the North’s choice of war over disunionrndestroyed the American people’s right tornself-government and created on the ruinsrnof our ancient liberties an imperialrnstate did not escape the notice of historianrnWilliam Appleman Williams. “Simplyrnput,” he wrote, “the cause of the CivilrnWar was the refusal of Lincoln andrnother northerners to honor the revolutionaryrnright of self-determination—therntouchstone of the American Revolution.”rnMr. Lincoln’s revolution of 1861 wasrnof the Jacobin variety and thus in no wayrnreflected the “revolutionary” spirit of ourrnown Founders. M.E. Bradford pomtsrnout in his essay “The Lincoln Legacy:rnA Long View” (1980) that the YankeernPresident misappropriated the equalityrnclause of the Declaration of Independencernin order to substitute a Jacobinrndoctrine of universal rights for the hardrnlessons of experience learned over manyrngenerations. By championing an Americanrnversion of the universal rights of manrn(particularly egalitarianism, Shakespeare’srn”universal wolf”), Lincoln,rnclaims Bradford, changed the nature ofrnAmerican political discourse forever. “Inrnthis universe of discourse,” Bradford in-rnPoemsrnby Richard MoorernFeminist Advice to a Young Woman PoetrnVirginity, still in your diaper,rnnot lost? Your daddy didn’t take it?rnDearie, the times couldn’t be riper.rnHop up on our bandwagon! Fake it!rnThe SentimentalistrnShe’s belled her puss. Isn’t that nice.rnThat alarmed cat won’t torture mice,rnand it is not apparent thatrnthat tinkling bell tortures the cat.rnThe Social AnimalrnThan any member more resilient,rna group of men acquires a group idrnthat sometimes makes its members brilliant,rnmore often murderous and stupid.rnforms us, “this closed linguistic system,rnall questions are questions of ends, andrnmeans are beside the point. And everyrn’good cause’ is a reason for increasing thernscope of government. All that countsrnis the telos, the general objective, andrnbullying is not merely allowed, but required.”rnIn our own day, we see the ultimaternresult of ends over means in a judiciaryrnand bureaucracy that has becomernquite adept at “bullying” the Americanrnpeople to achieve whatever telos ourrnJacobin ruling class decides is meet.rnAs long as we pay homage to the destroyersrnrather than to the benefactors ofrncivilization, we shall continue to celebraternthe Lincoln legacy. But once thernmyth of Northern benevolence—and inrncontradistinction. Southern wickednessrn—from 1861-65 is exposed for thernlie that it is, it will be much easier to explainrnto the descendants of both why wcrnhave suffered the demise of liberty andrnprosperity in direct proportion to thernsteady increase in an imperial government’srncontrol of our lives and property.rnWe might well remember that the sacredrneagle worshiped by the legions ofrnimperial Rome as the bellorum deus isrnalso the totem of the current AmericanrnEmpire. But the imperial Roman legionsrnat least behaved according to thernprecept that a military commander darernnot be too successful in conqueringrnneighboring provinces lest he show uprnthe Emperor. Such restraint convincedrnmen that the eagle’s talons would not bernbared to further conquest and destructionrnbut to preserve the existing order ofrncivilization.rnUnlike Imperial Rome, the Americanrneagle’s talons have been made bloody forrnthe past 130 years in tearing to shreds allrnthat dare oppose its rule, and the carnagernbegan with Lincoln’s destruction ofrnthe South. Subsequent American imperialrnventures all have followed the samerncourse, more or less, in that they havernsought conquest and influence and notrnpeace and humane order. Perhaps it isrnfor this reason that Professor Hummelrnconcludes that after the North’s triumphrnin 1865 “there would be no more victoriesrnof Liberty over Power. In contrast tornthe whittling away of government thatrnhad preceded Fort Sumter, the UnitedrnStates had commenced its halting butrninexorable march toward the welfarewarfarernState of today.” And, as his titlernsuggests, men once free have becomernslaves under the Pax Americana.rn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn