Out of Arkansas

Some Southerners are again referring to the War Between the States (1861-1865) as the War of Northern Aggression, as opposed to the Northern name for this war, the Recent Unpleasantness.

On balance they're Yellow Dog Democrats (would vote for a yellow dog before a Republican), as opposed to Dixiecrats (Right Wing Democrats), who came out of the closet as Republicans after Ronald Reagan helped make the R-word repeatable in Southern social circles.

Some Yellow Dog Democrats, are ardent fans of The Natural Superiority of Southern Politicians by David Leon Chandler, who cheerfully subtitled the 1977 book A Revisionist's History.

The basic tenet of the book is that the War Between the States was the final battle of the English Civil War of the mid-17th century, which protestant Oliver Cromwell won, then subsequently lost after his death in 1660.

Each loser, first the Royalists and then the Roundheads (Puritans), fled to America. The former settled the South; the latter settled the North. The northern Roundheads were hardnosed, Yankee businessmen and devout Reformation Protestants; the Royalist were Plantation gentlemen devoted to the Church of England (now the Episcopal Church).

According to the book, Southern politicians, in self-defense, were responsible for creating the checks-and-balances system of the 1789 U.S. Constitution due to their better classical education and their mortal fear of being dominated by the more populous North.

The result was a Senate comprised of two elected Senators from each state, a House of Representatives elected proportionally to its state's population, and a Supreme Court, the final authority over any legal argument, elected by the Senate as nominated by the President.

The arguments leading up to our Constitution were remarkably prophetic as regards our Civil War, 72 years later. The two most influential framers of the Constitution who characterize the differences between the two adversaries -- North and South -- were a Southerner, Thomas Jefferson, and a Northerner, John Adams.

Both held grudges against each other that went down ugly to the grave. Both were Presidents (2nd and 3rd), and both died on July 4th, 1826 (the 50th anniversary of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, which Jefferson wrote).

Adams's last words were, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." (Ironically, Jefferson died first.)