Serfdom, Revolution, Or Southern Independence

J. Michael Hill - LS President

As the boot of centralized fascist-socialist tyranny pushes harder on our necks, we have three choices: 1) serfdom; 2) revolution; or 3) Southern independence. I would hope those reading this would have already omitted option number one from consideration.

However, serfdom will likely be the choice of the majority of Americans (and maybe even of Southerners). Why? It is the easiest path. It requires one to do nothing out of the ordinary, to take no risks nor face any danger. Because most people like their bread and circuses and don’t want to be taken out of their comfortable day-to-day existence, they will chose serfdom and convince themselves it is the reasonable and even the patriotic thing to do. Others who might know better will choose this path because of fear.

The revolution option is infinitely better than serfdom, but it has its downside, too. Most revolutions, historically speaking, are bloody affairs that often, as it is said, “devour their own children.” Before you remind me of the successful American Revolution, please remember that that event was a secession movement against the British Empire and not a turning of the world upside down as was the French Revolution. Modern revolutions normally degenerate very quickly into chaos. Before you advocate letting the revolution genie out of her bottle, know this: the Feds may be inept at most things, but they have proven themselves expert at killing people and destroying things. Yes, it may have to come down to an armed stand off; however, there is a better way than out-and-out revolution that leads to this point.

I prefer option three: Southern independence. Our States are historically the loci of ultimate temporal sovereignty within our federated, constitutional republic. The Founders intended it to be that way. Any of the Southern States (or any of the fifty) can assert that sovereignty anytime it wishes by withdrawing from the voluntary union of the States united. By withdrawing (or seceding) through the action of its legislature or another body elected for that specific purpose, the State is on solid legal and moral ground. Our lesser magistrates would be doing exactly what they should to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the State’s citizens against the encroachment of tyranny.

A proper prelude to secession might be Nullification and Interposition. If the federal Congress, the President, or the federal courts (or any combination of the three) should commit unconstitutional acts against the States and the citizens thereof, a State could simply declare that action, be it a law, an executive order, or a legal ruling, to be of no effect within the State’s borders. Should the feds press the issue (which they likely would), then the State government (again, the lesser magistrate) would have the duty to interpose itself between its citizens and the federal forces arrayed against them. This might take the form of the mobilization of a true State Militia (not the National Guard, which can be “federalized”). This is why you should take the right to keep and bear arms seriously.

The use of Nullification and Interposition (and a subsequent secession) might, it is true, lead to armed conflict just as revolution would. However, the former would have the force of history and law on its side whereas the latter, though justifiable, would be more desultory, disorganized, and chaotic. I think it’s always better, at least for as long as possible, to have some lawful and time-honored precedents on your side.

Under present circumstances, brought upon us by both major political parties and our own lack of vigilance, I don’t see any other options but the three I’ve briefly outlined above. Because serfdom is out for most of those who will read this, we had better think long and hard about the other two options. We will have to choose one. I pray we choose wisely.

Audemus jura nostra Defendere!

Michael Hil
President, The League of the South
Killen, Alabama
21 March 2010 

Dr. Michael Hill is President of the League of the South as well as a noted author and historian.

Why Do You Hate America?

 

Dr. Michael Hill - LS President

From time to time, folks who read my essays and articles and hear my speeches will send me a sincere private query that can properly be summed up as such: “Why do you hate America?”

My short answer is always pretty much this: “I don’t hate America. In fact, I love America. My home State of Alabama is part of America. Why would I hate America? But I do have great misgivings about our governing system and the people who are (and have long been) abusing it. And I would like to see Alabama and the rest of the South get out from under this corrupt system before it all sinks beneath the proverbial waves.”

But allow me to elaborate a bit. What these folks are calling “America” was a great experiment in liberty brought to fruition by our Founding Fathers over two-hundred years ago. We were given a republic, if we could keep it. However, not all influential Americans at the time were supportive of the experiment and the constitution that provided its foundation. Patrick Henry of Virginia was one of many Southern skeptics who warned his fellow countrymen of placing too much trust in Yankees. Mr. Jefferson and other fellow republicans (please notice the lower case “r”—they had nothing to do with the later Party of Lincoln) echoed the sentiment and warned that the States and their citizens must have protection from the perils of a consolidated national government, hence the Bill of Rights.

Well, the experiment of the late eighteenth century ended in 1860-61 when South Carolina and several other Deep South States thought it best to leave it and start another one of their own designs. But the new Republican (please notice the upper case “R”—they had nothing to do with the Jeffersonian republicans of an earlier era) Party administration of Abe Lincoln would have none of it; his threat to raise troops and force the wayward Southern sister States back into this voluntary union caused several other upper South States to join the CSA experiment. At the point, the “Union” army—which in reality was the U.S. Army (Southern men, don’t forget this when you consider enlisting)—invaded, and after four years of terrorizing the South with overwhelming force (including lots of European mercenaries and Socialists) they forced the South’s armies to surrender.

The old voluntary union given us by the Founding Fathers was no more by mid-1865. The dire warnings of Mr. Henry and others had indeed come to pass. Lincoln and the GOP had overturned the work of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, and the defeated Southern States were forced back into the new, involuntary creation. Once rich and politically influential, the South, albeit a new and reconstructed version, was to be poor and politically disenfranchised for decades to come. As the Rev. Robert L. Dabney, a Presbyterian minister and officer under Stonewall Jackson, told the victorious Yankees (and I paraphrase): “You won. Now the responsibility for the nation’s future is in your hands alone. We of the South are poor and weak. We can be of no effect in this matter.”

Dabney probably knew the Yankees, in their great power axis from Washington to New York to Boston, would blow it. And he was right. The corruption we see today on the Potomac and Wall Street began right away with the Grant administration. Subsequently, we got an empire (the Yanks were just practicing on Dixie), a Federal Reserve system, an Income Tax, the 17th Amendment (which practically destroyed the 10th and States Rights), two World Wars, taken off the gold standard, a Great Depression, another invasion of the South through the civil rights movement (what we Southerners rightly call the Second Reconstruction), the moral rot of the 1960s, sunk up to the neck in the Middle East, three clueless Baby Boomer Presidents (Bill, George, and Barry), the USA Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security, a police/surveillance State, and now bankrupted by the Banksters and their political whores in Congress. And I’m supposed to cheer all this on by singing the National Anthem, saluting the Stars and Stripes, and saying the Pledge of Allegiance? No thanks, I’ll pass.

You see, the men I admire, from Henry and Jefferson through Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, knew that this American experiment, if it were to work, had to be an agreement held sacred among principled and virtuous men. And they knew the character of the Yankee (and I’m not talking about righteous Northern Copperheads who supported the South). And that bad character has not changed one iota since the Late Unpleasantness of 150 years ago. But in the bargain, many Southerners have thrown over the principles of their ancestors and have joined in the looting and pillaging. If you can’t beat the Yanks, then join them. I’ll pass on this, too, thank you very much.

The result of all this is that the U.S. government has become an organized criminal enterprise. Let that phrase sink in for a minute. If you still don’t believe it, then just pay attention for a little while; it’ll come to you.

Coming as I do from the old Southern traditionalist/conservative position of Henry, Jefferson, Calhoun, Taylor of Caroline, et al, I cannot and will not give my allegiance to a counterfeit. I will not confuse true patriotism with the chauvinistic nationalism that cheers “puttin’ a boot up the ass” of the enemy de jour of the American empire. I will not keep quiet while all that my ancestors sweated, bled, and died to give me as an inheritance is stolen away by an alien people with an alien ideology. I will not keep quiet while my motherland—Alabama and the South—can still be saved from the clutches of a predatory ruling elite. And as a Southern Patriot, I will fight every day of my life to save her as long as God gives me the strength and resources to do so.

And this is why I don’t hate America (at least the real America).


J. Michael Hill
Killen, Alabama
16 November 2011

For more information, call the League at (800) 888-3163 or contact us via email.

Memorial Service Honors Confederate Prisoners

Scotland, MD - 11/7/2011
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By Dick Myers

Guest speaker Adbur Haymes

In the midst of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, one of war’s many dark spots was remembered Saturday in St. Mary’s County. More than 4,000 Confederate soldiers died at Pt. Lookout prisoner of war camp between 1863 and 1865 of the 50,000 soldiers held there. A memorial service in their memory was held at the National Confederate Cemetery in Scotland just north of the camp which is now part of Pt. Lookout State Park.

The event was hosted by Captain Vincent Camalier, Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) Camp #1359 and the newly formed Southern Maryland Chapter #48, Order of the Confederate Rose, Private Jane Perkins.

Camp Commander Larry Messick welcomed everyone attending the event on the blustery day. Many of the attendees were dressed in re-enactor costumes. During the presentation of colors re-enactors representing a number of units surrounded the base of the Confederate monument.

Newly appointed Baltimore National Cemetery Superintendent Dr. Martha Rankin was on her first visit to Pt. Lookout. She said the area evoked different responses from different people, but she noted, “I can’t imagine anyone visiting here and not being moved. We share the inability to wrap our minds around the number of soldiers killed and wounded in the Civil War.” She added that sites such as Pt. Lookout are, “places for future generations to learn from.”

Guest speaker was Adbur Haymes, director of operations at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond and a retired U.S. Army Sgt. Major. Haymes, an African-American and an unabashed southerner, said “I say y’all and drink sweat tea.” He added he brought greeting from Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.

Haymes said of those who wound up at Pt. Lookout, “They were proud soldiers who did their duty following the orders of their president, Jefferson Davis and following the orders of their general, Robert E. Lee.”

Haymes spoke lovingly of Gen. Lee and told how he agonized about joining the Confederacy. He told of leaving Arlington House after making that decision, never to return. He told of how soldiers were buried on the front lawn of Arlington House. Lee’s son filed suit in the 1890’s to regain control of their ancestral home and won that suit in the U.S. Supreme Court. The family was given the option to disinter the bodies, but realized that Gen. Lee would have not wanted that. Instead they sold the property to the U.S. for what is now Arlington National Cemetery.

Haymes called both Davis and Lee great men and said he is on a mission to rehabilitate the legacy of the president of the Confederacy.

Commander of the Southern Maryland Chapter #48, Order of the Confederate Rose Monie Harper told the story of Private Jane Perkins, after whom the chapter is named. She and her brother immigrated to America after the Irish Rebellion, ended up in Massachusetts, where they were not welcome and eventually settled in Virginia where she became a school teacher.

Jane’s brother enlisted in the Army of Northern Virginia and she joined him, first incognito as a man. She was captured during a battle in Hanover, VA and sent to Pt. Lookout, where she was the only woman. She was strip-searched upon arrival and she gave birth to a son while there (father unknown).

Buck-Thompson described a feisty woman who told her captors, “I can straddle a horse, I can jump a fence and I can kill a Yankee.” After being sent to another prison her son was kept at Pt. Lookout and both of their ultimate fates remain a mystery today.

During the ceremony the Pledge of Allegiance was recited and the National Anthem performed, the Salute to the Confederate Flag was also recited and Dixie performed. Maryland My Maryland, with its words “Despot’s Heel is on Our Shore” was also performed by musician Wally Ivanov. Wreaths were laid at the monument from several organizations.

Many of the re-enactors camped at the park on Friday evening.

Great News! Wigginton's Will Have A New Home Thanks To You!

LS News Service

Editor's Note: The following is related to the League's ongoing efforts on behalf of the victims of the Spring 2011 tornadoes.

Compatriots:

I'm happy to report that Mrs. Joyce Wigginton of Hackleburg, Alabama, our "adopted" tornado relief family, has now received enough funds to have built her foundation for her new home. The builders may come as early as today to start actualy construction of the new house.

She wanted me to thank you all for your generosity and kindness. Moreover, I would like to thank you as well. By God's grace we were able to help Mrs. Wigginton and her family through this crisis to the point that they will now have a new home in which to live. Once it's completed and the family moves in, Sara and I will go down and take a look. We will take pictures and post them so you can see what your donations help us do for this family.

Again, Many thanks!
J. Michael Hill

For more information, call the League at (800) 888-3163 or contact us via email.

Point Lookout Memorial Service

Point Lookout Memorial Service

November 5, 2011

Scotland, Maryland

11 AM

Sponsored by the Captain Vincent Camalier Camp #1359,

Sons of Confederate Veterans

Guest speaker will be Sgt. Major Abdur Hamyes, (US Army Ret.) of  The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA.

Present will be the award winning SCV Maryland Division Color Guard.

Also, Friday evening Nov. 4^th at 6:30 PM. at Confederate Memorial Park, The Private Jane Perkins Camp #48, Order of the Confederate Rose, will be sponsoring a Paranormal Investigation of the park and cemetery.

Trent Hall Media Group will lead the investigation. There is a fee to join the investigation teams Friday evening but it will be so much fun.

We plan on setting up camp Friday and spending the night. Confederate Memorial Park is located 1 mile north of Point Lookout State Park, site of the infamous Point Lookout Prison Camp which housed 52,000 Confederate P.O.W.'s during the War of Northern Aggression (Civil War). Come join us!