The Call of Citizenship

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon." -- Napoleon

The Colonel has increasingly moved toward entrance into the camp of those whose version of past events is decidedly different than the majority opinion.  It happens to people who really study history objectively and comprehensively.  Most don't, and remain blissfully ignorant.

The Colonel is looking at you, Americans.

  

In the decades leading up to America's third major civil war (See King Philip's War of 1675 - 1678, and the misnamed American Revolutionary War of 1775 - 1783, for the first and second major civil wars), American politicians sought to preserve the union of states by compromising over the heinous practice of chattel slavery.

With the change of presidential administrations in 1861, under a new political party (the Republican Party) specifically organized to end the practice of chattel slavery throughout the entire union of states, American politicians effectively discarded the canard of compromise.  Southern politicians led their states in a revolt against the central government (a move they claimed, not altogether erroneously, echoed the revolt against the central government in 1775), and Northern politicians rallied their states in an effort to "preserve the union."      

Neither position was particularly popular to a majority of citizens in either region.  But, as is nearly always the case throughout history, and is certainly true today, the views of a malcontent minority  receive the most attention.  

Let's be clear -- the base cause of Southern secession was indeed the desire to preserve the institution of slavery.  Full stop.  Historians sympathetic to the antebellum south have cloaked that root cause in the threadbare cloth of "states rights," but the overarching "right" the southern states sought to preserve was the right to maintain the institution of slavery.  Period.

And..., let's be likewise clear-eyed regarding the real reason Northern politicians were so intent on preventing Southern secession.  Southern politicians weren't nearly so interested in whether western states would enter the union as "slave" or "free" as they were in the prospect of "tropical" lands to the south (much more conducive to agriculture based on slave labor) joining the union.  Northern politicians feared dilution of their power in that possibility -- they had prevented President James K. Polk from annexing all of Mexico (as he easily could have) at the conclusion of the War with Mexico in 1849.  Annexation of just the northern half of Mexican territory (the half least suited to agriculture based on slave labor) added enormously rich lands to the Union without the prospect of diminishing Northern politicians' power.  An independent Southern nation's manifest destiny would not be westward.  Had the Confederacy succeeded in establishing its independence, the Southern nation might very well have rather quickly extended itself to include at least the Caribbean and Central America.  Such a nation would have become an economic power-house with which the remaining states in the diminished United States would have had a difficult time competing. 

    

The vast majority of citizens on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line were not overly enthusiastic about the prospect of war in 1861 (just as the vast majority of colonists were not enthusiastic about the prospect of war in 1775).  Their politicians were, and they generated enthusiasm (as politicians always do) by rationalizing war as a means of projecting ideals (North) or protecting property (South).

And, so we find ourselves today -- politicians on one side of the aisle (the ideological Mason-Dixon Line, if you will) generating enthusiasm for projecting ideals (socialism) and politicians on the other side provoking an opposing reaction for the protection of property (capitalism).  But, in reality, as it has nearly always been, the politicians on either side care far less for their side's ideology than they do for the personal power that accrues to the leaders of the ascendant movement.  

Politicians are able to accrue personal power, at the expense of those they purport to serve, because the vast majority of the people are unwilling to do the hard work of citizenship in our Republic.  True citizenship is not a label; it is a calling. 

The call of citizenship requires education.  

A worthy citizen of our Republic should have an appreciation of the objective, unvarnished version of the Republic's history.  Public education textbooks do not provide this.  If a citizen's study of his republic's history ends with public school education, he or she is not answering the call of citizenship. 

A worthy citizen of our Republic should have ready access to our Constitution, through even the most casual study of which the least educated of us can determine for ourselves whether a politician's proposal passes the Constitutionality test.  If a citizen depends on the courts to tell him or her what is Constitutional, he or she is not answering the call of citizenship. 

The call of citizenship requires acceptance of responsibility.

A responsible citizen is one who leaves our Republic in better condition and in better hands than he or she inherited it.  Our Republic is indeed an incredibly valuable inheritance, and each generation of Americans should do all in their power to at least preserve the principal of that inheritance by observing and preserving the principles upon which that inheritance was initially bequeathed.

A responsible citizen ensures that his or her progeny are prepared to inherit the riches of our Republic.  Leaving this up to our public schools (love you, teachers, but you know the Colonel is right) is not a responsible action. 

The call of citizenship requires the sacrifice of service.  In some form or another, above and beyond just being a productive member of society, every citizen should seek a way to serve the other members of our Republic.  The older, if not necessarily wiser, the Colonel gets, the more he doesn't view his service in uniform as particularly sacrificial -- he was adequately compensated for his service.  

So, he'll seek to serve by sacrificing his time and continuing to write.