A Timely Book
 
From: txbrew@itlnet.net
 
A new book that defines exactly what the Tea Party Movement is about—State Sovereignty.
 
Written by Jerry C. Brewer, "Dismantling The Republic" traces the philosophy behind American Independence, the achievement of State sovereignty in 1776, the establishment of a Republic of sovereign States, the establishment of the Second American Republic, the Confederate States, in 1861 and and the dismantling of the both Republics through the 19th century until the present.
 
The principle of which Jefferson Davis spoke when he said, "The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered upon a new and enlarged arena, and the principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form," is the precise principle for which today’s Tea Party movement is contending.
 
The book is 217 pages and include two appendices. The first is a side-by-side comparison of the United States Constitution of 1787 with the Constitution of the Confederate States of 1861 and the second is the secession ordinances of all seceding States in 1860-61 showing Constitutional violations by the federal government, not slavery, precipitated secession.
 
Here is the Author’s preface of the book, and a chapter outline, followed by pricing and ordering information.
 
Author’s Preface
 
Constitutional government in America ended April 9, 1865. It ended four years earlier in the United States with Abraham Lincoln’s ascension to the presidency. Within a year of his election, he effectively eliminated Constitutional rights. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus and imprisoned and deported an Ohio Congressman without warrant or due process. He censored telegraphic communications, stopped circulation of newspapers that criticized his autocratic rule and imprisoned many of their editors. He deprived states of representative government, and unilaterally waged war without the consent of Congress by blockading Southern ports and calling for 75,000 volunteers to invade the sovereign States of the South.
 
The last bulwark of State sovereignty and Constitutional rights in North America, the Confederate States, ceased to exist when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. From that day forward, the Republic of Jefferson, Madison, Mason and Franklin was to be no more. Henceforth, the federal government that was created by sovereign States to be their agent would become their master. All that remained was for the new order of government to dismantle the Republic’s remnants.
 
Individual rights, expressed in State sovereignty, undergirded the Republic. The declaration of those rights by American Colonists in 1776 culminated a centuries-long struggle for recognition of individual sovereignty dating back to the Magna Carta. As Thomas Jefferson expressed it, all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and when government fails to protect those rights it is the right of the people to "alter or abolish" that government.
 
In late spring, 1787, the greatest minds among the American States gathered in Philadelphia to carve out an instrument to strengthen the weaker Articles of Confederation under which they had united in 1777. What they forged was the American Republic—a voluntary union of sovereign States, created by sovereign individuals, and founded upon the Constitution. When their proceedings ended in September a bystander asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government they had created. He replied, "A republic, if we can keep it." He and the other Founders understood the fragile nature of government—especially their Republic with its delicate balance of powers.
 
None of the Founding Fathers envisioned a democracy. Their new government was a Republic of Sovereign States with carefully diffused constituencies, and Franklin’s uneasiness about keeping it was well founded. Even before the Constitution was in its final form, forces were at work to weaken it and institute a government as autocratic as that of George III.
 
Without surrendering their sovereignty, the States ratified the Constitution, entering into a voluntary compact under it. In so doing, each State reserved for itself the full measure of sovereignty it held before joining the compact, and expressed that in the 10th amendment to the Constitution. State sovereignty meant that any or all of them had the right to freely withdraw from that compact whenever it became destructive of the ends for which it was established.
 
From the Republic’s inception the sovereignty of its member States suffered erosive political attacks that reached their high water mark when Lincoln invaded the South and forced seceded States back into the union at bayonet point. Upon his shoulders rests the responsibility for destroying the Republic. But even before the election of 1860, greedy Northern interests were working to change Franklin’s Republic into a Consolidated, Mercantile Empire. Lincoln’s election culminated those efforts and in the century and a half since his war Lincoln’s heirs have almost finished his work. From 1860 until the present, the Republic has been dismantled to such an extent that the Founders would not recognize it if they returned to 21st century America. Their Republic no longer exists. How that came to pass is the thesis we chronicle in this work. The foundation of the American Republic, created by the Constitution of 1787, was the sovereignty of its creator States. From its very beginning efforts were exerted to dismantle the Republic and replace it with a centralized government by incrementally eroding its foundation of State sovereignty—efforts that achieved their goal, for without State sovereignty, that Republic cannot exist.
 
Governments may control actions, but they cannot control ideas. They may chain a man’s body, but they cannot chain his mind. The Republic that Lincoln destroyed first existed as an idea and it still exists in that form. Jefferson Davis said, "The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered upon a new and enlarged arena, and the principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form." Given the grassroots disaffection for the federal social programs being forced upon the states and the arrogant usurpation of Constitutional authority by the federal government today, it appears that the cause of State Sovereignty still reposes in American hearts. Those voices of dissent in Congressional "Town Hall Meetings" and "Tea Parties" across the land in our time are faint sounds from the stirring wings of the great Phoenix of Davis’ principle rising from the ashes of Lincoln’s war to reassert itself "at another time and in another form."
 
Deo Vindice
 
Jerry C. Brewer
Elk City, Oklahoma
May 18, 2009
 
 
Outline Of Dismantling The Republic
By Jerry C. Brewer
 
Chapter One – "To Alter Or To Abolish"
A. Text of the Declaration of Independence
B. Background of John Locke’s political philosophy
    1. Political sovereignty of the individual as expressed by Locke
    2. Locke’s philosophy in Declaration of Independence
C. Historical uniqueness of Declaration of Independence
D. Colonists’ grievances against George III
    1. Grievances ignored
    2. Colonists’ assertion of Independence based on Locke’s philosophy of sovereignty
 
Chapter Two – "Free, Sovereign And Independent"
A. Sovereign status of each of the thirteen former Colonies as recognized in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
B. Link between Reformation’s assertion of individual spiritual sovereignty and Enlightenment’s assertion of individual political sovereignty.
C. Sovereignty of each of the thirteen former Colonies
D. State sovereignty expressed in The Articles of Confederation
 
Chapter Three – "A More Perfect Union"
A. The Constitutional Convention of 1787
B. Debates relating to the proposed Constitution and concern about retaining State sovereignty.
C. State sovereignty expressed in Constitution and each of three branches of government.
    1. The 10th Amendment
    2. Constituencies of Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches designed to preserve State sovereignty
    3. Early fears expressed regarding federal judiciary and State sovereignty
    4. Non-accountability of Supreme Court justices
 
Chapter Four – Mercantilism And Clashing Cultures
A. Alexander Hamilton’s vision of a Mercantile nation modeled after Britain’s
B. Mercantilism of Puritan North and its threat to State sovereignty.
C. Alien & Sedition Acts of John Adams
    1. Their threat to State sovereignty
2. Madison and Jefferson reply to Alien & Sedition Acts in Kentucky & Virginia Resolutions
D. Cultural and religious roots of North/South conflicts
    1. North – English Puritan Industrialists
    2. South – Celtic and Anglican Agrarians
E. North/South conflicts an extension of ancient animosities between English and Celts
 
Chapter Five – Early Sectional Conflicts
A. Beginning of two-party political system that would contribute to demise of Republic
B. Each branch of federal government vying for supremacy at Republic’s beginning
    1. Washington’s suppression of "Whiskey Rebellion" against taxation
    2. Adams’ "Alien and Sedition Acts" to silence administration critics
    3. John Marshall’s assertion of judiciary power in Marbury v. Madison
C. The Tariff of 1828 ("Tariff of Abominations")
    1. South’s reaction to it as eroding State sovereignty
    2. South Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance – nullifying the Tariff in South Carolina
    3. Andrew Jackson’s assertion of federal supremacy over States
D. Modern day efforts in the same vein – Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee, Montana
E. Compromise tariff act averts crisis.
 
Chapter Six – Sovereignty, Secession and Slavery
A. Struggle between Federalists and Anti Federalists (Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians)
B. State sovereignty and right of secession inseparable.
C. Northern States’ threaten secession in early 1800s
D. Secession taught as political philosophy at West Point in early 19th Century
E. Abolition movements in the North rooted in politics
F. Northern religion turns from spiritual to worldly concern-embraces abolition as social issue
 
Chapter Seven – Toward Final Conflict
A. State sovereignty and economics conjoined
B. Northern, Southern and foreign newspapers understand economic issues of conflict
C. Calhoun’s "Disquisition on Government" accurately describes modern welfare systems
D. Slavery as an issue—not the cause—of the final conflict
 
Chapter Eight – Secession—Exercise of State Sovereignty
A. Background of Lincoln and Whig Party as precursors to Republicans
B. Lincoln’s ties to Northern industrial interests and his political opportunism
C. Lincoln’s aim of consolidated government
D. Election of 1860
E. South’s reaction to Lincoln’s election with only 39 percent of the vote and their immediate secession
F. Lincoln’s chilling First Inaugural Address
G. South Carolina secedes, followed by others – Secession ordinances reclaim State sovereignty
 
Chapter Nine – A Republic Of Sovereign States
A. Formation of Confederate States of America
B. Jefferson Davis’ and Lincoln’s inaugural addresses contrasted
C. The Confederate Constitution
 
Chapter Ten – Lincoln’s War On Northern Sovereignty
A. Lincoln’s abolition of Constitutional liberties in the North
B. Arrest and deportation of Ohio Congressman
C. Censorship of telegraphic communications and newspapers
D. Imposition of martial law in Missouri
 
Chapter Eleven – Lincoln’s War On Southern Sovereignty
A. Lincoln’s treachery – ignores armistice at Fort Pickens – secretly plans to reinforce Pickens and Sumter
B. Goads South into firing first shots at Ft. Sumter
C. R. E. Lee resigns from U. S. Army – Confederates successful in early stages of war.
D. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation after Battle of Sharpsburg. Proclamation worthless.
E. Lincoln plots and wages total war on Southern civilians with backing of Northern religionists
F. Atrocities against Southern civilians – Lincoln’s war costs more lives than any in history
G. Jefferson Davis imprisoned and held for two years without writ of habeas corpus or trial
 
Chapter Twelve – "The Final Solution"
A. Lincoln assassinated – North seeks vengeance on South
B. "Reconstruction" —Further loss of Southern State sovereignty
C. Fourteenth Amendment is illegal appendage to Constitution
D. Carpetbaggers, abetted by U. S. military, drain Southerners of last meager resources
E. White voters in South disenfranchised
F. Republic ceases to exist
 
Chapter Thirteen – Eliminating The Remnants Of State Sovereignty
A. Lee predicts elimination of sovereignty in correspondence with Lord Acton
B. James A. Garfield’s boast in 1881 that secession was settled by arms
C. Consolidating central power and eliminating State sovereignty
    1. Pacification through the "Pledge of Allegiance"
    2. By imposing direct federal taxes on State citizens
    3. By disarming State militias and occupying the States
    4. By eliminating the States’ voice in federal government with passage of 17th Amendment
 
Chapter Fourteen – In The Valley Of Decision
A. State sovereignty is nearly eliminated
B. The election of 2008 brought Americans to the Valley of Decision by placing a socialist in the White House.
C. States can either knuckle under to federal government or heed the advice of Patrick Henry.
D. Failure to act now by sovereign States will forever seal the doom of our posterity.
E. Can we secede? The signers of the Declaration of Independence did.
 
Book Prices
1 Copy – $16.50, plus $2.50 p&h = $19.00
2 Copies – $33.00, plus $2.90 p&h = $35.90
 
Bulk Rate
10 or more copies – $12.00 each, and We Pay Postage
 
To order yours, send your check or money order to me at
 
Jerry C. Brewer
308 South Okla. Ave.
Elk City, OK 73644
 
Jerry Brewer, Commander
Pvts. Grayson & Brewer Camp, 2118
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Elk City, Oklahoma