Federal Precedence Over The States–Part Two

by Al Benson Jr.

Some students of history have, upon reflection, observed that the adoption of the 14th Amendment opened the door for the adoption of the 17th Amendment, the direct election of Senators by “popular” vote. One can, almost in overview, see an evolutionary process in this, whereby we first lose our state citizenship, then eventually, even national citizenship, until we all finally become “citizens of the world” much like Karl Marx’s “workers of the world.” Do you supposed there’s any connection?

So Thaddeus Stevens was a moving force in favor of helping to bury the concept of state citizenship in favor of national citizenship. There may be some naive souls who would believe that Stevens didn’t really know what he was doing. I, however, have a suspicious mind. Thaddeus Stevens, the professional South-hater, knew exactly what he was doing!

Stevens and his crowd were apostate revolutionaries of the first order. Their main intent was to alter the American system of government, keeping the forms to fool the uninitiated, but changing the substance. Unfortunately, their revolution, with the help of the socialists in the Republican Party, succeeded and we today live with the results of that, most of us not even realizing it thanks to the mis-education we received in public schools. Whatever vestiges of what the Founding Fathers left to us died with the Southern loss of the War of Northern Aggression–the Marxist/Lincolnist  Revolution of 1861. Those who fail to realize this have missed the boat.

We hear so much talk today from sincere and patriotic people who have not been on the firing line long enough to know the difference. They shout about “taking America back.” Back to what??? What most of them fail to realize is that what they want to take it back to is what they grew up with–their version of the “good old days.” What they don’t grasp is that they grew up after the Marxist/Lincolnist Revolution had already been accomplished. They are 100 years too late!

When Stevens introduced the 14th Amendment, some of the more cautions Republicans threatened to remove his third section of it, dealing with the ineligibility of former Confederate leaders to run for Congress until at least 1876. Stevens, through adroit political maneuvering, at which he was a past master, put together a coalition of radical Republicans and Democrats to prevent that change. He pled with them to retain that third section.  His vindictive anti-Southern mindset clearly showed as he pleaded: “It is too lenient for my hard heart. Not only to 1870, but to 18070, every rebel who shed the blood of loyal men should be prevented from exercising any power in this government.” Stevens was a truly shining example of abolitionist charity and forgiveness!  Had Stevens been willing to shape his attitude to conform to Biblical standards the country might have been bettor off. No need to worry, though, Stevens was not about to go there.

Long after Stevens’ death, an old political opponent, Jeremiah S. Black, noted of him that: “When he died he was unequaled in this country as a lawyer. He said the smartest things ever said.  But his mind,as far as his sense of obligation to God was concerned, was a howling wilderness.” So noted Fawn Brodie in her biographical work on Stevens.

God stated in both Deuteronomy 32:35 and Romans 12:19 that vengeance belongs to Him, that man is only to execute that which God entrusts to him, and he is to leave vengeance to God.  Stevens, in the manner of most true revolutionaries and apostates, ignored this, as he did most of the rest of Scripture.  With his abolitionist mindset, and for his own twisted reasons,  he sought vengeance on all whites in the South, the vast majority of which had never done him any harm. His twisted hatred would not allow him to do anything else. Suffice it to say that Thaddeus Stevens is not someone you want your children to emulate.

The 14th Amendment, in its final form, dealt with four different areas.  In the first, it made the radical departure of redefining citizenship as a national rather than a state matter. This was an important first step toward making the states mere vassals to the federal deity in Washington.  The second section reduced representation in Southern states to  basis of the voting population only.  The third section excluded Confederate leaders from office indefinitely, barring a two-thirds vote by Congress. The fourth section repudiated the Confederate debt and upheld the Union’s national debt.

Attempting to explain all the implications of this radical amendment would take more space than we have here. Hopefully, these brief comments will give some others the incentive to dig into the 14th Amendment, as well as the 13th and 15th Amendments to see what implications these hold for us that we have not been informed about, especially in regard to our modern “civil rights” movement.

Federal Precedence Over The States

by Al Benson Jr.

Reviewing the infamous 14th Amendment in a nutshell, we can see that it accomplished certain ends that were entirely consistent with Northern revolutionary aims for both the War of Northern Aggression and for the revolutionary period after that war. We might as well get used to referring to the war as a revolution, for, in truth, it was the real American Revolution. It was a revolution in which God-given liberties were exchanged for “privileges and immunities” granted by an all-powerful federal government in Washington–the same as today.

After the shooting phase of that revolution was over, the United States played the part of Esau on a national scale. We had traded our God-given rights for a mess of federal pottage, and now we weep, as did Esau, because we do not have God’s blessing. We don’t have that blessing now because, in our apostasy, we don’t deserve it now.

Instead of enjoying God’s blessing, we now labor under such apostate vehicles as Thaddeus Stevens’ inglorious 14th Amendment.

I have heard conservatives and patriots defend the 14th Amendment and I can only wonder what public brain laundry they were “educated” in. How many realize that the 14th Amendment redefined citizenship in this country? Up until the War, a man was a citizen of the United States due to being first a citizen of a particular state. A man was a U.S. citizen because he was first and foremost a citizen of Texas or Louisiana, or New Jersey. His state citizenship gave him status as a U.S. citizen.

After the adoption of the 14th Amendment, however, a man became foremost a citizen of the United States. His state citizenship was, to all intents and purposes, secondary at best and beneath notice at worst. This and the mindset it produced was consistent with Northern revolutionary aims and opened the door for future federal intervention in the various states, in areas the federal government had no business being in, such as education, and today, health care and oversight of school lunches and all manner of programs so dear the the hearts of those who run the Nanny State.

The Kennedy Brothers in their informative book The South Was Right (Pelican Publishing) noted the political gyrations of Thaddeus Stevens and his revolutionary cohorts.  They said: “To secure enactment of the amendment, the Northern Congress had to accomplish the following: Declare the Southern states outside of the erstwhile indivisible Union. Deny majority rule in the Southern states by the disenfranchisement of large numbers of the white population,. Require the Southern states to ratify the amendment as the price of getting back into the Union from which heretofore they had been denied the right to secede.”

And they continued: “The third point could be turned into a Yankee brain teaser. The North, in 1866, removed the Southern states from the Union. This was the same North that in 1861 refused to allow the South to secede from the Union.  This same North now declared the Southern states to be non-states.  To get back into the Union (that originally the South did not want to be part of anyway, and from which it had previously been denied the right to secede) it was required to perform the function of a state in that Union, while still officially no longer part of that Union, by ratifying an amendment that previously as states in the Union it had legally rejected!  Words alone fail to meet the challenge of such pure Yankee logic.” It almost makes you wonder what brand of revolutionary weed Stevens and his pals had been smoking!

To be continued.