This column inaugurates a new offering from the Southern National Congress (SNC). Today we begin a weekly newsletter with pro-Southern views on key events of our day, events that affect how you, our fellow Southerners, live your lives.
I hope that as a Southern patriot you’ve heard about the Southern National Congress by now -- your Congress if you choose to make it so. Our mission is to provide you the opportunity to participate in a representative assembly of citizens of the Southern States. * It’s an alternative forum in which you will have a voice to express your grievances and interests in a way that’s no longer possible in today’s corrupt political process. For unless you’re brain-dead or sunk deep in denial (and that’s not the case or you wouldn’t be reading this message), you have to be aware that your freedom and prosperity are under attack as never before in our history. Hardly anyone in Washington is paying attention to your complaints, except perhaps to sneer with contempt as they continue the process of deceiving and plundering you.
In keeping with our mission, we want to generate vigorous, honest communication about today’s crisis among our fellow Southerners. That means listening as well as talking. We want to know what you think, and to that end we’ll conduct opinion surveys from time to time via the Internet and our website
And we believe our insights will benefit you, which is why we’re launching this newsletter, WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS, to be published every Monday.
Perhaps you recognize the phrase we’ve chosen to publish under. It was penned by one of the greatest Americans and a Southerner, a fellow from Virginia by the name of Thomas Jefferson. He wrote this in the summer of 1776:
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That
whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right
of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing power in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Yes, it’s the key text from the Declaration of Independence.
The truths we hold in the SNC are the truths our forefathers fought and died for in the first war of secession and independence (1776-1781), and the second (1861-1865). At the country’s founding, Southern leaders in particular advanced the principles that formed the free Constitutional republic that once, but no longer, described the United States of America. I’m speaking of the legacy of great Southerners like Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John C. Calhoun, and Jefferson Davis.
The political principles held by these men flowed from the recognition that there exist absolute, eternal, and immutable laws established by a Sovereign God, laws that apply to the whole sphere of human existence, including civil government and economics. On this foundation rested a fierce devotion to individual dignity and liberty. To secure that liberty, a small government under just laws was necessary, subject to checks and balances and limited strictly to its delegated and enumerated powers. That government was never to be the master but the servant and the agent of the people acting through their respective States. These distinctly Southern principles were the bedrock of the Constitution of 1789. These are the basic truths that the SNC seeks to restore, in a time when the Constitution of 1789 is a dead letter, in a time when the Federal Government is engaged in “…a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evincing a design to reduce us under absolute Despotism,” to quote again from the Declaration.
Like our forefathers, we face the tragedy of our own government turning against us, treating us first as subjects rather than citizens, then as enemies, and finally as prey. We Southerners have been among the most loyal and patriotic Americans, but now we must grieve at the folly, corruption, and lawlessness of our government, which has forfeited all moral authority. An authentic Southern voice is suppressed by official acts and a hostile culture. Our elected and appointed leaders no longer represent the people’s interests but the big corporations and money power.
Anyone who loves liberty and justice has no choice but to withdraw his consent from this corrupt Regime. However, withdrawing consent is not enough. We must create our own legitimate institutions to which we can transfer our allegiance. This is the principle behind the SNC, as it was with the First Continental Congress of 1774, our historical model.
We will publish weekly throughout the year except for August, when it will be bi-weekly, and the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Our goal is not just to promote another organisation, but to serve as a forum where all pro-South organisations and individuals can work for the timeless principles of liberty. We hope to show in the coming weeks that you are not helpless, and that the situation we face, dire as it is, is not hopeless. In addition to the basic truths cited above, we will disseminate and discuss proven operational principles that have worked throughout history when free men and women were courageous and determined enough to throw off the shackles of tyranny. Our situation may be new to us in our generation, but it’s not new from an historical perspective.
These operational principles, embodied in the design of the SNC, include, among others:
Employing the individual sovereignty we all enjoy as the gift of God. Even under tyranny you still possess the power to make certain choices; whether to embrace the darkness or strive toward the light.
The power of your refusal or your consent. Even tyranny depends on the consent – the willing acquiescence – of its subjects; and like the Soviet Union, it will fall if enough people withdraw their consent.
The impact of collective voices and collective action. The power of the individual’s sovereignty and your consent is multiplied many times by combining it with others.
Creating alternative, legitimate institutions of our own to which we transfer our allegiance. The Empire and its institutions are too far gone and can not be persuaded to return to the path of liberty and justice. Rather than engage in a futile effort at reforming the irredeemable, we can – we must – create our own parallel institutions.
Some of you have asked if the SNC is a secessionist effort. Quite frankly, we don’t need to be; the Empire is collapsing of its own hubris, corruption, and criminal folly. The real question is, what will follow its inevitable collapse? We in the SNC are trying to build an infrastructure that can “stand in the gap,” an instrumentality that can be used in many ways – in any way that becomes necessary -- to defend our freedom, our property, and our very lives against the criminals who run the central state.
We remind you, our fellow Southerners, that political sovereignty resides not in a particular government but in the whole People under a sovereign God. When the People are oppressed and no other redress is possible, God’s law upholds the right and the duty to organize collective means for self-defense under new leaders who will emerge from the community. Such means, like the SNC, derive their legitimacy from the commitment to the welfare of the community.
The SNC invites you to pull up to your computer monitor every Monday with your coffee and biscuit and join in our discussion. I also invite you visit our website and locate the resolutions passed by the First Congress in December 2008. They’re called “Remonstrances and Petitions for the Redress of Grievances,” language drawn straight from our forefathers’ successful struggle for freedom. These resolutions petition the Federal Government to cease its abuses, usurpations, and unlawful acts in several key areas. I think you’ll be excited when you read them, and you’ll be convinced as I am that our struggle for freedom is not in vain but will succeed with this kind of power and passion behind it.
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Thomas Moore is Chairman of the SNC.
* The SNC represented States are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
