THE CIVIL WAR BEGAN 150 YEARS AGO - April 12, 1861

The Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston South Carolina - the first battle of the American Civil War, 12-14 April 1861

From Alan Coruba's worthy blog Warning Signs

By Alan Caruba

The American Civil War began one hundred and fifty years ago on April 12, 1861.

Historians will tell you that the South never had a chance of winning it. Theirs was an agrarian society, heavily dependent on millions of slaves. How many millions? An 1860 census found that slaves constituted 13% of the population, numbering 3,950,528, most of whom were in the South.

Even the Founding Fathers knew that slavery was an issue that would one day create a terrible problem, but their priority was to come up with a Constitution that would rectify the problems that the Articles of Confederation posed.

Perhaps at no other time in the nation’s history did it have such an astonishing collection of brilliance gathered in one place. They needed the Southern States to secure ratification so the problem of slavery was pushed off to the future.

Depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon Line you’re on, you will still get a dispute over why the Civil War was fought. The South says it was about state’s rights and, indeed, had expectations that they could secede lawfully. The North said it was about the issue of slavery and most agree it was.

Lincoln’s first inaugural speech on March 4, 1861 began with an assertion rarely noted.



“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

Lincoln ended, saying, “I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

On April 12, 1861 Confederate Brig. General P.G.T. Beauregard an expert artilleryman, graduate of West Point, laid siege to Fort Sumpter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., where federal troops had been withdrawn in anticipation of war.

The War of Independence that had concluded after eight years in 1783 had cost about 25,000 lives. The Revolution was still relatively fresh in the minds of Americans in that era. Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had both died on July 4, 1826,

The Constitution went into force in 1788. The Civil War began 73 years later. It is regarded as the first “modern” war for its use of locomotives, the telegraph, and the development of new weapons.

It was surely the first modern war in terms of its casualties. Between 1861 and 1865, they totaled 618,222. The slaughter in some battles was so vast one could walk across a field of battle on the bodies of the dead. The Civil War battle in The Wilderness killed 17,666, Spotsylvania killed 10,920, and Petersburg cost 16,569. Total battle deaths for the Union, including disease, numbered 360,222. For the South, it was 258,000.

By contrast, U.S. casualties in World War Two, 1941 to1945, numbered 407,316. The toll of the Iraq conflict, 2003-2011, was 4,430. Afghanistan has cost 4,430 lives.

It is not until one grapples with such numbers can one understand the price paid to keep the Union intact. Three Presidents played key roles. James Buchanan did little to avert the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln pursued it for the entirety of his two terms, the latter cut short by assassination. Andrew Johnson allowed Reconstruction to fall into corruption and resentment. It matters who is President.

It took another century into the 1960s for blacks in America to finally secure their civil rights. In that decade, Americans endured riots in their cities and the loss of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. along with a number of generally forgotten martyrs.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the Civil War was the belief on both sides that it would be over quickly. All people in all times want wars to be short, but they rarely are. Their aftermath can last a very long time. A Cold War followed the end of World War Two and lasted for nearly a half century.

Within and beyond nation’s borders, wars have raged somewhere since what we call civilization began around 5,000 years ago. They have various causes for good or ill. They are, however, the way nations have settled their differences.






Anti-war protesters and those who disrespect our Armed Forces will never understand this, but they owe a debt called liberty to those who do.

© Alan Caruba, 2011





Commemorative pin for the battle that took place at Fort Sumter - now Fort Sumter National Monument - April 12-14, 1861.


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STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Immigrant Gun Owner Teams Up With ACLU


Fox News - 6 January 2011 - ACLU files lawsuit alleging South Dakota gun law is unconstitutional because it makes U.S. citizenship a requirement to carry a concealed weapon — while gun rights advocate says lawsuit is ploy to arm illegal immigrants.

ACLU Sues to Protect Immigrant's Gun Rights From Change in South Dakota Law


The ACLU of South Dakota filed the lawsuit this week on behalf of U.K. citizen Wayne Smith alleging the state's concealed weapons law is unconstitutional. Smith - who legally immigrated 30 years ago - was able to get a concealed license for years, but in 2002 South Dakota amended the law, making U.S. citizenship a requirement to carry a concealed weapon. When Smith went to renew his long-held permit last July, he was denied because he is permanent legal resident, not a citizen.

The ACLU says that's a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment which it says prevents states from being able to make such "arbitrary designations."




Is this a great country or what?

I never thought in a million years I'd be on the same side of a gun argument with the ACLU . . . all I can say is I've carried firearms on and off duty, legally and illegally, since I arrived on the shores of this great land - thirty years ago this February.

One of the things I was required to do was sign up for the Selective Service Registration, and I was informed that if they ever re-instated the draft, I would be eligible. The way it was explained to me is that if you're on U.S. soil, then the rights of the U.S. Constitution apply - to include the 2d Amendment. The Bill of Rights applies to everyone on U.S. soil - law-abiding citizens, aliens legal and illegal, even terrorists - (which is why they won't close Guantanamo by the way) - the only thing I couldn't do was vote.

Come to think of it, I wore the uniform of this country for three years and even deployed overseas before I earned my citizenship.


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MICHAEL CONNELLY

A retired Constitutional lawyer has read the entire Healthcare Bill - now voted into law. Read his stunning conclusions.



The Truth About the Health Care Bill
- by Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney


Confirmed by Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/connelly.asp


The Snopes post is an interesting read in and of itself - I recommend you go there and read it.

Regular readers of STORMBRINGER know I normally avoid politics, although I recently changed this posture due to disturbing information regarding Kevin Jennings; Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the Obama Administration's Department of Education. - S.L.



The Truth About the Health Care Bill
- by Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney

Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009 I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.

The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business, and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats, and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled by the government.

However, as scary as all of that is, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.






The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people, and the businesses they own.

The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with! I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

This legislation also provides for access, by the appointees of the Obama administration, of all of your personal healthcare direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.

If you decide not to have healthcare insurance, or if you have private insurance that is not deemed acceptable to the Health Choices Administrator appointed by Obama, there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a tax instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the due process of law.






So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much, out the original ten in the Bill of Rights, that are effectively nullified by this law It doesn't stop there though.

The 9th Amendment that provides: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;

The 10th Amendment states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution." If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it, without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway, I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

For those who might doubt the nature of this threat, I suggest they consult the source, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

Michael Connelly
Retired Attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton, Texas



Never heard of Michael Connelly? Neither have I; but I know who THIS guy is - as far as I'm concerned his words are as valid now as when he spoke them fifty years ago:







"If you're not part of the solution,
then you're definitely part of the problem."


This is my way to get involved - Sean Linnane




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Mail Call: DHIMMITUDE

These days I get all kinds of interesting things coming through the email machine:


Bottom Line Up Front: Muslims get a pass on the First Amendment to the US Constitution - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" -


Dhimmitude is the Muslim system of controlling non-Muslim populations conquered through jihad. Specifically, it is the TAXING of non-Muslims in exchange for tolerating their presence AND as a coercive means of converting conquered remnants to Islam.


The Kaaba in Mecca is the center of Islam.

The ObamaCare bill is the establishment of Dhimmitude and Sharia Muslim diktat in the United States. Muslims are specifically exempted from the government mandate to purchase insurance, and also from the penalty tax for being uninsured. Islam considers insurance to be "gambling", "risk-taking" and "usury" and is thus banned.

Muslims are specifically granted exemption based on this. How convenient. So I, Ann Barnhardt, a Christian, will have crippling IRS liens placed against all of my assets, including real estate, cattle, and even accounts receivables, and will face hard prison time because I refuse to buy insurance or pay the penalty tax.

Meanwhile, Louis Farrakhan will have no such penalty and will have 100% of his health needs paid for by the de-facto government insurance. Non-Muslims will be paying a tax to subsidize Muslims. Period. This is Dhimmitude.

Dhimmitude serves two purposes: it enriches the Muslim masters AND serves to drive conversions to Islam.

In this case, the incentive to convert to Islam will be taken up by those in the inner-cities as well as the godless Generation X, Y and Z types who have no moral anchor. If you don't believe in Christ to begin with, it is no problem whatsoever to sell Him for 30 pieces of silver; "Sure, I'll be a Muslim if it means free health insurance and no taxes. Where do I sign, bro?"





If you are a Christian and you acquiesce to this, you will be bending your knee to Islam, and denying Christ. How many of the early Christians went to horrific deaths rather than offer a mere pinch of incense to a statue of Caesar? Every single one of us has a BIG decision to make right now, in this moment. The choice is to either offer a pinch of incense to Islam and Marxism, or take up our cross and follow Christ.

I've made my decision. I choose Christ. I choose the Cross.


I especially like this last line - this is totally in keeping with the philosophy of STORMBRINGER, and my personal belief that the current conflict against Fundamentalist Islam is actually a continuation of the earlier Crusader wars:





. . . which of course were a series of wars & campaigns which were essentially pre-emptive strikes against the militant Muslim threat to Europe - a threat that continues to this day (more on this theme later).


SO . . . I consulted a member of Team STORMBRINGER who knows all things Muslim;

"Their beliefs in Taqiyya - outward lying to infidels - is what made us first question Obama. He sure does it well."

One of his favorite sites is Jihadwatch.org, particularly their section Islam 101





A quick search uncovers THIS gem:

RULES FOR MUSLIM RADICALS

Ibn Taymiyya's Mardin fatwa is a classic text for militants who say it allows Muslims to declare other Muslims infidels and wage war on them. The scholars said this view had to be seen in its historic context of medieval Mongol raids on Muslim lands.


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