Prattville Dragoons Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp 1524 Commander's Column May 2022 - A Potential Return to States Rights and Sovereignty

The biggest domestic news this week was the leak of the draft decision of the US Supreme Court regarding the reversal of the Roe vs Wade decision.  The draft by Justice Alito is being hailed by pro-life supporters as well as by states-rights advocates as the draft document lays out the premise for returning this decision to individual states’ legislation.  The draft states, “For the first 185 years after the adoption of the Constitution, each State was permitted to address this issue in accordance with the views of its citizens. Then, in 1973, this Court decided Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113. Even though the Constitution makes no mention of abortion, the Court held that it confers a broad right to obtain one. It did not claim that American law or the common law had ever recognized such a right, and its survey of history ranged from the constitutionally irrelevant to the plainly incorrect.  After cataloguing a wealth of other information having no bearing on the meaning of the Constitution, the opinion concluded with a numbered set of rules much like those that might be found in a statute enacted by a legislature.”  It appears the five most conservative justices are basing the opinion on the constitutionality of the original decision as the Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  Brion McClanahan’s recent blogpost (https://mailchi.mp/88bafa592e35/is-federalism-making-a-comeback) asks the question as to whether we are in the midst of a revival of federalism and empowerment of states’ rights. 

Alabama’s state motto “We dare defend our rights” reflects the very basis for the secession of the Southern states in defense of their sovereignty.  The MSM and neo-historians will claim, as has been the mantra in the government sponsored educational system for the past 150 years, that the states’ rights declared by the Southern states in their secession ordinances was simply a disguise for and synonymous with a singular focus on the perpetuation of the institution of slavery.  But the Southern states had every reason for concern with the lack of federal enforcement of the constitutionally codified laws of the land and espoused platform of the Republican party which sought to curtail Southern interests and influence.  This article by the American Battlefield Trust I believe does a fair job of explaining the antebellum sectional issues and origins (before and at the founding of our nation) of state’s rights - https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/states-rights. 

Lord Acton wrote to Robert E. Lee following the War, “I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. The institutions of your Republic have not exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating influence which ought to have belonged to them, by reason of those defects and abuses of principle which the Confederate Constitution was expressly and wisely calculated to remedy. I believed that the example of that great Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers and disorders of Republics. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization.”  This article does an outstanding job of summarizing Acton’s (as should be all of our own) concerns with an omnipotent centralized federal government - https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/lord-acton-confederate-sympathizer .  “There is no denying America’s ever-increasing “reliance on the State as an instrument to mould as well as to control society.” Academic conformity and tech censorship, along with migrant mania and the transgender bathroom wars suggest that unconditional egalitarianism is indeed the order of the day, just as the case can be made that dogmatic hatred of aristocracy has given us both a disingenuous, hypocritical elite and a vulgar, uniform culture purged of chivalry, class, and magnanimity.”

The article on Lord Acton was written in 2019 and since that time we have had an even worsening shift with critical race theory in education, an announcement of the Biden Department of Homeland Security’s dystopian Disinformation Governance Board aka an Orwellian Ministry of Truth, transgenders not just in the bathroom but competing in sanctioned athletics and a general devaluation of achievement in favor of socialist equitable outcomes as espoused in corporate and governmental Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs and training.  But there is a growing resistance and offensives mounted.  Elon Musk purchased Twitter which was accused of aiding the Biden election by stifling the Hunter Biden laptop and quid pro quo information from the electorate on the social media platform as well as alternative viewpoints on the covid origins and vaccination mandates and efficacy.  Musk has said he espouses freedom of speech against tech censorship.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott have stood in the breach against federal vaccination mandates, immigration inaction, and CRT education initiatives.  And now the US Supreme Court stands on the brink of returning to the individual states the constitutional responsibility for legislating the restrictions and regulation of abortions within their respective states.   We may be on the verge of a resurgence in states rights and at least a measure of validation of our Confederate ancestors fight for independence and sovereignty.