Welcome to the party Jerry. Some of us have been questioning the legitimacy of our democratic institutions for some time.

Prior to the war most believed the states had the right to leave the union. This was made clear by Jefferson and Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798.

The civil war was initiated and waged by Lincoln in order to centralize control of power away from the states and to the Federal government. The Whigs and early Republicans were mercantilists who wanted a strong federal government. They were in favor of government hand outs to their friends in business under the disguise of “internal Improvements”. They liked big government, central banking, and massive spending of tax revenue building and maintaining their political base.

The Republican preferred method of wealth extraction in order to enrich their friends and gain power were extremely high tariffs. The “improvements” were mostly made in the Republican north and not the Democrat south. The north was a manufacturing economy and the southern an agricultural economy. The products of the north was protected from foreign competition and everything the south purchased was inflated by the tariff.

Lincoln and the evil Republicans of their day wanted to impoverish the south and enrich the north through taxes.

It was centralization of power and taxes that caused the war. Sound familiar Jerry?