Are We Headed to Another Civil War?

Paul Newkirk –

The unique thing about our Government is that it was the first one to be specifically created as a Government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as contrasted with a King, or a Dictator, or an Emperor, or any of authoritarian, so-called “strong-man” alternative.  Nobody else had tried to do this.

And because it was the first one, nobody, anywhere, thought it would work, precisely because our population was not a uni-culture like most other Countries, where everyone had a very similar background and could be expected to share many of the same attitudes. It was instead a multi-culture and when they referred to it around the world as the “American Experiment” it was as an expression of that pessimism.  The first settlers to our largest city consisted of roughly 36 persons, speaking a total of roughly 24 languages, for example.  Nothing even remotely “mono-culture” about it.   And yet they pulled it off, spectacularly

How could we be expected to be able to form any kind of democratic consensus to enable government to be even possible with so much diversity?    Luckily we had a great deal of geographic “elbow room” to expand and keep out of each other’s way, while the kids got on with the business of assimilation.

And luckily we also had a group of Founders smart enough to construct a Government flexible enough to accommodate our diversity, while still strong enough to operate as a unified whole.    Everybody would have a voice in Government by voting on any principle or candidate, and the concept with the most votes would be then adhered-to by the whole of us, regardless of whether one’s vote was for or against.    “Duly- elected” was the key phrase.   The operative activity left available for dissenters was to persuade, but certainly NOT to open fire.

And then they installed a system where the whole resulting Government was *AUTOMATICALLY* “overthrown” piece by piece, by the sovereign People with their votes, every two years, every four years, and every six years.   No opportunity for gaining power by force or by bullying was feasible.   No need for violence.

The Founders thought they had designed-away any need for any sort of violent revolution, ever, as long as the citizens followed the Constitution.

They had the principles right, but they fell short on the implementation phase when they failed to solve the issue of slavery, which was the exact opposite of everything else they held dear.  The price for that failure almost disintegrated the whole enterprise some 80 years later.  But it was not the principles which were deficient, it was the initial implementation.

The Civil War happened because those magnificent principles were disregarded in favor of personal profit.  It was a brutally painful and expensive mistake of a war, undertaken for purely crass reasons.  Never to allow such a stupid thing to happen again was the main lesson, deeply learned, and enshrined in our history.

And THAT’S what I mean by “of course not.”  Violent change is not necessary, and can’t be really necessary, since a peaceful alternative for change of government is built right into the fabric of the Country.

Although the thought of another Civil War sure seems to excite SOME people.