WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday sided with the Biden administration in its ongoing dispute with Texas over razor wire the state has strung along the Rio Grande, clearing the way for the Border Patrol to begin cutting through spools of wire the administration says endangers migrants.
In a 5-4 ruling, the court struck down a lower court decision that had barred the Border Patrol from cutting or moving state-owned razor wire except to reach migrants in need of emergency medical assistance. Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, both conservatives, joined the court’s three liberal members in the decision.
The ruling is a blow to Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security crackdown, which has pushed the bounds of immigration enforcement and drawn multiple lawsuits that could test how far states are permitted to go in securing the international boundary. The full razor wire case is still pending before a district court judge. Thehigh court’s decision comes as Texas soldiers have been blocking the Border Patrol from a 2½-mile stretch near Eagle Pass in an unprecedented state takeover that escalated the dispute. It was not immediately clear if the state would allow the Border Patrol back into the stretch, which includes a public park, in light of the ruling.
The Texas Military Department overseeing the takeover did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Abbott, who is directing the border crackdown, was in India for a weeklong economic tour. A spokesman for the governor said Abbott “will continue fighting to defend Texas’ property and its constitutional authority to secure the border.”
The Department for Homeland Security, which includes Border Patrol, cheered the Supreme Court order. “Enforcement of immigration law is a federal responsibility,” a DHS spokesperson said. “Rather than helping to reduce irregular migration, the State of Texas has only made it harder for frontline personnel to do their jobs and to apply consequences under the law. We can enforce our laws and administer them safely, humanely, and in an orderly way.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/border-wire-supreme-court-18621800.php
Comment: The court decision apparently was based on the supremacy clause, but no discussion of the decision was presented for or against so that’s just a guess on my part. That’s seems like a cowardly thing to do. Granted this is a temporary order, but come on SCOTUS, grow a set. This is a narrow decision and we should know the Justices’ reasoning. This is definitely going to blow up in the coming weeks or months, maybe in the coming days.
Without a doubt, there will be some strongly held opinions expressed in the comments. That’s as it should be. Just remember our recent discussion about “refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor.” I’ve decided to boil the guidelines down to one… don’t be a dick. You’re all grown ups and you all know how to act.
TTG
In it’s purest legalistic form you’re probably right about their arguments boiling down to the application of supremacy. Politically it’s obviously going to be unsatisfactory to a large number of vocal and organized groups, but however urgent the issue is this puts a temporary stopper to it wisely, I think, though the problem is a real one.
For example — It doesn’t look good to me at all what Trump is doing by which I mean the programs he’s outlined in his ongoing campaign. (No one solved the Tyrannosaurus Rump riddle on turcopolier, we disclose one of the preferred solutions because the time limit has elapsed). I say that because he is basing his entire approach on cruelty and a brutal program of rounding up and confining people all across the country. Does the United States of America want to become the place he designs for it to be? He is a rabble-rouser, sad to say, however effective, who appeals to and inflames people’s worst and darkest instincts. Putting a legal hold on the avalanche which might likely ensue seems to me a wise decision. That’s not to say that the issue doesn’t need to be addressed and remedied, simply that barbarism isn’t the way to go about it.
From reading the article, it seems to me that the ruling hinged on Texas blocking the access to the boat ramp Border Patrol uses to access the river. So not really a ruling on border control, rather a ruling that Texas can’t obstruct Border Patrol in its job.
On the face of it, the ruling seems sensible as siding with Texas would have likely created a precedent for not only agency turf wars, but full on legalized obstruction. While people may think this may be a good idea, it would cut both ways.
We are likely to have a change in presidency next year and creating this kind of precedent would neuter federal agencies under that administration as well, including border control in blue states and federal law enforcement in general.
So the order says that Border Patrol can cut wires, but it doesn’t say anything about whether Texas can install wires, or whether it can re-install wires after Border Patrol cuts them.
Sounds like a replay of the 2020 Pangong Lake may happen soon.
And Texas can still string balls in the Rio Grande.
Voislav,
I read it that way too, as far as the legal question is concerned. The boat ramp access is the viable actionable pretext.
The subtext is a legal battle between the liberal WEF/China funded US government that wants to commit treason and flood our country with lethal drugs, 10s of millions of third worlders to replace Americans that still believe in the Constitution and to vote Democrat, and the states who’s citizens can still exercise control over local governance and who might further resist the liberal WEF/China funded US government that wants to commit treason
Is that a federal government owned boat ramp? If not the state can close it. Border patrol has helicopters, and if tha river is “navigable” they can make a longer bot trip. Regardless, Texas should be bussing the illegal crossers to the various SC justices homes. The left got away with protesting outside them, this should be just as acceptable.
If it’s a federal ramp, the state should designate a biohazard dumping site right in front of it and to the right and left. Heap that it up high. Then maybe a free rifle range behind that; advertise heavily. Free ammo days. Machine gun shoots, etc.
The land in question is owned by the city of Eagle Pass as Shelby Park. The state commandeered the land against the wishes of the city’s mayor. I don’t know if the federal government has access to it by law or not. I remember there was a lot of opposition by land owners when the border barricades were being built during the Trump administration and before that. There’s a lot of stepping on local land owners by the state and the federal government.
Fred,
It’s owned by the city of Eagle Pass. The mayor does not want the state or the Texas National Guard there.
It may surprise you, but I support the bussing of migrants to northern cities. This is not just a problem for border communities. It should be shared throughout the country. It should be organized and paid for by the federal government. Maybe that would force the issue of immigration reform in Congress.
TTG,
I support busing them right back to where they came from. If all those countries are in such bad shape we should be changing governments there, rather than importing their ‘best and brightest’, or expanding obligations in Europe and the ME – to the benefit of not the USA.
Fred,
We should be changing their governments there? It was our overthrow of Jacobo Árbenz and installation of a junta so brutal that eventually the Catholic church had to come out against it – and then its Cardinal was murdered by the US installed dictatorship.
I am Canadian and I respect the Colonel’s rule about “no anti-Americanism”. I am not saying this to be anti-American but to encourage my American cousins to stop stepping on rakes.
The overthrow of that company was done to enrich a single US banana company and ordinary Americans have been paying for it ever since. Just look down and notice all of the rakes you have been stepping on.
I’m getting old – and I am younger than pretty much all of you guys. Sigh.
I mean to say it was the destabilization of Guatemala that caused the migrants to the US for many years. Now it is the US destabilization of Venezuela that is responsible for the vast majority of the migrants. Rakes.
James,
None of these people crossing the US border illegally were alive when that guy was running Guatemala. There’s plenty of other places on Earth they are coming from, too. Feel free to call Justin and have him keep your own borders open, except for your own unvaxed citizens, or did you forget that stupidity?
James,
Canada will not even allow an American tourist to drive cross the border if the tourist has ever had a DUI, but thanks for all the moralizing about how us Americans should be reasonable and let anyone, from anywhere right on in.
Fred and Eric,
I’ve been to 72 countries and the only places I have ever seen where the people were nicer than Americans were Brazil and Nepal. Americans are great people – hard working, kind, and honest.
But people all over the world are allowing their governments to screw them over to benefit special interest groups. Look at how Sweden has been overrun by refugees from Afghanistan and Syria – both countries destabilized by the adventures carried out to feed the egos of our western imperial elites. It is ordinary citizens who pay the price.
Benjamin Rich recently made a number of short documentaries in which he traveled from South America to the US border alongside the migrants making the same journey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Ml16_0Kqk
As he documents in detail – most of those migrants are coming from Venezuela. Yes Maduro is an idiot, but the main reason that Venezuela’s economy is such a mess is because the US and its allies have systematically taken the legs out from under Venezuela’s economy.
As a hypnosis instructor said to me many years ago, ‘If you keep doing what you have been doing you will keep getting what you have been getting.’
Eric,
I am most certainly NOT saying the US should “let anyone, from anywhere right on in”. I am saying that policing your borders is only part of a viable solution.
The US having strong borders is in my self interest – I don’t want migrants coming from the US up into Canada. So please go ahead and police your borders thoroughly. But maybe we could all do more to stem the migrants at the source by not destroying their countries.
Buses are expensive and contribute to green house gasses. I recommend being sent back the way they came by catapult.
James,
You should be more concerned about what your government is doing in Canada. Apparently you support that.
I think many of us see this as a federal issue to be dealt with by CONGRESS in a timely fashion by discussion and compromise. I bet the Supreme Court would also be thrilled if Congress would step up and do its dang job. The total unseriousness of the GOP led House is throwing every policy issue out of whack. If you were elected, then go to work and govern.
Dream on, I guess.
Laura,
The laws on the border are quite clear. The executive branch is tasked with enforcing them; the Executive branch is not and have not been enforcing current laws.
Laura, those gop elected officials at the federal level have their marching (more like crawling) orders from tfg & his “brains” – Miller, Bannon & their ilk. those orders are to do absolutely nothing. especially something that could be construed as positive for The Enemy. {heck, even the Speaker (a confirmed theocrat) is at risk of getting dumped for agreeing to continue federal funding for a coupla months}
they have become nihilists & will remain so until tfg gains power – at which point they shift to being loudmouthed toadies anxious for their cut of the deep state.
ked,
Senators McConnell and Romney have marching orders from “tfg & his “brains” – Miller, Bannon & their ilk.”
That’s good for a Friday laugh.
oh, c’mon Fred. where ya been?
Romney “has left the building” … or more accurately – the building’s left him – no room for non-trumpists. he’s hanging out to (maybe) pick up the pieces. ever optimists, the Mormons.
& McConnell is on autopilot, breathing fumes, awaiting his next retirement (or internment) window.
TTG,
How much money is the little Mayor of Eagle Pass getting from the cartels? How much are the Democrats and RHINOS getting? I’ll bet it’s a lot more than $0.
An arrogant, angry, radical Muslim guy charged with bomb making, in Azerbaijan, on Jan 14, 2024 showed up on the TX border a week later. A week later! Clearly there is some solid international organization behind this invasion. He was caught. How many aren’t caught? How many are caught, but aren’t on the international terrorist list (yet)? Then they claim asylum and are released to roam our country for years. This is ridiculous. It’s a national security issue and the feds simply don’t care. It’s Biden’s asylum laws that are creating the problem more than any other factor.
The situation is way beyond employers looking for cheap labor. That’s so 1980s. Even if it were the case today – which it isn’t – the feds would be derelict of duty by contributing to wage depression during a period when their policies are also causing cost inflation.
Any way you cut it the feds clearly don’t give a damn about American citizens; to include the citizens of TX. TX seems to have realized that we now fundamentally have taxation without representation. The only answer to that reality is to take matters into our own hands beginning at the state level where possible. If the states won’t protect their citizens when the feds are derelict of duty, then all hell is going to break out in this country. TX is doing the right thing to preserve some structure and order in the face of a wanton, reckless, unconcerned and increasingly tyrannical federal government.
IDF soldiers attacked Columbia University students with chemical weapons in Manhattan. That’s in the USA. And what else? Yes, Larry Summers – Attila the Hun was more civilized in my opinion.
I guess this isn’t precisely on topic, TTG, but it does touch on issues of sovereignty, misuse of military force and use of WMD on American citizens by members of the military of a foreign power. I am disgusted and outraged but have been for decades on this particular set of issues. Please try to understand the utter vulgarity of this act of using chemical weapons on our University Campuses and on our students – in the midst of the largest city in the United States. What does it as say? Nothing good. Kent State – how many remember that (?) – May 4, 1970, two years after LBJ announced that he wouldn’t seek reelection. But this outrage won’t go anywhere unfortunately unless I am mistaken.
Elite Universities in Shambles over Gaza ..
https://youtu.be/7YcUR9eceGQ
F&L,
Clearly I watch the same youtube channels that you do. I was going to say “lefty youtube channels” but Robbie is no lefty so I guess I watch the same “anti-establishment youtube channels” as you.
I feel sorry for the world.
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/nyc-is-named-the-best-city-in-the-world-for-2024-012329
NYC is named the best city in the world for 2024.
15% of survey respondents in other cities said they’d move to NYC in a heartbeat.
Named “best city” – as rated by drug addled narcissistic gender fluid millennials.
No American city even makes it into the top ten on the liveability index.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Ranking
Of course not – we don’t have the infrastructure the rest of the developed world takes for granted; likewise for the social support systems.
We do some things quite well, but not that.
Sorry F & L. I bit.
Walrus,
It’s quite alright. NY City has the best soy milk.
There are still 2 more SCOTUS rulings yet to be heard/announced: one on the state park access and a second on the impediments Texas placed in the river.
Looks like the Pentaschlong has calculated that they need ground forces.
https://t.me/EvPanina/12533
The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration has given the Pentagon the green light for a large-scale military operation against the Houthis in Yemen. It is not yet clear what this will look like in practice. Any ground operation of the US Armed Forces will be associated with large losses in manpower and equipment.
The most convenient option for the Americans is to find executors for a ground operation against the Houthis. Give them money, weapons, ammunition and provide intelligence information and support from the air and sea.
———-
https://t.me/barantchik/14508
Aidarous al-Zubaidi, head of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, announced he would join the Washington-led coalition to protect Israeli ships.
He called on the United States to end the air campaign by providing weapons, training STC fighters and sharing intelligence to counter what he called Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. “What we need is military equipment, capacity building and training of ground forces, and information sharing,” he said. “If there is greater intelligence sharing, we will be able to conduct joint assessments of the effectiveness of US airstrikes.”
F&L – you write:
“The most convenient option for the Americans is to find executors for a ground operation against the Houthis. Give them money, weapons, ammunition and provide intelligence information and support from the air and sea.”
Isn’t this what the US has been doing since April 2015?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabian_conflict
James
Sorry, when I paste material under a telegram link which always begins with a lower case t.me (Telegram messenger) it is always a translation from the Russian at the linked source. I thought this was understood by the frequent readers here so out of laziness I’ve stopped explaining it in. That means I didn’t write that stuff. I only write the blurbs above the links and dashed lines. My apologies for the confusion.
F&L,
There are no proxies to fight the Houtis. The Saudis were supposed to be just that, but they suck. So the US will crush the Houtis. No worries. The Marines have been training for this very mission for a few years and will get the job done quickly and thoroughly.
I know how the America haters like to say things like, “Yeah right, the US military couldn’t defeat the Afghans. So how will they do any better against the ultimate ninja warrior Houtis. Lol” – but the reality is that the US military did defeat Al Qaeda/Taliban in short time. America haters and mockers like to forget that the US came into Afghanistan after 9/11/01 and drove the enemy out of all of the cities and strategic territory in a mere two months (something the Northern Alliance had failed to do after years of effort). Enemy signals were intercepted repeatedly wherein the enemy complained that the US has “lots of bombs. Really big bombs”. Most of the enemy that survived fled to Pakistan to lick their wounds.
What the US lost was the ill-advised stupid plan of 20 years of nation building. That goat screw + stupid ROEs allowed the enemy to regroup in Pakistan and gradually take back some of the countryside, but never the cities or other key geographies.
Anyhow, the the US will just as easily smash the Houti’s ability to wage piracy – and maybe give the Saudis and aligned Sunni Yemenis a big enough edge that they can wrap up the remaining Houtis (who do not have a Pakistan to flee to).
What about the Sunnis that support the Houthis? What about the Zaidis that hate them?
Yemen is much more complicated than trying to split things up along sectarian lines. This isnt Iraq.
I would be interested in your opinion on the tribal confederation of Yemen and what role they might play moving forward. Since you seem to know so much about Yemen.
Stefan,
I’ll keep it simple for you – a policy that is viable and just. Ready?
Kill ’em all and let Allah sort them out.
Which is what they would do if me and my friends if we entered their screwed up excuse for a country or they came to ours + They’re true believers aren’t they? They should be happy enough then to meet their maker. We get rid of pirates, terrorists and Iranian tools and they get heaven. Win/win.
Or they can simmer down and stop shooting missiles randomly towards Israel and stop piracy and general backwards warlord behavior and go back to quietly doing whatever backwards things they do to each other.
Either way works for me.
In other words, you know f/a about Yemen, you just think all Muslims, Arabs and Middle Easterners deserve to die. Makes life rather simple does it?
Does this include your Middle Eastern family? Maybe yourself, you could be a Muslim Brotherhood 5th column after all.
Keep it real simple, kill everyone with any Middle Eastern background. But a rather unfortunate outlook for yourself.
But hey, if you are willing to make that sacrifice, more power to you.
Stefan,
We’re Christians.
One would almost get the idea, listening to you, that with all of your (you + other oh so well studied experts) superior knowledge, that you’d actually, you know, have solved the problems in the region. You government and government advisor geniuses have only been working on it for something like a hundred years.
Eric,
See, if you knew the FIRST thing about the Middle East, which you do not, you’d already know that Christian Middle Easterners have been some of rhe most radical anti Americans, pro Palestinian, pro Hizb’Allah supporters.
I suppose you are not aware that Palestinain Christians Plat an outsized role in the resistance against Israel. Yasser Arafat was married to a Christian. Hanan Ashrawi, Edward Said, George Habbash.
Not only were Middle Eastern Christians founders and members of some of the most radical groups who high jacked airlines, killed Israelis, to this day Middle Eastern Christians are members of ISLAMIC organisations fighting the Israelis.
Hizb’Allah, sure you heard of them. They have been in a long term political relationship with Lebanese Christian organisations. Hizb’Allah has a rather well known social organization that helps Christians in their areas.
Assad. The leader of Syria? Sure you know him. Syrians Christians were rather supportive of him and his secular government.
It is amazing how little you know seeing that you claim to be a Middlle Eastern Christian. Maybe you and your family are helpers of Hizb’Allah? Supporter of Assad? Maybe you have members in the PFLP, founded by a Middle Eastern Christian. Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
No, I am with you, time to ban ALL Middle Easterners from the US, Christian or otherwise. They are, given their history, to be radical anti Americans and subversive.
Stefan,
I have always been supportive of the Al Assad government. I oppose the US government attacking Syria/Al Assad.
Hizballah is not an organization dedicated to attacking Israel. Rather, it is dedicated to protecting Lebanon from all threats. That’s why Hizballah fought in Syria against ISIS and AL Qaeda and others who threatened Lebanon. So no surprise that Lebanese Christians are involved with the organization. Kind of a lame attempt to “win” an argument or make a point on you part.
No one should be allowed into this country unless they come here legally, swear allegiance to the Constitution and are committed to living a secular political life.
“Texas soldiers have been blocking the Border Patrol from a 2½-mile stretch near Eagle Pass…”
So States can not block the US Border Patrol from accessing the border? Plain common sense, almost a no-brainer. I’m a bit surprised there were four Justices who could not or would not grasp this.
Mark,
If I own land “on the border” the agents of the federal government can come there any time they want? Where in the Constitution does that power get gratned to the Executive Branch? When it is owned by a city – a subordinate body within a sovereign state that ratified the Constitution – does that grant special powers to the Federal Executive Branch?
Fred,
It’s a federal law. Texas is arresting border crossers on the basis of trespassing on private property, a state law.
https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-1084?language=en_US
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357
TTG,
You mean “…for the purpose of patrolling the border to prevent the illegal entry of aliens into the United States;…” The Biden administration is doing nothing of the sort. They are doing the exact opposite by aiding entry in to the US. Where in the Constitution is the authority for that statute? That ought to be easy to answer. Texas is defying the BCP aid to aliens as directed by the governor’s actions under the Texas Constitution.
“Texas is arresting border crossers on the basis of trespassing on private property”
That is an interesting distinction. To me, it should be fair game for Texas to protect the land of Texas residents. I land on the side of the Federal govt for federal property that borders Mexico as well as interstate highways.
Not sure about state property that is on the border but that issue must have been addressed already when it came to building a border wall. Did the feds have a right to build a border wall on state property or are the border states allowed to refuse it.
Christian J Chuba,
Building the border wall faced huge pushback, especially in Texas, over property rights and environmental concerns. There were years of court battles that are still going on. Even Biden’s efforts to increase barriers in Texas met that same state resistance. I think I remember reading about a narrow federal right of way existing in other border states.
Arizona sent their National Guard to the border a while back because of the shortage of Border Patrol agents to man several entry points. The difference here is that the Democratic Arizona governor worked with the federal government to augment the border.
A huge problem I see is that there are not enough resources, including Border Patrol agents, to police the border even at the major legitimate crossing points. There really shouldn’t be anyone crossing the border without being processed and drugs shouldn’t be getting through those crossing points. Even fully shutting the border will require a hell of a lot more manpower. The whole idea of a virtual border is a joke and an unmanned border wall is really no better.
TTG,
I believe most nations deter illegal immigration by making it nearly impossible for people to get jobs without proof of citizenship or work visa, enforced by stomping hard on anyone who hires an illegal. Why we, in the world of technology and already having established E-Verify have not adopted this indicates, whatever our rhetoric, that we have been unserious.
Perhaps this flood will change that condition.
Mark Logan,
We will always have employers more than willing to take advantage of undocumented workers and plenty of Americans who do not want the federal government to enforce those laws. The two groups are often in cahoots.
There has to be some law that says that a federal government that won’t uphold the laws of the land is an illegitimate government and that the states have the right to use their militias to enforce remedies. I’m very sure the founders, in their letters, espoused that very concept. Hence the 2A.
The federal government has always picked and chose which federal laws to enforce or not. It isnt a Republican or Democratic thing. Did Trump have the federal agencies taking over drug control on a local level when multiple states had/have legalised drugs in their state? They are still illegal on a federal level, legal in many states and localities. Trump, or any president, would have been within their right under federal law, to crack down on drug trafficking in these states. But Trump, and others, made a choice to ignore federal law and let certain drugs be legalised on a local level.
I miss Trump ordering the DEA and FBI to circumvent local laws and go after average citizens and arrest citizens who used drugs who are legal on a local level but are still illegal on a federal level. I would think under the “law that says that a federal government that won’t uphold the laws of the land is an illegitimate government” made the Trump government illegitimate. Or would that only count in not enforcing SOME federal laws and not others? Who decides whether or not a President and their government is illegitimate based on their refusal, like Trump, to enforce federal law?
If refusal to enforce all federal laws made a government illegitimate, it means all governments in US history have probably been illegitimate.
I recently drove along the border in Arizona and California. Multiple entry points seemed to have been closed. Many people dont realise that there are numerous entry points along the border in AZ, CA, NM and Texas. Only a few are very large and get much time in the press.
Stefan,
Hope you had a nice drive along the border. I’m afraid the guy you were going to pick up was caught and couldn’t make the rendez vous. Please see the videos I posted.
Eric,
I heard they recently caught a Middle Eastern Christian member of the PFLP, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They have hijacked multiple airplanes, killed multiple Israelis.
Time to ban Middle Eastern Christians from the US it would seem. You know, it wouldn’t hurt to pick up an actual history book on the Middle East. You’d see just how dangerous, deadly and anti American many Middle Eastern Christians are.
Below is the government link about this organization, founded by Middle Eastern Christians. They are actually still active in Lebanon and Palestinian areas. Those Middle Eastern Christians….
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/pflp_fto.html
And this is why Conservative jurists are better than liberal activists on the Supreme court. A few conservatives will occasionally join the liberal block based on principle while the current liberals on the Supreme Court will always vote in unison.
The SCOTUS ruling makes sense. U.S. border policy is a federal matter. No state should be able to create their own national borders. BTW I hate the Biden administration. I sympathize w/Texans. It was a stroke of genius to bus immigrants to big cities on the east coast to share the pain. But our country has a structure of law that must be respected.
Regarding my comment on liberal justices, I would like to praise the late Ruth Beta Ginsburg. She was the last liberal who would occasionally vote with conservatives in opposition to the liberal justices. But the others, like Sonia Sotomayor, are total hacks.
Here’s a video that highlights the issues on the borders (show is podcast by retired snake eater/CIA). A Muslim gentleman of stellar Islamic qualifications, straight from that most excellent region of the world, recently caught sneaking across our border.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzBL9qcC6B4
Screw the feds. Go Texas.
Here’s yet another watch list terrorist – er um Muslim gentleman – caught at the border among various migrants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGG2VclNIVg
This reminds me of the 1832 Nullification crisis in South Carolina. This was about the protective tariffs against European imports imposed by Congress to protect growing American industry in the north, but causing hardship and financial loss on the agrarian south, which had to import just about everything. Like today, a punitive outrage deliberately caused by the party in power against a large region. In Charleston, the state militia took over the customs house and tariffs were noted. It was a dress rehearsal for the Civil War.
Tidewater,
Yes, a dress rehearsal for the Civil War.
The feds are just as happy to suck up taxes from citizens of border states as they are from everyone else, but then promote an invasion of the country that – at least at this early stage – disproportionately harms the citizens of the border states. Where is the representation?
It started with Obama, but the Biden administration is leaving no doubt that the Democrat party, and many others in the federal government, are not merely derelict of duty, they are actually approaching treason. They hate America – not the geography, the ideals.
Eric Newhill
Many a true word is spoken in jest. Here is Biden in 2018 explaining that he works for Richard Haass of the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations – the epicenter of the transatlantic Deep State):
https://web.archive.org/web/20230615012639/https://rumble.com/vm3sym-biden-tells-cfr-audience-that-he-works-for-globalist-cfr-boss-richard-haass.html
He sure doesn’t work for you, neither do many in his party and neither of course do many Republicans. And what of the man who says he will change all that (this time)? Well I wonder what Emerson would make of the publication he founded suggesting that “normalization” can be achieved by assassinating the next president:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/01/crime-and-inflation-decline-theories/677152
I meant to say that tariffs were not collected. Andrew Jackson swore to assemble an army of one hundred thousand men and march on South Carolina.
Tidewater –
I thought Jackson was originally from South Carolina, wasn’t he? At least that’s what the tour guide said when I visited his estate near Nashville years ago.
Leith,
There is some debate still about whether he was born in a cabin in North Carolina–the daughter of the midwife said so–or at a plantation called Crawford’s on the South Carolina side. His birth coincided with his father’s funeral, and his mother, Elizabeth, called Betty, might have gone into labor on the way back from a Presbyterian Church which may be still there. The parents came from County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and settled in the upcountry community called the Waxhaws. I think, if anyone was curious about who they were, I mean the character of these Scots Irish South Carolinians of the ‘backcountry’, there is a memoir by a writer named Ben Robertson called ‘Red Hills and Cotton–an Upcountry Memory’ which tells of growing up in these hills in the twenties and thirties. Robertson was killed when his Pan Am Clipper dipped a wing in the Tagus, or hit some flotsam, going into Lisbon in the early part of WWII.
The story of what happened to this family in the Revolution shows you how terrible the American Revolution in the South was. One of Andrew Jackson’s brothers was a prisoner who died shortly after he was exchanged in Mecklenburg and his mother brought him home. The other brother was wounded and died of heat exhaustion at the battle of Stono Ferry. He was part of a ragtag militia under Lincoln who attacked Prevost’s rear guard as he did what I think is a remarkable feat of moving his army and artillery across a labyrinth of marshes, pluff mud, and creeks with six-foot tides, across Edisto Island and then what is now called the ACE Basin, up the Coosaw River, to Beaufort and ultimately to the battle of Savannah. Where the British commander named Maitland would die of fever, I assume malaria He’d probably been ill the whole time. I think they used a kind of boat called a ‘flat’. I have some sort of odd interest in this long-forgotten episode. It’s really strange if you look at it a certain way. (God-like, I suppose.) Then Andrew’s mother, nee Elizabeth Nicholson, went to Charleston to volunteer to tend to the American prisoners on a hulk that was full of disease, and died of cholera. So Jackson, by the time he was fifteen or so, was completely orphaned. When he was 21 he left the upcountry for Tennessee and he never went back to South Carolina. He hated the British and probably didn’t much like the aristocratic low-country Mandarins, who were making fortunes out of, not cotton, except for on Edisto, but rather rice. But he was clubable and at one point blew an inheritance gaming and partying with the Charlestonian young bucks. I once read that a young Charleston woman who knew him watched him as he rode out of town heading probably for Salisbury, North Carolina. He was handsomely dressed, and he carried a beautiful rifle possibly in a horse holster, and pistols, his horse was superb, there was another horse following carrying very fine luggage, there were hunting dogs ambling along excitedly and he seemed to be in a great good mood for the hard journey ahead. She wrote later it was one of the finest sights she ever saw, and she never forgot it.
Thanks Tidewater for that sketch on Andrew Jackson.
I’m ordering a copy of the ‘Red Hills and Cotton’ book you mentioned.
Pluff mud?
leith,
I have discovered Thrift books and ordered another copy, as well. For my nieces. It’s a classic.
Tideline Tours on YouTube has an amusing video about pluff mud. Pretty girl sitting in it telling you the science of it. I feel the way she does. The sea-island girls at the moment in their lives when something about them is to be said in the Post and Courier, whether graduation, debut, marriage, giving birth, funeral, whatever, will always have it mentioned that she grew up on Edisto Island. An’Edisto girl’. One old South Carolinian once commented to me about them, succinctly: “Watches turtles and such.” (Those turtles are huge sea-goers who need protection on the beach.) She sounds like one of them. It is all about the salt marsh. The word may have come from ‘plow’ when the mud was used as fertilizer. It is a low-country term. I once heard a friend from around Spartanburg ponder this odd word as well. I owned a house on Store Creek, Edisto. I built my dock. I know all about pluff mud.
And Jackson swore to hang somebody in a “sour apple tree” IIRC.
I do not expect anything like that, I expect caution will be the COA instead of over-reaction. This is a very different situation, so if anything is done it should be of the slow and carefully calculated variety. The Texans have a legitimate bitch, and at the end of the day they and the Border Patrol have similar interests.
Come to think of it, this Texas thing also reminds me of the Regulator Movement in North Carolina. Which ended at the Battle of Alamance in 1771. Americans killed each other followed by executions.