April is Confederate History and Heritage Month

When the union was formed around the US constitution in 1788, the premise of that union was that, as James Madison said in Federalist 39, “Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act.” Had the case been otherwise, not a single State would have ratified the constitution.

The right to secede from the union was understood by all concerned, and in fact was made a condition of ratification by three States (Rhode Island, New York and Virginia) who asserted that they reserved the right to "reassume" all delegated powers should the new government "become perverted to their injury or oppression".

By 1860 it was evident that opponents of the constitution such as George Mason, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee had been proven correct in their assertions that it was in error to enter into union under a "central" government with people from other regions "whose manners and customs so greatly differed from ours".

When the Southern States began seceding in late 1860 and early 1861, they were simply exercising what the Declaration of Independence had recognized as a God-given right- the right to part ways and form a new government of their own choosing. Abraham L:incoln, acting the part of George III, undertook to crush this right and in so doing to destroy the very fabric that American governance was built on. Philosophically, "America" has never recovered from his victory.

The Southern soldiers who voluntarily offered their own lives in defense of their rights, families, homes and the well being of their posterity should be celebrated, remembered and honored rather than maligned as they so often are today. If the colonials of 1776 are regarded as "patriots", then so must these men also be regarded as the same. They fought nobly, honorably and for a just cause- the cause of independence from tyrannical government.

April is Confederate History Month. The men pictured below are my 3rd Great Grandfathers, Private Joseph Hinson of Company D, 6th Florida Infantry, and Private William G. Smith, Company H, 51st Georgia Infantry. I am immensely proud of these men, of their Cause and of their blood now flowing through my veins, and the veins of my sons. In all of American history there is no greater example of valor, heroism and patriotism than was displayed by the men in Gray who offered all that they had in defense of Dixie.

Deo Vindice,

Carl Jones 
2nd Lt. Commander
Alabama Division, SCV