States' rights: America's interventionist role dates to Lincoln

By Clint E. Lacy

The Founding Fathers created a constitutional republic in which states were to maintain their sovereignty and derived their power from the people. The federal government derived its powers from the state. This provided the ultimate checks-and-balances system to protect our constitutional republic and our freedom.

However, with the election of Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 6, 1860, this would soon change.

On Dec. 20, 1860, South Carolina was the first state to secede and reclaim its sovereignty. In response, President Lincoln called upon the individual states to supply four regiments to put down secession.

Missouri Gov. Claiborne Fox Jackson responded by stating that Lincoln's request was "illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary." Lincoln was more than willing to utilize recently exiled German Marxists from St. Louis to take Jefferson City by force, and the state's elected government had no choice but to evacuate.

After initial victories at Wilson's Creek and Lexington, the state government reconvened at Neosho, passing an ordinance of secession on Oct. 31, 1861. On Nov. 28, 1861, the Confederate Congress admitted Missouri as the 12th state.

Meanwhile, Lincoln's occupiers set up a provisional government in Jefferson City.

On March 7, 1862, the Missouri Brigade, under the leadership of Gen. Earl Van Dorn and Gen. Sterling Price and joined by forces under Gen. McCullough and Gen. McIntosh, was defeated by an old foe, Franz Sigel.

This, however, left Missouri to the wolves, so to speak, a state which fell victim to regime change and under occupation.

Under federal occupation, Missouri suffered greatly. Those who did not opt to join the regular Confederate service formed bands of irregular cavalry and fought as partisans against their occupiers.

So effective were these partisans that Lincoln was forced to keep thousands of troops in Missouri. But the 4,000 to 5,000 Southern partisans were not enough to stop the depredations of Lincoln and his generals.

From Aug. 29 to Dec. 2, 1864, General Price conducted a raid throughout Missouri with the hopes of liberating the state.

Price's hopes ended with his defeat at Westport, and with it all hopes of restoring the legitimate government to Missouri and its people.

Lincoln's Marxist Germans played a pivotal role in the regime change of Missouri, the entire South and ultimately the United States as a whole.

Germans like Sigel and Carl Shurz were promoted more for their influence over the Germans than their military ability, helping to rally thousands of Germans to the cause of regime change conducted by Lincoln. In St. Louis alone five regiments of Germans were organized and led by Sigel. The war cry of these non-English-speaking socialists was, "I goes to fight mit Sigel."

If anyone doubts that we are now a socialist country or that Lincoln is the cause, then I submit the following letter from Karl Marx to Abraham Lincoln which starts off by congratulating the president on his re-election.

"We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority," The Marx letter goes on to state, "The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Anti-slavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world."

Lincoln's ambassador, Charles Adams, responded by stating: "Nations do not exist for themselves alone, but to promote the welfare and happiness of mankind by benevolent intercourse."

Today, many Americans feel it is our country's job to intervene in world affairs.

This could not be further from the truth, and it reminds us that Southerners weren't the evil-doers that the politically correct establishment would like us to believe, for their argument was one of constitutional rights, not to promote the welfare of mankind.

Let us also remember what President George Washington said in his farewell address of 1796: "The United States must concentrate only on American interests, and while the country ought to be friendly and open its commerce to all nations, it should avoid becoming involved in foreign wars."

Clint E. Lacy of Marble Hill, Mo., is the chairman of the Missouri League of Southern Voters.