Re: Lincoln Mortally Wounded the Constitution

Jefferson vs. Lincoln on the Source of Government's 'Just Powers'
Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on March 26, 2012 06:37 PM

Consider the Southern, Jeffersonian, "Neo-Confederate," States' Rights view as expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

From this perspective Jefferson defended the right of secession in his first inaugural address; authored the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 which enunciated the principle of nullification (by the people of the states of unconstitutional federal legislation);  championed the Tenth Amendment as the cornerstone of the Constitution;  and was an ardent secessionist until his dying day. "We would wish them all well" is what he said of any state or states that seceded to form their own regional American union.

Then compare that to the radical, Jacobin, Lincolnian view of the powers of government as expressed by Woodrow Wilson in his book, Constitutional Government in the United States (p. 178):

"The War between the States established . . . this principle, that the federal government is, through its courts, the final judge of its own powers."

When the federal government became "the final judge of its own powers" in 1865 that was the end of government by consent in America. Americans then became the servants, rather than the masters, of their own government once the rights of nullification and secession were destroyed at gunpoint.

These quotes highlight the total absurdity of those, such as the Straussian neocons at the Claremont Institute, Hillsdale College, and elsewhere, who outrageously claim that Lincoln was a Jeffersonian!