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Health & Fitness

A Case For Secession – Sort Of

Democracy is the greatest idea created by the mind of man. It is such a good idea, it seems reasonable to think that women probably created it because of Democracies need for cooperation and compromise. Abraham Lincoln feared that America’s new Democracy could not survive if part of the country seceded. The possibility of the death of humankind’s greatest idea was too much for Lincoln and most Americans to contemplate. America fought a long and bloody civil war for the sake of Democracy and the rights and dignity of all men and women.

 

The North had slavery here and there but the South had a slave economy and a slave culture. Reconstruction ended too soon. The vote was stolen from former slaves. Slavery morphed into share cropping. The old anti-Democratic South became the new anti-Democratic South. In most of the 20th century, the South had a third world economic and educational system. It was known in Congress primarily for filibustering anti-lynching laws, fighting civil rights legislation, and shutting down government. In the 21st century, filibusters, attacks on civil rights, and shutting down government remain the primary preoccupations of Southern legislators.

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Is the South worth keeping? During the Civil War, without Southern legislators to impede progress, historic legislation was passed to create:

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In 1862 Land Grant public colleges

In 1862 and 1864 the Transcontinental Railroad

In 1863 and 1864 a national currency and national banking system,

In 1862 the Homestead Act

In 1863 The Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves in the confederacy

In 1865 the 13th Amendment was passed

In 1865 the 13th Amendment was ratified by three fourths of the states.

On December 6, 1865 the 13th Amendment took effect when Georgia ratified it

 

What else could come out of today’s Congress if the South was not constantly trying to impede progress, subvert the will of the majority, and scuttle our Democratic society? If Democracy is a ship, the South is its anchor.

 

Why not let the South go? What have they done for America? The South gave us a slave society, the Klu Klux Klan, segregation, mass lynching’s, and a civil war that saw 625,000 Americans killed. The South gets more tax dollars back from Washington than they contribute. The rest of America is holding up the Southern economy with the equivalent of foreign aid.

 

Let the South go. It has been a burden on the rest of America long enough. Then the South can fight it out with Haiti and China over who has the lowest labor rates and fewest environmental and worker safety regulations.

 

On the other hand, in recent presidential elections Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida have voted Democratic. Georgia has flirted with blue state status and Texas is heading in the purple direction. To cut the South loose and say good riddance might make most Americans feel good but saying “Don’t let the door hit you…”would be an emotional as well as premature act.

 

Perhaps the rest of America could again show who the adult in the room is by being supportive of the good people in the South by making sure their civil rights are protected till they are in the majority.

If the “Old South” types can’t handle the change, Delta is always waiting but where would they go?

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