This is a great country.  I just wish more of us understood its history.  Case in point: The governor of Virginia declared this month "Confederate History Month" and there is uproar.  The thing is those doing the yelling really seem to have no idea what it is that they are talking about.

First and for the record, slavery is a very, very bad thing and completely indefensible – I think the vast majority of level-headed adults will agree with this.  I wanted to make sure that was on the record before I said the next thing on my mind; the Civil War was not a civil war at all and was not fought over slavery.  Further, the South was for the most part correct. Before you tune out and send angry letters, let me first make my case.

Let's start with a simple fact; a civil war is fought when two or more parties are all fighting for the control of an entire country.  So when Cromwell fought the royalists in England and won, that was a civil war.  Our so-called civil war was actually a war for southern independence, when the southern states tried to assert their constitutional rights under the tenth amendment.

 In case you didn't know it, the Constitution allows states to ignore or override federal laws that they deem as too interfering.  You see when the country was formed the word "state" meant something very different than we understand it today.  Virginia and Pennsylvania were states as in England or France as opposed to the modern understanding we today.  Madison and Jefferson were crystal clear in intending that the federal government was to be weak, and the states dominant.  Then, Andrew Jackson came along following in the footsteps of Alexander Hamilton, who envisioned a greater American Empire, and well, ‘the rest is history’ as they say.

Slavery by 1860, when the Civil War started, was already dying out everywhere and the South would soon have followed.  It is also important to understand and remember that Lincoln was himself no altruistic visionary, as he was planning to send the slaves back to Africa if he lived and only emancipated the slaves in 1863, a largely meaningless political gesture at the time done for political expedience going into an election year.  By that time the war had been slogging on for three years with no end in sight. 

Don't get me wrong; I am glad he did it but you need to understand it in the context of the time and not in modern terms to comprehend what the Civil War was really fought over.  Oh sure, there were lots of southern bigots, but there were just as many in the north.  We have a tendency in our culture of Hollywood movies with good and bad guys to simplify and oversimplify the complex - when it really is impossible to accurately do so.  The Civil War was not simple.

I am bringing this entire issue up because we are today living with what happens when a strong central government rides roughshod over the rights of individuals and states and couples that with the ability to print money.  At its root all of our problems today and in some ways can be traced to the crushing of state’s rights in 1865.  And the issue keeps boiling up again and again, as now at last count, 13 states have joined a class action lawsuit against the latest federal intrusion into our lives, Obamacare, arguing that it is unconstitutional to mandate health insurance and  impose penalties.  We will see what the outcome of the case is down the road.  I am not going to argue the merits here but suffice it to say I am on the side of the plaintiffs.

The point I want to make here is that the bigger government gets, the more rights it usurps and the more waste it generates.  Efficient government is an oxymoron.  It is impossible and how we never learn that is, well, a mystery to me.  Maybe we are finally learning.  I hope so. I will close with a little thought provoker. 

In my opinion, the presidents on Mt. Rushmore should be chiseled off, one by one, with the exception of Washington and the rest should be replaced with Van Buren, Cleveland, Coolidge, and Reagan.  These are truly men who understood what a president ought to be, were very good at it, and did not usurp individual rights.  I would add Harding to that list but he died too soon to finish his term - but it was great while it lasted!  Do a little studying and see why I picked these men.  I would be interested in your opinions.

Greatest President in American History: Grover Cleveland.  He was extremely effective and never tried to behave like a King.  What a great man.  Too bad more of the fools who run our country today don't study history, understand it, and recognize their own limits.  If they did, we wouldn't be facing the mess we are in caused by a government out of control run by egos even larger.  What we need right now is leadership that is at once competent and modest.

Yeah, I won't hold my breath either.