be cut down to size.
Our 50 states, under competitive pressure from one another, are more than capable of providing for the health, education and welfare of their residents. Our ability to vote with our feet as well as our hands provides citizens with a modicum of control unavailable at the federal level. Domestic functions currently paid for by the federal government should be controlled and paid for by the states. The federal government’s role should be limited to international issues (including common defense and general welfare) and candidates for federal office should be evaluated on the basis of their presumed competence to make the critical judgements necessary to preserve and defend ourselves in the world as it is.
Ideally, candidates for federal elective office should need to convince us of their understanding of the security and other international issues facing our country and their plan to fashion a federal judiciary willing to return the balance of domestic powers to the individual states pursuant to Amendments IX and X of our Constitution as originally ratified. Most importantly, this would require that Amendment XIV be read narrowly in view of its obvious relationship to the unnecessary war which undermined our best opportunity to confront our racial and other hang-ups.
Of course, we must not sacrifice the good if the ideal is not immediately available. At a minimum, therefore, we should insist that such candidates know the difference between Mexico and New Mexico!
Perhaps some of the punditocracy and their minions who earn their living giving voice to demagoguery could take some time off to assist us in this effort to remove the federal government’s foot from our necks. In the meantime, I’m going to keep humming my tune.
I suspect many of the candidates don’t know the difference between Mexico and Canada. JMO
“….that such candidates know the difference between Mexico and New Mexico!”
The latter being the name of a northern administrative district of the former until it was seized and appropriated in the 1848 war of invasion and of forceful territorial aggrandizement by the incipient US empire. This war being the practice run and military training exercise for Lincoln’s subsequent invasion of another sovereign country.
Very true. The power covetously gripped by our present Federal Government must be winnowed, dispersed, and stratified. Why cannot the Constitution be followed as the Framers intended? Why is that so hard to do? Like the Sanhedrin at the execution of St. Stephen, our federal bureaucracy is all concerned with the letter of the law as a means of power, but they have conveniently forgotten Law’s heart.
Well said, couldn’t agree more, and I’m not from O-HI-O either!
One of the biggest issues that I believe has transcended time since the pre Northern Aggression days is the “Feral Government,” does not recognize GOD, or our natural rights, their agenda is the only thing they see.
And just as a semi side note, was Lincolns 2nd term illegal? That I am aware of he didn’t consider the south in the election of 1864, wasn’t he trying to keep the “Union” together?
Smacks of power grab to me!
Deo Vindice
R.E. Lee “Marse” Wolfe