By AlaskaWatchman.com

Most amateur history buffs ignore what happened after the misnamed “American Civil War.” Churchill said, “War is rattling good history, but peace makes poor reading.”

So, when an occupied peace was imposed upon the South, Americans look upon the era of 1865-77 as a time to “Go West, young man,” of cattle drives, Indian wars, and gunslingers in lawless mining towns. If we give any thought to what was happening in the South, we like to think that freed slaves were dancing joyously, the Ku Klux Klan was being tamed by northern occupation troops, railroads and cities were being rebuilt – and oh, yes, there was some corruption going on down there, too.

The honest politicians in Congress, meaning those that disdained bribes, were the most ruthless and brutal. They were called Radical Republicans, and they imitated the French Jacobins in their desire to humiliate and crush Southern culture, and anyone else who got in their way. Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, William Seward, Ben Wade, Salmon Chase, Henry Davis and Edwin Stanton led the way.

The Deep State dog-pile on Trump should be seen as an opportunity not only to salvage our voting rights, but as a way to fundamentally correct the errors that have gone on for too long

Sumner considered the seceded and defeated states as having committed suicide, and could only be readmitted on conditions laid out by Congress. Although Radicals were only a minority, they utterly controlled it by bullying and patronage. Stevens was even worse, arguing that the South should be treated as conquered foreign territory, under military law with suspension of civilian rights.

Both got their way.

Why should this be important now? Because under these conditions, the 14th Amendment was passed, whose implications are even now rearing its ugly head. It is the 14th that brought us Roe v. Wade, homosexual “rights,” feminism, erosion of religious liberty and free speech, CRT, transgenderism and the entire lot of contemporary nonsense that passes as supposedly thoughtful political discourse.

And if you haven’t noticed, is now being used as an attempt to keep Donald Trump off the ballot. Supposed constitutional “scholars” have decided that Donald Trump is disqualified from ever running for president, despite the fact he has never been charged or convicted of encouraging a rebellion, and has twice defeated impeachments!

This brings hypocrisy to levels we never dreamed of a few years ago.

But let’s go right to the bottom line: the 14th Amendment was illegally approved and violated Article V of the Constitution, which lays out how an amendment is to be passed. No constitutional scholar, even those who are trying to defend Trump, wants to discuss this because it is a bridge too far for them. The media would pounce on them with the usual tripe of being a conspiracy theorist, racist or zany. That’s because they cannot even look up the easily discovered truth of what U.S. presidents, senators, congressmen, individual legislatures and media outlets had to say, even as late as the 1960s.

The latest constitutional crisis (we’ve been in one since the beginning) should be seen as an opportunity to stop merely pruning branches, but to go to the root of our problems.

The Deep State dog-pile on Trump should be seen as an opportunity not only to salvage our voting rights, but as a way to fundamentally correct the errors that have gone on for too long, and have morphed into an evil that not even the Radical Republicans would have desired. It is easy to see how the 14th is a deeply ingrained cancerous tumor into the body politic and has metastasized into a wanton killer of freedom, then and now.

A blatant self-contradiction existed when the 14th was allegedly passed. You need 2/3 of both the House and Senate to send an amendment to the state legislatures. But the south was not permitted to seat its elected officials in late 1865, which met the presidential conditions, formulated by Lincoln and implemented by Johnson, for readmission into the union.

This violated not only how an amendment should be passed, but also another vitally important clause of Article V, which reads: “And that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

Thus, they were not in the union at all until the Radical Republicans permitted them. With such an overwhelming majority controlled by the Radicals, the 14th passed muster in both chambers, after much debate in committee and on the floor about its implications.

But it still needed to pass three-fourths of the state legislatures. So, now the South was to be jolly-well considered as in the union, as a condition for re-entry! And so eventually, through an increase of occupation troops, corrupt southern “scalawag” politicians and rigged elections, together with a resignation of many people, led to the passage of the southern legislatures.

Are Puerto Rico, Guam or the Virgin Islands in the union today? Of course not, because they are not states, but territories or a commonwealth. Anyone trying to get an amendment passed today, and wanting to include their approval, would be horse-laughed out of the room – yet that is exactly how the 14th was passed.

Even some northern states, watching this travesty, considered repealing their approval. Some constitutional “scholars,” even today, say that a state cannot do that. They obviously have completely ignored the 10th amendment. It’s a commonly held bad habit since the day it was approved – which followed the guidelines set down in Article V, by the way, unlike the 14th.

“You can’t have it both ways!” is a familiar complaint used a thousand times a day in our individual lives. But yes, you can, actually, if you are powerful enough to force your will upon your victims.

The Dobbs decision reversed only one of the evils of the 14th, the mass murder of our future generations through abortion, done in the name of “privacy” found in the “penumbra” (partial shadow) and “emanations” (gaseous fumes) of a spuriously approved constitutional amendment. The latest constitutional crisis (we’ve been in one since the beginning) should be seen as an opportunity to stop merely pruning branches, but to go to the root of our problems.

The Deep State is not finished. As Donald Trump has said countless times, “They are not after me, they are after you. I only got in their way.”

Here are some footnotes:

Bryant.pdf (ua.edu)

Was the Fourteenth Amendment Constitutionally Adopted? – Abbeville Institute

The views expressed here are those of the author.

OPINION: On fake devotion to the Constitution

Bob Bird
Bob Bird ran for U.S. Senate in 1990 and 2008. He is a past president of Alaska Right to Life, a 47-year Alaska resident and a retired public school teacher. He has a passion for studying and teaching Alaska and U.S. constitutional history. He lives on the Kenai Peninsula and is currently a daily radio talk-show host for The Talk of the Kenai, on KSRM 920 AM from 3-5 pm and heard online radiokenai.com.


6 Comments

  • Lucinda says:

    Citing defendant Trump as support, critically and irreversibly destroys whatever point Bird failed to make.

  • David Bartels says:

    I filed caselaw into Governor Dunleavy office demonstrating in 4 different ways: Everyone who was issued a Decree of Divorce from the Alaska Court System is only a separation and remains married! With caselaw calling it a monster.

  • Dee Cee says:

    Yet again I read commentary from the prolific Mr. Bird and find myself pondering things I never knew existed. I guess we all have much to learn. Thank you, Bob, for this excellent and succinct article.

  • Friend of Humanity says:

    ‘Bret Weinstein Exposes the World Health Organization’s Dark Agenda’ Tucker Carlson interview.
    https://rumble.com/v45ehs6-bret-weinstein-exposes-the-world-health-organizations-dark-agenda.html

  • David M Zuniga says:

    Cogent and true, Bob Bird. You know your history; a sad state of affairs since the smoke cleared in 1865. But this is ironic, since Alaska is not a state according to the Constitution. One government cannot “buy” an entire people and their land from a third government. It was human trafficking, with all the fishery, furs, oil and gas, and timber thrown in for good measure. In 1992, the treacherous criminals in the DCCP issued the “Apology Resolution” as a left-handed slap in the face of all Hawaiians, recounting in detail how lawless was Washington DC’s invasion and overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on behalf of Sanford Dole and a handful of other captains of Pacific plunder. Read ‘the Apology Resolution’ sometime, to see the depth of cynicism inherent in deeply-ensconced organized crime.
    But by God’s grace, TacticalCivics.com now has over 1350 county chapters launched, including Juneau and Anchorage, though not very active. It is that subpopulation of Americans who can be truly called ‘We The People’ — repentant, conscientious, lawful, responsible Americans determined to practice popular constitutionalism in full, for life, for the glory of Jesus Christ.
    Better late than never.