Prattville Dragoons Attend Alabama Division Sons of Confederate Veterans Memorial Day at State Capitol

The Sons of Confederate Veterans Alabama Division held the annual Confederate Memorial Day program on the steps of the Alabama state capitol on Saturday morning April 25th.  Rain threatened but never materialized and the temperatures were pleasant and attendance was good with about 120 present. The program started with a bagpiper leading in the reenactment color guard for the posting of the colors. The bagpiper also played Amazing Grace.  The Division Chaplain Robert Griffin provided a Benediction.  The salute to the Confederate Battle Flag and the SCV Charge were presented with Commander Jimmy Hill reminding everyone that this day was the 120th anniversary of Gen. Stephen Dill Lee delivering the Charge in New Orleans at the United Confederate Veterans Reunion.  Greetings were offered from the Order of Confederate Rose, Mechanized Cavalry and Order of the Stars and Bars representatives.  The guest speaker was Commander in Chief Donnie Kennedy who looked out from the state capitol and reminded everyone that, as opposed to the Southern Poverty Law Center whose headquarters was just across Dexter Avenue there, the SCV has not donated one cent to the KKK.  CiC Kennedy then went into his presentatiion stating that the Declaration of Independence states unambiguously that it is the unalienable right to form a new government, that government is to be by consent not compulsion. He then discussed state sovereignty which begins with the fact that the states existed before the union. Lincoln waged his War based on his position that the federal govt is sovereign which is actually in agreement with the posiitons of Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler. The Officer Corps in 1776 pledged allegiance to these United States and then named each of the 13 states and that they are sovereign. Treaty of Ghent similarly affirmed state sovereignty. We were a compound republic of individual sovereign republics. Jefferson said if a state wished to leave the union, the states should call a convention of the states and let them vote to be part of the union or not and if the latter "let them go". Yankee Pres John Quincy Adams in 1830 similarly said it would be better if the disunited state(s) would be left alone. Judge St George Tucker was another of the Jeffersonian idea that each state is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent. William Rawle who authored one of the first textbooks on the US Constitution and was a friend of Washington and Benjamin  Franklin stated that it rests on the state and the people of that state as to whether they remain a part of the Union. The Massachusetts document which ratified the Constitution fairly reiterated the 10th amendment stating the state's reserved sovereign rights - New Englanders were staunch defenders of state sovereignty and secession early in our nation's history. Our ancestors and Jefferson Davis were right. The program concluded with the singing of Dixie by Dragoons Chaplain Samuel Johnson, an Invocation by Chaplain Griffin and a series of musket and cannon salutes down Dexter Avenue as traffic was halted by state troopers to avoid the blasts and billowing smoke.  Awesome day of Confederate patriotism.