We get closer to an authentic civil war every day. It is unquestionably being orchestrated. So-called “Sanctuary Cities” are an example of micro-secession. And, despite the slavery issue, the true reason for our deadly self-inflicted war of the 1860s was over the right of a state to secede.

Most people don’t realize that New Englanders once sympathized with secession, but only if it was northern secession. Northern secession was discussed as early as 1800, and Jefferson, in his First Inaugural Address, would not have opposed it. It surfaced again, and for good reason, during the War of 1812.

John Quincy Adams, shortly before he died in the 1840s, and as a member of Congress, was so ashamed that Texas had been admitted into the union, that he thought that New England ought to secede. Anti-slavery Americans wanted to remove themselves from the pollution of a government that tolerated and protected slavery.

With Trump calling out the militia from different states, including Alaska, and with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz threatening to do the same to oust ICE, the union is once again in a perilous condition.

The Declaration of Independence calls secession a Natural Law right in its first breath. It sheds a whole new light on the hagiographic portrayals of Abe Lincoln.

So, if the Twin Cities, San Francisco, New York, Seattle or Portland want to become a city-state, or even take their entire states with them, I believe that they have that right.

But like Virginia in 1863, their own states are divided. Upstate New York, downstate Illinois, eastern Oregon and Washington, northern California all detest the socialist governments that their urbans centers foist upon them.

Guess how West Virginia came into being. Ta-da! It seceded from Confederate Virginia. However, Lincoln’s government did not follow the rules, laid out quite clearly in the Constitution, on how states could do that.

Then we have the violent riot which occurred in Baltimore in 1861, attacking federal troops as they marched through town to another train depot. Maryland refused to secede only because Lincoln rigged the elections to ensure that pro-secession citizens could not vote. No historian denies this, making a mockery of Lincoln’s much vaunted phrase, “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” The acerbic journalist of the 1920s, H. L. Mencken, knew the true character of “Honest Abe.”

With Trump calling out the militia from different states, including Alaska, and with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz threatening to do the same to oust ICE, the union is once again in a perilous condition, verging on an open civil war.

Liberal judges have turned violent criminals loose, forcing a reaction from a patriotic president, whose best impulses and decisions were to defend our borders from a massive invasion.

And I also know that not everyone in Minnesota is a liberal, but you must get out of the Twin Cities area to find most of them. This demonstrates the true geographic divide found in today’s America: Rural v. Urban. It is becoming as obvious as North v. South in the 1860s. Looking at a county map of presidential elections, you can see this in many of our liberal states.

But rural areas are only temporarily immune and are always out-voted anyway. Socialism is a system where everybody tries to live off of everybody else. It looks good for a while, but the system can only GROW, and entitlements are endless. It happens on both the state and federal level. It is cooperative. Sooner or later, the socialist premise is shrugged off as inevitable, and indifference locks in.

Donald Trump, like almost every one of our presidents, does not follow the Constitution. We ought to all be “strict constructionists” because the Constitution itself, in the 9th and 10th amendments, tells us how to interpret it. But in trying to defend our country from illegal aliens who have been permitted into our borders intentionally, Trump is following the Constitution.

But with his broken promises about ending wars instead of starting new ones, he has broken the MAGA coalition and alienated his finest congressional loyalists just when he needs them the most. By bombing Iran, ideas of annexing Canada and Greenland, forcing “regime change” in Venezuela, he is utterly UN-constitutional. Of course, he has a lot of presidential company: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, Bush I & II, Obama, Biden – all put us in danger of our lives and security. Even one of my favorite presidents, Coolidge, invaded Nicaragua.

“Westward the course of empire makes its way!” was a jingo slogan in the 1840s. It has taken over 200 years to admit it, and the history of empires is not a good one.

“Quo vadis, America?” Where are we going?

The treason that permitted millions of illegal aliens to enter the country was an intentional effort to destroy the union. It was done to prop up the Democratic Party, to groom new voters. With massive voter fraud becoming undeniable, it matters little whether they are citizens or not.

Liberal judges have turned violent criminals loose, forcing a reaction from a patriotic president, whose best impulses and decisions were to defend our borders from a massive invasion. It is oh-so-like the barbarians that crossed the Rhine into the late western Roman Empire, and from whence we have the term “vandalism.”

And speaking of empires, let’s get our terminology correct. We were never a democracy, except on the local level, in referendums. We were a Republic. We are now a bona fide and aggressive empire, caring little for the national sovereignty and dignity of other nations. Teddy Roosevelt with his Big Stick, sure loved doing that.

And perhaps we were forced to become an empire by events. We did not, after all, start either World Wars. Many Americans like Ron and Rand Paul, Pat Buchanan, Thomas Massie, Majorie Green and Josh Hawley, and unelected pundits like Chuck Baldwin, Tucker Carlson and myself, would like to return to our constitution. Many Romans also wanted to do so but never could.

“You can’t go home again.”

Amazingly, many conservatives find the idea of true constitutionalism – scary! But elected officials might consider that the temporal opinions of the liberal media will matter not a whit at their Judgement before Almighty God, when He will ask if they were faithful to their oaths, when they invoked His name.

America has arguably been an empire since we bought one million square miles of Louisiana in 1803. It was unconstitutional, and Jefferson knew it. When the American flag went up in New Orleans, the diplomat Robert Livingston proudly proclaimed, “From this day, America takes its place among the powers of the first rank.”

Then we added another million when we ripped the southwest away from Mexico in 1848. Both those events are the very definition of empire.

“Westward the course of empire makes its way!” was a jingo slogan in the 1840s. It has taken over 200 years to admit it, and the history of empires is not a good one. And like Britannia, which was hung out to dry when Rome collapsed, Alaska stands in a precarious position.

And that is a fact that we all need to contemplate.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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