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No doubt enforcing slavery was one function of militias, though not nearly so systematically in Virginia as in South Carolina and Georgia.

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There’s no indication they did. In three states, a right to secede was expressly stated in ratifying, and the Tenth Amendment principle was said to be implicit in the unamended Constitution by prominent (Madison, Hamilton, Iredell, Pinckney, Cushing, Wilson, et al.) Federalists in at least eight states; in no state was that principle contradicted.

During the Secession Crisis, President Buchanan said secession was unconstitutional, but he had no power to prevent it. That latter was widely believed too.

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Gary Gallagher’s _The Confederate War_ is excellent. So is Charles Royster’s _The Destructive War_. I assigned students in my most recent undergraduate “The Civil War” course the recent _America Aflame_. These are all general surveys. If you want something more specialized, let me know.

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Sure, law is about morality. That’s unavoidable. The error here is in thinking that the Constitution empowers federal courts legitimately to substitute their judgments in such matter for those of the sovereign states/people. The Tenth Amendment makes explicit the ’til-then-implicit principle that the Constitution gave the Congress power over only the enumerated areas–of which definition of marriage is not one.

Religious arguments regarding marriage are perfectly valid at the state level.

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Okay, right: he did write that letter. Notice that it makes no mention of the grievances he mentioned in private and which I mentioned above, as it would have been unfitting for him to bring up such personal matters in this context. Historians all mention his wife’s prodding, Congress’s unmet financial obligations to him, and the thwarted attempt of General Washington to give him promotion to the Continental Army’s second-highest rank.

I suppose I should amend my previous comment to say that Arnold gave us no *candid* statement of his motivations–unless you accept that his motivation was entirely on the level of high politics. A chacun son gout.

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See either of James McPherson’s books about soldiers’ motivations in participating in the war.

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After Brown v. Board of Education (1954), there was a real vogue among liberal intellectuals to think that judicial determination of social and political questions was superior to electoral/republican determination of such issues. The Court, awash in praise, felt free to take on numerous other such questions — contraception, redistricting, criminal procedure, etc.–partly as a result.

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Woolhouse in his biography of Locke describes in great detail the dispute in Locke’s lifetime over his relationship to Socinianism. Draw your own conclusions. The bottom line is that, contrary to Christians for at least thirteen centuries by his day (and nearly seventeen by the time I recorded the lectures), Locke held that only one belief was necessary to Christianity. In sum, he wasn’t a Christian if the word “Christian” has any meaning–and, indeed, it has an ancient pedigree.

As for Jefferson: he drafted a Declaration of Independence. It was revised slightly by two of the other four members assigned to the committee for the purpose, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. It then was reported to the whole Second Continental Congress, which changed it substantially. In the wake of Congress’s adoption of the heavily revised version we all know, Jefferson sent several correspondents copies of both his and Congress’s versions so that they could assure him–which some did–that his had been better.

I have the authority of Pauline Maier, whose book on the subject is far superior to Becker’s, Eicholz’s, Pangle’s, or any other I know, that the Declaration of Independence should be considered the work of Congress, with Jefferson playing the leading role. She thinks, and virtually everyone agrees, that Congress improved Jefferson’s draft markedly.

As I note in James Madison and the Making of America, Jefferson liked to take more credit than he had earned. He did so on his tombstone not only in relation to the Declaration of Independence, but of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom–which we know as “Jefferson’s” even though when he left the General Assembly in 1779, it was a dead letter. James Madison got it passed seven years after Jefferson became an ex delegate, and two years after he left North America for France. Whether that makes him a liar, as you put it, I’ll leave you to decide.

In general, I’ll answer any questions you pose. You don’t need to pose the same questions on multiple threads.

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John Locke was a Socinian, hence not a Christian.

I didn’t say anything about whether Jefferson wanted to be considered the author of the Declaration of Independence. Of course he did–by the time he sketched his gravestone. At the time that Congress voted on the Declaration of Independence, however, Jefferson drew a firm distinction–in letters to several friends–between his handiwork and what Congress actually adopted. Virtually all historians agree that Congress’s document is far superior. For the full story, see Maier’s _American Scripture…_.

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No, I haven’t seen it.

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Washington refused the Last Rites and Communion on his deathbed. He even said he didn’t want to see a minister. He extremely rarely, if ever, used Christian references in his public addresses. He was a very prominent member of the Masonic Order, whose theological position was that all religions were right. If he was a Christian, then, it was of the most attenuated kind.

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I don’t have an opinion on this issue. I do admire Rep. Amash for providing detailed explanations of his votes, whose basis is always principled.

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You’re welcome, John.

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Please be more specific.

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It should be entirely a matter of state law.

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