In January 1861 as Abraham Lincoln was preparing to take office in March the people of the sovereign state of South Carolina perceived that his presidency posed a threat and its legislature seceded from the union of states. This action was the starting point for the creation of the Confederate States of America.
Located in South Carolina was a federal fort named Sumter. Once South Carolina had seceded the ownership of that fort was claimed by the state. President Buchanan, Lincoln's predecessor, refused to turn over ownership of several federal forts to the seceding states.
After Lincoln took office, however, he saw Buchanan's position as an opportunity to assert his authority and declared that secession was illegal. Though the fort commander at Sumpter had agreed to surrender the fort as soon as his provisions ran out, Lincoln made it very well known that he intended to send federal troops there to resupply Fort Sumpter thereby extending the federal claim. South Carolina perceived the occupation of their state by federal troops to be a threat. Confederate soldiers were sent to block the re-supply and thus force the surrender.
On April 12, 1861 shots were fired between the federal troops and the soldiers of South Carolina and the Confederate States of America. These are called the first shots of the American Civil War.
Today there is a growing unrest in America. There is a sense that the federal government has gone too far, reached too deeply into the lives of individuals, ignored the sovereignty of the states and has plans to do more, not less, as the years go by. Many Americans perceive this as a threat.
The government knows this.
Small Wars Journal, a respected publication closely followed in the U.S. military, has published an article entitled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future” by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army’s University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas. It lays out not just the military but the legal basis for military operations to crush domestic insurrections in the United States.
What is clear is that, again, Congress is allowing for such preparations without any serious discussion or review. The assumption of legality will soon become the acceptance of legality in domestic use of military forces.
The underlying scenarios are set for as soon as 2016 if the economy does not improve and unrest grows. Focusing on a town called Darlington, the article explores an order to “Fix Darlington, but don’t destroy it!”
The authors write “once it is put into play, Americans will expect the military to execute without pause and as professionally as if it were acting overseas.”
The authors spend comparatively little time considering the constitutional and legal barriers to the operations. They details how “Federal forces continue to tighten the noose as troops seize and secure power and water stations, radio and TV stations, and hospitals.” Yet, legal limitations are treated as largely irrelevant. [Turley]
Can't say that I haven't tried to warn you, again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
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