A Whiff of Treason

One hundred fifty years ago - today, as a matter of fact - a barrage of cannon fire signaled the beginning of the American Civil War. Most of the Southern states had seceded from the United States, and South Carolina decided to open hostilities.

Four years later, most of South Carolina's major cities lay in ruins and the state itself was impoverished. The Confederacy lay supine, defeated and destitute.

Debate still goes on as to whether the Reconstruction of the South after the war should have been carried on to a conclusion. It might have burned the cancer out of the South.

Instead, it metastasized.

Over the past thirty-odd years or longer secession movements have festered in various places here in America. The people who are part of this tend to overlook, gloss over or ignore the lesson of the Civil War - that secession ends badly for the seceding state.

But that doesn't deter them. In fact, at least one state governor (Perry of Texas) came just short of calling for Texas to secede. That would likely have destroyed the Texan economy, as that state is a major sucker at the public-money tit, relying on federal subsidies for farming, oil, and military (not to mention social safety net programs).

Any state seceding now would not have an easy time of it even before the Federals moved in to teach the hard lesson again.

But there are actual commemorations scheduled for today, with gray uniforms, the Stars and Bars, and all the antebellum paraphernalia that illustrates just how ignorant these people are of their country's history.

So if you're walking around today and you smell something reminiscent of wet rotting garbage and raw sewage, relax.

It's only a whiff of treason.