...very interesting, in view of today's Fed GOV





Agressive at Home and a Despot Abroad

Col. Lee Refuses

Not that Jeff Davis was any better.  Gov. Brown of GA withheld supplies until he could get them to Georgian soldiers.  I think North Carolina did the same.

While certainly interesting, the article is simplistic in that it lays all of the current national problems at the feet of the perceived increase of federal power post-Civil War.

Certainly the battle between the rural yeoman-farmer Jeffersonians and the city dweller tradesman-banker Hamiltonians existed from the dawn of the country.

Yet, technology doomed the rural sectional partisans in shifting the political balance as surely as any other factor.

Communications improvements, starting with the telegraph, made it possible to get news and messages in a matter of hours, instead of days and weeks, as was the previous standard.  It was even possible to speedily communicate with Europe after the laying of the trans-Atlantic cable.  This certainly helped a trend toward a national consciousness.

Transportation improvements, such as the railroad and the steamship, made it cheaper for people to move about, instead of staying within a few miles of their birthplace their whole lives, as had been the previous standard.  It also helped accelerate the decline of purely regional character and attitude as people wanted to become more cosmopolitan.  Certainly the rail system's introduction of time zones helped create a focus on a bigger picture instead of a town-centric ideal.  They also made it possible to bring large enough quantities of food to the cities to support increased population density.

The Industrial Revolution also helped seal the fate of rural America.  Improvements in manufacturing farm implements made it easier to run farms with less people, freeing them to work in thetowns and cities in industries, consolidating the population and accelerating the trend towards growth of cities.

These technological advances changed the very character of America, as surely the Civil War.

Jefferson Davis in his introduction to his post-war "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government":

"In all free governments the constitution or organic law is supreme over the government, and in our Federal Union this was most distinctly marked by limitations and prohibitions against all which was beyond the expressed grants of power to the General Government. In the foreground, therefore, I take the position that those who resisted violations of the compact were the true friends, and those who maintained the usurpation of undelegated powers were the real enemies of the constitutional Union."

This is 100% relevant and observable in today's Federal exertion of powers over the States.

Madison was right