Is the Confederacy the Model of Limited Government

I like the Civil War Memory blog which is a blog by a teacher of the Civil War. Though at times I think he would get farther if he used a little bit more sugar and spice toward his opponents.

He has a entry here at Remembering Alabama’s Secession and “Lincoln bin laden”. In that entry he links a prior entry Are You Sure You Are Waving the Right Flag? which he makes a case that if you are for limited Government maybe you should not showcasing the Southern States.

The comments are good and I think some make that point better than his post.

There seems to be some theory out there that Lincoln was the cause of the expansion of Federal Power. Well the fact that the Government in many cases went back to Pre Civil War levels is never mentioned.

There is a belief that Lincoln and the North hated Federalism. That is of course nonsense. Federalism does not mean the States have veto power over everything. We can not advocate a healthy Federalism if we don't get what right Federalism is.

Also in these debates all sort of other things are left out. People talk FDR and no doubt he expanded the Federal Government to huge levels.

However for the FDR's of the world you have the Huey Longs of Louisiana. Where do they fit in? It also goes unmentioned that these deep South Dixiecrats segregationists were the biggest cheerleaders of FDR and those programs. Heck so was much of the Southern populace.

It is also forgotten that STATE GOVERNMENT COULD AND WOULD be little places where freedom could be restricted and often was. Of course we have the obvious example of the laws relating to segregation and State Like KGB agencies such as the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission that came into being to enforce that regime.

However besides that obvious example it should be recalled that extending the Bill of Rights to the States(Incorporation Theory) got a lot of traction last century. The State and local Governments were violating Free Speech, doing Illegal Search and Seizures, and other things left and right.

What is often left out is that Federal Power became expanded because of two related events. That is a early unfortunate reading of the Civil Rights Amendments that led to the Federal Government using other avenues( Such as the expanded use of the Commerce Clause) to combat certain real restrictions the States and local Governments were putting on local citizens. The effect being was of course that power was used elsewhere later too.

So while I understand the concerns about Federal Power and I really see nothing Libertarians or conservative about allowing State Governments to have all the power and just talking about the mean ole Federal Government.

The issue should be a healthy Federalism.