Judicial Tyranny:

Lincoln’s Legacy

In the spring of 1861 Abraham Lincoln ordered the invasion of the Old Line State. What took place in Maryland in the early days of the so called Civil War is central to the whole conflict: If historians and scholars fail to understand Lincoln’s policy towards this small Southern state, then they fail to understand the war itself; they fail to understand the great national tragedy that began with the spilling of blood on the streets of Baltimore that distant April day. Much is made of Fort Sumter, where no lives were lost,
but little of Baltimore. Only a handful of unreconstructed Southerners and the occasional honest Yankee know what really happened in Maryland 140 years ago, and how the crushing of one tiny, sovereign state forever changed the political landscape in America.

For such an "unremarkable" place, as a Weekly Standard writer once labeled Maryland, it seems that everyone but everyone wishes to re-write her history. By lying about

Maryland’s political temperament before the war and about the invasion and occupation of the state by Union forces, revisionists don’t have to confront the truth about Lincoln nor the irreparable harm he did to our nation.

Lincoln bequeathed to America a federal government that has grown too large and too powerful and a judicial system that does everything but serve justice. Today the courts have become merely a tool of tyrants, the Constitution a meaningless document thanks to Honest Abe and his minions.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney (pronounced Tawny) was one of many Marylanders who stood up to Lincoln and his outrages. Taney, like Sir Thomas More who would have given the Devil himself benefit of law, defended unionist, secessionist, slaveholder and
abolitionist alike from a fast and loose interpretation of the Constitution. While denouncing slavery from the bench and having freed his own slaves years before the war, Taney is most famous for delivering the majority opinion in the Dred Scott vs. Sandford case of 1857,a ruling which many believe, led directly to the War

Between the States. In 1861 the pro-union Chief Justice challenged Lincoln’s constitutional abuses. The arrogant dismissal by Lincoln’s agents of the writs of habeas corpus and attachment issued by Taney in the John Merryman trial in May of that year, however, left Taney with no recourse but to ask in vain
that Lincoln render to Maryland that which was her birthright.

Revisionists like neoconservative Sean Hannity view Taney as an evil man who defended slavery. They haven’t brains enough to understand that he was strictly interpreting the Constitution whether he agreed with it or not. He wasn’t defending slavery; he considered slavery evil.

In the aftermath of the WBTS, the military junta in DC, employing any means necessary, pushed through the 13th and 14th amendments. It is the latter that has put our liberties in jeopardy.

Ironically it was the basis for the Supreme Court ruling that put George Bush into office. However pleasing the ramifications of the high court’s decision might have been to
conservatives...Bush is not a real conservative, but he was a far better man than was his ego maniacal opponent..the Supreme Court should have stayed out of the Florida election and have allowed the duly elected state legislature to rein in its criminal and out of control state supreme court.

But the US Supreme Court’s ruling was not insupportable. They held that Gore could not pick and choose which votes he wished recounted; he had to submit to a total recount or no recount. By ruling this way, the court in effect gave the election to Bush because there was not sufficient time to do a total recount. The court strictly interpreted the odious 14th amendment. Gore, desiring to change election laws in the middle of an election, ignoring the Constitution and rule by concurrent majority, attempted a coup d’etat, but was foiled by an amendment that usually works forliberals. The 14th, which was illegally "passed" in the dark days following Mr. Lincoln’s war, is the basis
for all sorts of liberal misdeeds. The equal protection clause of the amendment takes power away from the states and gives it to the federal government. The founding fathers’ intended that the states be protected from the federal government. Now the federal government in the name of
"equal protection" for each individual has robbed states of most of their power.

States should have the right to decide matters such as gun control and abortion for themselves, but the omnipotent central government in DC rules with an iron hand and imposes its will in the name of "individual rights."

Liberal federal judges are ruling from the bench, while spineless Republicans allow the Democrats in Congress to stall Bush’s conservative or relatively conservative judicial appointments. One hundred forty years ago, a backwoods dictator said, "Do things our way, or we will send an army and force your compliance at the point of a bayonet." After the conclusion of the war and the concomitant passage of the 14th amendment by an illegitimate process and by an illegitimate government, the statist dictators running our country say, "You will do things our way or we will force compliance with federal court rulings." And when even the 14th amendment becomes problematic in the consolidation of political power in Washington, it like any and all other amendments will be deliberately misapplied or ignored altogether. There is no rhyme or reason to tyranny. We now have the despot sophist’s dream come true: a federal judiciary ruling without any serious reference to the actual meaning of the law of the land.

Next Time: A Gentleman Farmer

Parsing Politicians Sell America Down the River

As I have said many times in this column, those on the left are brilliant propagandists. They are not intelligent nor are they well educated, but they are crafty and sly. They have what Shakespeare called mother wit.

They have most of America believing that there is a Constitutional prohibition against offending certain ethnic or racial groups. More and more we hear that someone’s words—written or spoken— are "divisive." Even simple truth telling these days is often seen as hate mongering by the left. These charges of divisiveness carry with them the scary implication that somehow people must curb free speech if some are offended.

Those who would rob us of our basic liberties are taking aim at all forms of expression. Recently, on an AM radio station, I listened to two apparently liberal types discussing the newest Mel Gibson movie on the life and crucifixion of Christ. It is noteworthy that neither of the liberals had seen the film yet they had formed strong opinions about it. Calling the movie..you guessed it.. divisive and offensive to Jewish people, they questioned whether or not it should have been produced in the first place. The radio pundits did not say who should stop movie producers like Gibson from making films the pundits don’t like. Perhaps they were thinking of Government censorship...something which America is inexorably moving towards.

Two-bit totalitarians are defining the terms of the debate. They have most of us thinking that we have to choose our words carefully. Those of us who will not be cowed, who will not be silent are branded as crazy, dangerous or both. Students of history...the few of us that are left...will find these tactics for dealing with dissidents familiar. In the old Soviet Union, insane asylums were filled with dissenters.

The liberal elite...those among us who are just a little more equal than the rest... have divided us up into warring factions which they manipulate and pit against each other to stay in power. Free speech is nothing if not a huge impediment to them. In the not too distant future, it will be illegal to tell the truth if the truth is politically incorrect and to speak out against flawed liberal ideas such as affirmative action and unchecked immigration.

Soon we will not be permitted to say that America is under silent attack, that we are being overrun by immigrants... in particular Hispanics. Liberals who are surreptitiously reading this commentary will be horrified at what they consider my narrow-mindedness, my bigotry, my xenophobia. But I am not narrow-minded, bigoted nor xenophobic. I am not an ethnocentric. I find the cultures of the world fascinating and enjoy learning about them. I am proud to claim several people of Mexican descent as my blood kin.

Two of these kinsmen, cousins of mine, whose grandfather was assassinated while running for office in Mexico, are poised and beautifully educated. They were raised in Washington, D.C., Europe and South America and are the products of wealth and posh private schools. Yet, because they are "Hispanic," in today’s upside down America, they could, if they were of that mind set, call themselves disadvantaged and claim entitlement to special considerations in the work place and in other areas of life.

The term "Hispanic" is contrived. It lumps together people of many diverse cultures and paints them all as second class citizens of the world. But in reality, the old European Spanish culture is quite distinct from other Latin American cultures which in turn are each unique. The ruling liberal elite, for convenience, have pieced together a large useful victim group to which to pander to garner votes to stay in power. Hispanic newcomers legal and illegal are beginning to have an effect on our government. Gray Davis and his henchmen in the California legislature by granting illegals drivers’ licenses have in effect made it possible for these undocumented aliens to vote in the next presidential election. California carries a lot of weight in the union because of the large number of electoral votes the state has. But Gray Davis and his ilk would rather rule in a hellish Balkanized America than to serve in a nation of laws grounded in the Constitution and natural rights. Hopefully Davis’s days as governor of the Golden State are numbered.

Besides recalling self-serving incompetents from office, Americans should be asking themselves these questions: "How many more immigrants ...legal and illegal...should we allow to cross our borders and land on our shores...a million, two million, tens of millions, all the people in the world who wish to come here?"... "What percentage of our hard-earned wages should we give to the government to pay for services to the minions at our temple door.... 50%, 70%, 90%?"

Sometimes I consider leaving the United States because it is deteriorating so rapidly. I’ve heard that Switzerland for all its socialistic programs still, because of a
liberty-protecting constitution, allows its citizens to live in relative freedom. And of course, it is a lovely country.

But, on second thought, Switzerland wouldn’t have me... I am too old. They do not admit immigrants over a certain age. That nation, unlike America, protects its sovereignty and can control immigration as it chooses. Liberal politicians say nothing about the ageism of the Swiss.

Cooler heads need to prevail here in our country and must not allow scheming liberal politicians to define the argument. The fact that we are "a nation of immigrants" doesn’t mean America cannot protect her borders and enforce immigration laws. Cynical politicians tell us we need illegal immigrants to take jobs
that go unfilled. These same politicians decry the high unemployment rate.

They must not be allowed to define the debate with their illogical arguments and implied threats to free
speech. Americans can love the peoples of the world and protect our borders and way of life at the same time. Vaya con Dios.

Next Time: Back to History

Isaac Mayo:

Urban elitists who write the "news" and commentaries for liberal newspapers never cease to irritate me with their question begging. Question begging, for those of you unfamiliar with Aristotelian logic.. and that would be most people today, is the act of proceeding as if something is already a proven fact when its veracity has not been established. Question begging is a debating trick designed to confound unwitting, addle-brained polemical opponents...but I am not unwitting nor addle-brained and neither are my readers (excepting those Yankee liberal elitists surreptitiously reading The Rag and this column).

Young journalists and not so young journalists —who all seem to be liberal Yankees or deracinated Southerners... not much different from Yankees— presume that the cause of the South was benighted, evil. They cannot defend their presumption; they just feel —they are nothing if not touchy feelly —that the South was bad. But when asked to explain why the South was wrong, they babble sophomoric sound bites they’ve heard from Dan Rather and mouth the Marxist cant they’ve been spoon fed by left wing "educators." They know almost nothing about the War for Southern Independence, but this does not stop them from palming off their stale leftist cliches as savvy journalism.

In a piece that appeared in the Baltimore Sun on August 11th, Carl Schoettler barely conceals his happiness over the misguided attempts of the descendants of Marylander Isaac Mayo to "clear" the latter’s name. Implicit in Schoettler’s reporting on the matter is his conviction that service in the Confederate army was something shameful. Not at any point in Schoettler’s article, does he ever suggest that serving the South might be a noble endeavor for a military man nor demonstrate even the most juvenile grasp of the events that occurred across those five Aprils so long ago.

Schoettler writes: "Commodore Isaac Mayo served his country long and well, but his Civil War
stance cost him his rank and good name. Today, a descendant has won a battle to restore both. Schoettler calls Isaac Mayo’s resignation from the Union navy a "dark stain of dishonor" that had "marred the reputation of the brilliant but neglected Maryland ‘Naval Warrior...’

At the beginning of the War Between the States, Mayo who was in his sixties, resigned his commission. On May 18, 1861 his dismissal was ordered... presumably by Lincoln. But Mayo’s great-great-grandson Thomas Henry Gaither Bailliere Jr.,along with other family members, insists that Mayo died on May 10th and has spent almost thirty years trying to "vindicate" his great great grandfather’s name on a mere technicality. Bailliere for three decades has proclaimed that his ancestor was not a vile Confederate but a Union hero. And he is correct in some regards: Mayo, who was from Anne Arundel County, was a Naval hero who served the old American Republic well, but his last act in life was to throw his lot in with the South. He proudly repudiated the North and Lincoln’s administration. The fact that he died before he was discharged from the Yankee navy is of little consequence... or would be if history were not being re-written as it is.

Nevertheless, this summer, military officials have "corrected" Mayo’s record because he "died while on the rolls of the Navy." Schoettler’s delight is obvious when he gushes: "Mayo’s honor is finally restored. And so the tale ends well - after four generations." But Mayo’s honor was never lost; he resigned from the Union army when he realized that Lincoln was subverting Constitution liberties and destroying the American Republic... his resignation was a most honorable thing. Now 140 years after a Southern hero’s death, an unread, indoctrinated kinsman has attempted to slander his great great grandfather’s name with sly Yankee tricks and question begging. Mayo is turning in his grave. But God bless him...he once stood up to tyranny and lost everything. He will always be remembered as a Confederate hero by those who cherish freedom no matter how many questions liberal journalists and degenerate progeny beg.

My gratitude to all the good folks who called my attention to the Baltimore Sun article.

Next Time:

The Devil Went Down to Alabama

In September of 1863, Southern forces under Robert E. Lee crossed the Potomac into Maryland just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Battle of Sharpsburg (Yankees refer to it as Antietam) was one of the bloodiest campaigns in the War Between the States, and historians can’t agree which side won it. Lee technically retreated but inflicted such damage on the Yankee forces they were "disorganized" as a result. The Union troops numbered about 90,000, the Southern troops about 40,000. The Southerners were superior warriors always outnumbered but always effective. Just before the carnage, General Robert E. Lee wrote this message to the citizens of Maryland explaining his advance into the Old Line State:

"Headquarters Army N. Va. ,

Near Frederick Town, 8th September 1862

"TO THE PEOPLE OF MARYLAND

"It is right that you should know the purpose that has brought the army under my command within the limits of your State, so far as that purpose concerns yourselves.

"The People of the Confederate States have long watched with the deepest sympathy the wrongs and outrages that have been inflicted upon the citizens of a Commonwealth allied to the States of the South by the strongest social, political, and commercial ties.

"They have seen with profound indignation their sister-State deprived of every right and reduced to the condition of a conquered province.

"Under the pretence of supporting the Constitution, but in violation of its most valuable provisions, your citizens have been arrested and imprisoned upon no charge and contrary to all forms of law; the faithful and manly protest against this outrage made by the venerable and illustrious Marylander to whom in better days no citizen appealed for right in vain was treated with scorn and contempt; The government of your chief city has been usurped by armed strangers; your legislature has been dissolved by the unlawful arrest of its members; freedom of the press and of speech has been suppressed; words have been declared offences by an arbitrary decree of the Federal executive, and citizens ordered to be tried by a military commission for what they may dare to speak.

"Believing that the people of Maryland possessed a spirit too lofty to submit to such a government, the people of the South have long wished to aid you in throwing off this foreign yoke, to enable you again to enjoy the inalienable rights of freemen and restore independence and sovereignty to your State.

"In obedience to this wish our army has come among you, and is prepared to assist you with the power of its arms in regaining the rights of which you have been despoiled.

"This, citizens of Maryland, is our mission, so far as you are concerned.

"No constraint upon your free will is intended; no intimidation will be allowed.

"Within the limits of this army at least, Marylanders shall once more enjoy their ancient freedom of thought and speech.

"We know no enemies among you, and will protect all, of every opinion.

"It is for you to decide your destiny freely and without constraint.

"This army will respect your choice, whatever it may be; and, while the Southern people will rejoice to welcome you to your natural position among them, they will only welcome you when you come of your own free will.

"R.E. Lee
General commanding"

General A.L. Long, Lee’s aid, writes in Memoirs of Robert E. Lee that the foregoing was received by the people of Maryland "coldly." Long states that "The Marylanders as a people sympathized with the Confederates, but stood aloof because they did not wish to see their State become the theatre of war." But in the very next line in his book, Long says that Lee was surprised to find Yankee garrisons —who might have been a big reason the people were cowed—still in the vicinity of Frederick. Lee, according to Long, thought the Yankees would abandon Maryland as soon as they saw the Southern forces approaching. So important was Maryland strategically to the occupying Yankees, they weren’t going anywhere it seems.

But was Lee’s advance into Maryland an invasion or a liberation?

Long was there at Lee’s side that fall of 1862 so he was an eye witness to the campaign. It seems absurd, however, that he should on the one hand mention the many Marylanders who rode with Lee into Maryland intent upon rescuing their own people from the Yankees and on the other hand express disappointment that Marylanders didn’t rally to the cause when Lee reached Frederick...those who could fight and would fight were already with Lee or somewhere fighting.

Jefferson Davis relates in his own memoirs that he had entertained no hopes himself that the citizens of Maryland would rise up and join the Southern troops. Davis intimates in his writings on Sharpsburg that he understood that there were no men of fighting age sitting around waiting for Lee to liberate them and that the old men, women and children of Maryland were completely under the despot’s heel while the younger men were long gone to war.

How sad it is though that Lee himself did not live long enough to actually write his memoirs...Long compiled letters and added his own remembrances and put all of this into book form calling it Lee’s memoirs. But it would have been helpful to have had Lee’s perspective on the liberation of Maryland. Unfortunately the great Southern general died in his late fifties while his old, vulgar nemesis Grant went on to tell his war stories and to serve as President of a new, nationalistic United States. Lee loved Maryland. He would have helped us understand why rivers of blood flowed in the cornfields of Western Maryland one September long ago.