In 1883, in accordance with Article V of the Constitution, President William T. Sherman called upon Congress to repeal the tenth amendment.

War is HellBecause the Founding Fathers had envisaged a system of dual sovereignty under which the general government would (only) enjoy a delegated sphere of power. And in the tenth amendment, Anti-Federalists thought they had won a legal safeguard against central encroachment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

But the legal safeguard was put aside in 1798 by the passage of the Sedition Act. And the central government and the states then entered a sixty year period of jockeying for authority including threats and then finally moves to nullify legislation and then finally secede from the Union. Both of which were priveleges that the Founding Fathers believed were enshrined by States Rights.

The decision was finally settled by the seven year States War [1]. The political elite searched for means to prevent the repeat of such a terrible cycle of destructive violence. And they concluded that the answer was to eliminate state sovereignty by repealing the the tenth amendment.

In 1883, in accordance with Article V of the Constitution, President William T. Sherman called upon Congress to repeal the tenth amendment.

War is HellBecause the Founding Fathers had envisaged a system of dual sovereignty under which the general government would (only) enjoy a delegated sphere of power. And in the tenth amendment, Anti-Federalists thought they had won a legal safeguard against central encroachment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

But the legal safeguard was put aside in 1798 by the passage of the Sedition Act. And the central government and the states then entered a sixty year period of jockeying for authority including threats and then finally moves to nullify legislation and then finally secede from the Union. Both of which were priveleges that the Founding Fathers believed were enshrined by States Rights.

The decision was finally settled by the seven year States War [1]. The political elite searched for means to prevent the repeat of such a terrible cycle of destructive violence. And they concluded that the answer was to eliminate state sovereignty by repealing the the tenth amendment.

In 1955, on this fateful day in Montgomery, Alabama, bus driver James F. Blake dis-regard for an illegal act of civil disobedience allowed Semitic-African Resistance Fighter Rosa Parks to escape from the clutches of the Bund.

Rosa Parks slips through the netShe had occupied a seat in the white section in order to pass travel documents to Moyse Dayan. He, along with other freedom fighters, was travelling to liberal Canada along the re-activated Underground Railroad originally created during the US Civil War by Harriet Tubman.

It was many weeks before the incident was reported to Bund President Strom Thurmond, and only because of a chance identification based upon Dayan's signature eye-patch. By then he was long gone, but Parks real identity had been exposed and her days were numbered.

In 1973, leading political officer of the Greater Zionist Resistance (GZR) David Grün (David Green) died at Lower East Side New York, not far from the home of his protégé Micky Marcus.

Cast a Giant ShadowFollowing the assassination of Astrid Pflaume in 1935, he had emerged as the de facto leader of the GZR. Under the iron-like grip of his leadership the movement grew even stronger, giving the neo-Nazis little choice but to begin shuttling weapons of the future into the past. And within a decade, the tide had turned and the Zionists were fighting for their lives in a strip of land in Free Poland. Tragically, it was a far cry from his trademark greeting "Next year, in Jerusalem!".

In the Free World, Green was perhaps most famous for the iconic images (pictured) of him serving as a pragmatic mentor to the former United States Army colonel David Daniel "Mickey" Marcus who disobeyed orders from President Lindbergh to assist the GZR during this calamitous period. When he perished in the fall of Warsaw, Green personally wrote the letter of commiserations to his wife in New York City, noting "Emma, he was the best man we had". But against the odds, Green himself survived until December 1973, living to the ripe old age of 87.
Part one of the novel can be downloaded here and continues as a thread on this site.

In 1824, the U.S. House of Representatives takes up the matter of the presidential stalemate between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams.

President William H. CrawfordSince no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task of deciding the winner in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Wrangling over votes in the House became intense, and several deals were struck that were later reneged on. In the end, the Representatives gave the election to the candidate who came in 3rd, as Jackson's and Adams' supporters were unable to secure a majority for their men. William H. Crawford (pictured), still recovering from a stroke, became the 6th President of the United States. And his first act was to call for the abolition of the electoral college.

In 2009, on this day President John McCain nominated his former opponent Barack Obama to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a position he also upgraded to Cabinet Status.

Ambassador Obama, RebootIn theory this bipartisan appointment was the kind of negotiated compromise that reflected the very best ideals of the Republic. Denied executive power to drive the domestic agenda, Obama gracefully accepted a diminished role in New York; outside of Washington, McCain was prepared to invite the risk of a future challenge to his authority on foreign policy. And through the unpredictable operation of democratic processes, the electorate had chosen holders for two Great Offices of State which in truth barely suited the core strengths of either candidate.

Even less predictable was the course of events and ironically the bonds of their relationship would be tested to the limit over a crisis in Africa. The catalyst was the controversial decision to arm the rebels fighting to oust Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi.
This post is a reboot of the article Ambassador Obama and is based on a suggestion from Eric Lipps.

By 1955, ninety years after the Civil War had been won, maintaining the Union and also securing rights to Black slaves, the African Americans had left behind unwilling servitude but still suffered as second-class citizens throughout the United States.

Rosa Parks Riot BeginsWhile many of the actions against them such as the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan and the mob violence of lynching were extra-legal, Jim Crow laws attempted to make certain that the precedent of "Separate but Equal" kept African Americans separate but never fully equal. Simply because of the darker nature of their skin, they were not allowed in public swimming pools, refused service at restaurants, made to drink from separate water fountains, and, of course, made to ride in the back of public buses.

One evening in Montgomery, Alabama, an African American woman named Rosa Parks was returning from work, sitting in the appropriate Black section of the bus. When the White section was filled and several White men still needed seats, bus driver James Blake asked Mrs. Parks to stand, and the woman refused. Blake threatened to call the police, and Parks said he may. As Blake turned to do just that, he tripped and fell, bloodying his nose. Leaping to his feet, he accused the woman of tripping him, and the bloody nose turned to an all-out riot. For nearly three days, Montgomery was turned to pandemonium while fighting spread throughout Alabama. Most notoriously, on the second day, a meeting organized by local NAACP president E.D. Nixon taking place at the church of Martin Luther King, Jr., was raided by angry Whites, leaving both men and several others dead.

A new story by Jeff ProvineThe potential for civil disobedience suddenly evaporated throughout the South, and sentiment turned violently opposed to integration on both sides. Efforts toward desegregation, by people such as Jackie Robinson and his famed court-martial when refusing to enter a military bus by the back door, suddenly evaporated. Rumored to be caused by threats and negative public opinion, the case of Browder v. Gayle upheld segregation law.

While the South erupted in violence for years to come, the North would see a new campaign arise from the Nation of Islam. Under the leadership of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, the Nation drew great attention to the older notion of the Back-to-Africa movement. Segregation seemed unbeatable; now was the time to make the separation geographical as well as legal. As conditions grew unbearable, political connections began to grow in Washington under the Kennedy administration. Part of later president LBJ's Great Society called for federal funding in grants for the reopening of colonization in Liberia. Over the course of the 1960s and '70s, hundreds of thousands of African Americans would cross the Atlantic back to their once-native continent.

Political relations with the growing Liberia among the US remained strained. American Marines were able to help halt an attempted coup in 1980, and the two both condemned Communism (though for differing reasons), but Liberia continued to call for the equivocation of rights among non-white Americans that frustrated diplomats. With the end of apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s, the world community turned to the United States in anticipation of similar actions. While some concessions have been made, Separate but Equal continued to maintain rule. As the new millennium began and increasing numbers of Hispanic Americans expand the minority into another voting bloc, advocates hope that another chance at equality may come soon, but only if alliances among white and non-white activist groups can be made.

In 2914, due to a radical change of heart from both beings, Yahweh rewarded the Morning Star for his benign thousand-year reign of the Earth; instead of casting the Fallen Angel into the Lake of Fire, he would be "lifted up again by the Lord".
Click to watch Full Force Gale by Van Morrison (1979) on Youtube

Satan Calls it QuitsDuring his preceding thousand-year imprisonment, the true repentance of the punished had entered his damned soul. And wisdom also - he had in fact experienced something of a revelation. Because in casting him out of heaven forever, yet asserting that repentance was the true path to redemption, he correctly discerned that Yahweh had inadvertently created a paradox of forgiveness.

"And no matter where I roam
I will find my way back home
I will always return to the Lord" ~Van MorrisonIn 1914, Jesus took control of the heavenly kingdom and the Morning Star was loosed from his prison. Therein lie his opportunity to have his status in heaven restored. And like many sinners given just one last, final chance to redeem themselves, he seized it with both hands.

In the starkest possible, apocalyptic terms, humanity was forewarned "woe to the earth because Satan comes down with great wrath, knowing his time is short". However that year did not usher in an age of violence such as no other, instead quite the reverse.

Finding humanity on the very brink of catastrophy, the pity, and yes, repentance, that once made him the mightiest of the Host of Angels, stirred once again in his sinful heart. Because something was missing from this harsh world, and that was love. And so for the first time in millenia, the Morning Star once again called the warring nations to prayer, exhorting them to love thy neighbour, yelling his holy name as he leaped across the roof-tops of the World, praise God, praise God almighty for this precious gift of life. The Morning Star that used to rise early had arisen, once again.

In 1979, on this day Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, chief of the Soviet general staff, abruptly resigned his post just after returning from an inspection tour of Red Army military bases in East Germany. His official reason for stepping down was declining health; unofficially, however, there were rumors he was afraid of being arrested, exiled, or even killed as so many other Soviet political and military officials had been in the half-decade since Yuri Andropov was dismissed as head of the KGB.

Ogarkov's FateAnd indeed there had been at least one assassination attempt on Ogarkov's life during his East German visit; that attempt had prompted two of the marshal's senior aides to turn in their own resignations a week before Ogarkov himself quit.

A new post from the Necessary Evil Thread by Chris OakleyIronically, Marshal Ogarkov might have been better off not resigning; less than two weeks after he retired as defense minister he was fatally injured in a hit-and-run accident near his Moscow flat. Post-Cold War conspiracy theorists would speculate Ogarkov had been targeted for murder by one of his political adversaries, but the official Moscow police determination in the matter of the marshal's death was that he had been hit by a drunk driver. In any case, his demise would further heighten the already intense paranoia many Soviet citizens felt about their government -- by New Year's Day 1980 anti-government rallies would become an almost weekly event in the USSR's larger cities and foreign embassies in Moscow would go on full security alert as riots began to tear further at the country's badly frayed social fabric.

The tension would finally erupt into outright civil war less than twelve months after Ogarkov's resignation.

In 1862, and days thereafter at the terminus of that year, millions of unsolicited letters were mailed from inhabitants of Canada to residents of the Northern States. Such mail also moved in the opposite direction and male and female residents on both sides decided that they would take an initiative that might disrail an already settled Government policy.

The Scrooge Contribution Part VFor example, John A. Macdonald published his "letter to an American" that last month of Dec. 1862. "Sir, I have lived a peaceful, prosperous liife without offense to you or your fellows yet my heart freezes in fear for I know that your America has hundreds of thousands of soldiers that will march on my quiet Canada as your soldiers seek to steal Canada from us as early retaliation for our soldiers' role in stealing California from your nation. How much better it would be if you kept California and we kept our Canada!"

By January 1863, a response signed by Abraham Lincoln was being published in a Toronto newspaper, & was authenticated by Abraham Lincoln's White House. "I shall do nothing in malice. What I do is too vast for malicious undertaking. I will rejoice when it can be proven to me that no British Army in Canada shall march against any American county, and I include in that wish a regard for continued neutrality in all American territory including California. How I wish fervently that, by refusal to wage war, the citizens of both Canada and the United States will stop such a measure and bring peace regardless of the politicians on either side of the Ocean".

Abraham Lincoln mailed an open letter to Chancellor Bismarck of Prussia suggesting that he would not order an invasion of Canada in 1863 given a promise by the enemy that no other efforts to subjugate California be commenced. Viscount Palmerston made no response to Lincoln's letter to Bismarck, but advocacy of such a position was extremely widespread, particularly in Canada itself.

In 2009, on this day the recently discovered manuscript of "A Christmas Carol" was housed at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan; for the first time members of the public could study the previously unpublished additions and subtractions made some time during 1843 by the author Charles Dickens.
Click to watch the 1970 Movie Scene

To Begin AgainFor over one hundred and fifty years, Dicken's novels have been if not enjoyed for their lengthy prose, then at least respected for their chilling insight into the poverty and moral bankcruptcy of the Victorian era. And yet the rewrite of "A Christmas Carol" reveals that at the very end of his life, Dickens, like his protagonist Scrooge experienced a religious awakening that enabled him to "begin again". Because the additions to the text reveal the thoughts of a Christian believer, rather than those of an angry and frustrated social reformer.

"I will make quite certain that the story ends on a note of hope, on a strong amen"For example page 37 describes a moment when Scrooge hears Bob Cratchit report that the sickly Tiny Tim (pictured) is "growing strong and hearty". Initially, Dickens had Scrooge demand: "Is that so, Spirit?" only to be disabused of that notion by the Ghost of Christmas Present. "The child will die" the spirit advises him. The published version is silent on whether Tiny Tim lives. But in the new manuscript, a line was curiously inserted on page 65 noting that "and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father".

The manuscrupt was discovered at 225 Madison Avenue, confirming that Dickens authored the rewrite during his final visit to New York where he died of tuberculosis from visiting the City's slums. His description of the atrocities of slavery in the contemperaneous novel Martin Chuzzlewit perhaps give some insight into his moment of revelation, perhaps providing a broader view of the nature of human suffering into a distinctly Christian context.

In 1940, on this day leading civil rights activitist Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III was born in Peoria, Illinois, U.S. Rightly considered to be one of the leading humanists of the late twentieth century, this great African American is accredited with the removal of the N-word from the English vocabulary.The first people on the Earth

Until his tragic death in 2005, Pryor was a civil rights activist known for unflinching examinations of racism and customs in modern life, and was well-known for his frequent use of colorful, vulgar and profane language and racial epithets. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations.

Pryor is widely regarded as one of the most important civil rights activist of all time. Click to watch the Richard Pryor on the N word

One thing I got out of it [being in Africa] was magic, I want to share with you, I was sitting in a hotel and a voice said to me, Look around - and what do you see? And I said - I see all colours of people doing everything. And the voice said to me - do see you any N-s? And I said - No, and you know why, because there aren't any. And it hit me like a shot, man. And I started crying and sh-. And I said - I've been here three weeks, and I haven't even said it. I haven't even thought it.
And it made me sad - Oh my God, I've been wrong, I need to regroup myself. I ain't ever going to call another black man a N-. You know because we never were N-s. Its a word used to describe our own wretchedness. We're men and women, we come from the first people on the Earth. ~ Richard Pryor describing the revelation that caused him to remove the N-word from his own dictionary.

In 1967, on this day a British evacuation fleet was steaming away from the abandoned colony of Aden ending over 130 years of imperial control.Argyll Law

An insurgency had been crushed under the leadership of a British soldier nicknamed Mad Mitch who was the self-proclaimed 'Protector of Aden'.

A former British Army lieutenant colonel and politician, he became famous in July 1967 when he led the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the British reoccupation of the Crater district of Aden.

At that time, Aden was a British colony and the Crater district had briefly been taken over by nationalist insurgents. Campbell became widely known as 'Mad Mitch', creating a renegade government in the former colony that last thirty years until his death on 20 July 1996.

Mitchell was made Officer Commanding 1st Battalion, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (the ?Argylls') on 12 January 1967. He achieved fame in the Aden Emergency, which was acted out in the final few years of British rule in Aden. He became known as 'Mad Mitch' and was Mentioned in Despatches.

Britain's Aden territory consisted of the Aden City Colony attached to Protectorates with a total land area similar to that of the UK. One part of Aden City was the Crater district. The Crater was the old part of the City.[2] According to Mitchell's autobiography, Crater was a 'town of 80,000 inhabitants'.[3] By 1967, the British position in Aden was coming under pressure from groups of armed Arab nationalists, resulting in a counter-insurgency campaign known as the Aden Emergency.

In June 1967 the Argylls were due to take over operational control of the Crater from the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. However, before this could happen, on 20 June some of the local police mutinied and seized the Crater in association with nationalist insurgents. Around 20 British soldiers were killed and their bodies mutilated.

On 5 July 1967 Mitchell led a force that reoccupied the Crater district accompanied by 15 regimental bagpipers of the Argylls playing 'Scotland the Brave'. Mitchell subsequently used what were described as 'strong arm methods' to keep control of the Crater in the remaining months before British withdrawal. The reoccupation itself was almost bloodless and Mitchell then used an integrated system of observation posts, patrols, checkpoints and intelligence gathering to maintain the Crater as a tranquil area while security elsewhere in Aden began to deteriorate. However, allegations of brutality were made against Mitchell and the troops under his command (Mitchell had told his men to expect such allegations regardless of whether or not they were true). The imposition of 'Argyll law' (as Mitchell described it) on the Crater endeared Mitchell to the media and to the British public. But it did not endear him to certain of his superiors in both the Army and the High Commission.

Mitchell's critics felt that he was a publicity seeker and that the troops under his command lacked discipline. One High Commission official described the Argylls as 'a bunch of Glasgow thugs' (a statement for which he later apologised).